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.

[Prof. Lisa Austin]

I don't have any insight into why the government chose to do as many things as it did within Bill C-51, but I would say there's a very delicate balancing act in which there are legitimate needs, as Mr. Kelly has been pointing out in his questions too, for the national security agencies to have the right powers to do the job we all want them to do. When these tragedies happen, that's the emphasis in the mind of Canadians.

If you go too far in overbreadth of new powers, then you're going to hit the other end, which is undermining trust in government. I think Bill C-51 goes too far in that direction. Specifically, obviously my comments today are on the information-sharing act, and I do think there's a delicate balance, but I think this isn't the right balance.

[Micheal Vonn]

I think that certainly, along with many Canadians, we saw the initial polling on what was then Bill C-51 as something with great emotional sympathy for the crisis, the tragedy that had occurred. Overwhelming numbers of people said yes, we must have a response. Then you will recall that very shortly afterward—I can't remember if it was weeks or some very short months—when people had had an opportunity to acquaint themselves with the bill, the majority of people who did so and were polled said that they did not support it and that the point was not that we must do something but that we must do the right thing. It must be proportionate, necessary, and effective, and this was not found to meet the measure.

We certainly understand the need for responsiveness, and we don't slight that in the least. The question is whether, with sober hindsight now, when we apply our rationality to this, we have effected an improvement.

As Professor Austin was indicating, we have no indication of efficacy. As the community of privacy commissioners of Canada has said, we have actually achieved no reasonable justification for these extraordinary powers. Do we know that they are making us any safer? We do not. Instead, as I hope I made clear in my submission, we actually serve to harm some of the federal institutions that are part of the architecture of our government by imposing this information-sharing scheme on them.

We should consider very carefully not whether we have tools but whether they are the right ones.

[Micheal Vonn]

May I say that when I did education on what was actually in Bill C-51, there were often audible gasps in the audience when people found out that those who might be rendered to torture, Canadians, would have no civil recourse under SCISA because of the liability waiver that is part of it—and this is, of course, something that has happened.

Citizens of Canada who know this about this portion of the act are appalled.

Public Safety

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, CSIS has been storing sensitive data on totally innocent Canadians, a policy that the government defended, but the courts have now said is illegal. This metadata can reveal our medical conditions, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and much more. While many are calling for new safeguards, the minister has left the door open to double down and make it easier for CSIS to mine data from ordinary Canadians.

With Bill C-51 still the law, does the government now want to add the power to store the sensitive data of innocent Canadians, yes or no?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

It's just not being accessed.

You've had the ability to share that information under Bill C-51. Was any of that information shared with other departments?

[Ziyaad Mia]

I will echo my colleague here. We've called for it for a long time. A committee of parliamentarians is fine. I think Bill C-22 needs some reform, but it's a step in the right direction to give some political accountability and public accountability linked to all of you who are elected.

The first thing is to have a national security review agency that unifies all the agencies, but it would not be separate agencies working together, which I think is too convoluted. You want one counterweight to the security agencies. It makes security better, makes them work better, and gives public confidence.

Second, we need well-resourced experts in the field who can build relationships with the agencies and have access to all information.

Third is that independent review of national security law and policy as they have in the U.K. That person would, in the case of Bill C-51, come and testify on that and give independent advice on it. That person would be able to have access to secret jurisprudence and legal opinions in government and be able to comment to the public and experts with some feedback on what the national security landscape looks like.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you very much. This is very interesting testimony.

I only have five minutes, so I'll ask you to try to keep your answers as short as possible.

My first question is in regard to the institutions that can send or receive information. In terms of your interest in Bill C-51, in regard to having so many institutions that can send information—from the Yukon Surface Rights Board to the federal Consumer Agency of Canada, which I didn't even know existed—has the case ever been made that they actually have information that is somewhat relevant to national security? Has there ever been a case made for the 17 agencies that are listed in schedule 3 that they have anything to do with it?

