Bill C-51 (Historical)

Anti-terrorism Act, 2015

An Act to enact the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act and the Secure Air Travel Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts

This bill is from the 41st Parliament, 2nd session, which ended in August 2015.

Sponsor

Steven Blaney Conservative

Status

This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.

Part 1 enacts the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, which authorizes Government of Canada institutions to disclose information to Government of Canada institutions that have jurisdiction or responsibilities in respect of activities that undermine the security of Canada. It also makes related amendments to other Acts.
Part 2 enacts the Secure Air Travel Act in order to provide a new legislative framework for identifying and responding to persons who may engage in an act that poses a threat to transportation security or who may travel by air for the purpose of committing a terrorism offence. That Act authorizes the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to establish a list of such persons and to direct air carriers to take a specific action to prevent the commission of such acts. In addition, that Act establishes powers and prohibitions governing the collection, use and disclosure of information in support of its administration and enforcement. That Act includes an administrative recourse process for listed persons who have been denied transportation in accordance with a direction from the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and provides appeal procedures for persons affected by any decision or action taken under that Act. That Act also specifies punishment for contraventions of listed provisions and authorizes the Minister of Transport to conduct inspections and issue compliance orders. Finally, this Part makes consequential amendments to the Aeronautics Act and the Canada Evidence Act.
Part 3 amends the Criminal Code to, with respect to recognizances to keep the peace relating to a terrorist activity or a terrorism offence, extend their duration, provide for new thresholds, authorize a judge to impose sureties and require a judge to consider whether it is desirable to include in a recognizance conditions regarding passports and specified geographic areas. With respect to all recognizances to keep the peace, the amendments also allow hearings to be conducted by video conference and orders to be transferred to a judge in a territorial division other than the one in which the order was made and increase the maximum sentences for breach of those recognizances.
It further amends the Criminal Code to provide for an offence of knowingly advocating or promoting the commission of terrorism offences in general. It also provides a judge with the power to order the seizure of terrorist propaganda or, if the propaganda is in electronic form, to order the deletion of the propaganda from a computer system.
Finally, it amends the Criminal Code to provide for the increased protection of witnesses, in particular of persons who play a role in respect of proceedings involving security information or criminal intelligence information, and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 4 amends the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act to permit the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to take, within and outside Canada, measures to reduce threats to the security of Canada, including measures that are authorized by the Federal Court. It authorizes the Federal Court to make an assistance order to give effect to a warrant issued under that Act. It also creates new reporting requirements for the Service and requires the Security Intelligence Review Committee to review the Service’s performance in taking measures to reduce threats to the security of Canada.
Part 5 amends Divisions 8 and 9 of Part 1 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to, among other things,
(a) define obligations related to the provision of information in proceedings under that Division 9;
(b) authorize the judge, on the request of the Minister, to exempt the Minister from providing the special advocate with certain relevant information that has not been filed with the Federal Court, if the judge is satisfied that the information does not enable the person named in a certificate to be reasonably informed of the case made by the Minister, and authorize the judge to ask the special advocate to make submissions with respect to the exemption; and
(c) allow the Minister to appeal, or to apply for judicial review of, any decision requiring the disclosure of information or other evidence if, in the Minister’s opinion, the disclosure would be injurious to national security or endanger the safety of any person.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-51s:

C-51 (2023) Law Self-Government Treaty Recognizing the Whitecap Dakota Nation / Wapaha Ska Dakota Oyate Act

C-51 (2017) Law An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Department of Justice Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act

C-51 (2012) Law Safer Witnesses Act

C-51 (2010) Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act

Votes

May 6, 2015 Passed That the Bill be now read a third time and do pass.

May 6, 2015 Failed That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "That" and substituting the following: “this House decline to give third reading to Bill C-51, An Act to enact the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act and the Secure Air Travel Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, because it: ( a) threatens our way of life by asking Canadians to choose between their security and their freedoms; ( b) provides the Canadian Security Intelligence Service with a sweeping new mandate without equally increasing oversight, despite concerns raised by almost every witness who testified before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, as well as concerns raised by former Liberal prime ministers, ministers of justice and solicitors general; ( c) does not include the type of concrete, effective measures that have been proven to work, such as providing support to communities that are struggling to counter radicalization; ( d) was not adequately studied by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, which did not allow the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to appear as a witness, or schedule enough meetings to hear from many other Canadians who requested to appear; ( e) was not fully debated in the House of Commons, where discussion was curtailed by time allocation; ( f) was condemned by legal experts, civil liberties advocates, privacy commissioners, First Nations leadership and business leaders, for the threats it poses to our rights and freedoms, and our economy; and ( g) does not include a single amendment proposed by members of the Official Opposition or the Liberal Party, despite the widespread concern about the bill and the dozens of amendments proposed by witnesses.”.

