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

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.

Anti-terrorism Act, 2015

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to debate Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act, 2015, and I want to mention at the outset that I will be sharing my time with the member for Yukon.

This is a very important bill. Over the last few years, I have noticed a real change in what is happening across the world and in Canada. Hardly a week goes by that I, like many Parliamentarians, do not wake up to news of extreme incidents or threats somewhere in the world. A couple of days ago we heard that al Shabaab was threatening Canadians in malls, malls where our children go, malls where grandmothers go. The West Edmonton Mall was named specifically.

Clearly, times have changed. Times are a lot different from what they were in the sixties and the seventies, before communication changed and before the Internet. If I mention places like Copenhagen, Brussels, Sydney, Paris, and Ottawa, one would think I was listing some of the freest cities in western democracies. Sadly, however, this is a list of the locations of the most recent jihadi terrorist attacks.

Let us make no mistake: the international jihadi movement has declared war on Canada and war on our allies. That is important. We are seeking to degrade and destroy the so-called Islamic State through the committed and professional work of our Canadian Armed Forces, and I think everyone in this House should be very proud that when Canada calls, they do the job we ask of them and they do an amazing job. We are taking important measures to strengthen the protection of Canada.

I have been listening carefully and I think the NDP has been sowing some confusion about what is contained in the bill. I will reflect on some of the comments made by the leader of the NDP and share some of the inaccuracies in his comments last week.

The leader of the NDP has accused Bill C-51 of being both overly broad and not doing anything. That is a bit of a square circle. How can a bill be overly broad on one hand and not really do anything on the other?

That in itself reflects an issue in terms of the approach of New Democrats to the bill, whose leader said that the provisions to criminalize the promotion of terrorism generally have no business in the criminal law.

It is currently not a criminal offence to advocate or promote terrorism generally. The ability to arrest someone who is, in general terms, advocating or promoting the activity of terrorism does not exist. The threshold for arrest in the Criminal Code is specific to someone who knowingly instructs, directly or indirectly, any person to carry out a terrorist activity.

As an example, the jihadists are saying, “Go hurt Canada.” In the case of the threat to the West Edmonton Mall, are the jihadists instructing specifically or more generally? We need to make sure we capture those sorts of threats to Canadians.

The anti-terrorism act of 2015 would make it an offence to advocate or promote terrorism in broader terms. It states:

Every person who, by communicating statements, knowingly advocates or promotes the commission of terrorism offences in general

—which could mean malls or hurting Canadians—

—other than an offence under this section—while knowing that any of those offences will be committed or being reckless as to whether any of those offences may be committed, as a result of such communication, is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years.

By way of example, if someone posts a video on YouTube calling for death to infidels wherever they may be, as was done by a recent Canadian-linked jihadist, it is not currently a criminal offence. I am sorry if the opposition does not believe that should be a criminal offence, but frankly, I believe that if someone makes that kind of threat, it clearly should be defined as a criminal offence. This legislation will change that.

The leader of the NDP has also said that the legislation before us today would allow the targeting of legitimate protesters, and that too is inaccurate. Again, it is an attempt to fearmonger about this particular bill.

Under the legislation, the threshold for CSIS to engage in disruption is met if there are reasonable grounds to believe that a particular activity constitutes a threat to the security of Canada. Previously, CSIS did not have disruption powers, allowing it only to collect and retain information. We previously heard that this was an issue. To be quite frank, if CSIS knows of an imminent threat, I want it to be able to act, not turn the information over to another agency so that maybe some action will be taken after whatever has been planned has been completed.

“Threats to the security of Canada” are qualified by the following points, but “threats” do not include lawful advocacy, protests, or dissent unless carried on in conjunction with any of these listed activities, which would not be amended by Bill C-51: first, espionage or sabotage that is against Canada or is detrimental to the interests of Canada, or activities directed toward or in support of such espionage or sabotage; second, foreign-influenced activities within or relating to Canada that are detrimental to the interests of Canada and are clandestine or deceptive or involve a threat to any person; third, activities within or relating to Canada directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious, or ideological objective within Canada or a foreign state; and four, activities directed toward undermining by covert unlawful acts or directed toward or intended ultimately to lead to the destruction or overthrow by violence of the constitutionally established system of government in Canada.

What the leader of the NDP may be getting confused about is the power of the sharing of information between government institutions. The bill states:

...a Government of Canada institution may, on its own initiative or on request, disclose information to the head of a recipient Government of Canada institution whose title is listed in Schedule 3, or their delegate, if the information is relevant to the recipient institution’s jurisdiction or responsibilities under an Act of Parliament or another lawful authority in respect of activities that undermine the security of Canada, including in respect of their detection, identification, analysis, prevention, investigation or disruption.

The NDP leader's claims are simply false. Absolutely no change would be made to what constitutes a threat to the security of Canada. The measures he is pointing to deal with information sharing between government departments.

Further, the CSIS Act specifically states that threats to the security of Canada do not include lawful advocacy, protest, or dissent. The new legislation states that activity that would undermine the security of Canada does not include lawful advocacy, protest, dissent, and artistic expression. It is very clear, and again I think some fearmongering has gone on.

We reject the arguments that every time we talk about our security, our freedoms are threatened. Canadians understand that freedoms and security go hand in hand. Canadians expect us to protect both, and there are protections in this legislation that would do exactly that. The fundamental fact is that our police and our national security agencies are working to protect our rights and our freedoms, and it is jihadi terrorists who would endanger our security and who would take away our freedoms.

We have covered what the bill would not do, but we should look at what it would do. I have a lot of things to say about what it would do, but it looks as if I will not have time to discuss them all. I will quickly try to fit in a few.

Bill C-51 is a comprehensive package that would criminalize the advocacy or promotion of terrorism. It would counter terrorist recruitment by giving our courts the authority to remove things that are online. It would enhance CSIS' power to address threats, in that we are not going to sit and wait for threats but are going to address them. The bill would provide law enforcement agencies with enhanced stability to disrupt terrorist offences and activities.

