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.

Public Safety

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

Mr. Speaker, experts have raised serious concerns about the impacts that Bill C-51 could have on legitimate dissent and peaceful protests. The bill creates a new definition for activity that undermines the sovereignty, security, or territorial integrity of Canada. This includes terrorism, but it also includes interference with critical infrastructure and interference with government in relation to the “economic or financial stability of the country”.

Would the minister please explain what activities are targeted by this provision?

Justice

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the Minister of Justice could answer two specific questions relating to Bill C-51, the act that would create a new secret police. One is whether the—

Public Safety

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

Mr. Speaker, many Canadians are concerned that Bill C-51 would go too far by lumping together legal dissent with terrorist activity. When it comes to critical anti-terrorism outreach at home, the Conservatives are still missing in action. The only counter-radicalization program the minister can point to has been on the drawing board since 2013, but it still has not been rolled out, and when it is, it is not going to get any new funding.

Is this the minister's only plan to work with communities to counter radicalization?

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

Mr. Speaker, it seems the more questions we ask on this, the fewer answers we are actually getting. Canadians deserve better. They actually deserve concrete and complete answers to the questions we are asking.

Allowing CSIS to go beyond the collection of intelligence and into the business of enforcement and the disruption of threats is a major shift. It is the duty of the government to clearly explain what is meant by this change and why it is necessary. What kinds of activities would Bill C-51 allow CSIS to undertake? Who will determine when charter rights—Canadians' rights and freedoms—are threatened and judicial oversight is required?

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

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we asked the minister a simple question about the new anti-terrorism bill. Once again, we did not get an answer.

Bill C-51 would extend CSIS' powers beyond intelligence activities, to enable the agency to disrupt terrorist acts, or interfere somehow, before they happen.

Could the minister clearly explain the types of activities that will be authorized?

Business of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to start out by thanking the member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup for his intervention yesterday. He rose on a point of order that his privileges were denied by security, by the RCMP, he said, in particular. Today he rose in this House to indicate that a discussion had taken place and that the matter had been settled.

As I said, his original point of privilege suggested that it was the RCMP who had stopped him, and in fact, that was not the case. It was, in fact, Senate security services. The member has spoken with them and met with them and has accepted the explanation. That is in the spirit I was attempting to capture yesterday when I said that as we go through this process of managing the changes that are happening here, as the House and Senate security forces are integrated and as we ask the RCMP to do more on the Hill, and we are, hopefully, in a motion, going to deal with other stuff, we have to work together with our partners. We all have an obligation to work together to help them do their job of protecting us. I am pleased that the matter has been brought to a close.

This afternoon we will finish debating today's motion from the NDP. Tomorrow, we will debate government Motion No. 14, standing in the name of the chief government whip, respecting an integrated security force for the parliamentary precinct and the grounds of Parliament Hill.

If additional time is needed, we will resume that debate after our constituency week, on the afternoon of Monday, February 16. Earlier in the day—Monday—before question period, we will start the second reading debate on Bill S-7, the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act.

On Tuesday, February 17, we will start the day with report stage on Bill S-2, the Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act. After question period, we will switch to Bill C-12, the Drug-Free Prisons Act, at report stage and third reading, now that the Public Safety Committee has wrapped up its study of the proposed legislation.

On Wednesday, February 18, we will start second reading debate on Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act, 2015. These measures would provide Canadian law enforcement and national security agencies with additional tools and flexibility to keep pace with evolving threats and to better protect Canadians here at home. That debate will continue the following day.

Finally, on Friday, February 20, we will complete third reading of Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, our government's proposal to put victims at the heart of our justice system. It will be the 10th day that this bill has been discussed on the floor of the House, not to mention that it was thoroughly studied by the hard-working justice committee throughout this autumn. It is time that law came into place for the benefit of victims.

Public Safety

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

Mr. Speaker, many Canadians are raising serious questions about the Conservatives' new anti-terrorism legislation. Everyone in this place agrees that terrorism is a real threat and must be confronted head on, so people are wondering why the Conservatives are dismissing advice from experts, and even from commissions of inquiry.