May 4, 2015 Passed That Bill C-51, An Act to enact the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act and the Secure Air Travel Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, as amended, be concurred in at report stage.

May 4, 2015 Failed

April 30, 2015 Passed That, in relation to Bill C-51, An Act to enact the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act and the Secure Air Travel Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at report stage of the Bill and one sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said Bill; and That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration at report stage and on the day allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the stage of the Bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.

Feb. 23, 2015 Passed That the Bill be now read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Feb. 23, 2015 Failed That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: “this House decline to give second reading to Bill C-51, An Act to enact the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act and the Secure Air Travel Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, because it: ( a) threatens our way of life by asking Canadians to choose between their security and their freedoms; ( b) was not developed in consultation with other parties, all of whom recognize the real threat of terrorism and support effective, concrete measures to keep Canadians safe; ( c) irresponsibly provides CSIS with a sweeping new mandate without equally increasing oversight; ( d) contains definitions that are broad, vague and threaten to lump legitimate dissent together with terrorism; and ( e) does not include the type of concrete, effective measures that have been proven to work, such as working with communities on measures to counter radicalization of youth.”.

Feb. 19, 2015 Passed That, in relation to Bill C-51, An Act to enact the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act and the Secure Air Travel Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, not more than two further sitting days shall be allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the Bill; and That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the second day allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

Anti-terrorism Act, 2015Government Orders

May 5th, 2015 / 5:25 p.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I do indeed agree. I would like to point out to members, as I did not have time in a 10-minute speech, but so often we have heard that those of us on this side of the House who oppose Bill C-51 and oppose it passionately somehow are ideologically opposed to the agenda or come from a place where we have never agreed with the Conservatives ever. However, I remind them of the editorial pages of the National Post and The Globe and Mail, articles and columns by people whether it is Rex Murphy or Conrad Black which say that if we do not stop this bill, we will wake up in an unrecognizable despotism. The opposition to the bill is widespread, non-ideological and is based on the fact that the bill is badly drafted and will make Canada a less safe place.

Anti-terrorism Act, 2015Government Orders

May 5th, 2015 / 5:25 p.m.

Liberal

Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for my colleague. I want to commend her for remarks.

The member made reference to the absence of judicial oversight. Is there any oversight capacity in this legislation?

The second question has to do with the provision regarding the seizure of terrorist propaganda. There is an offence just before that in the Criminal Code which criminalizes the promotion and advocacy of terrorist acts. I ask the member whether that also seeks to criminalize private conversations, et cetera.

Anti-terrorism Act, 2015Government Orders

May 5th, 2015 / 5:25 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker Joe Comartin

The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands has about a minute and 15 seconds.

Anti-terrorism Act, 2015Government Orders

May 5th, 2015 / 5:25 p.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief and I appreciate the questions from my hon. colleague from Mount Royal.

First of all, is there any oversight in the bill? It is a short answer, no. There is no oversight in the bill. We have oversight again being specific operational knowledge of what agencies are doing. By the way, there is no supervisory agency for the Canada Border Services Agency. The RCMP does have a review agency, but no oversight. CSIS has review, but no oversight. CSEC has no oversight. Now we are giving CSIS brand new powers that could interfere with and actually derail RCMP operations with no oversight. As one security expert who testified before the Senate recently said, we will be “sitting on top of a tragedy waiting to happen”.

The second question is very different. The section that we find on page 26 of Bill C-51, proposed section 83.221, as amended, changes very definitely what propaganda is, what terrorist propaganda is. We have now enough law and jurisprudence to understand the meaning of the word “terrorism”. It is well defined. There is no definition provided for this new term “terrorism in general”. Neither is there any adequate explanation because none was offered at all as to why private conversations are not excluded. Nor does it make sense to say that terrorist propaganda means any writings, signs, visual representation or audio recording that promotes terrorist offences in general. No one will know how to operationalize this act and as a result, it could actually allow people to be prevented from stopping someone from engaging in terrorist activity.

Anti-terrorism Act, 2015Government Orders

May 5th, 2015 / 5:25 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker Joe Comartin

It being 5:30 p.m., pursuant to an order made earlier today, all questions necessary to dispose of the motion for third reading of Bill C-51 are deemed put and the recorded division is deemed to have been demanded and deferred until Wednesday, May 6, 2015, at the expiry of the time provided for government orders.

It being 5:32 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from May 5 consideration of the motion that Bill C-51, An Act to enact the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act and the Secure Air Travel Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment

Anti-terrorism Act, 2015Government Orders

May 6th, 2015 / 5:25 p.m.

The Acting Speaker Bruce Stanton

Pursuant to an order made on Tuesday, May 5, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment to the motion at third reading of Bill C-51.

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

Anti-terrorism Act, 2015Government Orders

May 6th, 2015 / 6 p.m.