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

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness should know that Canadians are opposed to Bill C-51, mainly because of the lack of oversight. Yesterday, the head of the committee complained about being hamstrung when it came to overseeing the sharing of information between agencies. In the case of the Afghan detainees, it was the Department of National Defence, and not the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, that had the information. It is therefore simply impossible to investigate.

Does the minister think it is acceptable to limit the oversight of our intelligence agencies?

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, I would remind my colleague that the Security Intelligence Review Committee has a broad mandate and can investigate all the operations conducted by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, here and abroad. It can even travel to other countries for that purpose. In contrast to the superficial parliamentary oversight that we see in other countries, the committee gets to the bottom of things.

Bill C-51 has the committee report to Parliament. We are obviously open to continuing to ensure that it is fully transparent and that it ensures that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service carries out its main mandate of protecting Canadians.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the problem has to do with more than just resources. The head of the Security Intelligence Review Committee himself says that the committee's mandate is too limited. Bill C-51 will allow our intelligence service to share information with 17 other agencies, but it will not allow the Security Intelligence Review Committee to know what these 17 other agencies are going to do with that information.

Why did the government not expand the committee's mandate as called for by the NDP?

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

Mr. Speaker, it turns out the Conservatives have also been hiding the facts when it comes to security issues.

The minister has repeatedly insisted that the Security Intelligence Review Committee has a mandate to fully oversee CSIS, but it turns out this is not the case.

Yesterday, the head of the Security Intelligence Review Committee said it cannot follow information once shared with other departments, yet this is exactly the power being dramatically expanded by the Conservatives.

Can the minister explain why he has once again been caught misleading Canadians on Bill C-51?

Opposition Motion—Federal Science Research

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to comment on the Liberal Party's opposition motion on science in Canada.

The motion calls on the government to rescind all rules and regulations that muzzle government scientists; consolidate government-funded or -created science so that it is easily available to the public at large through a central portal; create a Chief Science Officer whose mandate would include ensuring that government science is freely available to those who are paying for it, namely, the public; and allow scientists to be able to speak freely on their work with limited and publicly stated exceptions.

I am delighted to support this motion because it covers most of the scientific community's key demands of the government.

Let us remember that the NDP already presented two opposition motions: the first, on June 5, 2012, condemned cuts to science and the muzzling of scientists; the second, on March 20, 2013, urged the government to support the NDP plan for scientific integrity.

This subject is particularly timely today considering that the ACFAS conference will be held this week in Rimouski. This is the Francophonie's most important scientific event. Those in attendance all agree that the scientific community is stunned at the federal government's attitude toward research.

The president of ACFAS, Louise Dandurand, condemned the budget cuts and job losses in the sciences, and had very harsh words for the fact that federal government scientists cannot communicate with their peers.

She said:

Science is built on the exchanges among researchers. The fact that government scientists cannot communicate with their peers, either in Canada or abroad, impoverishes the very essence of science.

She also said:

The federal government's unenlightened approach is unfortunate and dangerous, and the consequences for the advancement of science will be felt in the long term in Canada.

Another message coming out of the ACFAS conference is the importance of advancing science done in French. In an interview with the Devoir this week, that was the message of the honorary chair of the 83rd ACFAS conference, who is none other than Rémy Quirion, the chief scientist for Quebec.

However, the Conservative government is refusing to listen. It closed a dozen scientific libraries, including the only French library at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The government has also imposed restrictions and even prohibitions on communications about scientific work, even after the research has been published.

Last week, the testimony of Steve Campana, a former scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, confirmed what we have known for years: the government forces scientists to go through a complicated process to be able to talk to the media, and requests for interviews are often denied.

The Conservatives have also prevented federal scientists from taking part in scientific conferences to share the results of their research, thereby obstructing our international collaboration.

In 2013, the NDP moved a motion to end the muzzling of scientists once and for all. Motion M-453 would allow scientists to speak publicly about their work and would prohibit ministerial staff from unduly limiting media access or suppressing scientific results.

I also want to talk about the research imbalance the Conservative government has created. Since 2012, the government has overhauled its innovation assistance programs, which translates into eliminating support for basic research in order to focus only on business-led research.

Research currently being done in Quebec is essentially non-directed research. It represents 86% of all scientific research done in Quebec. It is especially important to support this type of research because in science, we never know where the next discovery will come from.

The Conservatives' approach will not only eliminate the first component of the mission of the National Research Council, established in 1916 to support research and the development of commercial innovation, but it will also have a disastrous impact on our scientific heritage and on science that is done for the public good.

That is why the NDP has been proposing that the government create the position of chief science officer since 2013. Prominent members of the scientific community support the NDP's proposal to create an independent scientific watchdog organization in order to ensure that federal scientists are no longer muzzled and to give Parliament impartial scientific information. Let us remember that, in 2012, the Government of Quebec decided to appoint a chief science officer. Some countries, such as England, have had this type of watchdog for about 50 years. About a dozen countries have chief science officers, but Canada does not have such a watchdog at the federal level.

What is more, this week, the Institut de la statistique du Québec, or ISQ, is expected to table a damning report on the damage caused by the elimination of the mandatory long form census. If research suffers, so does the quality of government decisions. Here are a few questions that we need reliable statistics to answer. Where should we build new day care centres? Has the state of rental apartments improved? Are the economic aid programs for the regions working? These questions will remain unanswered without proper statistics.

The ISQ's study also shows that the national household survey, which replaced the census in 2011, is unreliable and more expensive to use. At the time, the government justified this change by saying that it was protecting people's privacy. That is rather ironic given that this same Conservative government introduced Bill C-51. Five years later, former chief statistician Munir Sheikh, who resigned in protest against the government's decision, is saying that it is impossible to rely on the new survey.

A joke that is going around the scientific community sums up the situation best. “Guess what? Canada managed to eliminate poverty. How did it do that? By simply eliminating the mandatory census.”

Alain Bélanger an expert in population studies, language and immigration at the INRS said:

For the past five years, I have been wondering whether I should continue to conduct social science research or I should stop. The data for all of the subjects that interest me are skewed.

We cannot allow science in Canada to continue its free fall.

At a conference in Halifax in 2014, Peter Nicholson, the deputy chief of staff for policy in the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada from 2003 to 2006 and the former special advisor to the Secretary-General of the OECD, said:

This is a portrait of unmanaged decline that began with the previous Liberal administration. It really does signal a vacuum of leadership and it's a very serious problem because we definitely need a healthy and well-motivated scientific capacity to support the mandates of government departments and agencies.

