This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in August 2015.
Steven Blaney Conservative
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published 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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
John Carmichael Conservative Don Valley West, ON
Mr. Speaker, international jihadi terrorists recognize no border. If frustrated in their will to travel overseas to join their so-called caliphate, they will seek to commit acts of terrorism here in Canada.
We do not believe in exporting terrorism. Can the member expand on the tools this legislation would provide our law enforcement agencies to help them get the job done?
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
Mr. Speaker, finally, this is an intelligent question.
I would say that this legislation is absolutely necessary. The world is not the same place it was decades ago. It is not the same world it was in 1970 when the Liberal Party brought about the biggest breach in civil liberties in the history of our country, when it imposed the War Measures Act.
Our government's job is to protect Canadians. We take that job very seriously. Bill C-51 would give the national security and law enforcement officials the tools and resources they need to protect Canadians here in Canada.
Robert Chisholm NDP Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in debate on this important move by the government to do a number of things. One of the things it cites is that it is trying to take serious measures to deal with the terrorism threat in this country.
I was, frankly, struck by the testimony at committee of the Commissioner of the RCMP when he was asked repeatedly whether there is anything in this legislation that would have prevented the unfortunate incidents that took place in and around the House of Commons and in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu in October of last year, and he said no. He was also asked whether they had sufficient powers now to be able to properly enforce and properly protect Canadians, and he said yes.
What I heard repeated time and time again from experts at committee who raised a number of different concerns about this legislation—and I will get to those concerns—was the fact that part of the problem we are facing, whether it is the Canada Border Services Agency, whether it is the RCMP at our airports or their ability to surveil, or whether it is CSIS itself and its ability to carry out its responsibilities, a big part of the problem we are facing in this country is this. While the government likes to pat itself on the back for all of the tough-on-crime legislation it has introduced and all the rhetoric the Conservatives spout about making communities safer, what they in fact have done is the opposite, and they have done that through failing to properly fund these important public security agencies in our country.
We heard the Commissioner of the RCMP talk about how he has had to redeploy 600 officers from other duties—and the majority of the files, he testified, had to do with major crime—and assign them to the terrorism initiatives of this government. Let us not forget that this is on top of the 500 personnel that are to be cut from the RCMP this year as a result of the 2014-2015 budget.
Clearly, a big issue at play when it comes to the government fulfilling its responsibilities is that it is a responsibility we appreciate, we understand, and we agree with: to keep Canadians safe. That is our number one responsibility, but the government has been falling short in that respect because of the fact that it has been failing to fund those agencies properly. Whether it is ensuring, for example, that for cross-border travel or travel to other countries or from other countries to North America, the agencies responsible, whether they be CSIS, the RCMP, or the Canada Border Services Agency, just simply do not have the resources to properly do the job.
That is kind of at the heart of this issue, because the government has trotted out this legislation as being a response to the terrorism threat we are facing here in this country.
Yet we recognize at the outset that the government is failing to do enough now with its ability to enforce the laws and powers that already exist, without this legislation being brought into force.
I have heard from a lot of Canadians and from a lot of my constituents from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour about this bill. People are concerned about the intrusion of the government and its various agencies and departments into their personal lives. In essence, they would be mining their personal data as CSIS, with its new mandate, went about sifting through everything to try to find a particular threat.
People are concerned. We have already heard about personal data being released, metadata being released, by communications companies to government agencies. We have already heard about those intrusions into the privacy of Canadians, and this bill would be that level of intrusion on steroids.
Let me quickly go over some of the main issues.
This bill, a 62-page omnibus bill, would expand the mandate of CSIS without strengthening existing oversight mechanisms. We have had debate in this country about the mandate of CSIS. It was determined, after incidents when CSIS tended to overstep the boundaries from time to time, that it was important to limit CSIS to the role of surveillance. If, through its surveillance activities, it had sufficient evidence that laws were being broken, and the RCMP needed to carry forward with an investigation, CSIS would then hand that information over to the RCMP. However, under this legislation, CSIS would be able to do both. CSIS would be able to continue the surveillance activities, the spying, and it would have the power, under this legislation, to disrupt. There has been some discussion as to what that would mean and who would be targeted.