Conservatives are calling better civilian oversight “red tape.” The Prime Minister's campaign-style announcement wrongly singled out Canada's one million Muslims, yet Conservatives refuse to apologize for this divisive approach.

Canadians are worried the Conservatives may go too far in eroding our freedoms and rights, so imagine people's shock when they learned the Liberal leader was offering the Prime Minister a blank cheque. He says that the Liberals will vote for Bill C-51 even if improved oversight is not there, and the Liberal leader openly admitted his reasons were based on politics, not evidence.

Canadians deserve leaders with the judgment and experience to give legislation like this the careful scrutiny it deserves.

[Dr. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, As an Individual]

Thank you. It's an honour to be here.

What I want to talk about is what ISIL's strengths are and what their weaknesses are. Right now, we as western polities and those involved in counterterrorism efforts combatting militancy are very much focused on ISIL, as we should be. It's unprecedented in terms of its brutality, unprecedented in terms of the amount of contiguous territory that it holds. At the same time, it's also incredibly vulnerable, much more so than public discourse tends to suggest. I think that the vulnerabilities of ISIL need to be understood. Let me caption this within the statement that right now jihadism is in a period of growth and I think that it's going to be, as Ms. Laipson said, a generational challenge to address. That being said, ISIL in particular has some very clear weaknesses that it has been able to disguise, but which at some point are going to come to the forefront.

Let's start with what they're good at. I'd say that, in addition to their obvious military successes, ISIL is extraordinarily good at messaging in a way that is unprecedented. If you look at their videos, the production quality is extraordinary. They have something close to professional quality editing for their videos. They really understand the social media game. They're able to game Twitter and they're able to connect with young people in a way that al Qaeda was never really able to do. They take full advantage of the range of social media and this is an extraordinary advantage. You can see that just in the lone wolf terrorist attacks that occurred last year. Obviously, Canada, quite sadly, was victimized twice on consecutive days. But in general, over the course of the past decade, across 15 western states you had an average of 7.3 lone wolf terrorist attacks per year for all kinds of terrorism, not just jihadist terrorism, but far right, far left, eco-terrorism, and the like.

In contrast, for lone wolf terrorism, that is, one individual acting alone, you had more than that last year in western states that were inspired by ISIL. I think the reason why is it deals with social media. Terrorism tends to be a group phenomenon and the reason is that in general, to get someone to undertake an extreme act, like an act of terrorism that will ruin their lives, it takes someone reinforcing their proclivities towards extremism. In the case of social media, social media is increasingly serving as the stand-in for what in the past was a group activity. In other words, social media can be the terrorist group. It's changing radicalization patterns; it's speeding them up. People are radicalized, I would say, (a) more quickly and (b) there are more of them doing so. I would say, however, in ISIL's case, this is unlikely to be sustainable.

I want to look at the flip side of their messaging. One thing, obviously, that Canada is concerned about now, which is reflected in Bill C-51, is trying to figure out a way to disrupt ISIL's messaging. I think that this is an area where western states have an enormous opportunity to disrupt ISIL and it's one that is not being taken advantage of. In particular, ISIL is dependent upon momentum. This is something that was clearly articulated in their magazine Dabiq. They have this propagandist who has been basically conscripted, John Cantlie, who is, quite gruesomely, a journalist who was kidnapped and now is being forced to go through a series of propaganda pieces for ISIL. In one of these propaganda pieces, one that bears his byline in Dabiq, he talks about momentum, which is a key concept for ISIL. He says that other people will glom on to their successes and basically it will keep on building and building and building. That's how ISIL sees themselves and they're desperately trying to show that they have momentum. In fact, in many cases, we have allowed them to make themselves seem far, far bigger than they are, and I'll get to that in one second.

The fact is that ISIL has lost momentum. They have gained no new major territory since October, and in particular, they're in trouble because of the aerial campaign. It has really degraded their heavy weaponry, which they don't have an industrial base to replenish, so they're forced to undertake raids against air bases and the like to capture the tanks, the Humvees, and other equipment that they have come to rely upon in their warfare against the coalition, against Assad's forces, and against Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

As a result of not experiencing battlefield successes, and in fact having some significant battlefield losses, they had to pull out of Sinjar. And Kobani, which just four months ago was a symbol of an unstoppable ISIL, has become instead a fierce symbol of Kurdish resistance and ISIL's inability to capture even a small town in northern Syria.