I would remind members that the 1995 budget announced some significant cuts to science and technology spending, even though Paul Martin, the finance minister at the time, had promised to spare the councils and agencies that provide grants for university research in science, engineering, medicine and social sciences.

Under the Liberals, the industry portfolio was very hard hit, losing 42% of its program spending over two years. The abolition of the highly acclaimed defence industry productivity program had a huge impact on the aerospace industry. University scientific research suffered a 25% drop in funding in constant dollars. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, which subsidizes university research, had its budget cut by 14%. The Canadian Space Agency lost 15% of its budget.

We need a government that will invest in science and technology in Canada. This is not just about discovery and the pursuit of excellence. This is also about social justice, democracy, our heritage and our scientific future. Instead of mortgaging that future, the NDP will stand up for science and scientific integrity.

I would just like to add a comment on the Conservative government's budget for this year. The government had an opportunity to repair the damage it did to science in Canada.

Unfortunately, it did not change its approach, and it is continuing to invest solely in business-led research. The government's approach is not working when it comes to protecting Canadians' health and environment, and it is not working for Canada's economy or for industry either. We are in dire need of a change, and that is why I support this motion.

Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House that I will be sharing my time.

I have listened to just about the whole debate, in my office as well as here in the House.

I would like to speak on behalf of the people of Gatineau and the different groups with which I have had good discussions and have spoken at length about all the Conservative government's bills. They agree with the NDP's position on firearms, in the broad sense, and they agree that Bill C-42 provides a good example of the difficulty this government has of striking the right balance between security and rights.

This is also apparent with Bill C-51. The Conservatives have difficulty striking a balance between security and human rights. Furthermore, they always try to divide and conquer. That is probably what is frustrating in the long run. Bill C-42 is a fine example of this dysfunctional Parliament.

This week is our fourth-last week in the House. When I look at everything that we accomplished in four years, it is nothing but an endless list of bills. Members on the government benches simply tried to always take a stand against us, although all 308 of us here in the House are supposed to be here to improve the well-being of our constituents and of Canadians across the country.

All afternoon, after question period, members on the Conservative benches kept trying to imply that our questions on Bill C-42 meant that we were against hunters and against law-abiding firearm owners. I think that is absolutely simplistic and insulting.

We have all kinds of people in our ridings and in our caucus who are proud hunters, who follow the law and do things the right away, and who respect firearms. Our colleagues opposite are making it sound as though our questioning of the merits of a bill and what it truly aims to do means that they support hunters and we are against them.

If you look closely, you can see that more than half of the 16 pages of this bill have absolutely nothing to do with cutting red tape.

I am looking at the titles, and I know that others before me have mentioned this, but I still do not understand why the short titles in English and French do not say the same thing. In French, it is Loi visant la délivrance simple et sécuritaire des permis d'armes à feu. The word “sécuritaire” is in the bill.

However, in English it says, “This Act may be cited as the Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act”.

As the justice critic, I have often said that the devil is in the details with the Conservative government. That is the kind of careful approach we have to take to the work the people have sent us here to do.

Nearly 70% of the population did not vote for this government. Those people have the right to be heard in the House and to tell the government to be careful. Saying that does not automatically mean that we are against all aspects of this bill.

When I gave my speech at second reading, there was time allocation. That is the other trend that shows how dysfunctional this Parliament is because nearly all of the bills have been subject to time allocation.

The government dragged its heels on Bill C-42 for a long time.

That was the bill we were supposed to debate the day after the events of October 22. If that bill was so good, so simple and so extraordinary, why did the government take it off the agenda only to reintroduce it five or six months later under a time allocation motion? The government dragged its feet and tried to sweep this under the rug so as not to get people too worked up, because, as one member said, there was reason to believe that some serious problems could arise in urban centres.

While my colleagues from rural areas are asking us to understand the needs of hunters, sport shooters and gun collectors, my colleagues from urban areas are making a heartfelt appeal to all those law-abiding gun owners, telling them that there is a serious problem in urban centres. Can we not just sit down together and try to find solutions that meet everyone's needs? That is not naive or sentimental; it is simply to say that, with goodwill and by working together, we can do good things.

It is possible to eliminate the irritants that are hurting law-abiding gun owners who might have made a small mistake with their registration, for they certainly do not deserve to be left with a criminal record. I completely agree, but can we also do something to make sure that we are not making things easier for gun and weapon smugglers and that we are not making the classification of weapons so simplistic and easy that it leads to serious problems? That is our most fundamental duty.

The Conservatives like to personally attack us because of some of the positions we take. Some Conservatives go so far as to try to hurt us in press releases and in front of certain groups. I am relatively active with Les Membres Sportifs de Gatineau, a hunting and fishing club. I get together with the members often. I like chatting with them. They organize activities, and one day I will very likely go with them because I am a girl who likes to commit wholeheartedly, not just with words but also with actions, unlike the Conservative government.

When the long gun registry was created, those people told me that it made them feel like criminals, but they absolutely were not. The Conservatives capitalized on that. Instead of getting rid of the sticking points related to the registry, they used it as a blunt instrument to divide Canadians. The vast majority of Canadians, if not all of them, know full well that hunting and biathlon are not being eliminated. I have no intention of doing so.

Some young cadets in my riding recently won awards in biathlon competitions. It is extraordinary to see them. Nonetheless, they learn at an early age how to handle a weapon properly and they know full well that it is like a car. They know they have to be careful when they use it and they cannot proceed any old way. There are rules.

This bill has some extremely disturbing aspects. Again, it is not about reducing red tape. It includes a number of criminal provisions and gives cabinet the regulatory power to make classification changes, which is worrisome.

My colleagues who are members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security worked hard on getting rid of these sticking points through amendments, which would have allowed us to support the bill.

As usual, the Conservative members of the committee are unfortunately always told to say no to the opposition's requests, even the reasonable ones.

I will proudly vote against this bill. Once again, I wish continued success to all Canadian hunters. I am not against them.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak against Bill C-42, the government's so-called common sense firearms licensing act, at third reading.

After introducing the bill in October and letting it languish on the order paper, in April the government suddenly found it urgent to press ahead with the bill. I still wonder why that was the case. However, the result clearly is that we now have a bill before us that has received very rushed consideration here in Parliament.

The government used time allocation to push Bill C-42 through second reading and then gave very severe limits on the time to be spent in committee, guaranteeing we would have poor consideration. We ended up having only two days for witnesses, April 28 and April 30, and a very short window of opportunity to even invite witnesses. It was just three days from when time allocation was proposed to when the first witnesses appeared.