Another issue is the passenger protect program related to people who are travelling by air for the purpose of engaging in terrorism. The bill would make it easier for our law enforcement agencies to do the job that we ask them to do and share relevant national security information.

Many of my colleagues will speak to other components of the bill. This is important legislation, and we are doing the right thing for Canadians. We have hit the important balance between security and the protection of freedoms.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise with great sadness today to debate Bill C-51. I am sad because the Conservatives appear to be using national security as a wedge issue, using fear to divide us at the very time Canadians rightly demand non-partisan collaboration to keep us safe from very real threats and to protect the very rights and freedoms that define our precious democracy. I am sad because it did not need to be this way.

Canadians will remember the touching speeches given by our Prime Minister and all leaders in the House in the aftermath of the shooting incident in Parliament in October.

On October 23, the Prime Minister said, “In our system, in our country, we are opponents but we are never enemies. We are Canadians, one and all”. Then he introduced this bill in a campaign-style rally away from Parliament. He used rhetoric of war and spoke in front of the largest Canadian flag I have ever seen.

I am also sad the Liberals did not stand up. I guess they fear that they will have to support a bill like this because the polls say that. It is very difficult to explain on the doorstep their position on such critical legislation.

On a personal note, I do understand the very real threats to security in our country. For many years, I was legal counsel to the Security Intelligence Review Committee. I received a top secret clearance and conducted terrorism hearings. A couple years ago, the present Minister of Foreign Affairs, then justice minister, appointed me as a so-called special advocate to do national security work under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act where national security issues arise. I do understand the need to take action on national security. Would that we can do it while holding hands across the aisle, as we did on October 23.

The government has simply failed to make the case for the new powers it seeks. This is another omnibus bill by the Conservatives, containing 62 pages, and amending a great number of statutes. It would expand the powers of CSIS dramatically but would fail utterly to strengthen oversight and review powers. Noted anti-terrorism expert and University of Toronto Law Professor Kent Roach told me a few days ago that we already had a dozen anti-terrorism sections in the Criminal Code.

The government has failed over and over again to give a single example of how the amendments it seeks in Bill C-51 would be used. It has added offences such as “communicating statements, knowingly advocates or promotes the commission of terrorism offences in general”. Most lawyers who I have consulted with have no idea how words as vague as “terrorism in general” appear in a legal text.

Terrorism, let us break that down. When the Attorney General of our country, the Minister of Justice, was asked what that meant, he said, “Look it up in the dictionary.” What do the words “in general” have to do in a legal text. Under section 7 of the charter, unconstitutionally vague language is bound to be thrown out by the courts as soon as they get a chance to see it.

The Minister of National Defence, who appears to be the new spokesperson on this bill, argued that it was wrong to describe Bill C-51 as a bill that would give new powers to police and intelligence agencies. In his view, it would award new authority to judges and courts to approve the use of the extra discretion afforded in the bill.

How is that working so far? In its annual report last year, the Security Intelligence Review Committee said, “In one investigation, SIRC...had been seriously misled by CSIS”.

As well, my colleague from Newfoundland has reminded us that in 2013 Mr. Justice Mosley said that CSIS “withheld information in a deliberate decision to keep the Court in the dark”. That is, in and of itself, very disturbing.

The government has refused calls for more oversight of our national security apparatus, notwithstanding that information sharing among many departments would now be permitted, despite the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's serious concerns about what that would mean as information of a personal nature goes across the bureaucracy unimpeded.

We are already limiting debate on this bill. We will have had three days to debate this important bill. Notwithstanding the fact that former prime ministers, former justices of the Supreme Court of Canada and all sorts of experts have looked at it and said that it is unconstitutional and should not be adopted, the government appears to be willing to bull ahead and will probably not accept amendments that will be offered, which is disturbing.

When I was at SIRC, I was very proud, after consultation with all three of the parties in the House at the time, to work under Rosemary Brown, former B.C. cabinet minister, wartime expert in security, Saul Cherniack, who had been cabinet minister in Manitoba, Frances Lankin, Liberals, NDP, Conservatives, all working in the national interest. That is now how the Conservatives have let it unravel at this point.

What does “consultation” mean? Apparently, the Leader of the Opposition gets a phone call from someone saying, “We're going to appoint this person. How do you feel about that?” There is no one in whom the official opposition would have any confidence in this work. The proof in the pudding is that the person who was appointed to chair, this, by his own admission, with little or no vetting, is now serving time in a Panamanian jail. That is how this proud agency has been deformed.

Let us talk about lack of money and lack of new powers to deal with the kinds of new powers that have been given to CSIS, such as disrupting. This was supposed to be an intelligence agency. Does nobody remember what happened when barns were burned in Quebec and we said, after the McDonald Commission of Inquiry, we should have an intelligence-gathering agency. CSIS will not be that anymore. Apparently, now it will be given the powers to disrupt, whatever that means, and to do so not only in Canada but anywhere else it wants. The Conservatives are turning that agency into another law enforcement agency. That is not what was intended in CSIS. They have utterly deformed the bill.

As my friend from Newfoundland so ably pointed out, one really has to ask what the Conservatives understand by the rule of law. They would amend section 42 to apparently allow the agency to decide what is contrary to the charter or unlawful. It is shocking what this section would appear to do. Do not take my word for it. Read clause 12.1 as it would be amended by this statute. Apparently, the service would be able to take measures that would contravene the charter and other laws if it were authorized to take them by a warrant that a court would give, as if that is supposed to make us happy.

Notwithstanding the lack of oversight that I have tried to describe, it would provide new powers that are frightening to many people in my community. The job of the official opposition is to inform and engage with its communities. All opposition members do that. This Friday night there will be a town hall meeting in Victoria, which I know will be packed with national security experts, my colleague, the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, the NDP public safety critic and me, all speaking to this.

I was on people's doorsteps this weekend, and they are very concerned. We hope they will rise up and fight, like they did against the unfair elections act, to try to get the government to actually see why all of these former prime ministers and supreme court justices just might be onto something.

