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.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

I think you may or may not be misinterpreting that. I believe you, but what I'd like to say, as a legislator, is that I don't support abuse of any law by whomever. There seems to be a lot of hype over Bill C-51. Some people have said that we live in a different world today, ever since 9/11, and particularly in the last five to eight years, probably, in Canada.

It is a different world that we live in. I don't like it any better than you do and I have grandchildren coming up. A number of people have said things are going to have to be a little different. It's like airport security. I don't like it either. I travel a lot, as do all my colleagues. I hate it, but it's all part of keeping Canadians safe.

The old adage that I hear people say quite a bit is that if they're not doing anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about. I say that as a comment. Do you want to comment to that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Stay there if you don't mind, as it gives the committee a chance to ask you a question.

I have a question.

This is a new Parliament, and Bill C-51 doesn't exist anymore, so we have a whole set of laws that have been enacted not just in Bill C-51 but in previous governments as well that meant to address a threat or a perceived threat of terrorism. There was a collective understanding in different governments that some Canadians at least wanted to restrict their rights or were allowing the government to restrict their rights for the sake of greater safety.

Are there particular issues you would like us to address first? We're going to be around for awhile, hopefully, as parliamentarians, and not everything is going to get done right away. Our committee is working on this in good faith, and I'm not asking you to trust us, as you'll trust us if we do our good work, but is there something in particular that irks you in Bill C-51?

[Ian O'Sullivan, As an Individual]

No, I'm just speaking for myself here.

My name is Ian. I assume that most people here know the general contents of Bill C-51, and have heard many times about the rights that it takes away from us. To go into detail about the many ways this bill subverts our Constitution would take much more time than we have here today.

If you have not already done so, I encourage you to read the Bill C-51, document online, and to also refresh yourself on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to find exactly where this bill eliminates our rights.

Canadians had absolutely no say in Bill C-51 and it's charter-destroying legislation, nor in its very implementation. To have a public consultation on this draconian bill over a year after the fact on such short notice is disrespectful and insulting to Canadians.

Perhaps that is why there are not more people here today, because they believe the government is not really listening to them and that it does not actually care. This is being made more evident by its disregard for what the people actually want.

We'll see if this consultation was all just for show in the end, but I still have hope for our country.

A bill of this nature should have gone through a public consultation and approval process long before being passed as it affects all of our fundamental rights and freedoms.

This is not acceptable if we are still to consider our country a free democracy. This is, in fact, more reflective of a fascist dictatorship. The ramming through of this bill, and then asking about it later is equivalent to a thief breaking into your house, stealing all of your most personal belongings, and then asking you how you feel about it.

You claim that we are your bosses, but yet the majority of Canadians do not support Bill C-51 just as they do not support the stripping away of their guaranteed rights and freedoms. So why is it that this bill is not being repealed immediately?

You assume that Canadians should be paralyzed by the fear of terrorism when, in fact, we are more in danger of getting killed by a moose than by a terrorist. Maybe the fear is the point in order for the government to pass the legislation it wants to pass with as little interference as possible. What Canadians fear most is what is happening now, and that is this quiet governmental takeover of our country.

I demand the immediate repeal of Bill C-51.

[The Chair (Mr. Robert Oliphant (Don Valley West, Lib.)), Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Welcome. I'm going to call to order the 32nd meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

My name is Rob Oliphant and I'm the member of Parliament for Don Valley West and the chair of this committee.

I want to particularly welcome to our committee those of you who have come as guests tonight.

I will outline the way this will work.

Our committee is travelling across the country. We're engaging in a study to look at the national security framework to address concerns that have been raised by Canadians about legislation over the last number of years and about how that legislation could be revisited.

There are two consultations going on right now. The government itself is having a consultation, and that is through the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. He has issued a green paper and has engaged Canadians to talk about this issue. We are running parallel to that. We are not government. We are Parliament and we have decided to undertake a study and advise Parliament on what Canadians are saying about the national security framework, and then offer that wisdom to the government should they decide to take it.

