Bill C-44 (Historical)

Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act

An Act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other Acts

This enactment amends the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act to give greater protection to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s human sources. Also, so as to enable the Service to more effectively investigate threats to the security of Canada, the enactment clarifies the scope of the Service’s mandate and confirms the jurisdiction of the Federal Court to issue warrants that have effect outside Canada. In addition, it makes a consequential amendment to the Access to Information Act.
The enactment also amends the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act to allow for the coming into force of provisions relating to the revocation of Canadian citizenship on a different day than the day on which certain other provisions of that Act come into force.

Motions in amendment

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, sometimes I am surprised that the NDP often takes positions that are so radically detached from reality and the public security and safety environment in which we live.

In fact, the hon. member has Valcartier in her riding, the proud Canadian Forces base. For over 12 years, the men and women from that base saw the face of terrorism in Afghanistan. No doubt some people who are serving Canada right now have come through that base and are seeing it in other parts of the world.

Bill C-44 is intended to provide for security and keep Canada safe from some of these global networks that would do us harm.

In the case of Bill C-44, when the Canadian public is quite accustomed to protection being given to law enforcement sources, why would we not extend that same protection to sources that provide information and intelligence on national security? It would keep our men and women in uniform safe.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-44, especially after my colleagues have been speaking very eloquently with respect to the concerns we have with the bill. As I was reading through the notes on the bill, it struck me that it is a similar pattern to one we experienced on Bill C-2, which was also before the public safety committee very recently, having to do with safe consumption sites.

The bill was only approved at second reading on November 18. Here we are in early December, and already we are at report stage. That means the bill was rushed through the House and it was then rushed through the committee. In fact, there were three committee meetings. Witness testimony happened over two days, and then there was clause-by-clause at the third meeting. We have to remember that committee hearings are only two hours. We basically had four hours of testimony from witnesses and one meeting of clause-by-clause consideration.

I want us to stop and think about that.

What has happened to the legislative process in Parliament is really quite shocking. I do remember the days when a bill would have adequate debate in the House. When a bill went to committee, it was considered a very serious proposition. We might hear witnesses for a couple of weeks, over several meetings.

I know that you, Mr. Speaker, would remember. You were part of the justice committee and a very able representative for the NDP. I know you dealt with umpteen bills. Even when you were dealing with them, they were being rushed through. However, prior to that, there was a sense that as parliamentarians, as legislators, we were doing our job and we were really examining a bill.

Now we have come to this place where the attitude and the pattern of operation is to basically rush everything through, and if we dare to criticize and say that something needs a little more time, then we are told we are holding something up, that we are doing it for political reasons.

However, these are very significant bills that we debate. This one in particular has to do with the powers of CSIS. This is an organization that Canadians read about from time to time when something might come forward in terms of a particular case or situation. However, basically Canadians have very little knowledge about CSIS and how it operates, other than individuals who may have had direct contact with the organization because they were being investigated in some way.

When we look at the modernization of CSIS, and we understand that is what the bill is meant to be about, that is certainly very important. After 30 years, there is no question that it needs to be modernized. However, it does require full scrutiny. It absolutely requires full scrutiny by members of Parliament, by a committee, and by the witnesses who are called to committee.

It is shocking that of all the amendments that were put forward—I believe the NDP put forward 12, the Liberals put forward 5, and the Green Party put forward 6—as was similar to Bill C-2, none were approved. Not one.

I think we have a very serious situation. We have a majority government that basically calls the shots and does not even pretend to be interested in a legislative process and examining a bill as to whether it might be improved upon, or whether there are legitimate criticisms, flaws in a bill. In fact, what is concerning about the bill is that, as we have heard with other bills that have been before the House, if it goes through in its current form, it too may end up in some kind of constitutional challenge. Again, it is a pattern that is emerging.

I did want to put that on the record because it worries me. We come to work here to represent our constituents. We come into the House to participate in a process in good faith, but we find out that the process has been completely jigged. There is no space, no room, no engagement, to have a constructive review of an important piece of legislation. That bothers me.

In my riding of Vancouver East, I was at a very important gathering of aboriginal people, who were speaking about the missing and murdered aboriginal women and the need for a national inquiry. We think of the impact of that issue in terms of public safety, and yet we see very little movement from the government on the issue. We see a bill being rushed through here that would also have an impact on public safety and an impact on the public interest, and we see virtually no debate. It is a very sad day.

As many of my colleagues have pointed out in the debate at report stage today, the NDP did support this bill at second reading. New Democrats actually agreed that it should go to committee, that we should take a look at it. We worked diligently at committee, and I certainly want to congratulate my colleagues on the committee who brought forward the amendments. It takes a lot of time to bring forward amendments. They heard the witnesses. The witnesses themselves made a number of suggestions to improve the modernization of CSIS. With any expansion of powers, the most critical thing is to ensure that there is proper oversight.