The government will tell us not to worry, that lawful advocacy protest and dissent does not matter, that the act will not affect dissent. If people are blockading a road, if Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King were engaging in civil disobedience, that is, by definition, unlawful. People may be blockading a road on a mountain. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip was arrested in the Burnaby protest against Kinder Morgan. He has reason to fear once these powers are used against him, which, of course, will spread across 16 government agencies and possibly go abroad as we share information with other intelligence agencies around the world.

People are concerned, especially when the Conservatives call us who opposed, for example, the Enbridge pipeline eco-terrorists or foreign-funded radicals. Does anyone think there is a reason why people in my community may be a tad worried about what the government is doing? We are worried. Canadians should be worried. This is overkill and it is unnecessary.

I was proud to be in a party that stood up against another government when 465 people were thrown in jail, not one of whom was ultimately convicted, when the War Measures Act was passed. We stand up against this bill proudly because our constituents demand us to do so, and we will.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to indicate at the outset that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Victoria.

Bill C-51 is now before us so that we can debate something that is of great importance to the people of Canada. I think its short title is the “anti-terrorism act, 2015”. There is a real question as to what it is really about.

In fact, The Globe and Mail, one of the oldest and most prominent newspapers in Canada, says:

On close inspection, Bill C-51 is not an anti-terrorism bill. Fighting terrorism is its pretext; its language reveals a broader goal of allowing government departments, as well as CSIS, to act whenever they believe limply defined security threats “may”—not “will”—occur.

That is a pretty fierce condemnation of a piece of legislation by what purports to be a serious government interested in dealing with terrorism.

Let us make no mistake. Terrorism is a real threat and everyone agrees that public safety is a top priority for any government. However, Canadians do not have to choose between their security and their rights. This is in fact a false choice presented to the people of Canada by the current government and by the Prime Minister.

When the member for Ottawa West—Nepean was announcing his retirement as foreign minister, he quoted John Diefenbaker that "Parliament is more than procedure—it is the custodian of the nation's freedom.”

I believe that is right. What we are doing here today on this side of the House is what we can and must do as parliamentarians to protect the freedoms of Canadians, because that is the issue here. The issue is that we need to have concrete measures that would keep Canadians safe without eroding our freedoms and our way of life. Unfortunately, time and time again, the current Prime Minister and the current government is putting politics ahead of principle.

Once again, The Globe and Mail stated, on February 1:

Under the cloud of fear produced by his repeated hyperbole about the scope and nature of the threat, he [the Prime Minister] now wants to turn our domestic spy agency into something that looks disturbingly like a secret police force.

Canadians should not be willing to accept such an obvious threat to their basic liberties.

Where does that come from? It comes from the provisions in the bill itself, which would give additional powers to CSIS that it does not already have and, arguably, does not need; and which would allow for information-sharing broadly between 16 government departments. The bill does not specify this would be limited in nature. It would cause problems that have been described and outlined by many prominent citizens—former prime ministers, former leaders of political parties, academics, legal expects, former justices of the Supreme Court of Canada—all of whom have condemned the legislation as going too far and giving unnecessary and dangerous powers to government agencies with a profound lack of parliamentary oversight.

The government's position on oversight is that we already have enough, that we have a robust system. We do not. We do not have any system of oversight for the Canada Border Services Agency. We have an appointed body, SIRC, that deals with CSIS, but it is not an oversight agency. It says so itself in its most recent report and it makes the distinction between oversight and review. It says it is a review agency that looks at things some time after the fact. It does not have oversight on a continuous basis over what is going on in the moment on the day. Therefore, it is not an oversight agency. It says so itself and recognizes that oversight is a different value and is required.

Its provisions have been put before the House to provide the kind of oversight that we could use, oversight that some of our Five Eyes friends have over intelligence. Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America have robust parliamentary or congressional oversight with the power to know what is going on and to keep an eye on things.

This has been rejected outright by the government. There was private member's bill, Bill C-622, that would have modernized a piece of legislation that was before the House in 2006, a piece of legislation that arose out of the committee that you, Mr. Speaker, sat on, along with the current Minister of Justice, who said at that time that this would be a desirable, necessary, and important measure to be undertaken. That bill died on the order paper, but Bill C-622, which proposed modernizing that legislation to some extent—which I am not saying we agreed with entirely—was before the House and was defeated by the government at second reading.

Also before the House is Motion No. 461, a motion that I presented to the House on October 24, 2013, calling for a special select committee of the House, like the one the Speaker and the Minister of Justice sat on, to devise the best and appropriate form of oversight by Parliament that might be required given the change in circumstances since 2004 and the experiences of other jurisdictions, for us to devise the best system for our Parliament.

Although it was offered up for debate, the government House leader refused to allow it to be debated, saying there was no necessity for any more oversight than already in place. That flies in the face of all the experts, the academic experts and people who have studied this time and time again, such as lawyers, judges, former leaders, and former prime ministers, who have all said that parliamentary oversight must be present in a system that protects the rights and freedoms of individuals in this country when we are dealing with this kind of legislation.

The bill is extremely intrusive. It gives significant police powers, including the power to disrupt activities. I heard the Minister of National Defence—who all of a sudden is the spokesperson for Public Safety, as I do not know what happened to the Minister of Public Safety, who seems to have disappeared off the map since the new Minister of Defence was appointed—say several times over the weekend in various interviews that “No, no, no, we're giving powers to the judiciary, not to CSIS”. That is wrong. The power to disrupt in section 42 of the bill would be given to CSIS directly. It would only be when CSIS decided that whatever it wanted to do would actually violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that it would have to go a judge, and the judge supposedly would be allowed to tell CSIS that it could break the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I do not think that is constitutional. I do not think a judge can have a licence by legislation to violate the Constitution of Canada, which is what the bill would allow. That is how bad this legislation is. that in itself is enough to say that the bill is bad, wrong, unconstitutional, and cannot be supported. I will leave it at that.

The House resumed from February 19 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 second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Public Safety

[Brent Rathgeber, Independent, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the government claims to be cracking down on terrorists, and through Bill C-51, our security agencies are about to assume broad new powers. However, our security agencies lack the resources to carry out even their current mandates. Both the RCMP commissioner and the deputy CSIS director clearly told parliamentary committees last October as much, that a lack of resources makes tracking all extremists at all times simply impossible. Now we have learned that collectively, CSIS, the RCMP, and the Department of Defence have allowed $11 billion to go unspent and lapse.