As a result, we have Bill C-42 back in front of us without hearing from many important potential witnesses, including front-line law enforcement officers or law enforcement officials of any kind.

This is particularly disturbing, as there does not seem to have been any consultation with the law enforcement community before the introduction of the bill. Any consultations that did take place took place well after the bill had been introduced and took place in private. No one else was consulted, and clearly not any of the victim groups that the government always claims to keep top of mind when it comes to crime.

The parliamentary secretary has tried to characterize this poor consideration as somehow a failure of the opposition to do our job, which is a curious charge that implicitly admits that the bill has not received the consideration it should have. However, that is disingenuous for many reasons, foremost among them the limited and rapid timeframe that the government imposed for consideration of the bill in committee, resulting in a single week, take it or leave it, for witnesses to appear.

We are now faced with another troubling phenomenon, and that is a reluctance of witnesses to appear before the public safety committee. Perhaps that is a result of the experience of some of the witnesses on the hearings for Bill C-51, where they were insulted and had their integrity challenged by government members. Perhaps it is a concern over funding, since we have seen groups that have opposed the government find that funding for their programming has been chopped. Perhaps it is a concern over charitable status, because if the witnesses happen to represent a charity, their organization may end up being audited by the Conservative government. Whatever the cause, the result is that we have Bill C-42 back from the public safety committee unchanged, apart from a technical amendment regarding the number of sections.

Turning back to the content of Bill C-42 more directly, some on the government side have taken issue with a statement I made in debate at second reading when I said that the bill before us only looks like common sense when viewed from the point of view of the gun lobby. I stand by that statement, but I would point out that the Conservatives have tried to ascribe a very broad meaning to the term “gun lobby” that few others would actually use.

What we on this side of the House mean when we use the term is not all gun owners, not all hunters and fishers, but a small group of people, including some gun dealers and manufacturers and some paid lobbyists, who spend their time hanging around at Parliament to promote a very narrow agenda. That agenda is to remove all restrictions on guns in Canada.

The first target of this narrow lobby was the gun registry, which is now gone and will not be coming back. However, they have now moved on to other goals, and this bill is a part of that lobby effort. It is an agenda that very few gun owners would actually know anything about, and the shorter the time we spend on it in Parliament, the less they will know.

The Conservatives continue to promote the dangerous ideas of this gun lobby. They represent a small minority of Canadians, and, I would argue, a minority even among gun owners. This is the idea that any regulations at all on firearms are so-called red tape that pit the interests of law-abiding gun owners against the government and police and amount to nothing more than restrictions on rights or freedoms.

As I have pointed out before, and like his gun lobby allies, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness has fallen into the habit of using U.S. rhetoric in his comments on firearms. This was never so clear than on July 23 of last year, when the minister said, “To possess a firearm is a right, and it's a right that comes with responsibilities.”

Here we have a minister of the crown, one of the government's chief legal ministers, directly contradicting the Supreme Court of Canada. In 1993, the Supreme Court found in the case of R. v. Hasselwander that:

Canadians, unlike Americans do not have a constitutional right to bear arms. Indeed, most Canadians prefer the peace of mind and sense of security derived from the knowledge that the possession of automatic weapons is prohibited.

Therefore, what the minister's comments last July clearly indicate is that we unfortunately have a government that likes to pander to this narrow gun lobby, and in this case the government does so fairly transparently in order to generate political support from their base.

The Conservatives like to talk about the Liberals doing mailings on gun registry and gun regulations, and they themselves do exactly the same. However, let me remind the House of a few of these initiatives regarding specific firearms regulations wherein the influence of the gun lobby is quite apparent.

In 2011 the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness drafted new regulations for gun shows that would have required things most Canadians would actually see as common sense, such as notifying local police of gun shows to be held in their jurisdiction and requiring tethering of guns on display just as is done with cellphones in sales kiosks. These gun show regulations would have been brought into force in 2012, but no, that did not happen. Instead, the Conservatives junked the proposed regulations altogether after complaints from the gun lobby that the new requirements would be too onerous. I guess we should have seen this coming when the gun-lobby-dominated firearms advisory committee called for the scrapping of gun show regulations in its March 2012 report.

Regulations were also due to come into force in December 2012 to require each gun manufactured in Canada to have an individual serial number, something actually required by international treaties to which Canada is a party and again something that seems like common sense when it comes to police being able to trace guns used in crimes or in the fight to combat the illegal international trade in small arms. In November 2013, and for a second time, the Conservatives quietly implemented a regulation delaying the coming into force of this requirement until December 2015, after the next election.

When it comes to Bill C-42, I guess we should be glad that the government abandoned the most extreme recommendations of its firearms advisory committee. These were the proposals for 10-year licences and proposals to allow the resale of seized weapons by police forces. We know that the police community very strongly opposed both of those measures, but now we are seeing complaints in the media from the narrow gun lobby that Bill C-42 does not go far enough in that direction.

New Democrats have a different view, one that clearly puts public safety first. New Democrats believe that public safety must always trump politics when it comes to firearms licensing and regulation. The Conservatives like to pose as the ones who understand rural Canadians, but let me say that many MPs on our side also come from rural backgrounds—I am one of those—and many represent rural ridings. I myself represent a riding that stretches from downtown Victoria all the way out to the West Coast Trail trailhead at Port Renfrew, so I do know something about law-abiding gun owners for whom hunting is much more than just a prop to use in arguments about gun registration and licensing.

Most curious, from a government that claims to put the interests of rural areas first when it comes to gun regulations, was the rejection of the NDP amendment proposed in the public safety committee to preserve the right of those in rural and remote areas to challenge the firearms exam without completing a safety course.

Let us make no mistake about it: New Democrats support the requirement for completing a safety course. However, we acknowledge that there are vast areas of this country where these courses are simply not available on a practical basis. We are glad to see that the bill would preserve the exemption for aboriginal people, but we ask why the government rejected our proposals to accommodate other remote rural residents with a similar exemption.

Let me turn back once again to the contents of the bill we have before us and make some of the arguments I made at second reading.

For me, despite the short title of the bill, there is nothing common sense about the bill's two major provisions: making gun classification a political process and removing the requirement for a transportation permit for restricted firearms to be present in any vehicle carrying them. These two proposals have no public safety purpose and instead respond to explicit complaints from the narrow gun lobby. All the other things the Conservatives want to address in this bill could have been accomplished without these two provisions.

Let me discuss the first change proposed, a change in the way weapons are classified as either non-restricted, restricted, or prohibited.