As a standing committee we will be reviewing legislation and amendments to legislation that come out over the next few years. These hearings will also help us as a sort of pre-study for legislation that's going to be given to our committee to review.

We represent the three parties that have official standing in the House of Commons. There are three of us from the Liberal Party of Canada, two from the Conservative Party of Canada, and one from the New Democratic Party, representing essentially the standings in the House of Commons as we go.

This afternoon we heard from people—I use the word “expert” loosely, because I think everybody has expertise—who spend their whole life on the issues of public safety and national security, as we did yesterday afternoon in Vancouver. Then last night in Vancouver we had a fairly large gathering of members of the public who wanted to talk about their concerns. Some of them focused on the green paper, because they had read it or had seen it online. Others talked particularly about former Bill C-51, which contains a new act and a number of amendments to other acts. Others talked more generally about the concepts around national security.

We have no ground rules tonight, other than to stay on the general guidelines of national security and public safety. That's our general guideline. However, this meeting is your chance to talk to six parliamentarians who will be writing a report to Parliament about national security. We're interested in what you have to say.

As it's a small group, because I suspect that other things are going on, but also because of the relatively late notice, and people are not always organized to go to parliamentary committee hearings—it's not part of their life—I thought we would take the first half hour or so to have a meeting with those who are here. At that time, if other people haven't arrived, the committee may suspend for a short period of time and wait to see if other people come, because we've advertised the meeting from 5:30 to 7:30. I'm also of the opinion that the right people are in the right room at the right time, and so you are the right people and this is the right time.

Four of you have signed up to speak. However, I'm going to be fairly flexible on that, and if someone who is not on the list is moved to speak, we may ask you to sign up on the spot and we would be delighted to hear from you as well.

The speakers list that I have been given starts with Ian O'Sullivan. I'll give you three or four minutes to address our group.

If you're representing a group that's sometimes helpful for us, but if you're not, that's fine.

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

Okay.

Councillor Crowchild, thank you for your comments. I particularly connected with the mention of Idle No More. When this debate was happening over Bill C-51, there was a lot of concern over information sharing, for example, with the Department of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs and CSIS. The example of Cindy Blackstock came up, in terms of what's been shared and the RCMP doing surveillance and stuff. Is this still a concern when it comes to first nations wanting to dissent and protest to protect their treaty rights?

Just before you respond, my second question is this. How can we make sure we're respecting first nations as part of this process that we've taken on in reviewing the national security framework, to make sure we don't keep repeating these mistakes that you have so eloquently described?

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

But that's very specific, and it doesn't touch the very broad scope that Bill C-51 prescribed.

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

But I guess my question, just from a technical point of view, is there was nothing preventing that from happening prior to Bill C-51.

[Prof. Michael Nesbitt]

It's a great question.

A number of factors go into it, but let me say this by way of analogy. I'm drawing on my experience now within government.

Say you have a group of people who are taught from when they are hired that everything they do is really important, and it's really important that they keep it secret. They can't tell their wives. They can't tell their husbands. They can't tell their partners. They can't talk about it to anyone. You grow up in a culture where you can't tell any information to anyone. And, of course, we have this inherent idea, I think as humans, that what we do is important. So it's really secret and it's really important.

Then you give the opportunity to people to share information, and what is their default position? In my experience—this is accurate, right?—if you have an access to information request to CSIS, it will be injurious to national security, most of it. If you give one to Foreign Affairs, it will be injurious to international relations. You have the cultural human response to the job that these people have.

Beyond that, there are factors within the government itself that increase that. If I'm at the lowest level and I'm responsible for determining whether information should be shared within a group, my default position is that if I share it I might get in trouble, but I know I'm okay if I don't share it and go back to it. My default position is going to be conservative about it. Then, if I push that up to my boss, well, my boss likely isn't going to undermine me. Their position is going to be to ask whether there is anything else in there that we should keep private.