For instance, we have the Department of Finance, which deals with national security. It's on the recipient end. Has there ever been a case made for them to be on the recipient end of SCISA?

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Perfect. Thank you, guys, very much for being here today. It's important. We have limited time, so I want to make sure we're staying on the topic. We can then make this part of our report for SCISA. I appreciate your doing that.

I'd also remind my colleagues on the other side of the room that in fact Bill C-51 was supported by the Liberals at the time. Granted, I don't think any of you were there at the time, but it was certainly supported on your side.

[Ziyaad Mia]

I'm happy to do that. I understood that Mr. Long asked me about scrapping Bill C-51, but I can stick to SCISA.

In SCISA, as I said, information sharing needs to happen. We see the extremes. We see Air India and Arar. We see both sides of it not working.

It needs to work, but as Mr. Kapoor said, it speaks of activities that undermine the security of Canada, and then it lists a number of things in the act, which I'm sure you've all seen, and that is not the list. It is an open-ended list, given content by bureaucrats across government. Those are just suggestions about what undermines the security of Canada; it could include other things.

Essentially, the definition is the heart of the bill. You start with a fundamentally flawed definition and then you start to share information. There are no controls on how that information is shared. The door is open for sharing with foreigners, and that could include Saudi Arabia, and now, with the Trump administration talking about torture, it could be there.

Then I'll point out to you section 9. Section 9 says that when someone shares information and it harms a Canadian or some person—but let's say a Canadian, as in the Arar case—they're immune from paying out compensation or being sued for it.

It's essentially a busted bill. What we need to do is say that information needs to be shared, that it needs to be reliable, that it needs to be in compliance with the charter and the rule of law, and we need to make sure that CSIS actually works with the RCMP to move intelligence into evidence and get real terrorists off the street. The CSIS amendments actually are counterproductive to that.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Yes. I just want to make sure that we're sticking to the information-sharing aspect of it. We're going down a long list of Bill C-51. I would like to think that we could focus on just the scope of what the committee's looking at right now.

[Ziyaad Mia]

Thank you for the question.

I think the bill itself—or rather, the law now—was so fundamentally flawed that whatever redeeming qualities it might have had were outweighed by the flaws. I usually use this example. If I bought a house that had a crumbling foundation, I wouldn't throw a few coats of paint on and say, “Let's keep this.” I'd say, “Let's start again.”

Let's go through some of the essential elements of Bill C-51.

The CSIS provisions give CSIS secret disruption powers to essentially disrupt people's lives and take actions that could result in disasters, as Mr. Kapoor said. They are a non-starter in a democracy. Things could happen to people, and they would never have legal recourse. They happen in secret. They would never see the light of day.

In a criminal context, police get warrants and they do have secret wiretaps, but ultimately it sees the light of day. You have a day in court. That's essentially our system. When the state acts against you, you have the right to defend yourself. When CSIS acts against you under these disruption warrants, you will never know and you will never have the right to defend yourself. Whether you're guilty or innocent, you won't have a shot to defend yourself.

Let's talk about promoting and advocating terrorism. First of all, the definitions in there are loose to begin with. The Criminal Code already has always had counselling offences, so when you're involved in criminal activity and encouraging it, you can be caught.

The Anti-terrorism Act, 2001 introduced criminalized actions that were removed from action, such as facilitating terrorism or encouraging someone to start committing a terrorist act. I had critiques about that, but it was still close enough to the act. In criminal law, what you want is to criminalize the act. Terrorism is essentially violent acts. They want to kill someone, so let's say it's killing someone. If I facilitate you to do that by encouraging you, giving you money, talking to you, I can be caught there. As a democratic society, we want to capture the act or something close to the act. If we get far from the act, we're starting to stray from our criminal law and democratic principles and we're starting to criminalize speech. What I learned in law school is that you don't pass redundant laws.