Right now, recommendations on classification, under the definitions contained in law, are made by firearms experts from the RCMP. The minister's signature is required, but there is no discretion for the minister, providing the recommendations he receives fall within the scope of the existing legislative definitions. What is interesting is to hear the members on the other side say that bureaucrats made this decision and that bureaucrats could not be overruled by the minister. However, the existing legislative definition actually does allow the minister to overrule that recommendation for weapons that have a legitimate hunting or sporting purpose.

Why was the minister unable to overrule this reclassification? It was clearly because the Swiss Arms Classic Green does not have a legitimate hunting or sporting purpose once it is modified to be a semi-automatic weapon.

What Bill C-42 suggests is that cabinet should be able to ignore classification recommendations from the experts charged with keeping the public safe, the RCMP, and substitute its own wisdom about how weapons should be classified. The members on the other side say yes, the minister would be allowed to consult whomever he wants, and some Conservatives have even suggested that the proper people to consult would be gun manufacturers, who could advise cabinet on the classification of the weapons they are trying to sell.

Bill C-42 goes even further by allowing cabinet to grant exemptions for guns and ammunition that would otherwise be prohibited weapons.

Where did this perceived need for change come from? It came from that single case that has been referred to, the reclassification of a single weapon, the Swiss Arms Classic Green, as it is sometimes called. These are military-style weapons that had originally been sold in Canada as a semi-automatic weapon limited to firing five rounds. Before 2013, there were approximately 2,000 of these in Canada, worth about $4,000 each. Why, then, were they reclassified?

It came about because the RCMP found that so-called refurbished models were showing up in gun shops in Calgary, but they were now operating as automatic weapons. This meant these weapons were now being converted to automatic weapons capable of firing a long series of shots from a single trigger pull, exactly what the designation of “prohibited” was designed to keep off the streets in Canada.

When an outcry resulted from this reclassification, the Conservatives were quick to grant a two-year amnesty in March 2014, an amnesty for which I believe the legal authority is doubtful at best. Now we have Bill C-42 before us as the longer-term solution, since this bill would give the current Conservative cabinet the power to decide if these dangerous weapons should remain on our streets.

Quite apart from the danger of ending up with automatic weapons on the street, there is another important principle at stake here. When we make laws, we make them in public, after public debate, and they stay in force until there is another public debate about changing them. In fact, what we have in this bill is the creation of a process whereby cabinet can in effect change our gun classification system and the classification of individual weapons and ammunition by making decisions behind closed doors and without any public debate.

Who knows who will be serving in cabinet after the next election? Whoever that is, I know I do not want decisions to be based on political considerations, but instead on the professional recommendations of public officials charged with keeping Canadians safe.

The other major change in Bill C-42 is removing the requirement that exists in most provinces to have a permit in any vehicle transporting restricted firearms and prohibiting any province from reimposing such a requirement. Currently, permits must specify a reason for transporting a restricted firearm and specify that the travel must be from a specific point A to a specific point B. This makes it relatively easy for police to enforce the prohibition on the illegal transportation of firearms.

Bill C-42 rolls transportation permits into the licence to own firearms. This would automatically allow the transportation of firearms between the owner's home and a list of five categories of places: to any gun range, to any gun shop, to any gun show, to any police station, and to any border post for exiting Canada. In my riding alone, this would create hundreds of possibilities for those who wish to violate the law to make excuses for having the weapons in their vehicles, and this change would make the prohibition on the illegal transportation of weapons virtually impossible for police to enforce. Unfortunately, the committee did not hear from the law enforcement community, for a variety of reasons that I addressed earlier.

There are other provisions in the bill about which New Democrats have questions. Members on the other side have raised the question of the grace period. I want to state once again that New Democrats have said that inadvertently forgetting to renew one's licence should not always result in a criminal record. However, the government has gone whole hog the other way and removed any penalties for people failing to renew their gun licences. We have suggested that if it is truly inadvertent, a lesser penalty than a criminal record could be imposed, but a penalty should still exist.

Does anything in this bill look good to New Democrats? Certainly measures that make prohibitions on gun ownership easier in cases of domestic violence are welcome, as are the expanded requirements for gun safety courses.

Clearly, public safety is not the central priority for the Conservatives in Bill C-42. In fact, its two main provisions seem to pose new threats to public safety.

Media interviews with the government's friends in the gun lobby have made several things clear. One is the close links between this narrow gun lobby and the Conservative Party, especially in terms of fundraising, as I mentioned, the other is that they will not be satisfied to stop with Bill C-42, and they intend to demand more in the future. This close relationship between the Conservatives and the gun lobby is why no one should trust the Conservatives any longer when it comes to putting public safety first on licensing gun owners and the regulations of guns. In the end, that really is the reason why we will be voting against this bill.

We had a chance to have a full and fair debate here in Parliament. We had a chance to hear a full range of witnesses. The government had already decided that neither of those things was going to happen with this bill. As I said, it sat on the order paper from October and it is inexcusable to me that the government should then suddenly whip the bill through in such a short time. It needs full consideration. We need to hear from the law enforcement community about the impacts of this bill, and we need to hear from more Canadians and from disparate kinds of groups. The government did a good job in bringing hunting and fishing groups before the committee. They are legitimate stakeholders and we were glad to hear from them. However, hearing from just one side in this debate does not make for the best legislation.

The government accuses us on this side of fearmongering, and I guess we throw the same charge back at it. The fearmongering we are talking about is based on real concerns about public safety, so I would argue that fearmongering is not the right word. We are talking about what happens in many municipalities, in many cities around the country. We have the example of Surrey, B.C. where we have had a number of murders in that community, which I believe is now up to 25 in two months. There are very high levels of gun violence, so we have to make sure that any of the changes we make to a bill like Bill C-42 do not inadvertently contribute to these high levels of violence. We have seen similar problems with gun violence in downtown Toronto. We see now in British Columbia the gun violence extending to the community of Abbotsford. It is like a cancer that spreads throughout the community. We have to do all we can to ensure that reasonable regulations, and the things that I talked about, such as having serial numbers on guns manufactured in Canada, are in place to help police officers do the work they need to do to keep our communities safe from gun violence. This is not just about hunters and fishers, although we do have to make sure that we have a law in place that is practical and reasonable for them. It is also about safety in our main communities. In this case, I would argue that the government has not found a balance, instead it has gone for one side of the debate only.

What will the government say to families in Surrey? What will it say about the need to attack gun violence there? We heard the minister say in question period today that sometime in the future the government will provide more RCMP. He could not say exactly when, but that there would be money in the future. We have the government saying that the budget has been increased for the RCMP, for CBSA and for CSIS. However, when we actually look at the budget, as the minister invited me to do, we find that the level of cuts since 2012 will not even be made up for another four years. How do our law enforcement agencies cope with these epidemics of gun violence that are happening in urban areas?