So you have this inherent cultural secrecy, which I think is very much human nature. It's very natural. But if you want to talk about information sharing meaningfully, permissive actions, as were taken, as you mentioned, in Bill C-51, to say you can now share misses most of the boat. Most of it is not that you can share but will you share; are you willing to share; is the culture there to allow you to share.

I'd add one other thing, which is that being able to share allows you to address the, quote, known unknowns. However, you still have the unknown unknowns. That's where if you had a provision that would, for example, require CSIS to share evidence with the RCMP, then I think you start to address the unknown unknowns, which is that no one has to know that I have to ask for the information, or that someone else is working on something else with a secret that I have to tell them about. It's rather that I'm required to share the information.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Professor Nesbitt, I want to speak briefly about something you wrote last December, I believe. You said that gaps in information sharing before the adoption of Bill C-51 were perhaps, contrary to the design of the bill, a cultural rather than an institutional issue. In other words, maybe the various organizations simply didn't like sharing information or were a bit territorial.

I want to know whether this is still the case, and, if applicable, whether it shows these powers were not necessarily required. I also want to know whether the same philosophy can be applied to our relations with our allies or with other countries. We already had systems in place with the United States, for example, but the issue was more cultural, as you said.

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

It was that in order to combat terrorism, we already had what we needed, and what was added through Bill C-51 was powers that weren't needed. That is generally what a number of people have come forward to say.

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

Thank you very much.

Mr. Nesbitt, we heard testimony last night that the government already had the powers it needed, so what was given in Bill C-51 wasn't necessary. Do you have any comment on that?

[Prof. Michael Nesbitt, Professor of Law, University of Calgary, As an Individual]

Hi. I want to thank you very much, first of all, for having me here. I think this is a wonderful initiative. I don't envy you your task, but I do appreciate that you're undertaking it.

Thank you. It's truly an honour to be here with you today.

I'll do my best to keep this under 10 minutes. The first thing for me, the hardest thing, was coming up with a topic to discuss here today. I come to this both as an academic in law but also having spent almost 10 years in government, both in Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice. A number of the issues in the green paper are fairly close to me, having seen both intelligence and evidence and having dealt with listing procedures and terrorist financing.

Let me discuss what I think are the two critical issues that will have to be dealt with in this round of hopefully what amounts to changes to the legislation and approach in Canada. This will be from a lawyer's point of view, because that's what I am.

The first is Bill C-51’s unprecedented grant of authority for CSIS to move beyond its traditional role as an information-gathering and analysis agency to one that's authorized to conduct disruptive activities, including specific authority for charter-infringing and unlawful activities.

The second, to take a contrary position to what I understand you heard earlier, is the desperate need for better review and oversight—I'll be a stickler about the difference between those two—of Canada’s national security bureaucracy. I say this based on my experience as a lawyer and policy adviser within Ottawa’s civil service as much or more so than I do as an academic. Too often the effectiveness of our bureaucracy is limited by the fact that decisions are made within the bureaucracy and information is passed up to ministers and reviewed, if at all, in departmental silos. Cross-cutting issues can evade cross-cutting review and oversight, and frankly they can evade cross-cutting solutions.

Let me be clear that review and oversight are not solely about protecting against possible abuses or correcting mistakes, though this is obviously very important. Sometimes human rights and security can be mutually reinforcing rather than a tug-of-war. Review and oversight are desperately needed to improve the coordination and effectiveness of our institutions in responding to national security threats.

In this regard, parliamentary review of national security matters of the type that's now been proposed is a crucial first step and gets us in line with our Five Eyes allies, but it alone isn't sufficient. Internal review of national security operations that stretches government-wide is needed. Greater formalized central coordination—I'm talking about oversight here—or the possibility thereof, for example in the hands of the NSA, is also needed.