In its zeal to balance its budget in an election year, does the government not understand that increased security powers without adequate resources is an exercise in futility?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the irony is that Conservatives would actually benefit the most from more debate on the bill since there seems to be so much confusion among their ministers about what is actually in it.

The Minister of National Defence claims that Bill C-51 “doesn't give new powers to police or intelligence agencies”. Now if he has not read the bill, I can assure him that Bill C-51 dramatically expands the powers of CSIS and that CSIS decides whether any judicial approval is ever needed.

Does the government understand the consequences of the bill it has tabled and why are Conservatives trying to ram through a bill that they obviously do not understand?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is now clear that the Conservatives never had any real intention of debating Bill C-51. No sooner did debate begin than it was shut down. There were just a few hours of debate on an issue as important as Canadians' basic rights and freedoms. That is ridiculous.

Why is the government trying to sweep this under the rug? What is with the steamroller approach? What is the government trying to hide from Canadians?

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, five former Supreme Court justices, seven former federal ministers and four former prime ministers, including one Conservative, are all worried about the harm that Bill C-51 could cause.

This bill could undermine public safety and human rights. It does not provide for an effective oversight mechanism for CSIS.

Why are the minister and the Liberal leader not heeding this wise advice?

Citizenship and Immigration

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives surprised many when they sent out a fundraising email saying that they oppose the wearing of a hijab at a citizenship ceremony.

It is bad enough that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is waging a war against Muslim women who cover their faces, but it is beyond belief that he is mixing up the terms hijab, niqab and burka for the sole purpose of confusing people and instilling fear.

He could have simply said that he had used the wrong term, but no, he chose to say that the hijab is not allowed, even though the hijab is allowed at citizenship ceremonies. He would rather create more division and fear for political gain.

The Conservatives are doing the same with Bill C-51. They are taking advantage of current circumstances to mislead the public by claiming that Bill C-51 does not give law enforcement agencies more powers.

Canadians deserve better. Canadians deserve leaders who tell the truth and do not exploit divisions for political gain.

Climate Change Accountability Act

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

moved that Bill C-619, An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to begin debate on Bill C-619, the climate change accountability act.

It is always a privilege to be here in this place, but sometimes what we have to do makes that sense much more present and inescapable. This is how it feels to me today as we begin debate on Bill C-619, because in truth we are continuing on what Jack started, the climate change accountability act. We are picking up again where Jack left off and building on his efforts to have us avert dangerous levels of global warming.

As I am sure Jack would happily acknowledge, and indeed did happily acknowledge, he too was just a torchbearer when he introduced the former and original iteration of the climate change accountability act in 2007.

Homage needs to be paid to a long lineage of Canadians who have persisted in the fight to arrest global warning. They had the foresight to know its urgency before most of us could even label it as an issue and have clung to a positive picture of our future on this planet, the possibility of living sustainably on this planet. They have hung in there not just in the face of inaction of government but in the face of the hostility of government and threats by government, most recently in the form of Bill C-51.

To paraphrase David Suzuki from some years ago, others have done their part. The scientists have done their part. The burden now shifts to the politicians to do ours.

To quote Jack Layton from his speech in this place in 2007 on his climate change accountability act, he said: “Let us take action on that burden and let us do Canadians proud by taking action”. I believe that even more than when Jack spoke those words, Canadians do want us to take action.

The science has being laid out before us many times over, most recently and most comprehensively in the 2014 working group report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The findings are simple and conclusive: climate change is impacting natural and human systems on all continents and across all oceans. Glaciers continue to shrink. Permafrost continues to warm and thaw. The IPCC warns of sea levels rising by as much as half a metre by the end of the century, putting at risk tens of millions of people living in lower-level coastal cities and communities.

The IPCC warns of the changing chemistry of our oceans, of their acidification by way of increased levels of carbon, with impacts on marine ecosystems and dire consequences for global food security, as over one billion people globally rely on fish as their main source of protein.

Around the world, changing precipitation or melting snow and ice is altering water systems. It is affecting water in terms of quantity and quality. For every degree of global warming, the IPCC estimates a corresponding decrease in renewable water resources of at least 20% for significant portions of the global population.

This, in addition to extreme weather events and population growth, will have further negative impacts on food security. We are not immune here in Canada from issues of crop failure and agricultural productivity decline, according to the IPCC.

This is the path we are on. Perversely, these are the threats to our peace, to our security, to our happiness, to the reproduction of human life and other forms of life on this planet that we are creating for ourselves.

Along this path we keep passing warning signs. Jack held up a sign, the climate change accountability act, seven years ago. It urged us to stop and provided a different way forward. It pointed to a different future. Jack, in his speech in 2007 on his version of the bill, talked about there being, “...a moment in time here that is unique in Canadian history when action can be taken”.

Some might argue that that moment was lost on us as Jack's bill got caught up in the partisan machinery and machinations of this place and as the IPCC begins prudently to model global warming beyond the two-degree mark.

However, I am hopeful that the moment that Jack identified still lingers and that we can act with haste, and with more Canadians more certain now that perhaps we must act with haste.

Bill C-619 revises that which Jack had previously tabled, recognizing changes in the institutional context—specifically, the death of the national round table at the hands of the Conservative government—and recognizing that sub-national jurisdictions and international organizations have moved forward while this place stood still, leaving Canada open to international criticism and undermining the reputation of not just Canada but of us, of all of us as Canadians, as people always prepared to do our fair share.

Bill C-619 sets out new milestones to get us to a level of greenhouse gas emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, which is the target recognized by the scientific community as the minimum required to limit global warming to 2° Celsius and to prevent catastrophic climate change.

The bill, the only legislation in this Parliament to ever bring forward legislated emission reduction targets, would set a binding medium-term target of a 34% reduction in GHG emissions by 2025.