Because of the high level of resources required to meet terrorist threats, we have seen just this week that the RCMP has been forced to cut such programs as the Condor program, which targeted those offenders who left a halfway house or escaped custody and were illegally at large. There was a special task force to make sure that those people who belong behind bars end up back behind bars. However, the RCMP had to cut that due to a lack of funding.

Once again we have come around full circle here for a government that likes to talk tough on crime but not provide the resources needed and, inadvertently, through its ideological approach to gun licensing and regulation, may actually make things worse in our urban areas.

Therefore, once again, the New Democrats will stand up and call for a gun licensing and regulation regime that puts public safety first, and that is not Bill C-42.

New Democratic Party of Canada

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, like many of us, I watched with excitement as thousands of Albertans gathered in front of the Alberta legislature to cheer on Premier Notley as she was sworn in.

It was great to see the size of the crowd and the enthusiasm. It reminded me of how excited the other NDP members and I were when we formed the official opposition for the first time.

Since then we have worked hard on behalf of our constituents to come up with concrete measures that will make their day-to-day lives easier, such as providing affordable day care spaces, cutting taxes for SMEs and restoring door-to-door mail delivery. We stood up for our principles even when it was not popular, such as when we opposed Bill C-51, because the NDP does politics differently.

Next October, people across the country will follow Alberta's lead and finally be able to elect a government that works for them and with them, an NDP government.

Motions in Amendment

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure and a certain amount of emotion that I speak to Bill S-6. My heart has a soft spot for Yukon and its people.

In 1976, I first went to Yukon to undertake a study on the feasibility of expanding youth hostels. For those of us who remember the late 1970s, it was a time of youth migration across this great country. My task was to see if we could set up a network of centres or hostels to accommodate these young people. That was my first opportunity to visit this magnificent area of Canada. I went for a few months and stayed for five years, perhaps the happiest and most rewarding of my life.

My next job involved working with the Yukon recreation branch, which at that time came under the Department of Education. The minister at the time, a current senator for Yukon, was Senator Dan Lang. I fondly remember spending time in his office trying to get support for various initiatives that our branch was working on. Now we see each other occasionally on flights to and from Ottawa. However, unfortunately we do not agree on Bill S-6.

One of the initiatives that I had the pleasure of working on, an idea that came from the director of recreation at that time, Barry Robb, was that of implementing a network of territory-wide recreation and advisory boards that would be all inclusive. We tried and were successful in involving all communities, with first nation participation as equals, helping to break down some of the barriers that existed at that time.

What is puzzling is that this type of consultation process has apparently been lacking in regard to the bill before us. As I read my notes, I find it very troubling that the Conservative government is once again attempting to ram its ideologically driven agenda through without taking into account the needs of all citizens of Yukon.

Yukon is a majestic area with an extraordinary landscape, wide open spaces unequalled anywhere in the world, and with a dynamic proud people. While there, I spent many hours visiting various communities, from Dawson City to Watson Lake. I even had the pleasure of flying into Old Crow in the Arctic Circle. At that time, we had functioning mines in Elsa and Faro. I even spent a few months working as recreation direction in Elsa.

Bill S-6 would unilaterally rework Yukon's environmental and socio-economic evaluation system, a system which is a product of the Umbrella Final Agreement, which settled most of the first nations land claims in the territory. The Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act, YESAA, is a made-in-Yukon solution to the unique environmental and social circumstances of the territory.

It is clear to see that the changes proposed in Bill S-6 are being driven by what I would call the corporate agenda of southern resource development companies. The bill would dismantle the environmental and socio-economic assessment process developed in Yukon, by Yukoners for Yukon.

In my opinion, it is part of the Conservative ideologically driven agenda to systematically weaken environmental protection legislation, with no public consultation, little or no parliamentary security, and often being buried in omnibus budget legislation. Some examples of weakened environmental laws include the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, Fisheries Act, navigable waters protection act, and Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act.

It is interesting to note that four former fisheries ministers, three of them Conservative, have been highly critical of the gutting of the Fisheries Act by the current Conservative government. I would like to recognize one of these individuals, the hon. Tom Siddon, who continues to serve his constituents as a director with the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen.

As I mentioned earlier, there was incomplete consultation with Yukon first nations before these amendments were made. I find it hard to believe that there was no public process while developing these amendments. At the same time, non-Yukon stakeholders, including the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, Mining Association of Canada, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association were allowed input.

It appears as if the Yukon government, with support from the Conservative MP and senator, pushed this deal through in spite of considerable opposition to the changes from Yukoners and the Council of Yukon First Nations. In other words, these amendments favour the Yukon government over the Yukon first nations, the other partner in the YESAA process.

There should not be this kind of division. What is more, the Council of Yukon First Nations has threatened legal action should the bill become law. Ironically, instead of favouring development, Bill S-6 could wind up slowing it down.

Let us listen to what Allison Rippin Armstrong, vice-president of lands and environment at Kaminak Gold Corporation has to say:

...Kaminak is concerned that the process through which YESAA is being amended is creating distrust between governments and uncertainty in the assessment and regulatory process for current and future projects in Yukon.

Specifically, the YESAA five-year review resulted in a number of recommendations, most of which were supported by the parties involved in the review, including Yukon first nations. We understand that some of the proposed amendments do not accurately reflect comments and recommendations raised during the five-year review, and as a result, instead of celebrating a historic alignment between the governments and the Yukon first nations on most of the proposed amendments to YESAA, Yukon first nations have expressed a common position that they intend to take the federal government to court, if Bill S-6 is passed as proposed.

Kaminak is very concerned about this development, because court cases create assessments and regulatory uncertainty in addition to extraordinary delay, all of which erodes investor confidence.

In these difficult economic times, why would any government even consider implementing measures that would encourage economic uncertainty? It would seem to me that a stable environment supported by first nations should be a necessary prerequisite to any shift in policy.

Former Yukon MP Larry Bagnell spoke in the House to the original bill creating YESAA on October 21, 2002. He said:

Much of that time has been spent in consultation with stakeholder groups and, as a result, we have a much better bill and much better process than might otherwise be the case. First nations in particular will have a more meaningful role in assessments in Yukon.

It is safe to say that virtually everyone in Yukon had an opportunity to comment on the bill and many did.

Larry talked about how the department released drafts of the legislation in 1998 and 2001 for public review and undertook two separate tours to meet with first nations and other residents to review and discuss these drafts. He went on to say:

This took time, but it was time well spent. Those in Yukon who participated believe the process was inclusive, transparent and worthwhile.