With that in mind, I want to spend the remainder of my talk on the first element that I mentioned, Bill C-51’s amendment to the CSIS Act to grant the department disruptive powers. In particular, I'm going to focus on three troublesome aspects of this new disruptive power: first, the authority to breach the charter; second, the authority to conduct unlawful activities; and third, what I see as, in practice, the limited opportunity for an independent party, particularly the courts, to review the legality of CSIS’s behaviour.

To be very clear from the outset, I don't necessarily take issue here with the objective of the new disruptive powers nor with the specific determination that CSIS must have such powers. To my mind, we the public simply don't have enough information to make a determination on that ground. As a result, my concerns will relate more to the scope of the grant of power as it was legislated.

I'll move to the first aspect, the authority to breach the charter. This is perhaps the most clear-cut of the issues, to my mind. CSIS’s new authority to breach any charter provision so long as it obtains a warrant is fairly clearly unconstitutional. No other body in Canada can obtain prior authorization to breach the charter, let alone any section of the charter. Such authority is completely unique and is found nowhere else in Canadian legislation for very good reason; as I said, it's probably unconstitutional.

This authority has been compared to a couple of provisions that I understand have come up, one being the section 8 warrant procedures and the other section 9, arbitrary detention. I'm going to argue that these are very different animals.

Let us be clear that when police have a warrant judicially authorized, it's done to confirm the reasonableness of the proposed search and seizure; quite the opposite of authorizing a charter breach, in the normal circumstances with police, the normal warrant process confirms that police are indeed acting legally and in compliance with the charter. It was brought up earlier what reasonableness might mean. Well, it is actually really clear in law and fairly easy to determine. That is, you have reasonable grounds to make the case out of sufficient evidence, you go to a judge, and the judge confirms that for you.

To put it another way, the process is meant to ensure the prevention of charter breaches in the first place, not to authorize future breaches. The same is true of section 9 of the charter, on arbitrary detention. You get an arrest warrant. The warrant process is there to ensure that the detention will not be arbitrary; it is not to authorize a future arbitrary detention.

Moreover, this normal process only applies to section 8—and as I said, section 9—because the section 8 right is qualified by the term “unreasonable”, and again, section 9, by the term “arbitrarily”. Yet CSIS is nevertheless empowered to request authorization for a breach of any section of the charter.

The other argument I've heard is that section 1 of the charter provides for “reasonable limits” to charter rights—which it does—so the CSIS warrant process is really no different from this. However, section 1 requires that the government legislate, first, specifically and clearly when introducing legislation that might breach the charter. It's then incumbent on the government to articulate the specific objective, its scope, and its limitations. An open-ended invitation to judges to undertake this legislative process ex parte, so with only government lawyers present, and in camera, so in private, to determine when and how state actions might infringe the charter is, once again, a very different animal. My suggestion would thus be to remove from the CSIS Act the authority to breach the charter.

I'll move to my second concern, the unlawful activities. Under its new disruptive powers, CSIS is authorized to conduct unlawful activities. Such a power in this case is not without precedent: the Criminal Code does authorize police in certain situations to conduct unlawful activities, mostly undercover operations. Yet again there are striking differences in practice, even if the wording sounds similar as between the two provisions.

First, police power is constrained by about four pages of legislation in the Criminal Code, including specific limitations on the type of unlawful activity such as the loss of or serious damage to property, and the requirement to file a specific report on the unlawful activity as well as detailed annual reports on unlawful activities. The CSIS Act does not offer anything close to the same protection, does not require any reporting, and does not limit the scope of what unlawful activity might be in the same way that the Criminal Code does.

Although I'm not convinced one way or the other that there needs to be authority for CSIS to engage in unlawful activity, if CSIS makes to you a specific and compelling case that such authority to conduct unlawful actions should remain in the CSIS Act, then many of the protections and limitations that apply to the police under the Criminal Code should be introduced to the CSIS Act as well.