They've lost momentum within the region. As a result, they've tried to show that they have momentum in other areas. This is an area where I think we need a more effective counter-messaging campaign. There are a number of examples of where they've blown themselves up to be bigger players than they in fact are.

I think the best example of this is in northern Libya, where ISIL was able to convince the western media that they had captured the city of Derna. This was reported even by the BBC. In fact you have a political article that came out just a few days ago that talks about how ISIL has captured Derna. It's not true. It's definitively untrue because when Derna put together a mujahedeen shura council, the person who was in charge of it was a member of the Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade, which is the group that ISIL has been fighting against in Derna. Quite obviously, if they controlled the whole city, their enemy would not be in charge of the overall shura council, one that ISIL was locally part of and subordinate to.

We need to show their losses much better. It's not something that would be done by politicians getting up there on the stump and talking about how ISIL's weaker than people think. Instead, there's a credible media out there, one that is both credible and also sometimes credulous. Giving them accurate information about ISIL's losses can disrupt ISIL's momentum.

Another thing I'll say just briefly as I don't want to cut into Ms. Abdo's time is that it's also a group that has committed severe transgressions of Islamic law even by a Salafi jihadist perspective. I think it's important to understand the perspective they're coming from. Taking a moderate perspective and saying that they transgress this is not particularly helpful, but there are areas where they're extraordinarily weak to a messaging campaign, and in at least two different ways.

First, when they declared the caliphate, they made their own legitimacy hinge on the caliphate's continued viability. Al Qaeda controlled territory in the past. They never declared a caliphate. Part of the reason was that they understood that it would be fleeting thing. They would be seen as being overeager to declare it. Particularly as ISIL faces the loss of Mosul, most likely before the end of 2015, being able to publicize how they do not actually fulfill the requirements of a caliphate is important.

Another way they're extraordinarily vulnerable, which I will mention briefly, is that one of the requirements of a legitimate caliphate is having a caliph who fulfills the relevant Islamic requirements. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi does not. I don't want to get into detail here, but liaising with your U.S. intelligence counterparts will make it very clear that there are serious problems with Baghdadi from a sharia perspective.

The second thing is the atrocities they've committed. In their indiscriminate killing of Muslim civilians, in cancelling the jizya in Mosul, and in killing civilians who were protected by Islamic treaty, people such as Alan Henning or Abdul-Rahman Kassig, they have violated the Salafi jihadi interpretation of Islamic law such that even al Qaeda scholars are criticizing them. This is another weakness. The U.S., Canada, and other western countries don't have real credibility weighing in on how Islamic law should be interpreted, but getting this information to relevant people who can publicize their transgressions can help to disrupt their messaging campaign. Because messaging is what they're so good at, they're particularly vulnerable to disruption in this regard. Quite fortunately, they are also an opponent who've made themselves far more vulnerable than they realize.

Thank you.

Reform Act, 2014

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

moved that the bill be read a third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to debate Bill C-586, the reform act.

I would first like to thank the members of the procedure and House affairs committee for their work on this bill with respect to all the witnesses they heard from and all the testimony they received. In particular, I want to thank the chair of that committee, the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London, for helping shepherd the bill through committee before the Christmas adjournment and reporting it back to the House as soon as possible after we resumed sitting in January. Therefore, I thank all members of the committee for their work in that regard.

As was mentioned at report stage, the bill has been amended. However, I put it to the House that the bill remains true to the principles upon which it was based when I originally introduced it last April.

The amended bill incorporates the same principles as the original. It makes it possible to give the responsibility for nominations back to the riding associations; it stipulates that caucuses must vote to choose their chair and to expel members; and it sets out the rules that a caucus must follow for a leadership review.

The bill in front of us, as amended, does keep to the principles of the original bill.

There has been much debate about the bill and the amendments to it. To those who would say that the bill should not have been amended, I say this. The bill, as amended, is not perfect but it is still very good. In this case, if not amended, the bill would not pass the House. The important point for people to know is that in this case perfection would have been the enemy of the good, because it is clear, and I think all members of the House will acknowledge, that had the bill not been amended it would not have any chance of passage through the House of Commons or the Senate. As it is stands before us today, as amended, the bill has a good chance of being passed through the House, through the Senate, and becoming law before the dissolution of Parliament and the next general election.