In the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015 we already had facilitating, which is close to the act. Then this must be something further removed from that, so now we're getting very close to criminalizing speech. I'm not saying I support people who say things that encourage terrorism. Of course, we all condemn that, but we live in a society where we tolerate some of that offensive speech.

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act amendments in Bill C-51 essentially rolled it back, and Mr. Kapoor can speak to this in more detail because he is a special advocate. The Charkaoui decision said that in the security certificate process, secret proceedings where a judge sat alone with a CSIS lawyer were essentially unconstitutional. They introduced special advocates to represent the interests of the named party on the security certificate. Bill C-51 essentially rolls that back. IRPA was amended to say that the special advocates don't have access to all the information. It kind of undoes what the Supreme Court has told us.

Those are three pieces of it.

Let's talk about the no-fly list. We can debate till the cows come home whether no-fly lists—

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for coming today. It is a very interesting topic.

Mr. Mia, I want to start, I think, in a wide-ranging way.

I've done some reading of some of your articles in the paper and some other things. In one article I read, you felt or you suggested that Bill C-51 is so flawed that it should be scrapped. Personally, I question whether something like that should be scrapped, so I just want an initial comment. Do you feel that we should just throw that out and start again, or do you feel that we are able to tweak it and make adjustments?

[Ziyaad Mia, Member, Legal Advocacy Committee, Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association]

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for the invitation to be here today. It's a pleasure.

We're studying the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, which, as you all know, was introduced as part of Bill C-51, Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, and it is now law.

My general concern with the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, or SCISA, and the Anti-terrorism Act 2015 is that it was essentially it was broad and unnecessary legislation in essence. The entire piece of legislation, including SCISA, was unnecessary, and the justification for it was not there.

Our national security sector is in need of significant change and reform, and we do need to share information. Those things need to happen in Canada, but Bill C-51 and SCISA were not the correct responses to address those very real concerns that have been festering away. Mr. Kapoor can talk about some of the commissions of inquiry. We can talk about that, but some of our commissions of inquiry have made excellent recommendations identifying the problems in our national security sector, and for various reasons those recommendations have gathered dust now for 10 or more years, even the O'Connor inquiry.

That's the context in which I put my comments forward.

The other piece is that the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, which, as you see, is called the “anti-terrorism” act, was styled as an anti-terrorism law and sold as an anti-terrorism law, and that's not what it was. It was and is a broad national security bill, and it's quite far-ranging. We can talk about some of that today in this piece of legislation, and I'm happy to talk about the other elements as well, if you like.

Again, it was not necessary, because what we needed to do was reform a number of things in national security. There were specific and focused items that we needed to deal with, and we still have not dealt with those. The Anti-terrorism Act, 2015 does not address those concerns. In some cases, it actually makes those problems worse and actually diminishes the capacity of our national security services to find threats and neutralize them.

In general, I think Bill C-51 and SCISA fail on three essential elements that I like to talk about: legality, accountability, and effectiveness. These are the cornerstone principles that I look at when I'm assessing law.

In terms of legality, that would be a sense of the rule of law, that law and policy need to be compliant with the rule of law and the charter, need to be necessary, and need to be proportional. There needs to be a public justification and an explanation of why we need law, because we don't just make laws that are not required, and we need to be compliant with our international human rights obligations as well. I think ATA 2015 and SCISA fail on legality.

Let's talk about accountability. You're all parliamentarians. All of us went to school here, I assume, and learned about responsible government. To me, that's the nub of accountability: that we have a government that's responsible. Public justification comes into it, so that citizens know why we are doing things. You as legislators explain that and are transparent in that.

Bill C-51 lacks that. Public justification is not sound. It doesn't introduce transparency into the national security sector or into the law itself. The public justification in that process itself was a little broken. Again, in terms of a culture of accountability across government and in the notion of responsible government, that culture of accountability also needs to be in the national security sector. That is clearly lacking in Canada.