Bill C-619 would further require the Government of Canada to set and commit to targets for each five-year period up to 2050; to develop and publish plans to achieve these targets; to ensure that these targets are developed in compliance with the latest scientific reports and methodology of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and to ensure that these targets closely reflect the most stringent targets set by other developed nations, effectively setting the best practices in OECD countries as our own benchmark here in Canada

With the United Nations climate change conference in Paris set for December 2015, Canada needs a serious plan to bring to that table, and this is it. This bill would bring our country back to the forefront of environmental protection and climate change mitigation, because the targets set out in Bill C-619 and the accountability process set out to support them do nothing less than commit Canada to doing its fair share to avert catastrophic global warming.

However, the climate change accountability act is not here before us just because of the moral imperative to do something to change the course we are on, but also and equally because of the opportunity it presents to us. Holding firm to these targets brings forward the opportunity to invent and invest in new ways to live and be productive on this planet.

Clearly, as an example, in light of the growing food security issues created by and hastened by climate change, there is a need to usher in transformative change in what food we grow and the way we grow it. Clearly, too, there is an opportunity to usher in transformative change in how we produce energy. According to Clean Energy Canada, a global commitment to getting to 80% below 1990 levels requires a $44 trillion investment in clean energy.

There is a nascent clean energy industry in Canada, with 37% job growth between 2009 and 2013. More Canadians are employed in renewable energy production in Canada than in the oil sands, yet we in Canada have captured just 1% of the $1 trillion global clean energy industry. We are being left out and left behind.

It is notable that the China-U.S. climate change pact signed last November was not just about climate change; it was also about clean energy co-operation. We have in Canada what we need to participate more fully in this industry. As the Pembina Institute put it:

Canada is well positioned to compete in the field of clean energy technology, creating jobs and economic prosperity across the country. It was recently noted that “Canada’s skilled workforce, innovation clusters, research excellence and stable investment climate make it an ideal growth environment for cleantech firms.

However, the current government greets this opportunity with, as the director of Clean Energy Canada put it, “indifference”.

While other national and sub-national governments here in Canada make the clean energy industry a priority, the federal government continues to raise the stakes for all of us on the fossil fuel economy, putting billions of dollars of public funds into subsidies for the oil and gas industry, tearing to the ground environmental regulation in a desperate effort to get Canada's oil out of Canada by whatever means possible without regard to environmental risk or social license. There are beads of sweat rolling down the collective forehead of Canadians watching this desperate gamble, watching the economic stability and the economic prospects of this country at stake in the government's desperate gamble on fossil fuels, on a brittle, unstable carbon economy.

This bill is a response to parents worried about their kids' future. It is a response, too, to young people looking for a future. There is opportunity embedded in this bill on climate change, and Canadians are looking for such opportunity after successive failures by Liberal and Conservative governments to deal with climate change and chart a course into and through this century.

As the urban affairs critic and infrastructure critic for our NDP caucus, I want to close with a word about cities, about the possibilities for our cities that flow from this bill and, as Jack put it, about the moment we are in.

All around the world it is recognized that in cities lie our best opportunity for averting global warming. Cities are responsible for the end-use of three-quarters of our fossil fuels and, consequently, a commensurate amount of our greenhouse gas emissions.

Looking out from here, the story could get worse as the global and historic trend toward urbanization will continue through this century. However, looking out from here, one can also begin to imagine a different way of living on this planet and our potential to defeat this problem.

China and the U.S. have recognized that. Their climate change and clean energy pact includes a climate-smart/low-carbon cities initiative. The joint announcement of the pact says:

Under the initiative, the two countries will share city-level experiences with planning, policies, and use of technologies for sustainable, resilient, low-carbon growth. This initiative will eventually include demonstrations of new technologies for smart infrastructure for urbanization. As a first step, the United States and China will convene a Climate-Smart/Low-Carbon Cities “Summit” where leading cities from both countries will share best practices, set new goals, and celebrate city-level leadership.

We ought to be in on that. Bill C-619 opens up these great possibilities for us and our cities, because as China and the U.S. recognize, meeting the targets that we set, the ones that we need to reach, means rethinking how we live, what we live in, and how we move around our cities. It means cities friendly to pedestrians and cyclists. It means rapid public transit and energy efficient buildings. It means trees and green. It means that vision I have set out in my urban white paper, and yet even more, including things we have yet to invent, yet to conceive. However, cities around the world and here in Canada are moving to this future without the federal government. They are innovating.

In those cities, we have a generation of young Canadians who are eager to get engaged in building the kinds of cities, communities, and neighbourhoods they want to live in. We have, in this climate change accountability act, the opportunity to open up the door and move through it into an exciting sustainable future. The door is ours, as politicians, to throw open with this bill.

The only truly important questions to be answered are still about us, not about the science or the math. They are about whether we are capable of seizing this moment, of seeing beyond ourselves at this time, in this place. To fail to do so would be a failing beyond us as politicians and our political system, a failing more fundamental.

As I said when I introduced this bill last June, all of us are entrusted with the care of the earth we inhabit and the well-being of those who inhabit it. We now need to act upon that responsibility. I urge all members of Parliament to support this bill.

Anti-terrorism Act, 2015

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and for La Francophonie]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to debate Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act, 2015. This is obviously an important bill in this time of troubles around the world and in Canada.

The legislation before us today is comprised of five elements relating to national security. I will limit my comments to the proposed amendments to Division 9 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, or IRPA. Those amendments are in part 5 of the bill. I am also going to comment on other important aspects of the bill that define some of the threat disruption activities in which CSIS can engage. That is contained in part 4 of the bill.

Since we took office, our Conservative government has made the safety of Canadians a special priority.

Since being elected in 2006, we have spent a lot of effort as a government in putting a focus on keeping Canadians safe. Specifically, we have taken strong action to crack down on terrorist, both at home and abroad.

It is clear that the international jihadist movement is one dimension of terrorist threats that we face, and that movement has declared war on Canada and her allies, that is western liberal democracies. That is why we have taken strong action under the leadership of our Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and put forward this legislation.