Why is it that a former Liberal majority government made an effort to adequately consult prior to introducing legislation where our current conservative regime has chosen to disregard the democratic process?

Speaking of the lack of respect for democracy, one only has to look at how the Canadian Wheat Board was gutted in spite of support for the single desk by over 60% of farmers, or the complete rejection of over 20 amendments proposed by the NDP and Liberals to strengthen the food safety act, Bill S-11, or most recently the way that Bill C-51 was rammed through, in spite of the fact that knowledgeable witnesses spoke out against these draconian measures. Clearly Canadians are asking for a change. This will happen in October, but sorry for that digression.

Ruth Massie, Grand Chief, Council of Yukon First Nations said this when appearing before the Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources:

Pursuant to the UFA, the CYFN, including Yukon First Nations, Canada and Yukon undertook a comprehensive review of YESAA. Initially, CYFN, Yukon First Nations, Canada and Yukon worked collaboratively to prepare the interim YESAA review report. In the end, Canada unilaterally finalized the report and systematically rejected the input from the CYFN and Yukon First Nations.

The proposed amendments in front of the Senate today were not discussed in the five-year review process with Canada and the Yukon government.

Mary Jane Jim, councillor, Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, said:

...it is our view that YESAA has been operating effectively and efficiently since its enactment in 2003. The federal government now works to unilaterally make additional amendments to the YESAA. We did not request these amendments, nor do we support them. These amendments are not necessary.

Let me close by saying that I believe this is not a good precedent in these difficult times. I urge all members of the House to reject this flawed piece of legislation.

Justice

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would encourage the hon. opposition member to read Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act, 2015. I find that reading the bill is the best way to find answers to these questions.

Once again, I will repeat that CSIS is forbidden from investigating or disrupting lawful advocacy, protest, and dissent.

This bill would also place firm limits on what CSIS could do to disrupt threats.

Canadians expect security and intelligence agencies to have the tools they need not just to gather information, but also to prevent threats from being carried out against Canadians and Canadian interests. They also expect politicians not to glorify terrorists.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has created the impression that the issues I raised about Bill C-51 are taken in ignorance or denial of the risk of jihadi terrorists. It is quite the contrary. My point, which he would have heard had he been listening, was that by creating disruption activities by CSIS agents without proper oversight and with no requirement for pinnacle control between CSIS and the RCMP, we are in fact leaving ourselves more vulnerable to such terrorist attacks.

The advice to the public safety committee from John Major, the former Supreme Court judge who oversaw the Air India inquiry, was very clear. He advocated for a national security adviser to operate in pinnacle control. However, witness after witness urged that we have some way to ensure that CSIS agents and RCMP officers connect with each other, that they know what each other is doing, and that someone provide oversight. That is what is missing in this bill. That is what makes it more dangerous.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak tonight and address some of the misinformation that is still being spread about this bill. There was a lot of unusual stuff in that question from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

The international jihadist movement has declared war on Canada. Canadians are being targeted by jihadi terrorists simply because these terrorists hate our society and the values that our society represents. Jihadi terrorism is not a human right; it is an act of war. That is why our government has put forward measures to protect Canadians against jihadi terrorists, who seek to destroy the very principles that make Canada the best country in the world in which to live.

That is also why Canada is not sitting on the sidelines, as some would have us do. Instead it is joining its allies in supporting the international coalition in the fight against ISIL.

The concept of a threat to the security of Canada is clearly defined in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act. That definition has been there since the legislation was originally passed, and the anti-terrorism act, 2015 does not change that definition at all.

In the CSIS act, threats to the security of Canada comprise terrorism, espionage, sabotage, and foreign influenced activities. They also include violent or unlawful covert acts to overthrow our constitutional system of government.

To further clarify misinformation being spread by the opposition continually, I want to remind members that CSIS is not permitted by law to investigate lawful advocacy, protest, and dissent. Under its new mandate, it would not be able to disrupt these activities either.

In fact, it is our police forces that work to protect our rights and freedoms and it is the jihadist terrorists who threaten our security and want to take away our freedoms.

While I am on my feet I will take this opportunity to ask the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands to do the right thing. Several days ago, that member made ridiculous comments about admitted terrorist Omar Ahmed Khadr. He pleaded guilty to heinous crimes, including the murder of American army medic, Sergeant Christopher Speer, and our Conservative government has vigorously defended against any attempt to lessen his punishment for these admitted crimes.

While the Liberal leader refused to rule out special consideration for this convicted terrorist and the NDP actively tried to force Canadian taxpayers to compensate him, we believe victims of crime, not the perpetrators, are the ones who deserve compensation.

That is why the member opposite must apologize to Tabitha Speer, who was left without a husband, and Tanner and Taryn Speer, who were left without a father at the hands of this cold-blooded terrorist.

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

Mr. Speaker, ironically, I am rising to pursue a question on a bill that has now passed the House but is still before the Senate, so I think it is relevant to take up the issues relating to Bill C-51.

It is ironic to revisit this question. Let me share with the House what transpired on February 6 in question period. I asked the hon. Minister of Justice about two aspects of Bill C-51. One aspect related to the use of the word “lawful” to qualify protests in describing those exclusions from activities that might be seen to threaten the security of Canada. The second dealt with the new powers given to CSIS agents.

I used the word “ironic” in referring to the first part, and it will become evident when I repeat my question of February 6 for the Minister of Justice relating to the use of the word “lawful”. I asked:

Will [the Minister of Justice] amend the act to ensure that non-violent civil disobedience is precluded from the ambit of the act?

To that part of my question, the Minister of Justice responded by saying:

...protections against lawful protest [are already] covered by the act. This would not pose a threat to individuals who engage in lawful assembly.

Of course, my question was very specifically about the question of non-violent civil disobedience and protest that was, by definition, not lawful.

Time has passed, and we are all aware that in the clause-by-clause study, it was the Conservative members of the committee who, anticipating that this was a simply untenable piece of legislation and that the language used in the section would not work, actually made the change that I was requesting. In a rare instance in this place, I can say that although the Minister of Justice on February 6 denied that there was any problem with the word “lawful”, in the end that word was removed to ensure, or at least to increase the likelihood, that people engaged in non-violent civil disobedience would not be caught up in the ambit of the act.

The second point remains quite relevant. The second question that I asked the Minister of Justice was:

...please explain to the House the purpose of part 4, clause 42, that in taking measures to reduce the threat to the security of Canada, CSIS shall not “violate the sexual integrity of an individual...”