I would like to take some time to dwell on what the amended bill would do. For the first time in 45 years, since October 1970, the bill would remove the statutory requirement that party leaders approve party candidates in general elections. It would also mandate that after each general election, each House of Commons caucus, as its first item of business, would vote on the rules that govern that party caucus. In other words, after the next general election, MPs will be given the vote in respect of their role as elected members of caucus in this Parliament. With that vote, elected MPs can choose to empower themselves or choose to give that power to party leaders. If the bill becomes law, our first item of official business when we first meet as party caucuses will be to vote either to adopt, reject, or modify four sets of rules that will govern party caucuses, the first being the election and removal of the caucus chair, the second being the expulsion or readmission of caucus members, the third being the review and removal of the party leader, and the fourth being the election of the interim leader.

Throughout the life of this Parliament there have been examples of these rules being utilized in the last four years. However, they have never been clear in their exercise and seem largely based on circumstance rather than clear guidelines and clearly defined rules.

The bill would be a significant change from the status quo in removing a party leader's veto in the Canada Elections Act, which has been in place since October 1970, and the empowerment of caucuses to decide, as their first order of business after each and every general election, how they will structure and govern themselves.

I would like to dwell a bit on why I believe this legislation, as amended, is so important.

It is clear that we have a problem in Ottawa. We have a problem in Parliament. We have a problem in the House of Commons. This should not be news to anyone. The fact of the matter is that over the last number of decades, barrels of ink have been spilled documenting this problem. The problem quite simply is the following.

There has been a change in our Westminster parliamentary system of government, a change away from a legislature and a House of Commons that was empowered by Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine, a change away from the principles of responsible government that the Governor in Council was not accountable back to colonial masters in London but rather to an elected legislature in this House of Commons.

Those rule changes have created a fundamental problem, and that fundamental problem is the centralization of power in party leaders. This problem is not the result of any one party or any one leader. There is plenty of blame to spread around in this regard. It is not a problem that has been in the making in recent years, or even the last decade. This problem has been decades in the making. I referenced October 1970. It was one little change innocently taken in that year that amended the Canada Elections Act and gave party leaders the unprecedented authority to approve party candidates in general elections. Today, to my knowledge, there is no other western democracy where party leaders by law have the power to approve or to veto party candidates. It is an astounding power that we have given to party leaders, and this is just one of a myriad of examples of changes to our system that have taken place and created this problem of centralization.

As I mentioned, we have come a long way from the loose fish of Sir John A. Macdonald's era, the loose fish that he referred to in referencing his fellow elected members of Parliament in the legislatures post-1867.

Party leaders themselves have acknowledged this problem of the centralization of power. John Turner, a former prime minister, at the most recent Liberal policy convention talked about the need to remove the statutory veto power of party leaders over party candidates. He supported a resolution on the floor of the convention. That resolution did not pass but he spoke strongly in favour of removing that statutory power.

Preston Manning is another party leader who has long advocated for democratic reforms to this place. Leaders like Paul Martin campaigned in 2004 on addressing the democratic deficit and Joe Clark long talked about the need to respect the parliamentary process in the House of Commons. Former MPs, like the former occupant of that chair, former Speaker Peter Milliken, have spoken in favour of the reforms in the reform act.

As I mentioned, despite all the barrels of ink spilled on documenting this problem, all of the columnists who have written about this problem, all of the academics like Donald Savoie or Ned Franks, all of the political parties that have promised change, little if anything has happened. The time has come to act. We must act because Canadians are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the state of our democratic institutions.

This bill is so important because if we look at the prosperity that we have inherited, if we look at the stability of our society, if we look at the justice in our society, if we look at the social outcomes, they are not an accident. I say this because if we look around the world today, the societies that are the most prosperous, the most just, the most stable, the societies with the best outcomes, are all democracies, and that is no accident.