We can go back as far as the Maher Arar commission, which surely is one of the pivotal moments in Canadian political history in terms of security. I was in the House when that travesty took place, trying to understand what happened to Maher Arar and calling for a national inquiry. Of course, that finally did happen and the recommendations of the commission of inquiry came out in 2006. I wonder what happened to those recommendations. In fact, we know that the inquiry called for a number of recommendations and urgently pointed out that measures needed to be put in place to have oversight of Canada's intelligence agencies. That was eight years ago. No one can forget the Maher Arar inquiry. No one can forget what happened to that Canadian, and the hell that he went through. If we have learned anything, surely it is an examination of our own intelligence procedures and methodologies. We have to live up to the recommendations of the commission of inquiry, and yet they have not been implemented. How awful is that?

Here we are with another bill that would change the way that CSIS operates overseas, and yet we have not addressed the fundamental question with CSIS that has been pointed out to us again and again, which is the need for proper oversight. We hear this, as well, from the privacy and information commissions of Canada. These are folks who need to be paid attention to. These are folks who pay close attention to privacy and information in Canada, and they know the balance on what is required in terms of privacy and information. Yet at their annual meeting, they also brought forward the need to have effective oversight included in any legislation established for any additional powers for intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Where is it? Why are we dealing with this bill in isolation?

Now we are at report stage, and suffice it to say that New Democrats will be opposing this bill because the oversight has not been brought in. The Security Intelligence Review Committee, which has ended up being a part-time committee, is not adequate. We have seen that the position of inspector general of CSIS was eliminated in 2012, so even the internal monitoring of CSIS has greatly diminished. We are in a bad state of affairs.

We want to ensure that if there is any expansion of CSIS, that it be done by protecting civil liberties and it be be done with proper oversight. This bill would do neither, and therefore it deserves to be voted down. There should be a proper examination that takes place.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague across the way says, “Surprise, surprise”. I am surprised that when it came to the critical issue of public safety, the members of the government cut off debate and did not accept amendments that were very reasonable and well informed and that actually would have improved this legislation, but no, the government knows everything and does not need to hear from anyone else, because it is its way or the highway. That is the way it brought the legislation forward.

The Conservatives are then surprised when opposition members stand and say that there are flaws in this legislation that need to be addressed.

New Democrats never give up. We will keep trying to improve this legislation and will hope that the government will wake up one day and realize that there is a different way of doing things if it is really serious. We are really serious.

What would Bill C-44 do? It would make significant changes to expand CSIS's powers, but instead of giving this bill the careful study it deserved, once again the government did not feel the need to hear from experts. It knew what it wanted to do. It is its way or the highway. Independent experts and other witnesses were ignored.

The bill would give powers to CSIS without providing adequate oversight, and it presents real dangers. I fear that the government is going to end up spending taxpayers' hard-earned money fighting more legal problems and having this legislation stuck in court. However, the government does not seem to mind doing that. It would rather pay the money to the courts than provide services and good legislation to Canadians.

Even the witnesses who appeared put forward recommendations and suggestions. They were ignored.

This bill is fundamentally flawed. It is going to be very hard to support. What would we have wanted to see? We should always say what it is we want to see in legislation. I can point to lots of things that are wrong with the bill. What I wanted to see in the legislation that is not there is strong civilian oversight. It is critical that enhanced civilian oversight accompany any new powers for CSIS.

Everyone knows that the Security Intelligence Review Committee does not have the powers necessary to properly oversee CSIS. The Conservatives used an omnibus budget bill in 2012 to eliminate the position of CSIS's inspector general. Once again, anyone who questions anything the government does is deleted and the government gets rid of the position.

Something else the bill needs and that we want to see in it is strong protection of civil liberties. Some people say that we have to choose between public safety and civil liberties. I say that this is a false dichotomy. To have good public safety, we need to have protection of civil liberties. To have protection of civil liberties, we need to ensure that we have strong public safety. They are both core Canadian values, and Canadians do not have to choose A or B. It is possible to have both, and once again, the government failed to address that. There are no trade-offs here. It is not one or the other. We can have both, and that is what needs to be in this bill. We, as New Democrats, want legislation that both improves security and reinforces our civil liberties. That is essential.

My colleagues across the way always talk a good game. All the rhetoric is there. However, it is also a party that keeps cutting resources. It wants to have all these enhancements, but it has cut funding for our public safety agencies for three straight years, for a total of almost $688 million by 2015. That is not a figure I have made up. That is a figure the government can verify.

How can the government say it wants to make improvements yet at the same time take millions of dollars in resources out of the CSIS budget? CSIS will face ongoing cuts of $24.5 million by 2015, while budget 2012 scrapped the CSIS inspector general position altogether. At the same time we have this rhetoric that the government is going to make everyone safer and that public safety is going to improve, it is taking away the tools and resources our agencies need to do that. As with many other things, it is all talk. When it comes to what the government actually does, it underfunds, it cuts, or it just does not spend the money, even when it allocates it to certain programs.

A myriad of validators absolutely support the position we are taking as the NDP. I wish I had time to read all of them into the record, but I know I am short of time.

Let me say that this legislation can be fixed to get our support. First, put strong civilian oversight in place. Second, put in protection for civil liberties. Third, let us give them the resources and get the job done.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-44, an act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other acts. It is always a pleasure to stand in the House and represent the voices from the riding of Newton—North Delta.