That brings me to the third difference between the exercise of police powers and the exercise of CSIS's disruptive powers. When police act, they act with the goal of making an arrest. The result is that the situation goes to court, and police warrants and the exercise of police power is challenged by the defence and reviewed by the courts. If there's a mistake, it can be appealed. In other words, if there are defects with the police actions or the warrants, or the issuance or authorization of the warrants, then the courts are available to review and correct the behaviour. This is why we have judicial review.

CSIS is in a very different situation. Even if their actions do become known, by their own admission and given their mandate, CSIS activities are highly unlikely to form part of a criminal prosecution and thus unlikely to be challenged in the same way as police activities. The idea is for one to be public, the other to be secret. As excellent a job as SIRC does, it is not an adequate substitute for layers of judicial oversight and adversarial challenge, particularly in these circumstances.

Again, there's a solution available, or at least a partial one. That is, a so-called special advocate—and this would be taken from the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act—responsible for providing a challenge function to CSIS requests, should be specifically built into the CSIS Act. The idea would be to compensate for the fact that CSIS warrants are a different animal from police warrants in that they're unlikely to be challenged by a defence lawyer at a criminal trial, they're unlikely to be reviewed by a court, and the subsequent implementation of a warrant by CSIS is unlikely ever to be reviewed by a court or made public. That is to say, as soon as the warrant process has been done, there is no oversight of the CSIS activity to ensure their subsequent activity complies with the original warrant.

With these inherent differences in mind, the special advocate would need authority not just to challenge the warrant, but to follow up on CSIS action to ensure the subsequent compliance with the terms of the judicial warrant, and, where abuse or a mistake is suspected, request subsequent judicial review. Again, to be really clear here, my primary concern is an innocent mistake or misunderstanding, either by the warrant-authorizing judge or in the execution of the warrant. Where matters are serious, where rights are affected, and the pressure of national security is great, innocent mistakes will be made. That's okay: but we need an opportunity to review them.

Thank you very much.

I'll listen to your questions in English or French, but I'll answer in English.

[Regena Crowchild, Councillor, Tsuut'ina Nation]

Thank you.

Dadanast’ada. Sizi naituigokoo at’a.

Good afternoon. My name is Regena Crowchild. I'm a member of council with Tsuut'ina Nation, and with me is Terry Braun, who is our legal counsel. On behalf of Tsuut'ina Nation, I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you regarding the study of Canada's national security framework.

Tsuut'ina supports action being taken by the federal government to deal with terrorist activity. However, this action cannot be taken in a way that infringes on the inherent and treaty rights of first nations.

On September 22, 1887, Chief Bull Head, on behalf of the Tsuut'ina Nation, entered into Treaty No. 7 with the imperial crown. We were sovereign peoples. We had a right to self-determination, we had our territories, we had our laws, we had our language, and we had our culture, tradition, and spirituality. Treaty No. 7 was a peace and friendship treaty. Our peoples agreed to share our territories with the newcomers to the depth of the plow and to live side by side without interference. The Tsuut'ina Nation would continue as a sovereign nation.

Almost from the day of making the treaty, we have been fighting to protect our treaty and inherent rights as a sovereign nation. At times, this fight has taken place by way of demonstrations and protests on the freedom of speech. Notwithstanding section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982, in which existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples are recognized and affirmed, first nations continue to have to fight to protect our inherent and treaty rights. While we hear this Government of Canada saying that they wish to develop a nation-to-nation relationship and that they wish to develop a relationship that affirms and protects inherent and treaty rights, we continue to wait.

First nations continue to have to take matters to court. Look at the Northern Gateway Pipelines project. In June of this year, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned Canada's approval of the Northern Gateway project. In the decision, the Federal Court of Appeal agreed with the first nations that Canada had failed to fulfill its constitutional duty to consult.

Unfortunately, court action is not always possible. Many communities, our communities, continue to live in poverty, so that when a decision needs to be made as to whether to feed, clothe, or shelter the community or to take a matter to court, the decision is usually very easy.