The very foundation of all this prosperity and stability is our democratic institutions of government. If we are going to preserve this prosperity, if we are going to sustain it against the rise of semi-totalitarian states like China, against the rise of energy powerhouses like Russia, against the rise of many other developing economies, it will start with reinvigorating the foundations of our society.

At the heart of these democratic institutions is a series of checks and balances on power.

I read an op-ed piece by Stewart Prest, who is a graduate student at the University of British Columbia. I want to quote him, because what he said is so succinct and important as to why this bill should be supported. He said:

Politics is not simply about the pursuit and exercise of power; it is about its regulation. Democracy is as concerned with the presence of effective checks on the use of political power as with the occasional elections that determine who wields it.

That is why this bill is important. It is because, at its heart, it proposes to strengthen the checks and balances in our system of government. It proposes to rebalance power between elected MPs and party leaders.

Recently in the media there has been talk about the need to strengthen parliamentary oversight of the security and intelligence apparatus in this country, and I agree. We need strengthened oversight of these institutions of state that are going to surveil and monitor terrorist activities, but strengthened oversight starts with the reform act. Standing committees cannot be providing proper oversight of government institutions of state in respect of surveillance and security if those parliamentary standing committees are being controlled, through the whips' lists, by party leaders. There cannot be proper parliamentary oversight if the membership and chairs of those committees are appointed through the whips' lists by the party leaders.

If we want to have proper parliamentary oversight, as many have suggested, as they do in the United Kingdom through its standing committee system, there needs to be the secret ballot election of committee members and the secret ballot election of committee chairs. Then there will be truly independent legislative standing committees that will provide that check and balance on the power of the state.

However, to move to that system of secret ballots for committee chairs and committee members, we need to rebalance power between the party leader and the party caucus, and that is why this bill is so very important.

On this 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, on the eve of a springtime when the House is very likely to adopt Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act, which I support, on the eve of the dissolution of Parliament and a general election, when we will be adding another 30 MPs to the House of Commons, we need to restore the balance of power between elected MPs and the party leader.

I encourage all members to support this bill at its report stage and third reading vote, with their colleagues in the Senate, so that we can ensure that this bill not only passes the House and the Senate but becomes law before the dissolution of Parliament and the next general election.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Do you have any indication what business we'll be doing next week? Do we know when Bill C-51 is going to hit the House?

Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, what we created with Bill C-44 is a strong piece of legislation that needed all its elements to do the tasks we set out for it. The opposition proposed amendments, but in general the amendments would have eroded the ability of this piece of legislation to take on the responsibilities it needed in responding to the court decisions.

I note that there are complementary pieces of legislation. The member talked about some gaps and some additional needs; I welcome her response, and I also look forward to the support that I hope we get from the NDP on Bill C-51.

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all I want to clarify that we are discussing Bill C-44 today. Bill C-51 was recently tabled, and we look forward to some very important debate on this complementary legislation for protecting Canadians.

I rise in support of the protection of Canada from terrorists act, which is another important step taken by our government to protect Canada against terrorism. We are looking at amending two key pieces of legislation. This bill would strengthen our response to so-called extremist terrorist travellers and confirm the tool kits of our security agencies.

Before highlighting the most important amendments, let me situate this legislation within a global context and explain how it would build on our existing legislation and policy.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, has become a household name around the world. It is destabilizing Iraq and Syria while carrying out horrific acts against innocent people. As members know, as part of international coalition, Canada's CF-18 fighter jets are targeting ISIL forces in Iraq. We have joined our allies in this fight because we know that groups like ISIL pose a serious threat not just to regional security but to the citizens of Canada as well.

However, the fight against terrorism does not take place only under foreign skies. Every day, along our borders, in front of our computer screens, within our communities, and with our partners, Canada's intelligence security and law enforcement agencies are standing on guard against terrorism. They carry out their work guided by the four tenets of Canada's counterterrorism strategy, which are prevent, detect, deny, and respond. They are supported by legislation passed by Parliament, which includes the Combating Terrorism Act, for example, which makes it illegal to leave or attempt to leave Canada with a view to committing certain terrorism offences outside the country. Indeed, the RCMP laid its first charges under that act last summer.