I want to get something on the table right at the beginning. There is no one on this side of the House who supports terrorists or any acts of terrorism. Before my friends across the way start to have conversations and yell things, I wanted to make that clear. All of my life I have worked for peace. I am a mother. I am a grandmother. I have been a teacher for most of my life, and I can say that I abhor acts of violence.

Occasionally members are accused of liking terrorists, but those kinds of things do not help us when we debate in the House.

I want to talk about the substance of this bill today. First, I supported this bill at second reading. Why? It was because New Democrats, like everyone else in the House, want measures that will enhance public safety. It is because of this that we supported this bill at second reading, and it went to committee. Once it got to committee, the government repeated the same mistakes it makes over and over again. It limited hearings.

When there is such critical legislation that has not been debated or had any changes for decades, some major changes need to be made. The committee needed to hear from witnesses. As much as we all like to think we are experts on everything, there are great experts out there we need to hear from who know far more about public safety than we do. They know what works. They have evidence of what works in other jurisdictions and of what would be good in Canada. Our job is to listen to it.

Two hours to hear from officials from the department was fair enough, but two hours for all other witnesses was just unacceptable. I can assure the House that when trying to address public safety in a serious way, the government once again used the hammer of its majority to push through legislation without giving it the due process and oversight it needed. I do not hesitate in opposing this legislation any more because of what happened at committee.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to speak in the House on behalf of my constituents from Surrey North. This is an important bill that we are debating today. Bill C-44 amends the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other acts.

I remember getting up in the House during second reading of the bill. I actually supported it at second reading, along with other members. We were hoping that the government would allocate proper debate on the bill in committee and allow for very detailed scrutiny of some of the changes being proposed. It is a very serious matter. When we are dealing with public safety and civil liberties, we need to ensure that all angles are looked at so that any bills or laws passed in the House take into consideration those two core Canadian values of public safety and civil liberties.

What did we see from the government? I was hoping it would entertain some of the expert testimony. We had four hours on the bill at committee. Two of those hours were taken by the members of the staff and two hours were allocated for so-called scrutiny. That is not acceptable to Canadians. They expect us to scrutinize and to look through bills for any holes, to ensure that we thoroughly go through important bills that increase the powers of our spy agencies. That was not done.

We had two hours. There were a number of amendments introduced at committee stage. I have seen this movie before where we come up with some insight and some amendments that would improve a bill and the Conservatives somehow do not want to see any changes, whether from the NDP, the Liberals, or anyone else. I have seen this over the last three and a half years. Surely, of the thousands of amendments we have offered as suggestions to improve bills, the Conservatives would accept some. No, not even one has been accepted. If it is really straightforward, they may entertain it, but they do not want to see any suggestions by the opposition to improve any of the bills.

In this case, the government did not accept any of the amendments we had proposed. Basically, Bill C-44 is making significant changes to expand the powers of CSIS, but instead of giving the bill the careful study it deserved, it was rammed through in four hours. That is not enough time. Giving CSIS new powers without providing adequate oversight presents real dangers; rather than clarifying things, this will only lead to more legal problems and may ultimately be struck down by the courts.

We have seen this movie before too. There are many bills passed by the government that have been struck down by the Supreme Court. It seems to be a regular occurrence where things are rushed through the House without proper oversight or debate. Whether it is in the House or committee, we are forced to rush. We have had over 84 closures on a number of bills that have been rammed through the House. Closure basically shuts down debate. That is not what Canadians expect us to do; they expect us to debate in the House.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-44, an act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other acts.

In a sense, this bill has been a long time coming. It has been 30 years since this place turned its mind to the CSIS act. Much has changed. It makes sense to update or modernize this legislation.

We, on this side of the House, supported this bill at second reading, not because it was perfect, far from it, but out of recognition that there are many issues swirling around this and through the courts on matters of national security and intelligence services.

The bill has been returned to us, however, from committee unamended, in spite of the age of the current legislation and the issues confronting us on matters related to intelligence and national security. The bill had but four hours of scrutiny at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. True to form, amendments put forward by the opposition, recommendations put forward by expert witnesses, and cautions issued by experts were all turned aside, dismissed, and defeated.

We have before us a flawed bill, one not worthy of support. What this bill betrays is a government unprepared, unable, or incapable of doing the difficult but necessary work of ensuring that Canadians have both security and their civil liberties. Indeed, in this bill, and in the government's world view it would seem, civil liberties must wait for security.

It is arguable that in this bill and all that the government does, it tends to see civil liberty itself as a security risk. This would explain why the government so unflinchingly tramples over the rule of law, our own as well as that of others, and has such little concern about and does so little to provide civilian oversight of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Here is my case for this. First, the bill provides blanket protection of identity for all CSIS human sources in legal proceedings, including criminal and immigration cases. There is no opportunity provided for the accused or respondent to confront the accuser and test the evidence. Such an opportunity is considered a fundamental part of our justice system.