For most communities, the only way to get the attention of the federal government is by way of demonstrations. While the Anti-terrorism Act is legislation that was introduced by the Harper government, or the Conservative government, the Liberal government has not taken meaningful steps to address the concerns that have been raised by first nations. Almost immediately upon the introduction of Bill C-51, first nations raised concerns about a lack of consultation on this legislation that clearly impacts first nations.

As explained by the Supreme Court of Canada in Haida, when precisely does the duty to consult arise? The foundation of the duty in the crown's honour and the goal of reconciliation suggest that the duty arises when the crown has knowledge, real or constructive, of the potential existence of the aboriginal rights or title and contemplates conduct that might adversely affect it.

Our first concern is the lack of consultation as is required by the federal government. Our second concern is the legislation itself.

Quite honestly, the act feels like a return to the past, to past legislation that held Indians liable to imprisonment if three or more Indians, acting in concert, made a request to an Indian agent or a servant of the government that was deemed to be a breach of the peace.

The act, as we read it, applies to any activity that undermines the sovereignty, security, or territorial integrity of Canada, or the lives or the security of the people of Canada, and includes a broad list of activities that can be used to suggest that just about anything could be deemed to be in contravention of this act.

One of the few ways that first nations can protect our rights is by coming together. We need to look no further than Idle No More. Idle No More was a call to all people to join in a peaceful revolution, to honour indigenous sovereignty, and to protect the land and the water. Are these people terrorists? Are first nations who come together to stop damage to our ecosystems by preventing clear-cutting by forestry companies terrorists? Are first nations who come together to protect the land and the water from exploitation by profit-driven oil and gas companies terrorists?

While we have heard that this isn't the intention of the legislation, there is a long history of Canadian governments creating laws to restrict the rights of first nations. Just look at the Indian Act to understand why first nations are suspicious as to the intention of any legislation enacted by the federal government. Or more recently, look at the First Nations Financial Transparency Act. Notwithstanding both the Government of Canada and here in Treaty No. 7 territory, the Government of Alberta has suggested that they would be reviewing legislation that may infringe on the inherent and treaty rights of first nations. First nations continue to wait.

Minister Bennett stood before the United Nations assembly and confirmed that the Government of Canada was a full supporter of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Yet we are here today, and in my humble opinion, nothing material has been done.

I do not intend to go line by line through the declaration, but I will direct this committee to a few articles from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Article 3:

Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

Article 4:

Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to self-determination, have the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions.

To be clear, first nations have a right to self-determination, to freely determine their political status, to freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development; the right to autonomy or self-government. As the Anti-terrorism Act is currently written, it does not recognize these rights of first nations. As the act is currently written, it does not recognize the inherent and treaty rights of first nations.

I wish to close by again referring to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Article 19 states:

States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.

Not just with this act but with all legislation and policies, the Government of Canada has an obligation to consult and co-operate in good faith with first nations, and must obtain their free, prior, and informed consent.

Siiyigas. Thank you.

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

Thank you.

My last question is for you, Dr. Randall.

You discussed concerns regarding the protection of privacy and the fact various organizations shouldn't be prevented from carrying out their work. Yet, we think organizations such as CSIS, for example, bear the burden of proof. They must show they need these powers. In the context of Bill C-51 and under other circumstances, the organizations failed to show the usefulness of having these powers. Some even argue that it's more a lack of resources that prevents the authorities from carrying out their work in the fight against terrorism.

To justify requesting such broad powers, don't you think they should show the usefulness of the powers in a more tangible way?

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

Great.

You mentioned groups in the United States.

It's good now? Okay.

I'll use the example of the War Measures Act invoked in Quebec, in 1970, or of Bill C-51.

If we're unable to identify threats because we're not aware of them beforehand, shouldn't we be worried that we'll cast too wide a net and people who may not have anything to do with the threats will be caught in that net? In 1970, in Quebec, a wide net was cast for the FLQ, but it resulted in the arrest of people who had done nothing wrong and who were simply militant sovereignists.

Isn't this situation a concern? How can we identify long-term threats without falling into this type of trap?