It would make it easier to put people in preventative detention for longer periods. It would make it a crime to promote terrorism. It would allow police to seize terrorist propaganda. It would make it easier to share information between government departments. It would change the system for establishing a no-fly list. It would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
Nothing is said about the current government actually being involved in counter-radicalization programs, which have already been seen to be effective.
There is a lot that can be said about this bill. A lot of my colleagues have been eloquent in their arguments as they presented, as have people in my constituency who have talked about why we should not support this piece of legislation. We should not commit to people by saying, “Do not worry. We will fix it when we are in government”. If one stands on a principle, then one has to stand on it and argue it. That is the way I will be voting as it relates to Bill C-51 on behalf of my constituents.
The Acting Speaker Barry Devolin
Order, please.
Earlier this afternoon there was a motion passed, by unanimous consent, that rather than moving to the question at 5:15, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands would be given 10 minutes to make a speech to the House. Subsequent to that, there will be five minutes of questions and comments. Subsequent to that, this House will move to the question.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Speaker, I want to begin, of course, by thanking all parties in this place and all members. If even one voice had said no, I would not have had this opportunity to speak to Bill C-51 at third reading. I am genuinely grateful for the generosity of spirit in accepting this as a motion by unanimous consent.
Having participated in the debates on Bill C-51 from the very beginning, and having been the first member of Parliament to declare firm opposition to the bill, I am enormously concerned that we have made such little progress in addressing those concerns.
Let me acknowledge at the outset that one of the first concerns I had was the use of the word “lawful” as a modifier for protests and actions in civil society. That word “lawful” has been removed, and that is a small improvement, but it is insufficient to deal with the dangers that are embedded in this act.
Sitting here today through third reading, I heard a great number of propositions from Conservative members of Parliament. I have no doubt that they believe those propositions in their speaking notes to be true, but they are consistently repeating fallacies that I would like to try to explain and deconstruct so that Canadians will understand why these repeated bromides are just not true.
The three fallacies I want to address in the time I have are the following. One notion is that information-sharing, which is part one of the bill, is designed to ensure that our security services, which are the RCMP, CSIS, Canada Border Services Agency, and CSEC, the agencies of policing and intelligence, share information with each other. That was put forward earlier today several times, and that, indeed, is something that must be done, but this bill does not do it.
The second fallacy is that there is judicial oversight in this bill, because judges are involved in one section. I want to deal with that one as well.
The other fallacy is that the terrorism and propaganda sections in the amendments to the Criminal Code in this omnibus bill would actually make it more likely that we could stop youth from being radicalized.
There are some things that are not in this bill, and I want to mention those, because I do not understand why, if the Conservative Party and administration were serious about avoiding radicalization, they would not have followed the example of the United Kingdom. Not everything the U.K. is doing in this area do I endorse. However, in December of last year, the U.K. came up with a very specific anti-terrorism bill, with proactive programs to go into schools and prisons to find those people at risk of radicalization and stop them, prevent them, dissuade them. We know that the horrific attacks recently in Europe were by people who were allegedly radicalized in prison. Why do we have nothing in Canada to deal with that?
On the other hand, and I will get to this by starting with my last point first in terms of fallacies, the fallacy that the provisions in the act to take terrorist propaganda off the Internet will in fact stop radicalization needs to be understood in the context of a legal analysis of the words that are used. In the section of the bill that deals with the Criminal Code and what I now call the thought-chill section in part three of the act, what it says is that this bill would deal with something called promoting terrorism “in general”, which is not a defined term. Terrorism and general propaganda would include any visual image or general language.
Legal experts have looked at this and are concerned about a couple of things. This business of getting things off the Internet is not brand new to Canadians. We have hate speech laws that take things off the Internet, and we have child pornography laws that take things off the Internet. In what way have we constructed these provisions on terrorism in general that are fundamentally different from what we did about hate speech and child pornography, which I think we would all agree we take very seriously? Those kinds of laws have statutory defences, and more significantly, those laws specifically exclude private conversations. This one does not.
A person could be arrested and go to jail for a private conversation, for discussing things that, in general, and it is very vague, could be seen to promote terrorism or might be reckless as to whether they promoted terrorism or not. Legal experts are concerned that this chill provision would make it harder for a community to continue to converse with people who are at risk of radicalization to stop them, to argue with them, to say that their understanding of Quran is entirely wrong and that they need to talk about this.
By failing to exclude private conversations, we increase the likelihood that no one will reach out to that person, and we have no programs to deal with it.