How courts respond to such a denial in practice is left to be determined. It is unclear from here. Will the courts respond so that this becomes an obstacle to successful prosecution, will they allow this to enhance their probability of successful prosecution, or will the courts challenge the constitutionality of this provision? All of this is to be determined.

Second, the practical implications and, indeed, the threat of this amendment, become clear when one notes that this bill amends the Canadian Citizenship Act by accelerating the timeline for the revocation of citizenship for dual citizens found to be engaged in terrorist activities and other serious crimes.

It is out of our deep concern for the expedited revocation of citizenship in the broader context of this bill that we have proposed amendments before the House at this stage relating to these provisions.

Third, this bill tries to escape the views expressed by the courts starting in 2007 with respect to CSIS actions and surveillance abroad. Those views were eventually set out in a decision by the Federal Court in 2013 that declared illegal the practices of CSIS for obtaining warrants for conducting surveillance of Canadians abroad.

The response by this government through this bill comes in the form of essentially continuing its practices under the cover of the following language in the bill: “Without regard to any other law, including that of any foreign state...”.

Fourth, and perhaps most tellingly, while the bill gives CSIS new powers, it does nothing to enhance civilian oversight of the organization. More than that, it does nothing even to repair existing age-old shortcomings in civilian oversight of CSIS. The Arar commission concluded in 2006 that improved civilian oversight of CSIS was needed, but was ignored.

Privacy and information commissioners of Canada have asked the government to ensure that effective oversight be included in any legislation establishing additional powers for intelligence and law enforcement agencies, such as this one. That too has been ignored.

We echo their call. Civilian oversight is our means of ensuring that security and intelligence services can do their part to provide for the security and safety of Canadians without diminishing our civil liberties.

Under the bill, the government gives civilian oversight not even secondary consideration. It gets no consideration. Under Bill C-44, civilian oversight, such as it is, staggers forward. The current review agency, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, is a part-time committee of the Prime Minister's appointees. We have been through Chuck Strahl and Arthur Porter as chairs. Now we have former Reform MP Deborah Grey as interim chair. Two of the five vacancies on the committee have in fact been vacant for months.

In the 2012 budget, the Conservatives eliminated the position of inspector general of CSIS. The inspector general was the internal monitoring unit within the service, responsible for checking all CSIS activities for compliance with the law. The inspector general's responsibilities were passed along to the Security Intelligence Review Committee with its rotating chair and vacant seats.

NDP members of the public safety and national security committee proposed three very reasonable amendments to enhance civilian oversight of CSIS. The first of these flowed from the recent SIRC report. It called simply for a requirement that CSIS provide complete and accurate information to SIRC in a timely manner in order to facilitate proper oversight of the service.

The second proposed amendment would have ensured that those appointed to SIRC had the expertise necessary for the role, such as in the administration of justice and national security and so on.

The third proposed amendment called for appointments to SIRC to have the support of the Leader of the Opposition so as to extract ourselves from this process of partisan appointments to such critically important oversight roles.

These are all simple, reasonable amendments to a very important component of the security intelligence services, all rejected by the Conservatives, leaving civil liberties at risk, easily and unnecessarily sacrificed under a government that seems not to believe that civil liberties and national security ought, indeed, co-exist if we are to live in the kind of Canada that we desire.

Our democratic values must not be compromised in the pursuit of enhanced public safety. They need not be compromised. Protecting civil liberties and public safety are both core Canadian values, and improvements to one must never, and should not and need not, come at the expense of the other.

As Privacy Commissioner Daniel Carrion put it, it is understandable that the government would want to consider boosting the powers of law enforcement and national security agencies to address potential gaps, but any new tools should be accompanied by a beefed up role for the watchdogs who keep an eye on spies and police.

The fact is that despite all its shortcomings, this bill could have been improved when it went through committee, a process by which we can arrive at well-informed policy. Instead of giving the bill the careful study it deserved, it was rammed through committee, which only heard four hours of testimony from independent experts.

The Conservatives have once again rushed legislation through the House with total disregard for any recommendations for improvement. This, unfortunately, has become a defining characteristic of the government.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin this debate at report stage of Bill C-44 by registering the concerns of the Liberal Party with respect to the manner in which the government has proceeded with this legislation. This was mentioned by my colleague from the NDP a moment ago as well.

The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness has made a great deal about the importance of this legislation, and suggests that it is well thought out. I will mention a couple of points in that regard in a moment.

However, first, the minister has left the impression that if we adopt this legislation, it will be effective in dealing with the situation we are currently facing. On page 14 of the minister's own report, “2014 Public Report On The Terrorist Threat To Canada”, it states:

The Government is aware of about 80 individuals who have returned to Canada after travel abroad for a variety of suspected terrorism-related purposes.

That number ranges from 80 to 93 individuals. The fact is that although the government tries to leave the impression with the public that Bill C-44 would deal with that issue, it would not.

What I cannot understand for the life of me is why the government is not using the current authority that it has to get these terrorists off of Canadian streets. I asked the minister that question in the House today. I believe the government has the authority under section 83.181 of the Criminal Code, which covers leaving or attempting to leave Canada for the purpose of participating in any activity of a terrorist group outside of Canada. Under that section, they are eligible for a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years, and that can go up to 14 years, depending on the offence.