We have made it a criminal offence to go overseas to engage in terrorist activities. We have created provisions to strip citizenship from those convicted of terrorist offences. We have created mechanisms for individuals to sue state sponsors of terrorism, like Iran. We have also declared war on the barbaric caliphate, or the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL.

We are doing even more today, denying access to Canadian territory to non-citizens who pose a threat to national security and maintaining the safety of Canadians among the objectives set forth in IRPA.

Generally, determining the admissibility to Canada of non-citizens is made by immigration officers, or members of the Immigration and Refugee Board, using information that can be made public.

Some non-citizens are found inadmissible on the basis of serious grounds, such as national security, human or international rights violations, and serious or organized criminality. In such cases it is sometimes necessary to rely on classified information to support a finding of inadmissibility.

The Division 9 of IRPA establishes a mechanism to allow the government to use and protect classified information in those immigration proceedings by allowing part of the proceedings to be held in a closed setting.

Under IRPA, classified information includes security or criminal intelligence information and information obtained in confidence from a source in Canada or from a foreign government that is protected from public disclosure if its release would be injurious to national security or the safety of any person.

Also, Division 9 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act includes three mechanisms that allow the use and protection of classified information during proceedings. Section 77 provides the authority as it relates to security certificates before the federal court. Section 86 provides authority as it relates to applications for non-disclosure before the Immigration and Refugee Board. Finally, section 87 provides the authority as it relates to applications for non-disclosure in the context of judicial reviews before the Federal Court.

Closed portions of the proceedings are not open to either non-citizens or their lawyers, and the public may not participate in order to protect the classified information. During the closed portions of these proceedings, a judge appointed special advocate, who is non-governmental and security cleared, represents the interest of the non-citizen.

Special advocates are empowered to cross-examine and make submissions to the court. They are empowered to challenge the government's claim that the disclosure of information would be injurious to national security or would endanger the safety of any person and, with the permission of a judge, exercise any other powers necessary to protect the interests of the non-citizen.

Division 9 cases also include open, public proceedings in which the non-citizen and his or her lawyer can participate. In this open part of the proceedings, a summary of the classified information is produced to allow the non-citizen to be reasonably informed of the allegations against him or her.

In some instances, Division 9 cases have involved a significant amount of classified information, some of which was not useful to the government to prove its inadmissibility allegations or to the non-citizens to be reasonably informed of the case against them. Hence, the anti-terrorism act of 2015 includes measures to clarify the classified information that would form the security certificate cases before the Federal Court and cases involving applications for non-disclosure before the Immigration and Refugee Board.

This information includes the following: it has to be relevant to the case; it has to be information on which the case is based; and it would allow the person to be reasonably informed of the case against him or her. In other words, the government would file only information and other evidence that it relies upon to make its case, and provide relevant information that is useful to the non-citizen.

Another important step we are taking in this legislation involves the appeal and judicial review of an order to publicly disclose classified information. Currently, an appeal or judicial review of a disclosure order may be available only at the end of a proceeding. Even if the government successfully seeks to have a disclosure order overturned at the end of the proceeding, it may be too late as the injury to national security may already have occurred or a person's safety may have already been endangered. While the government could seek to withdraw this information from the case to mitigate the risk of injury, this might not always be possible or doing so could dramatically weaken the case. Bill C-51 therefore seeks to allow the government to appeal or have the court review orders for public disclosure during Division 9 proceedings rather than at the end.

Let us be clear. The proposed amendments to IRPA would facilitate and reinforce Division 9 proceedings. The Division 9 regime, while exceptional, provides for a fair and constitutional process. In fact, in 2014 the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the constitutionality of Division 9 when it found the statutory framework to be consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. When considering whether the government can protect information in a given case, the judge must ensure that it does not impede a fair process and that the non-citizen is reasonably informed of the case against him or her. To make this decision, the judge has the discretion to ask special advocates for submissions and to communicate with special advocates to allow them to make these submissions. When taken together, these new provisions would preserve the discretion of the judge to ensure fairness.

Ultimately, the objective of the process is the removal from Canada of non-citizens who are inadmissible on the most serious grounds and who may pose a serious threat to Canada and Canadians. Overall, these amendments would ensure that Division 9 proceedings continue to be fair, while offering more robust protections for classified information.

Our government takes the obligation to protect public safety very seriously. We are also determined to respect the rights of individuals under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to meet our international human rights obligations.

Now I want to talk about some of the threat-disruption activities in which CSIS could engage because of changes being proposed in this bill. I will just give one example.

A young Canadian activist becomes disenchanted with Canada, and he has reviewed some YouTube videos, for example, and has listened to some influential people in his community. Individuals within his local place of worship have advised CSIS that he is planning to travel overseas to engage in terrorist activities.

Currently, in this scenario, without this piece of legislation, CSIS can investigate but cannot do anything to stop the individual from travelling. The furthest CSIS can go is to advise the RCMP that it believes the person is about to commit an offence and the RCMP could launch its own investigation, which could take several days. Under the anti-terrorism act of 2015, CSIS could actually engage with a trusted friend or relative to speak with this individual to advise against travelling for terrorist purposes. Further, CSIS officials could meet with the individual to advise him that they know what he is planning to do and what the consequences of taking further action would be. Members can see how this could lead to preventing terrorist activities and why it is important to have that.

Here is another example before I wrap up my remarks. Let us say that CSIS learns through its intelligence activities that a planned shipment of chemicals may be used in a terrorist attack on a Canadian business operating in a foreign country. The exact timing is vague or unknown. Currently, CSIS can share this information with the foreign government and other foreign partners, and a travel alert could potentially be issued by foreign affairs. That is all it could do.

With the anti-terrorism act, 2015, CSIS could actually engage in a joint operation with a foreign partner to disrupt the shipment. For example, the shipment could be rerouted so that it is not delivered into the hands of terrorists.

I will give a third example. A Canadian ally warns CSIS that foreign spies are planning to meet with a Canadian avionics firm. CSIS investigates and determines that the spies are posing as businessmen in order to purchase telemetry equipment. This dual-use technology is a civilian application in flight test programs but is also used in ballistic missile targeting. Under the current laws, as part of its investigations, CSIS can interview officials from the Canadian company to gather information and ask the CBSA to check the parts' paperwork at the time of export to determine if there are customs violations. That is all it can do.