I was cut off at the end of the question, but I was trying to ask him why such a section would be included. His response was to say that:

...the mandate of CSIS [is] not extending beyond its lawful authority and, of course, being subject to judicial oversight.

Let me pause for a moment on the Minister of Justice's claim that Bill C-51 includes judicial oversight. It clearly does not. Many witnesses testified to this extent and to this point.

Judges are involved in the section that I related to the minister. Clearly, a judge is involved. A judge is allowed to grant a warrant to a CSIS agent to break domestic law or to violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but that is not judicial oversight. It means there would be secret hearings at which only government would be represented. There would be no special advocates to ensure that the public interest is protected. Moreover, there would be no opportunity for the judge to ensure that the warrant that he or she would issue would be executed properly or appropriately. As well, there would be no ongoing oversight of any kind over CSIS' activities, now that they have been empowered by the House but not yet by the Senate to engage in disruption activities, nor would there be any oversight over security operations, in particular between the RCMP, CSIS, CSEC, and Canada Border Services Agency.

This is where the risk lies. These different security agencies would operate without knowledge of what the others are doing, thereby making us less safe.

Second Reading

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin my speech by simply saying thank goodness. This is this government's last budget bill because there are only 158 days before this government is replaced by a government that is competent when it comes to finance and the economy, and particularly when it comes to respecting Parliament and parliamentary institutions.

I was here during the debate on the time allocation motion, which just wrapped up. It was unbelievable. We could feel the contempt rolling in waves off the members, particularly the Minister of Finance. I had the pleasure of working with his predecessor, Mr. Flaherty. Although I respect the current minister as a person, as finance minister, he cannot hold a candle to Mr. Flaherty, who was at least diligent and passionate about what he was doing, even though we may have disagreed with the direction the government was taking. The current finance minister is simply taking orders from the Prime Minister's Office and saying what they tell him to say, while completely disregarding parliamentary tradition.

Once again, we are talking about an omnibus bill. This bill does indeed deal with measures that were debated in the budget, but it also includes all kinds of other measures that have absolutely nothing to do with the budget we were given. These measures should be given serious study by the appropriate committees because of their ramifications and consequences.

Once again, we are in a situation where most members of the House, who represent the 100,000 or so people in their ridings, will be unable to even speak to this bill. Speeding up the passage of bills the way the government does, especially for something as important as a budget bill, is not necessarily a good thing for it to do. In addition to trying to pass bills quickly, they try to prevent people from getting the extra research time they need to uncover flaws in these bills and gaps that undermine the credibility and efficiency of government initiatives. We have seen that in the past, and we will see it again this time with this budget bill.

As I mentioned in the past, when I had the opportunity to debate other budget bills, this government seems to have a certain number of criteria that is uses when drafting and introducing its budget bills. It has eight main criteria. One of them is obviously the size of the bills. In this case, we are dealing with a bill that is over 150 pages long. In fact, the French version is 167 pages.

The government believes that a budget bill must amend a minimum of about 10 laws. When I say amend, I mean create, amend or eliminate about 10 laws. In this case, the budget bill contains 20 divisions that amend about 20 different laws. Why does the government not introduce 20 separate bills to pass new laws or amend existing legislation? It is because the government simply wants to include them all in an omnibus bill to expedite the process. That shows the government's contempt for this Parliament.

Another criterion that the government uses is that the budget bill must address many issues that have nothing to do with tax or fiscal policy. This bill contains amendments to the National Energy Board Act, the Veterans Review and Appeal Board Act, the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Industrial Design Act. Those laws have nothing to do with the budget that was presented.

Another criterion that the government always seems to use is that the budget bill must create new laws. Once again, this bill creates two new laws: the federal balanced budget act and the prevention of terrorist travel act. These two new pieces of legislation will be created and discussed at the same time as the many other measures set out in this budget bill.

Another criterion that the government always seems to use is that its budget bills must always contain provisions that concentrate power in the hands of various ministers. Again this time, we see that this bill gives discretionary powers to the President of the Treasury Board, among others, despite the Public Service Labour Relations Act.

The final three criteria that the government feels it must meet in this budget bill, as with past bills, relate to the presence of at least one legislative amendment to restrict the rights of workers and immigrants, and finally, one measure that deals with law and order. Those elements can be found once again in this budget bill, so the pattern is repeated here, and we have yet another mammoth omnibus bill.

The government is imposing time allocation. It is imposing conditions on the committee regarding its study of the proposed initiatives and measures. In the House, it is imposing constraints on independent members, who should be given the opportunity to have their say at report stage, especially since they are not members of the committee. With no regard whatsoever for parliamentary traditions or respect for democratic parliamentary practices, this government is quite happy to simply steamroll over everything, as though the House were merely an annoying obstacle to overcome in order to achieve its ends.

I know that the Minister of Finance was uncomfortable talking about time allocation. He kept returning to the subject of the debate, when we were discussing a motion regarding yet another gag order imposed by the Conservative government. He only wanted to talk about the budget. I will now talk about the measures and initiatives in the budget.

Although the government likes to brag about balancing the budget, I would remind the House that it was this very government that put us in a deficit situation in 2007-08, before the recession even began. In fact, if the balanced budget legislation had been passed or even proposed by this Conservative government when it was first elected nearly 10 years ago in 2006, this government would have already been in violation of its own law, even before the recession.

In fact, aside from the time when the government used up the entire existing surplus shortly after coming to power, this is the first time the budget has been balanced since 1912. Obviously, this government is boasting about the fact that, unlike the previous Liberal governments, it did not off-load the deficit to the provinces. The government is not wrong, because that is what the Liberals did to balance the budget in the 1990s. However, what it is not saying is that balancing the budget would have been impossible for this government if it had not dramatically reduced the contingency fund. It would have been impossible if the government had not, yet again, dipped into the EI surplus. It would have been impossible if it had not sold, at a loss, its GM shares. It took these three measures for the government to be able to boast about balancing the budget before the election.

That is not the mark of a competent government. That is not the mark of a government that shows competent economic leadership. That is the mark of an ultra-partisan government that is trying to score points at the expense of good management and sound financial administration.

Let us get back to the balanced budget act, because it is the first division of the part that deals with other measures. If we want to talk about a balanced budget act, I have no trouble doing so, but we should have talked about it separately. The Conservatives are being underhanded and at the end of their mandate are feeling the political heat because they know that their chances of forming the government in October 2015 are very slim. They just want to say that they are being responsible and they are going to limit subsequent governments' room to manoeuvre when it comes to managing the economy and public finances.