It is very specific. It says “leave or attempt to leave Canada”. The minister went on at length, talking about the individual who released the video over the weekend. He is a Canadian who became radicalized abroad and is trying to inspire other Canadians to join ISIL and fight Canadians. I cannot understand why that authority has not been used to get those individuals off the streets. It is somewhere between 80 and 93 people.

The legislation we are dealing with would not deal with that problem, so why are the minister and the agencies he is responsible for not using what is currently available to them and at least testing it in the courts? Get these people off the streets and test it in the courts. If we have to fix something else, let us fix it, and ensure that we do not have terrorists operating within our own borders who were either home-grown radicalized or radicalized abroad. I have to make that point.

Bill C-44, on the other hand, is basically a bill that would ensure that CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, has the authority to do what we always thought it could do. Its authority has been somewhat jeopardized, though that may not be the right word, by previous courts' decisions. This bill, to the government's credit, would try to address the concern outlined by the courts, and I believe that it does. As my colleague in the NDP said earlier, the government is overreaching in some aspects of the bill, which we tried to have amended and were not successful in doing.

The other aspect of the bill relates to protecting informants who are necessary for CSIS in order to operate.

The bill deals with those points, and not the current crisis that we face within Canada as a result of radicalized individuals taking on terrorist acts.

I said that I would note two things relating specifically to what happened during the process in bringing this legislation back to here.

First, the committee process was rigged by the government to prevent any serious consideration of the legislation. Canadians will note that no amendments were passed, even though it would have made good sense to pass some of the amendments that either the Liberal Party, the NDP, or the Green Party put forward. We all had one amendment, and it was the same amendment. The government did not see the wisdom in adopting those points.

The bill would enshrine in Canadian law, provisions that declare that our lead intelligence agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, will be empowered to seek a warrant from a federal court to conduct operations in any foreign country that would be in violation of the laws of those countries. That is an undertaking that requires far more scrutiny.

Incredibly, the committee, more precisely the Conservative majority on committee, permitted only two hours for witnesses to appear on this legislation. For example, we did not hear from the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which oversees CSIS, in spite of the fact that this legislation would broaden the powers of the service. It would have been interesting to hear from SIRC, considering that in its most recent annual report for 2013-14, the review body found that “[...] the Minister of Public Safety is not always systematically advised of such activities”, referring to sensitive intelligence gathering, “nor is he informed of them in a consistent manner”.

Of even greater concern, and an issue on which the committee was denied the ability to question SIRC, is that the bill could permit possible illegal international operations. This was of great concern. We tried to propose an amendment that the Minister of Foreign Affairs be informed. We felt we needed to hear from SIRC on that issue. There could be an illegal operation that violates the laws of another country and our operatives are found out. If we are in a trading relationship or a security relationship or whatever with that country and the Minister of Foreign Affairs is not even informed, would it not put our country's trade and commerce in a bad position?

The Conservatives would not accept a simple amendment asking for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to be informed of such illegal activities by CSIS in other countries. SIRC was making the point that before Bill C-44 was even tabled, the Minister of Public Safety was apparently willing to be kept ignorant of much of what CSIS might actually be doing.

The last point I would make is that there needs to be national oversight over all of our security agencies, as all of our Five Eyes partners have in place. Parliamentary oversight makes sense. We would be doing our job and being held responsible for the oversight of these national security agencies.

We have some concerns with the bill, in that the amendments were not accepted, but for the greater interest of our country and the authorities of CSIS, the bill does need to go through in order to protect our sources and to implement the other measures in it.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise with some regret today to speak to Bill C-44 at report stage. This comes from the fact that when the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness introduced this bill, he said he wanted all-party support on a very important national security matter. On this side of the House, we took him seriously and looked forward to having a full debate and discussion about what we could best do to combat some of the serious problems we face.

Instead, when we came to debate at second reading, there was a severe time allocation motion imposed. During that debate, I asked the hon. minister, who had said that he thought committee was the proper place for the debate to occur, for assurance that in committee, there would be adequate time to consider this bill. He then pretended, I would have to say, that his parliamentary secretary and his majority on the committee would be completely independent and free to make sure there was adequate time in committee. Of course, that was not the case.

On this side, we believe that with co-operation and full debate, we might actually have been able to come to a consensus on this bill. The actions of the Conservatives show that they were really never interested in doing that. Instead, what they wished to do, which I think the House will hear a lot from the Conservatives following my speech, was try to divide Canadians for their own partisan advantage.

Why do we need full debate? I have said many times in the House that we are a diverse country, with representatives who have very different interests in their constituencies and very different points of view and backgrounds, and when we bring all of that experience together in the House, we can get better and more effective legislation and legislation that would actually accomplish what it sets out as its goals.

We waste time in the House, and later waste time and resources in the courts, if bills are defective, if they are not well designed, and if they do not take into account the question of whether they are going to ultimately be found constitutional.