What we ought to have is an evergreen process of accountability in Canada, in national security but in government generally. I think that would make our national security system work better, be more accountable, and have public confidence, and at the end of the day, I think we'd be safer.

The last piece in my principles assessment, the lens I look at things through in terms of law and policy, is effectiveness. Is it effective? Does it work? I actually think ATA 2015 and SCISA are not effective in getting to what we want. We want a national security system that identifies threats, keeps Canadians safe, and complies with the rule of law and the charter, and so on. They actually don't make things better. They make things worse.

We spend a lot of money on national security. I put it to you that some of that money is not money well spent, because when we talk about SCISA, we'll talk about how we may be chasing red herrings, collecting too much information, and missing the point. That might make people feel safer, but I don't think it actually makes us safer.

We do need to share information and national security—don't get me wrong—and we do need to investigate threats and get at them, but we need to do it in the right way.

Bill C-51 and SCISA are not the right way to do this. Again, part of effectiveness is necessity. Did you need this law? I'm still scratching my head as to why Bill C-51 was needed. Purportedly, it was in response to the acts committed, one of which was in Ottawa—the killing of Corporal Cirillo—and the other of which pertained to a gentleman in Quebec. Those were terrorist attacks, criminal attacks, but although Bill C-51 was sold in that context, there's really no link to how it addresses those issues.

Those are operational problems. We can talk about that, and those need to be fixed, but Bill C-51 does not address those incidents of 2014.

Again, I come back to evergreen accountability. When it comes to national security, the first thing we need to do is prevent. The second thing we need to do is investigate. You prevent as much as you can, and that's front-end work. Not a lot of people know that. That's either community relations or working to move people off the road to violence.

If that doesn't work—in some cases, obviously some actors are committed—you want to investigate and interdict. That's where police come in. I have some serious concerns about the CSIS disruption powers, but the police need to be involved in interdiction and prosecution. Then we need to review—that's an important part—and reform, to improve the system.

That loop is the evergreen process that I'm talking about. We do not have that working well in Canada, and that's what we need to think about.

I have three minutes, so let me talk a little about SCISA itself.

As I said, information sharing is needed in Canada. We need to do that in policing and in national security, but it needs to be done right.

Mr. Kapoor is here and Mr. Cavalluzzo was supposed to be here. Mr. Kapoor was involved in the Air India inquiry and Mr. Cavalluzzo in the Arar inquiry. Those are two ends of the spectrum.

As a Canadian of Indian extraction, I can tell you first of all that it was not acknowledged for a long time that Air India was a Canadian tragedy. There was a failure of information sharing and institutional egos. That's one part of the problem.

The flip side is Arar, where reckless information sharing led to disasters.

What we need to do is learn from those lessons and get to the middle. Again, I'm not against information sharing, but it needs to be done right. SCISA is the wrong way to do this. It's overly broad, unbounded information sharing.

I usually use the analogy that if we're trying to catch terrorists, it's like finding a needle in a haystack. SCISA is adding a couple of trailer loads of hay to that pile. God forbid there's a disaster, a terrorist attack or something to that effect, and we find out that we had too much information and that what we needed to look at snuck through. What we really need to be focusing on are the real threats.

I have about a minute and a half left, and I know you're going to keep me to the 10 minutes. I'm happy to talk about the details and I'm sure we will, but I'll close with the broader context.

What we really need to do is reform national security, as I said. One piece of that, as you've heard from others, is review, proper review. I know some of our agencies don't have any reviews. Some do. They're siloed. You've heard all of that.

You've heard Kent Roach, Craig Forcese, and others echo those concerns. I really am an advocate. I believe you have my submissions from Bill C-51 previously. I'm an advocate of a unified, independent, national security review agency, the Canada national security review agency.

If there's integration in national security intelligence and operations, you need that counterweight. We can talk in detail about that, but that's one piece that needs to happen, and there are other pieces.

