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.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

While you gentlemen put on your headphones, I'll start my questions in English and then go back to French.

Mr. Huebert, you talked about the importance of having to share information with our allies. While we recognize the importance of that, some of the concern comes from protecting Canadians and their rights in the hands of foreign entities, even when they're allies. For example, even with our American friends, the protection that exists for non-Americans is just not sufficient to guarantee that the information will always be as protected as we would like.

The other issue that comes up, in particular with Bill C-51, is one that we've been raising in the last couple of weeks. It pertains to information sharing with consular services, for example, between consular services and CSIS. This idea of a ministerial directive potentially opens the door to the use of information obtained under torture.

How do you reconcile the need to work with our allies, and the fact that we also want to make sure that Canadians have the protection that they won't necessarily be afforded in other legal jurisdictions?

[Dr. Stephen Randall, Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual]

Thank you.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I'm also a senior fellow at the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies—although we haven't consulted on this—and a former president of the Rocky Mountain Civil Liberties Association. Note, however, that I do not speak for either organization, but as an individual.

The green paper identified 10 thematic areas for consultation, and I wanted to try to touch on a few of those in the short time that I have. The past two decades or so have witnessed the development of an increasingly complex international and domestic security environment. Countries in the western world, in particular, responded in various ways to heightened security concerns, in many instances increasing the powers of security agencies and, in the process, testing the limits of constitutional protections for civil liberties.

In the Canadian case, we have seen in recent years the establishment of a number of new entities. We have the integrated threat assessment centre; the national security advisory council, external to government; the national security joint operations centre; and Bill C-51, the Anti-terrorism Act.

The current inquiry, if the green paper is our guide, focuses on terrorism and terrorism-related issues to the exclusion of other identified threats to Canadian security, including, among others that we have identified over the years, health pandemics, the impact of narcotics, narcotics trafficking, and natural disasters. National security 30 years ago was defined almost exclusively in military terms. That's no longer the case. Broad cultural, social, and economic factors have to be taken into consideration.

Let me touch on a few of the areas that the green paper identifies. First, let's look at accountability. I feel comfortable in saying that the current institutions and mechanisms in place in the Canadian context would appear to be adequate features of accountability. Of course, the devil is always in the details. It depends on how effective those institutions and agencies are in practice—from ministerial oversight and the judiciary down through parliamentary standing committees like this one.

In general, I think civilian oversight bodies work less well than ones established through Parliament, to which they must be responsible, and they must have teeth. Five years ago, I did a review for Public Safety Canada of civilian oversight bodies in the Americas. Civilian oversight organizations may have looked good on paper, but their access to information was generally limited and their recommendations were often ignored. In the final analysis, I'm more comfortable in ensuring that accountability resides in an elected parliament responsible to society.

My colleagues haven't touched on the issue of prevention and counteracting radicalization, so let me touch on that. Much of the focus here is on initiatives at the community level, involving education and mentoring. Certainly, my experience from my work in and on Haiti and Cambodia has been that empowering youth and women is a very constructive approach, but there are often cultural factors that make it more difficult for women to take the lead in certain communities.

The committee asks, picking up on where the Kanishka Project left off this year, what areas might be considered for research priorities. I think these areas would include social work, education, clinical psychology, sociology, and, for more technical security issues, computer science and strategic studies.

On the issue of promoting alternative narratives, it's unclear who's to be entrusted to create and disseminate those alternative narratives. Is this to be a top-down government approach or a community-driven initiative? I think this is an area where considerable caution must be exercised. I'm thinking here of the sensitivity surrounding the debate on Canadian values.

With respect to threat reduction, one of the questions is whether the CSIS Act should be amended to make it clear that CSIS warrants must never violate the charter. It seems to me this is a very grey area. The charter is not sufficiently precise on some issues to make that kind of legislation absolute. What we need to strive for is consistency with the charter, not something that is absolute.

On information sharing, which my colleagues have touched on as well, the Privacy Commissioner has taken a very hard stance on the need to protect the privacy of individual citizens. It's difficult to disagree with that stance. However, I am uncomfortable with the notion that the hands of government agencies should be so restricted that they cannot meet their mandates effectively.