The second fallacy, going backward, is the notion that we have judicial oversight. We have no judicial oversight in the bill. First, one needs to understand what oversight means. For this, I quote from a paper by the very dedicated law professors who took this bill on and have published hundreds of pages on it, Professor Craig Forcese and Kent Roach, who wrote the following:
“Review” and “oversight” are often confused. Oversight is a real-time (or close to real time) operational command and control strategy. Review is a retrospective performance audit....
We can say that SIRC provides review, although it has part-time employees and part-time members of the SIRC board and a very inadequate structure, but there is no oversight. We used to have an inspector general for CSIS. The inspector general for CSIS was done away with in omnibus Bill C-38 in spring of 2012.
The term “judicial oversight”, as used by members of the Conservative Party in this debate, is truly a perversion of reality. It is one of the most offensive sections of the whole bill. It is the notion in part 4 that CSIS agents with an operational role now, what Roach and Forcese describe as “kinetic” functions, would go from collecting the data in the information to taking up disruptive activities themselves. If they thought they were going to break a domestic law or violate the charter, they would go to a judge in a secret hearing and ask for permission to violate the charter. Do not take it from me. Every legal expert who testified before the committee said that this was outrageous and that no other government, and certainly none of our Five Eyes partners, allows their spy agencies to violate the Constitution through the simple expedient of going to a federal court judge in a secret hearing.
Earlier today, the parliamentary secretary for public safety ridiculed a speech from the official opposition when it pointed out that no one would be there. How could anyone be there, she asked.
That brings me to a brief from a group that was excluded from giving testimony to the committee, the special advocates. Special advocates are security cleared lawyers who operate in secret hearings, usually on security matters, to ensure that the public interest is protected. These experts who were not heard before committee did submit written evidence urging that the bill be changed to ensure that we do not have secret hearings with no one present other than the minister and CSIS.
This kind of secret hearing, by the way, is particularly egregious, because it is very unlikely to ever be subjected to judicial challenge. It would be hard to ever find out what happened in a secret hearing. It would not come before the Supreme Court of Canada and be struck down. Establishing standing, for instance, for a civil liberties organization to challenge this would be nearly impossible. That is why my position is so firm that the bill must be repealed if it should ever pass.
The last fallacy is the really large one. It is part 1, about information-sharing making us safer. First, another witness who was not allowed to testify was the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Daniel Therrien. He was very clear. He said that he was:
...concerned with the breadth of the new authorities to be conferred by the proposed new Security of Canada Information Sharing Act. This Act would seemingly allow departments and agencies to share the personal information of all individuals, including ordinary Canadians who may not be suspected of terrorist activities....
This is an important point. However, what the information-sharing section does not do, which is critical if we want safety, if we want to ensure that Air India does not happen again, is ensure that the spy agencies and the policing agencies are talking to each other so that they are not letting critical information be hoarded.
By the way, Joe Fogarty, a U.K. expert in security, testified before the Senate about recent examples, on the public record, where CSIS found out that the RCMP was tracking the wrong people and decided not to tell it, or where CSIS found out there was a training camp for terrorists and decided not to tell the RCMP. We need to ensure that these agencies share the information.
Part 1 of the bill would allow agencies of government to share information about individual Canadians, but there is no requirement and no pinnacle control to ensure that an RCMP operation tracking terrorists has information and the benefit of information from CSIS. As a structural matter, experts, from John Major, who was the chair of the Air India inquiry, to former heads of CSIS and former heads of SIRC, have all urged that the bill not be passed as is.
It is not too late. I ask my colleagues to vote no to Bill C-51.
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments and the assessment she has made on the bill. Previously I spoke in the House after the member for Vancouver Quadra gave her remarks saying that when I was 21 years old and voted in 1968, I stressed I did not vote for Pierre Trudeau, but later when the Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into place, I really respected the effort that was made to bring that to Canada.
At this juncture, when we have four former prime ministers saying no to the bill, when we have 100 law professors and lawyers from across the country saying that this bill is a shambles and should not be proceeded with at all, the warnings of court challenges and a number of things, would the member agree with me that this perhaps has gone much further than even the Conservative members understand in the damage it could potentially do to Canadians?
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.
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.
The Deputy Speaker Joe Comartin
The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands has about a minute and 15 seconds.
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.
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
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.