I'll be idealistic and tell you, “Let's repeal the ATA 2015. Let's start again and find those fixed pieces.” If you're willing to do that, I'm happy to work with you on that. If you're not willing to do that, then SCISA really needs significant reform, as do other pieces of Bill C-51. The biggest piece for me is the CSIS disruption power. CSIS should not have those powers, full stop. Those powers should be repealed.

I'll stop there. I'm happy to talk about the rest of it. Thank you for the opportunity.

Opposition Motion—Cuba

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is a great honour to rise in this august institution and speak. For the folks back home who are wondering just what the heck is going on in Parliament today, it is Thursday afternoon and it is the time of the month when the Conservatives have to release the pressure valve, let all of the backbenchers off the chain, let them run around, howl at the moon, pound their chests, light the big bonfire, and throw red meat to their base.

Today, for people watching, we are now back in the cold war. The cold war is a place the Conservatives love to be. Those were glory days for the Conservatives. The fact that the world has moved on means they are a little lost. They need something. This is their day to bring an issue of great importance to Canadians. For folks back home, all Parliament stops today so the Conservatives can bring forward a motion. It is the right of the opposition—New Democrats do it—to have a debate on an issue of substance.

The folks back home whom I represent would probably want us to talk about the pension crisis. That would be a good debate here. There is the fact that many families that I represent do not have doctors. A lot of that is provincial, but with the health accord and the transfers, that is a debate we could have here. People are deeply concerned about the brutal bombing in Aleppo and the role Canada could play. That would be a matter for debate in the House. However, the Conservatives figure they have a gotcha moment on the Prime Minister, so they will have a special debate to re-fight the cold war in order to try to embarrass the Prime Minister of this country.

I will be sharing my time with the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, by the way.

It is not my job to defend the Prime Minister on any given day, although people on the other side probably know I am always more than fair, more than reasonable, and more than willing to bend myself into a pretzel to understand some of the inane comments I have heard. However, I am not going to lose any sleep over his comments on Mr. Castro.

I listened to the Conservatives invoking Marco Rubio, of all people, saying we should be outraged. I do not know; I may classify myself as one of the few Canadians who has actually never visited Cuba. Everybody else I know goes to Cuba all the time. They tell me about the Havana nightlife and the great people, but the Conservatives make it seem as though they are flying into some kind of death camp. The only reason I have not visited Cuba is that I do not deal with a warm climate very well, being a northern boy.

I was listening to the Conservatives invoking Marco Rubio, of all people: if Marco Rubio is upset, Canadian people should be upset. One of the statements that was made on the day of Castro's death was, “Upon receiving the sad news of the death,...I express my sentiments of sorrow to...family members of [Mr. Castro]”. The Pope said that. Pope Francis did not mind saying something nice about the guy, so if Pope Francis said something nice about the guy, let him rest in peace.

We have more important things to talk about here than the legacy of Castro and the Bay of Pigs and the legacy of the cold war. We have issues that have to be dealt with. If we are going to get to whether the Prime Minister should have said a little more this way or a little more that way, I am not the kind of guy who loses too much sleep over prime ministers or politicians speaking off the top of their head. If they are in front of a microphone 24 hours a day, they are going to say some stuff and get called out. That is fair play.

I am more interested when people make statements that are supposed to mean something and they do not actually live up to them. That is when I think debate should happen. For example, I remember the Prime Minister, when he was in the third party, saying 2015 will be the last election using the first-past-the-post system. He was not equivocating; he was as clear as could be.

Now Liberals are saying that all of the work of the all-party committee, which was told by the Prime Minister to go across the country, was too rushed, too radical, unnecessarily hasty. Then we had the disgrace in the House this afternoon when the Minister of Democratic Institutions insulted the work of politicians and Canadians who participated in those hearings, saying they did not work hard enough. That is what I would hold the Prime Minister to account on.

We have a tradition in the House. It is this old gentlemen's club and, now that there are women in the House, there are gentlewomen. It is very unparliamentary to ever accuse someone of lying. We can never do that, but it seems perfectly parliamentary to lie, because someone could say that maybe the member misunderstood.