It seems to me more than ironic that Chinese and East European hackers and individuals are able to access seemingly what they want at will, but Canada does not have legal provisions for accessing IP addresses or provisions for dealing with communications providers under national security circumstances.

I'm told that the CSE is very strict on passing, to other Five Eyes organizations, material that it knows pertains to Canadians. The difficulty is that, by the very nature of the means of bulk collection on the Internet, you don't know the nationality of the sender of the messages that are intercepted.

Regarding the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, the Privacy Act already allows personal information to be disclosed in some situations, including national security, but the information must be relevant to the recipient's lawful national security jurisdiction or responsibilities. The act explicitly states that “advocacy, protest, dissent, and artistic expression” don't fall within the definition of “activity that undermines the security of Canada”, but if violent actions take place that meet the definition of “activity that undermines the security”, they can't be considered to be advocacy.

Unless I read this incorrectly, it strikes me that this suggests that one can advocate the violent overthrow of the Government of Canada, but unless it actually happens, the law doesn't apply. I think there needs to be some clarity here. The problematic word is “advocacy”.

The next area, that of investigative capabilities in a digital world, I've alluded to with respect to the IP addresses and communications providers.

With respect to Criminal Code terrorist measures, we know the terrorism peace bonds and the change of the wording to “may” commit from “will” commit have been the most publicly controversial developments of the past several years because of concerns that actions in this area may result in the restriction of a citizen's liberty without a formal charge or court conviction. Clearly the threshold for obtaining recognizance with conditions and terrorism peace bonds must be very high. These are very legitimate concerns.

My own thinking has evolved over the past years, certainly since 9/11 and recent developments. Given the international situation and the current threat assessments, I am increasingly inclined to lean more toward advancing security, as long as reasonable safeguards are in place.

I would caution against the use of closed and secret judicial processes and the use of anonymous witnesses. In the 1990s Colombia tried the use of faceless judges and protected witnesses in order to keep them from being murdered. I don't think Canada is at that stage. I think we need to have more faith in our judicial system.

In conclusion, I think we all recognize how complex, sensitive, and controversial these issues are, but times and circumstances have changed over my all-too-brief 72 years. I certainly don't want to see the charter compromised, but I also don't want to leave society vulnerable to acts of terrorism because we lack the courage to confront the issues in a rational way.

Thank you.

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

I like the idea regarding the sharing of information act. As there's this whole review going on with Bill C-51, this committee could perhaps have input to give government with regard to those specific provisions. I think it would be a fairly short study.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I had two suggestions. One would be more timely, and one we could do to fill space whenever.

First, we've heard from the Privacy Commissioner and we've heard from Michael Geist with respect to information sharing and the impact on the Privacy Act, but well beyond the Privacy Act, the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, and the implication of that act, which formerly was part of Bill C-51, but no longer is. The Privacy Commissioner had spoken about how he's trying to get more information from departments. He didn't really have a full update as to the impact of SCISA.

I'm also on the national security committee. We are engaging in broad consultation right now. The minister is engaged in that same consultation, but it's fairly broad. This committee could be fairly specific, drill down specifically to the impact of information sharing, and SCISA in particular. That will be one proposal for now.

Down the road, just to fill a couple of days, I think it would be useful to review the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons, specifically section 15 and the practice of sponsored travel. I think it's ripe for change and it's something this committee should look into.

But that's to fill space. I don't think there's a particular timeline—

[Kathy Shimizu, As an Individual]

Hi, my name is Kathy Shimizu. I'm also not very.... I was very prepared, but I think now I'm not very prepared.

I just wanted to speak because I'm also a member of the Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association human rights committee. I'm a Sansei—I'm a third generation Japanese Canadian—and both my parents and their families were interned during the Second World War. So I ask you to repeal Bill C-51, which I guess is now a law, along with Bill C-24.