As I said, New Democrats had great hopes that the minister was serious and that we would have a full debate on this bill. It has been 30 years since CSIS was established, and obviously, it is time now to look at what we could do better.

Instead, in committee, there was the same kind of severe restriction on time. There were just four hours to hear witnesses, and after the minister and his officials had taken their two hours, there were just two hours for non-government witnesses. This meant that the official opposition was only allowed to call two witnesses and the third party one witness. Then there was a large group of people who actually approached the chair of the committee and said they would like to appear before the public safety committee on this bill. Of course, that left zero time for any of those witnesses.

The witnesses the committee heard were very valuable. We heard professors Wesley Wark, Craig Forcese, and Kent Roach, who raised some very important concerns about the bill, which I will return to in a minute. However, who did the committee fail to hear from? The Information Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner wanted to appear and talk about the impact of the expansion of CSIS powers on information and privacy law. The Canadian Bar Association wanted to appear. The Federation of Law Societies of Canada wanted to appear, and civil liberties associations, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the BC Civil Liberties Association, also submitted requests to appear.

Probably the most important group of witnesses the committee could have heard and did not have time for were the commissioners who investigated incidents like the Air India bombing, the hon. Justice John Major; the Maher Arar case, Justice Dennis O'Connor; and the El Maati, Almalki, and Nurredin cases, Justice Frank Iacobucci. In all of these cases, there were recommendations from former Supreme Court judges and senior judges on how to make CSIS more effective and make sure that there was proper oversight of a body that necessarily has to do a lot of its work in secret. There could have been a chance to see if recommendations from those three inquiries could have been incorporated into this bill, but instead, no time was allowed to call them as witnesses.

Having used their majority in the committee to limit discussion and the hearing of witnesses, the committee also limited discussion of any amendments to this bill to just one two-hour session. There was one two-hour session to deal with 12 substantive amendments from the NDP and 11 substantive amendments from other members of Parliament. The government proceeded to reject all of them one by one in a fashion that so rapid, one could hardly turn the pages fast enough, let alone have a good debate.

I want to draw attention to just one of those amendments that was rejected, to give members an idea of what happened in this committee.

The NDP's first amendment was an amendment that would have required CSIS to provide its oversight body, SIRC, the security intelligence review committee, with complete and accurate information in a timely manner. That is something we would presume a government body would do. It is something that is not specifically required anywhere in the legislation. Why were we putting forth such an amendment? It was because in its last annual report, SIRC, the supervisory body, said that CSIS repeatedly failed to provide the oversight body with complete and accurate information and failed to do so in a timely manner.

What possible harm could there have been in such an amendment? Obviously, a lot of good could have been done by having the oversight body able to cite responsibility, in the legislation, for providing them with the information they request in a timely manner.

The Conservatives went on to reject 11 more amendments that focused, again, on increasing accountability, improving oversight, making sure the bill is effective, and making sure the bill is constitutional. The result is a flawed bill that we cannot support on this side of the House.

The amendments we introduced today take out a piece of the bill that I think is fairly egregious, when we are talking about CSIS. In fact, it makes the bill almost an omnibus bill. It has in it amendments to the Citizenship Act to bring forward the coming into force date of the ability of the government to remove citizenship from dual citizens convicted of serious offences. This really has nothing to do with the topic in the CSIS bill.

We have suggested that those be removed today, but I have no confidence that the government will be any more willing to consider amendments here than it was in committee.

What is the bill about? One day the minister assured us that it was one of the most significant bills we could possibly have on national security and that it was absolutely necessary. On his appearance at the committee, the minister said the bill was just clarifying what CSIS already does.

It is very hard for me to get a sense of whether the minister believes that this is important and significant legislation or housekeeping legislation, since he said both of those to the committee.

The minister also said that the courts had invited the government to bring in this piece of legislation. I think that is an interesting interpretation of the court decision. The court said that some of the things CSIS is doing lack legal authority and that if the government wished to correct this, it needed legislation. It did not in fact invite the government to present this kind of legislation.

What we see again and again in this bill is over-reach by the government, whether it is with regard to the warrants it is asking the superior courts to issue or whether it is with respect to protecting the identity of CSIS staff. We presented a very simple amendment that would have said that we recognize that staff who are, or are about to be, involved in covert operations might need to have their identities protected. However, what this bill says is that CSIS could keep all of its employees' names secret for all time. The person who is the receptionist could have his or her name kept secret. It is over-reach. It is overkill in this bill.

When it comes to the question of constitutionality, I specifically asked the minister if he would table in the committee the advice he had received that this bill was constitutional. We hear the Minister of Justice and we hear the Minister of Public Safety assuring us that they always check and get such advice. Well, if they do get such advice, I would like to see them share it with us on this side of the House.

We have seen, in other bills that have been passed through the House, when we had that assurance, that the courts eventually found that the bills were not constitutional. I think it is an important question, because it causes us to waste time in the House and waste the court's time later on.