We need to call the Prime Minister out on promises that he made, that he told people he would keep, and that he had no intention of keeping; for example, on democratic reform, and on cash for access.

The Prime Minister's mandate letters to his ministers said not just to follow the law but to go above it, and they were under the Conflict of Interest Act. Now they are saying that every other party has done it.

For all the years I have been in Parliament, no one on the Conservative side ever once said that I took their side. However, when Bev Oda tried a cash for access scheme, she gave the money back. The Conservatives knew it was wrong and they gave the money back.

It might be the finance minister. Maybe he believes that actually being in a billionaire's living room and getting paid $1,500 might be democratic consulting. Maybe it is just the way he thinks.

God forbid I should say great things about Jim Flaherty. Jim Flaherty and I went at it like brass knuckles, but he was a democrat. He knew what meeting people was about. We disagreed on a lot of stuff, but Jim Flaherty did not need to raise his money sitting in a corporate boardroom with six or 12 friends paying $1,500. There is something wrong with that. That makes people cynical. When the Prime Minister promises to do better, he has to do better.

I am thinking mostly about what he said to the residential school survivors. I was there when he said:

Moving forward, one of our goals is to help lift this burden from your shoulders, from those of your families, and from your communities. It is to accept fully our responsibilities...as government....

Yet, this week, the justice minister was in court trying to overthrow a ruling of compensation to a child survivor of sexual abuse. The government, the feminist government, said that a residential school survivor had to prove intent of an adult. There is no legal standard in the world that accepts that, except when it is applied against Indian people.

Last month, the Minister of Justice tried to throw out a case. The Ontario Superior Court called it a perverse misapplication of justice on a child who was raped in a residential school but could not remember the date, and the justice department believes it can have that case thrown out.

We had the Department of Justice knowingly suppressing thousands of pages of police testimony. When it was forced to hand over the documents, it took out the names of the perpetrators, including a serial pedophile at St. Anne's Residential School who abused children for 40 years. The person who came forward for compensation had the case thrown out because the Department of Justice had that thrown out.

I go back to this again and again, because either we have one set of laws in our country or we do not. That the justice minister believes they can undermine and establish a second set of rights for Indian people in this country is absolutely appalling and is a breach of all legal duty.

I was there when the Prime Minister made that promise. I teared up. I believed him, Canadians believed him, and the residential school survivors believed him. There are many promises the Prime Minister made, and he made them with full heart, and people trusted him

I could talk about Bill C-51. The Liberals did not like it, then they were afraid not to vote for it, and then they said “Don't worry, elect us and we'll change it”. Nothing happened.

They talked about a nation-to-nation relationship, and the justice minister said Site C did not meet the standards and ran roughshod over aboriginal title, and they approved it anyway. A politician's word has to mean something.

We are having a lot of fun today debating something that I do not think most Canadians are going to care much about tomorrow, or the day after, or probably even after the debate is over, but we have issues that we need to debate in the House. The debate has to be about how we start talking in a way that Canadians can start to trust us.

With all due respect to my Conservative colleagues, they are having a lot of fun. They are taking the pressure off. They are feeding red meat to their backbenchers. They are howling at the moon, jumping up and down, beating their chests, and denouncing the reds and the commies. In fact, I have not been called a Bolshevik yet, but I am sure that is coming too. That is all right. Meanwhile, we will get back to work.

Yes, I will be taking numbers on that one.

Public Safety

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

Mr. Speaker, while the RCMP is still trying to get enhanced surveillance powers, regular citizens have yet to see the changes to Bill C-51 that were promised during the election campaign.

The government seems to be listening more to the RCMP and CSIS than to citizens who have real concerns. The surveillance of journalists and indigenous activists and CSIS' illegal storage of data are hot topics these days.

When will the minister see the urgency of the situation and repeal Bill C-51?