The rights of Canadians have been violated in the past, and this law is the same. It goes down that road, and it's dangerous to the rights of all Canadians. Bill C-51 is not needed because the Criminal Code covers all of the illegal activities that it purports to help us fight. If people are doing illegal activities in Canada, the Criminal Code covers this. You don't need this. As other people have said, this is draconian. It's about racism, and it's about fearmongering, and I ask you to learn from history. Don't make the mistakes of the past.

As a Japanese Canadian I am proud of my heritage and the Government of Canada has already acknowledged that it was a totally wrong act to imprison its own citizens. This kind of bill leads to the same kinds of things, and I ask you to stand on the right side freedom and the rights of all Canadians.

Thank you.

[Rukshana Homi]

Okay, well, you're about to learn, “it may... [be] difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived...external threat”. That was by Zbigniew Brzezinski, a big player in politics.

“ Today Americans would be outraged if troops entered LA; tomorrow they'll be grateful. This is especially true if they were told that there was a threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated”—that's the key word—“which threatened their very existence. It is then that people will plead with their leaders to deliver them from this evil, and individual rights will be willingly relinquished.” That's Henry Kissinger, another big player in politics.

“The truth...is...the plans are there...in the name of stopping terrorism...invoke the military and arrest Americans”—and presumably, Canadians—“and hold them in detention camps.” Congressman Henry Gonzalez said that in 1988.

The elephant in the room that I'm speaking about is false flag operations. I would suggest, please, if you don't know what it is, study it and study it, and investigate it, because it is the oldest trick in the book. So much of what we hear about the t-word.... It used to be the c-word, communism, the big bogeyman, and now it's the t-word. Please, I ask you to understand, terrorism is a growth industry. Who profits from the war on terror? The banksters, the military industrial complex, the elites who are running this world at the CFR.

Please open your eyes to what is really happening there. These are the people who profit from phony terrorism. If you think everything that's delivered to you on CBC, which is corporate controlled.... It's completely controlled media now, everywhere, even the CIA. William Colby said that anybody who has any influence in media is controlled. It's a rigged game. If you think, when you watch television, that the latest horrible event is true to form, please question and investigate that. Investigate it like your life depends on it, your family's life depends on it, and your country's future depends on it.

Nothing kills democracy, freedom, and truth, and implements agendas, like false flag operations. History is littered with them. Please, I beg you, if you don't know them, then you better study them. They've been happening throughout history, and they're happening up until today. That is the guise under which Bill C-51, and all other draconian measures leading to a Big Brother security state, which is not security at all but a police state, can literally decimate our country and our sovereignty. This is your duty. You must know what this term is about. Any time you're told that such and such an act has happened, you are obliged to investigate it and not just take it at face value from what the propaganda says in the National Post and the CBC, and all the others.

Thank you.

[Rukshana Homi, As an Individual]

Good evening.

I didn't know about this until the last minute, and hence my comments may be a bit scattered. Like many, many people have mentioned here, a lot of people are strongly against Bill C-51, and yet very, very few...I don't know of anybody who knew about this. I just found out literally today.

There's an elephant in the room, an elephant that almost never gets addressed. It has to be addressed. May I ask, please, all of you here who I'm addressing, how many of you know what a false flag operation is? Could I ask that you raise your hand so I could know?

[Joseph Theriault, As an Individual]

I'm Joseph Theriault. I'm a long-time political activist and a candidate for the Marxist-Leninist Party in New Westminster—Burnaby in the federal elections. I would like to bring up the issue that, as you can hear, many people do not have faith in the process of consultations, both on this issue and on many other issues that the Liberals are using. If you recall the federal election, a major part of the election was opposition to Bill C-51. The Liberals during the election had promised that they would immediately pass legislation to put into place oversight and accountability on the bill, and as this is the first anniversary of their coming to power, there's been no sign of that.

The reference to oversight has disappeared, and they're now talking about evaluations. The committee they're proposing to evaluate are going to be sworn to secrecy, and they can't give any information on things they know, so we have people who can only evaluate. If they evaluate and find out anything, then they aren't able to share it with the Canadian polity, which is, you could say, a part of a police state situation.