With Bill C-51 enacted, CSIS could seek and receive a warrant to intercept the equipment and alter it so that it would not have any suitability for non-civilian applications.

These measures could save lives. These measures could disrupt terrorist organizations from terrorizing innocent populations. That is why they are very important.

I will wrap up. I have heard some exaggerations on the part of the opposition and some fabrications about what is in this bill. Canadians understand the importance of security and countering terrorist threats at home and abroad. That is why, if we talk to Canadians about what it is actually in the bill, the reasonable measures within it that put our security agency, CSIS, on par with what other security agencies do around the world, they support it. They understand the importance of these measures and the importance of giving them some additional powers that still respect the rights and freedoms we have in this country.

As the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and many of my colleagues have said, and as I have told people in my constituency of Etobicoke—Lakeshore, there is no liberty without security. Security is fundamental to our freedoms, and that is why it is important that we have strong security measures in this country.

I call on the opposition parties and members throughout the House to support this important piece of legislation.

The House resumed 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 second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Natural Resources

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I really do not know whether that was a legitimate point of order on the part of the whip for the Conservative Party. That seemed to me to be a ministerial statement.

If the Prime Minister is going to make that announcement, he should be making in the House of Commons. This is where the issue is debated. On the very bill that we are debating today, Bill C-51, the Prime Minister had a grand show in Richmond Hill and went over the top in terms of pointing out that there was terrorism under every rock. That announcement should have been made here, too.

There is a problem with the way the government is operating, and that is that these kinds of announcements should be made in the chamber. which is called the House of Commons, so the official critics in the opposition parties can respond to that right away. This is just getting to be propaganda and messaging on the part of the Prime Minister rather than doing our job in Parliament as we should.

Anti-terrorism Act, 2015

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I am serious, Mr. Speaker, and the member knows that is what happens. It happens at my committee. Members follow that direction. They are members in their own right; they can stand on their own two feet. What I am saying is that the process has to change if we are going to make this legislation good legislation. I ask members to really look at this issue seriously and not to take direction in that fashion. There is concern about the civil liberties of Canadians and freedom of expression. We have to listen to those witnesses.

I want to give an example of what a couple of people I have talked to have to said, people whom we will put forward as witnesses. First, there is quite a series of articles in the press these days by two individuals, Craig Forcese and Kent Roach. They have a paper they sent us that is close to 40 pages long. They are doing a summary of the key concerns with the bill. This is what they say at the beginning of the summary:

If Bill C-51 passes, CSIS will be expressly authorized to “take measures, within or outside Canada, to reduce” very broadly defined “threats to the security of Canada”. Where authorized by Federal Court warrant, these “measures” may “contravene a right or freedom guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms” or may be “contrary to other Canadian law”.

It does not matter whether I agree or disagree with that statement. There is a concern expressed there that we should look at seriously. These two individuals admit it themselves. They add an additional word relevant to this in a document dealing with CSIS. They say:

We are legal academics who have been researching and writing on issues of national security law (Canadian, international and comparative) for a sum total of 26 person years (between the two of us).... We are, in other words, an occasional and minor part of the national security “accountability sector”, to the extent that such a thing exists in Canada.

These people have a point of view. They have an expression of interest that we ought to listen to.

I also met with the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association, which also has concerns. That association was founded in 1998 by a small group of Toronto based Canadian Muslim lawyers. It has over 300 members across Canada and active chapters in Ontario and Quebec. The association states:

Bill C-51 is deeply flawed legislation that should not become law. Before we begin to integrate and concentrate power in government agencies on national security matters, we should first implement the remedial findings of many commissions of inquiry into the matter, most notably the Arar Inquiry.

As national security functions become more integrated it makes sense that there is a concomitant and effective counterbalance in terms of independent review and oversight. Such a body would have jurisdiction over all national security agencies and functions, including CSIS, CSEC, the RCMP and a host of other agencies (some of them currently have no oversight).

That is their opinion. They are suggesting that there needs to be much broader oversight.

These are just two examples of witnesses that we need to listen to. However, in order to make the proper amendments, accept them, and bring in those ideas, the government has to be willing to make some amendments.

To turn specifically to the issue of oversight itself, sadly, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Safety, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and, today, the Minister of Justice have been misinforming Canadians. Let me repeat that. Some of the highest officers and political ministers in this land have been misinforming Canadians on what exists, and what is and is not in this bill. It really is troublesome that the top political office in the land either does not know the limits of the Security Intelligence Review Committee or has not been totally forthright. I do not know which it is.

Let me turn to what the Security Intelligence Review Committee itself has said. It said that it is not an oversight body. Let me turn to its annual report for 2013-14. On page 12 of that report, in section 2, it says:

An oversight body looks on a continual basis at what is taking place inside an intelligence service and has the mandate to evaluate and guide current actions in “real time.” SIRC is a review body, so unlike an oversight agency....

SIRC itself admits that it is not an oversight agency, but even if it were an oversight agency, which it is not, it is not broad enough to really review national security. If we look at schedule 3 of Bill C-51, another seven agencies have been included there. I think some of them were here before. We are adding the likes of the departments of health, national defence, and transport to SIRC, CSIS, CSEC, the RCMP, and police forces of local jurisdictions, all of which are involved in these security matters, and transferring information across departments. There needs to be a much broader oversight that even a slightly improved SIRC could handle.

I mentioned earlier the protections that we as a Liberal government put in place on the extended powers in the anti-terrorism act of 2001. There were sunset clauses in which laws would cease to exist. There was a mandatory review. In 2004, we recognized that there was still a greater need, which was for the oversight of all security agencies. As a result, an all-party committee was proposed and put in place. It held hearings and made some recommendations, and Bill C-81 was introduced. However, it died on the order paper. I will come back to that in a moment.

Simply put, a previous Liberal government introduced legislation to provide for oversight by parliamentarians similar to that of our Five Eyes partners, the U.K., the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Today, in The Globe and Mail, four former prime ministers put an article in the paper, signed by a number of justices and former attorneys general, et cetera, entitled: “A close eye on security makes Canadians safer”.