When it comes to oversight, which is probably our major concern, we missed the opportunity in this bill to turn SIRC into something much more substantive. Right now it has a temporary chair. Two of its positions have been vacant for months. It is a part-time, non-specialist committee, yet any amendments we had to strengthen the qualifications of the members of SIRC and also to get all-party agreement on the appointments to SIRC were rejected by the government.

I know my time is drawing to a close. I just want to say, first of all, that we believe we need strong oversight for our national security agencies. We believe that we can protect national security and civil liberties at the same time. We believe that we have to provide adequate resources to do that.

What we will hear from the Minister of Public Safety in just a few moments is how the NDP is weak on national security and how we failed to support certain interventions in the Middle East. None of that has anything to do with this bill.

This bill fails on the grounds of providing the kind of oversight we need and providing an effective bill that would protect national security and civil liberties at the same time.

[Bruce Hyer, Green, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to deletions to Bill C-44, the so-called protection of Canada from terrorist act. While we all agree that Canadians must be protected and that reforms to the way CSIS operates are certainly necessary, I question whether the bill would move us any closer to safety from terrorists.

The way the bill is being rushed through the House of Commons, it looks like the Conservatives are trying to ensure that we parliamentarians do not have the chance to finally read it. After the Conservatives imposed time allocation on the bill at second reading, the committee heard from witnesses for one meeting, two hours, and not a single opposition amendment was accepted.

The Privacy Commissioner had serious concerns. He wrote to the committee that he would, “welcome the opportunity to speak” to the committee. He was not invited. Again, we see the Conservatives' contempt for expert advice, even from their Privacy Commissioner.

It is possible to find a balance between our safety and our freedoms, our security and our rights. However, the government seems to want to weaken our privacy laws without achieving any security objectives.

Further, as our intelligence operations increasingly involve working with other countries, the bill would potentially undermine the possibility of any meaningfully safe co-operation. In the words of the Canadian Bar Association:

—Bill C-44 would undermine established practices that balance national security against fundamental rights, and potentially call into question Canada's compliance with its international law obligations.

In committee, the minister himself proudly stated, “I think this is the most constitutional bill we have introduced”. That probably speaks less favourably to the government's record than the minister quite intended. It is quite ironic.

Apart from quite serious democratic issues, my concerns also relate to the provisions in the bill amending the way the CSIS Act would treat human sources and the bizarre wording regarding activities beyond Canada's borders. The bill would redefine the privilege given to human sources, but according to legal experts, Bill C-44 would actually lessen the protection given to sources. I am also concerned the bill would seriously interfere with the proper administration of justice in Canada.

Although the stated purpose of these amendments is supposedly “is to ensure that the identity of human sources is kept confidential”, the new wording would limit this protection to only apply “in a proceeding before a court”.

According to the Canadian Bar Association:

—disclosure of information relating to confidential human sources appears to be limited to disclosure of information during the course of judicial proceedings. The proposed amendments to section 18 do not include any general prohibition against disclosure of information outside the judicial proceedings, such as found in section 18(1) [of the Act]. Accordingly, if a confidential human source provides information about a matter that does not result in a judicial hearing, the CSIS Act would no longer prohibit disclosure of either the information or the identity of the source.

Human sources risk their lives for our safety. The bill would reduce their protection unless the matter was before the courts.

The second major issue is a serious constitutional one. The place where we need to be most careful when granting confidentiality is in the justice system. The charter guarantees that every person be granted “a fair and public hearing”. The wording of the definition of “human sources” is so vague that it may become even more difficult to convict any terrorists at trial.

The definition in clause 2 does not require that the promise of confidentiality be explicit or written for a source to effectively veto proceedings. May I remind members that the Supreme Court ruled just last year that a promise of confidentiality may even be “implied”.

In the context of police informants the court wrote:

An implicit promise of informer privilege may arise even if the police did not intend to confer the status or consider the person an informer, so long as the police conduct in all the circumstances could have created reasonable expectations of confidentiality.

Expert witness Professor Kent Roach testified before committee. He said:

—I have a concern that virtually every human source CSIS talks to under the proposed legislation would then have the benefit of the privilege and a veto on any identifying information being disclosed, whether it's to defend a search warrant in a terrorist investigation or to be called as a witness in a terrorism prosecution.

He went on to say that these ambiguous promises could “hinder or even thwart subsequent prosecutions”.

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that CSIS informants are not given enough protection. This is a solution in search of a problem. It would actually open informants to new vulnerabilities and handcuff our justice system in the fight against terror.

I also want to address the wording of clause 8 and highlight some of the serious consequences that could arise.

I am a former police officer and I am not naive. I know that for the sake of protecting Canadians, we sometimes do need to investigate outside of Canada. However, it is absurd and belligerent to require that the federal court grant warrants for actions in another country, “Without regard to any other law, including that of any foreign state”.

Even if we ignore the highly questionable notion that our courts have the jurisdiction to authorize activities outside of Canada, this language is highly problematic. The wording is so bold and so broad that it opens up serious questions. Does it apply to international law? What are the limits? When is a warrant even needed here? Did anybody think about how this would look, how it would affect our international co-operation and, especially, how it could invite other countries to violate and disregard our laws?