The landscape for terrorism, however, is rapidly evolving, and our agencies need better tools to keep Canadians safe and secure. Members may want to consider the findings of the 2014 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada. In 2013, Canada added six groups to the list of terrorist entities, bringing the total to 53. Moreover, as early as 2014, the government had identified approximately 145 individuals with terrorism connections who may have been involved in terrorism-related activities in foreign countries. These are Canadians that groups like ISIL are trying to recruit through sick propaganda.

When Canadians are lured into fighting for a terrorist cause, they can inflict harm on innocent people in a foreign country. What is more, with the training that they receive and the propaganda that they are subjected to, extremist travellers may return home motivated to carry out terrorist acts on our own soil. Thus, while our brave men and women take part in combat missions overseas, it is our responsibility here to prevent, detect, deny, and respond to terrorism in all of its forms.

This brings me to Bill C-44, the protection of Canada from terrorists act.

This act addresses two key pieces of legislation that are essential in our fight against terrorism. As members will recall, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act received royal assent in June and expanded the grounds for the revocation of Canadian citizenship. It also streamlined the process for making those decisions. Once in force, there will be authority to revoke Canadian citizenship from dual citizens convicted of terrorism, high treason, and treason or spying offences, depending on the sentence that is imposed. It will also provide authorities with the authority to revoke citizenship from those who have served as members of an armed force of a country or an organized armed group engaged in an armed conflict against Canada.

Those convicted cannot get time off for good behaviour. These individuals will never be allowed to become Canadian citizens again.

The amendments of Bill C-44 introduced technical changes to the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act that would allow the government to bring into force the revocation provision of the act earlier than, and separate from, the remaining provision.

I would also note that there is a second important change included in the strengthening Canadian citizenship bill. It relates to the process for revoking citizenship. Without these new provisions, the process for revoking citizenship can take up to three years, which I believe, and I believe many Canadians believe, is much too long. Let us imagine a dual citizen who has been radicalized. We may have the evidence to revoke citizenship, but we cannot do it in a timely way because the process is so lengthy. It was vital to streamline the process for revoking citizenship, while respecting the rights of the people involved.

To that end, depending on the grounds for the decision, once the provisions are in force, there would be authority for the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration or the Federal Court to decide on revocation cases.

These amendments to our citizenship laws introduced in the strengthening Canadian citizenship bill would protect the safety and security of Canadians and value and safeguard of value of Canadian citizenship.

Bill C-44 would also amend another piece of legislation, the CSIS Act. We heard earlier that when the CSIS Act was introduced 30 years ago, the expression “extremist traveller” was not part of our lexicon, and neither was “social media.” Who could have imagined that messages of intolerance and hate would one day be transmitted without filters to a mobile telephone? Who could have foreseen how this propaganda could turn someone with mainstream views into an extremist?

However, this is the world we now live in. We must adapt, and adapt quickly, to ensure that CSIS has the tools it needs to investigate threats in a new world. To do this, we must affirm key elements of CSIS' mandate that have been brought into question by recent court decisions. That is really what Bill C-44 is all about. It is not about new powers.

First, this bill would confirm CSIS' existing authority to undertake investigative activities outside of Canada in relation to the security of Canada or to security assessments.

Second, it would confirm the existing jurisdiction of the Federal Court to issue warrants to authorize CSIS to undertake certain intrusive investigative activities outside of Canada.

Third, it would clarify that in determining whether to issue warrants for activities outside of Canada, the Federal Court need only consider relevant Canadian law.

Fourth, it would ensure that the identities of CSIS' human sources would not be disclosed in legal proceedings, except in certain circumstances. This provision is similar to the common law privilege protections that already exist for front-line police informers.

In addition to protecting the identity of CSIS sources during legal proceedings, it would also protect the identity of CSIS employees who are likely to become involved in future covert operations.

Taken together, the amendments proposed in Bill C-44 address recent court decisions related to CSIS and ensure that CSIS has the tools it needs to fulfill the mandate it was given by Parliament 30 years ago.

Canadians depend on our government to protect them from terrorist activities, and we must not fail them. I urge all members to join me in offering unconditional support for Bill C-44, a much-needed response to a rapidly changing security environment.

Anti-terrorism Act, 2015

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

moved for leave to introduce 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.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)