It starts by saying:

The four of us most certainly know the enormity of the responsibility of keeping Canada safe, something always front of mind for a prime minister.

They went on to say:

Yet we all also share the view that the lack of a robust and integrated accountability regime for Canada's national security agencies makes it difficult to meaningfully assess the efficacy and legality of Canada's national security activities. This poses serious problems for public safety and for human rights.

They went to say said:

Canada needs independent oversight and effective review mechanisms more than ever, as national security agencies continue to become increasingly integrated, international information sharing remains commonplace and as the powers of law enforcement and intelligence agencies continue to expand with this new legislation.

People who have been in the same position as the Prime Minister are calling on the need for oversight. Such a security oversight agency was called for by a former public safety committee while the current Prime Minister was in office. In a report dated June 2009, tabled in the House of Commons, it called for that, in recommendation 5:

The Committee recommends, once again, that Bill C-81, introduced in the 38th Parliament [by a Liberal government], An Act to Establish the National Security Committee of Parliamentarians, or a variation of it, be introduced in Parliament at the earliest opportunity.

That recommendation was supported by six members who currently sit in the House: the member for Yorkton—Melville, who chaired that committee; the member for Oxford; the member for Brant; the member for Northumberland—Quinte West; the member for Edmonton—St. Albert; and the member for Wild Rose.

The previous recommendation for Bill C-81 was supported by the current Minister of Justice and the current Minister of State for Finance. What has happened to those members since the leadership changed and we have the current Prime Minister? How come they are not still calling for oversight? They know that SIRC is not oversight. SIRC has claimed that it is not oversight. Did they lose their voice? Do they not stand by what they previously believed in, what they held hearings on? Oversight is important, and that is what we must implement in this bill, as well as a number of other amendments we will be putting forward.

As a final point, I will report on what the British Intelligence and Security Committee does. The members of the committee are subject to the Official Secrets Act. In their annual report, they say this:

The Committee sets its own agenda and work programme. It takes evidence from Government Ministers, the Heads of the intelligence and security Agencies, officials from the intelligence community, and other witnesses as required.

They monitor on a day-to-day basis. They keep intelligence agencies honest. They protect on two sides, as Bill C-81 would have done. It would have ensured that security agencies are doing what they are supposed to do and second, that they are not going too far in terms of infringing on civil rights and freedoms.

Let me close with a quote from my leader in yesterday's speech:

We are hopeful that the government is serious about reaching across the aisle to keep Canadians safe, while protecting our rights and our values.

It can be done. We need sunset clauses. We need a mandatory statutory review, and we definitely need oversight. I am sure both the NDP and Liberal Party will have many amendments to improve the bill in other ways, but the government has to reach across the aisle and allow Parliament to work.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am most pleased to speak today to Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act, 2015. It is an important bill and all sides have expressed strong views about it. We saw that in the lead-off speeches yesterday and have seen it in some of the discussions here today.

The bill should not, and I underline this, become a wildly partisan debate. Let us show Canadians that in the House, the 300-plus of us who are here, we can make this a better bill. The government does not have all the answers, but collectively we can produce a better bill. I ask the government to allow amendments to improve the bill.

This is an extremely serious matter. It does indeed affect all Canadians. We have a responsibility as parliamentarians to find the proper balance between national security and civil liberties and freedom of expression.

In my remarks today I do not want to get into all the technicalities of the bill, the unlawful versus the lawful distinction, et cetera, but to focus on two key areas: one, process; and two, oversight, which is extremely important. The last speaker said there is oversight. There is not oversight in this bill and the Conservatives should know that.

I will start with a statement by the leader of the Liberal Party yesterday:

...keeping Canadians safe in a manner that is consistent with Canadian values is our most sombre responsibility as legislators and community leaders. To ensure that we never lose sight of our Canadian values and never forget who we are, we should always aim to have both the security of Canadians and the protection of their rights and freedoms in mind when we set out to combat those threats.

The question is, how do we do that? How do we find that balance? We can do that, certainly by allowing witnesses from a strong cross-section of Canadian society to be heard, and when they speak at committee, we all have to listen.

The government must be prepared to accept amendments based on legal expertise, based on human concerns, and based on evidence-based testimony. I will in a moment outline some of those concerns, just to touch base with the concerns expressed in that area by individuals and groups and to make the point why they must be heard.

May I also say in fairness to the cabinet that I and a number of colleagues in this corner in the Liberal caucus understand the pressures that one is subject to when looking at an intelligence briefing in the morning about a terrorist threat. We understand the pressure that pushes government to give security and police agencies greater power and authority to challenge those threats.

I hope those threat assessments coming to the government are brutally honest, telling the facts as they are and are not exaggerated. I was not impressed, to be quite honest, by the Prime Minister's speech in Richmond Hill, where I do think he went over the top in terms of the threat to Canadian society. However, only those who have those assessments would really know what that threat is.

I can remember in my own caucus, as my colleagues here with me can recall, and certainly the member for Mount Royal, the strenuous debate we had and how fortunate we were to have that both there and within Canadian society and in committee when we brought in the Anti-terrorism Act of 2001 and expanded on it later.

However, because of that debate we put in sunset clauses to ensure that certain authorities granted to the police and CSIS would cease to exist at a certain point in time. We put in place a mandatory statutory review so that this chamber and the committee could review the good, the bad, and the ugly of that legislation at a certain period in time.

We do not see any of that in Bill C-51. Hopefully, amendments can be made that will draw in those points. However, in order to have amendments, the process has to change. Let us not fool anyone here. We all know what happens at committees. I talked about it earlier today. The parliamentary secretary sits fairly near to the chair of the committee on the government side. Government members are lined up in a row. Over against the back wall is the staff for the government side. Sitting among them is the staff for the whip's office. In there too is the staff for the PMO. Mike Duffy called them “The boys in short pants”. Well, they are both boys and girls because I have seen them, women and men. It is as if that guy or gal against the back wall is pulling the string of the parliamentary secretary.