I am shocked but not totally surprised by this anti-democratic piece of legislation from a government whose party has shown itself to be repeatedly anti-democratic here at home.

Our intelligence regime certainly does need changes. CSIS could definitely use an update. We seek more effective measures to prevent terror and we desperately need to overhaul our barely existing oversight program. If we take a look at evidence and listen to the experts—what a novel thought—there is no reason why we need to give up the search for balance between a strong legal system and national security.

We can have oversight and safety, rights and protection. The amendments the Green Party proposed in committee, which were rejected out of hand, could have helped to do that.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

There are five motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-44. Motions Nos. 1 to 5 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I will now put Motions Nos. 1 to 5 to the House.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other Acts, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue the second reading debate on Bill S-6, the Yukon and Nunavut regulatory improvement act.

Tomorrow we will debate Bill C-43, the economic action plan 2014 act, no. 2. This bill would put into place important support for families, as well as key job-creating measures, which would build on our government's record of over 1.2 million net new jobs created since the economic downturn.

On Monday, before question period, we will resume the second reading debate on Bill C-12, the Drug-Free Prisons Act. By tackling drug use and trafficking in federal penitentiaries, we will make the correctional system safer for staff and inmates, while also increasing the success of rehabilitation.

After question period, we will consider Bill C-44, the Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act, at report stage. I understand that, regrettably, the NDP will be opposing this bill.

Tuesday will see the House debate Bill C-43 before it gets its third and final reading.

Wednesday we will consider Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, at report stage and I hope at third reading. This bill was reported back from the very hard working justice committee yesterday. It was adopted unanimously after a thorough and exhaustive study all autumn. The victims bill of rights act would create statutory rights at the federal level for victims of crime for the very first time in Canadian history. This legislation would establish statutory rights to information, protection, participation, and restitution and ensure a complaint process is in place for breaches of those rights.

The chair of the justice committee implored House leaders yesterday to pass the bill expeditiously. I hope my colleagues will agree.

Next Thursday we will resume the uncompleted debates on Bill C-32, Bill C-12, Bill C-44, and Bill S-6, as well as taking up Bill S-5 at third reading to establish the Nááts’ihch’oh national park reserve act.

Next Friday, the House will complete the third reading debate on Bill C-40, the Rouge national urban park act, to create Canada's first national urban park.

After that we will have an opportunity to wish everybody a Merry Christmas.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Let me make one point very clear. You have been in a capacity to know that there is a difference between having intelligence and being able to present a robust charge that will stick and bring an individual, or any terrorist in this case, to jail. That's why we have to look at the way our system is working, and we also have to look at the tools that we are currently providing to our law enforcement. Once again, we may feel that an individual can represent a threat but not necessarily have the evidence, because as you are well aware, we are in a state of law. We are proud of that, and this is how we conduct ourselves when dealing with terrorists. This is why we, as parliamentarians, have such an important role to set the rules, and this is why Bill C-44 and the coming legislation are so important.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Minister and agency heads. Thank you for coming.

Mr. Carmichael mentioned this, Minister, but he didn't really include all committee members. I think you can be assured that all committee members, ourselves on this side as well, would certainly pass on our regards and best wishes with respect to the RCMP officer who was shot early this morning.

With respect to the last question, Mr. Minister, on exchanging information with other agencies abroad, and the interchange you just had, I was in Washington, D.C., yesterday. I met with the chair of the homeland security committee, among others, and this is one of their concerns. They're wondering where Canada is on that.

Bill C-44 doesn't deal with that issue, as I see it. I believe you were anticipating bringing in other legislation, but to my knowledge Bill C-44 does not deal with that specific issue. It deals with protecting informants and sources abroad in a number of other areas, but it does not deal with what we just talked about. That will require other legislation. Am I correct?

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

We certainly rely on our experts to assess the threat level. Certainly that can be done either now or in the second hour of this important meeting, but at this point I would like to stress that we have to adjust to this evolving threat.

We were witness to those actions here in this very Parliament. As you will remember, you and I were in that very same room not so long ago.

This is why we won't overreact to the terrorist threat, but we won't under-react. This is why we are moving forward. We are also looking at what other western countries are doing when faced with a similar situation. I was in France recently. They are implementing a measure such as the one we already have implemented or are contemplating it for the near future. We are not alone in the fight against these barbaric actions that are taken by terrorists, and this is why we will move forward.

There is certainly an important need—as the courts said—for Bill C-44, the bill that is in front of Parliament now. As of now, CSIS does not have the same capability it had in the past. So it's not about adding new powers, it's just about restoring existing authorities so they can exchange information about terrorists who are travelling. This is why I feel...and once again, I really would have appreciated having the support of this committee.

This bill has to move as fast as we can do it as parliamentarians, so that we can restore the capability of CSIS to protect Canadians. I am confident that this bill will go back to the House in the coming days and that we will be able to see it move through the Senate quickly to get royal assent, so that CSIS can protect Canadians by two means—making sure, when they are establishing a bond of trust with a witness, that they can protect the witness and the witness can have some confidentiality, and of course making sure that we can exchange information with our partners.