The Standing Committee on Finance heard from a number of witnesses who talked about the legislation and how it is applied in the rest of the country and where it has been implemented around the world. This kind of legislation often has perverse and negative effects that will not necessarily be found in this bill because there are so many loopholes that we can just assume that it is a symbolic gesture by a government that wants to look good.

As for the effectiveness of such legislation, the NDP has not yet had the opportunity to govern at the federal level, but we can look at what the provinces have done.

Since the early 1980s, the NDP has had the best record on balanced budgets among all the parties that have governed, at both the federal and provincial levels. In provinces that have had a New Democrat government, balanced budget legislation was not needed for the government to properly manage the provinces' finances. This tradition started with the first New Democrat government, in Saskatchewan, under Tommy Douglas, who managed to balance 17 consecutive budgets. Seventeen. He still found a way to bring in Canada's first public health care system. There is a way to provide quality services that the public can be proud of and still balance the budget.

That is not what we have seen from this government. Far from it. For 10 years now it has been mismanaging this country. Once again, I am mentioning the fact that it ran a deficit when Canada was not even in a recession. Now, 10 years later, the government is trying to make itself out to be a good manager. On the contrary, over the past 10 years this government has undermined Canada's potential to develop its own economy in a way that would benefit the entire population. The government could have supported the manufacturing sector and could have supported our exports, but it did not. The Conservatives can count themselves lucky that we can stack up against other countries whose job creation and economic records were often poorer than ours, as a result of the circumstances. This was not due to the Conservatives' good work, but rather to the situation being worse off in other countries, not necessarily because of their policies, but often because of their geographical context.

Obviously, I object to the government's desire to include measures that do not belong in a budget bill. One can argue that a balanced budget act is part of that. Obviously we are talking about public finances. However, there are other elements. For example, division 2 of part 3 is about other measures and enacts the prevention of terrorist travel act. We just had a long debate in the House and in committee on Bill C-51, which is about combatting terrorism. Putting a division about terrorist travel in a budget bill gives the impression that the government realized it forgot that. It looks like the government wanted to introduce Bill C-51 so quickly and it was so important to do things really fast that it forgot that aspect and had to sneak it in through the budget bill by saying that that aspect was there and could be debated anyway.

Again, contrary to what most Conservative Party backbenchers might think, our role in the House is not simply to approve the government's initiatives. It is our duty to thoroughly study proposed legislation. The role of the official opposition, and the opposition in general, is not just to oppose what the government does. There are some things we can even throw our support behind. Beyond this opposition role, it is also our role to make proposals and conduct reviews. Our fundamental role is to point out any flaws in the government's legislation so that the appropriate corrections can be made. This government is denying the fundamental role of the traditional structure and operation of the House of Commons. The government is so partisan and obtuse in its desire to leave its Conservative mark on this country that it does not seem to care one bit about the effectiveness or constitutionality of its bills.

We have here another example with division 2 of part 3 of the budget bill on the prevention of terrorist travel act. Why make changes to the Industrial Design Act, the Patent Act and the Trade-marks Act under the radar yet again? The last budget bill made the same types of changes to these laws. Is this a patch job? The government finds flaws and gaps and then quickly tries to fix them behind closed doors so that once again it does not appear to be too incompetent. That approach certainly gives that impression.

Another important initiative found in this section is the extension of copyright terms for sound recordings. This significant extension should be debated separately, either in the House or in committee.

Due to the new structure that the Conservative government has imposed, we can no longer even have an adequate debate in committee, because when we send a bill like this one to a committee—I imagine it would be the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in this case—only a two-hour meeting is scheduled. The minister speaks for about half an hour and then answers questions for an hour or an hour and a half.

The minister usually speaks for 15 to 30 minutes and answers questions for 15 to 30 minutes. Then there is time remaining to hear from perhaps four witnesses to talk about a fundamental amendment. Then the bill is usually submitted without amendment.

I had the opportunity to sit on the Standing Committee on Finance for the study of five budget bills. We studied over 2,500 pages and only one amendment was adopted by the government, which had a majority on these committees. Furthermore, it required a Conservative sub-amendment. A careful and rigorous examination of the measures proposed by the government simply does not happen, because this government systematically rejects criticism, even when it is constructive. It refuses to examine opportunities to improve the provisions it puts forward. That concludes my remarks on the proposals of the third division, even though I could have talked about them for a long time. Other members—although sadly not many—will have the opportunity to talk about this some more.

I would like to come back to some of the initiatives that will certainly be of interest to many members here. I am talking about the income splitting initiative proposed by the government. Income splitting will benefit only 15% of the population. By raising the contribution limit for TFSAs, the government is trying to confuse Canadians with all sorts of statistics that have nothing to do with reality. The reality is that raising the contribution limit for TFSAs from $5,500 to $10,000 will help only those who contribute the maximum amount.

Right now, only 17% or 18% of people with a TFSA contribute the maximum amount. They are the ones who will benefit from the increased contribution limit. Basically, raising the contribution limit for TFSAs will merely allow people to move their savings from one place to another, since TFSAs are not currently helping people to save money.

The government claims that the increased contribution limit will help two-thirds of those who contribute the maximum amount and who earn $60,000 or less. That gives the impression that two-thirds of Canadians contribute the maximum amount and that these people are all earning $60,000 or less. That is not true. It is two-thirds of the 17% or 18% of people who contribute the maximum amount who will benefit from this measure. That means that only a very small fraction of Canadians will benefit from this measure, which will be used more and more as a tax shelter when it was supposed to help people save money.

The members on this side of the House proposed several initiatives. The government adopted some of them and now it is boasting about them. Meanwhile, when we moved a motion in the House to lower the corporate or small business tax rate from 11% to 9%, the Conservatives and the Liberals voted against it.

We also moved a motion to extend the accelerated capital cost allowance for investment in machinery. The Conservatives and Liberals voted against that motion, but now that measure is included in the budget.

The government might want to start doing some soul searching, because the election is fast approaching; it is 158 days away. The day after the election, when they find themselves on this side of the House, perhaps the Conservatives will understand the completely disastrous consequences of their actions, their behaviour and their attitude over the past several years, especially the past four years, toward democracy, the parliamentary system and the traditions that have made this House a place to work for the common good and all Canadians.

The Conservatives refuse to hear this message. We will put it into practice after October 2015.

Indian Affairs and Northern Development--Main Estimates, 2015-2016

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Chair, do I need to remind the minister that the Conservatives have an obligation, according to the Constitution, to consult with first nations when it comes to legislation? It is something they clearly have not done.

Under the provisions of Bill C-51, do you know if your department will be able to proactively share—