The green paper they published doesn't talk about security and rights, but it diverts the whole discussion to the question of combatting extremist terrorism and using that to say they need to have exceptional measures outside the rule of law to be able to make it safe. They want to enact this impunity supposedly in the name of defending us, but when you come down to it, what we will have left is a government.... They're trying to say that after this legislation, we'll have a government of laws, but we're left with unfettered police powers that remain for any of the former public authorities. I'm very concerned.

This process is eliminating the accountability of the government to the Canadian public. We're asked to be able to trust these guys, but without any information, and they are allowed to carry on.

I'm 70 years old, and I was active in the sixties and seventies when the War Measures Act was brought in. As life unfolded, evidence came out that you had agents operating within the FLQ, with people like Corporal Samson, etc. You had the RCMP violating laws, burning bridges, burning barns, and disrupting political movements. This was indeed the rationale for the creation of CSIS, to separate those powers. That's all gone aside, you have very small consultations, and supposedly these emails and twitters are counted as feedback. Basically, it's a fraud. We need to have the bill repealed, and we need to have the question of national security dealt with by empowering the people to be able to make their police force and the government accountable, which is the opposite of what we have now.

[Minah Lee, As an Individual]

First of all, I am a guest in this land, and I am a non-citizen, non-PR, who has been living here for a decade. I acknowledge that I am in the first place excluded from the consideration and from the conversation by being non-Canadian. At the same time, I'm deeply concerned by this whole issue and I have been following it since I am living here.

I'm also an artist, and I have been prevented from gaining more legal or political ground in this land by being an artist, because that isn't really in line with the economic security that the nation is going for.

A few years ago, I made a piece of artwork focusing on the lone wolf terrorist and also the online predator issues, which I was dealing with after some public shows. Then what happened is, unfortunately, I experienced some incidents that were violating my privacy very profoundly. Then I realized that the existence of this anti-terrorism bill might account for this unexplained act of destruction.

I'm here to talk about the goal of the imagination that is implicated in this law. I have actually become very interested in this issue since then. I saw a video of the Minister of Public Safety talking about the lone wolf terrorist issue, defending against the criticism of Bill C-51. He said the copycat mentality is very dangerous and we have to go to the roots of these people and disrupt them. I couldn't quite grasp what that really meant and it gave me a deep chill actually.

I couldn't stop thinking that it is the law that proves the state's privilege to imagine and to impose the imagined narrative on people at the risk of their actual safety and freedom of mobility and freedom of expression. My biggest concern is that this logic is being normalized and perpetrated while the group of people who are the most vulnerable and unprotected and barred from their legal rights are being kept from and excluded from the issues of the rights and their actual safety as this issue of nationalism is being perpetrated in a binary way, of Canadians and non-Canadians. I'm also speaking on behalf of all the people who are racially discriminated against and who have to go through that in their life. That was my argument.

Also, I recently saw a diagram showing the threat level of terrorism. As many who have spoken previously said, many people do not agree with this law. This diagram was designed for people like me who don't really have enough time to go through the long letters of the laws. It very simply described medium and low and high levels of threats and showed that Canada's threat level was medium. It's almost like this kitchen science logic that is easy for people to understand and keeps trying to convince people who don't really agree with it.

I'm just questioning this normal imagination or convincing process of creating those contents to convince people who are not really agreeing with this law.

Thank you, and thank you for having my voice heard.

[Robert Feher, As an Individual]

Thank you.

I only found out about this today, so I didn't have much time to research. I quickly googled this before I got here to figure out as much as I could and to be as informed as possible. I didn't come for the meeting beforehand [Inaudible—Editor].

There were a few things that I thought were really weird about Bill C-51. One was that the agency in charge of overviewing them and making sure they do everything right, which I think was SIRC or something like that—the Security Intelligence Review Committee, if I recall correctly—said that before they even got policing powers, CSIS, they had trouble overviewing them and making sure they were doing everything right. There were some things going on that were kind of like, oh, you shouldn't be doing that. Now that they have a lot of policing power that's very vaguely defined so that they can do not everything they want against terrorism, but almost anything, then there's not going to be a lot of oversight in making sure they're doing things properly and not overstepping their boundaries, which is bad.

The second thing is about the no-fly list. I found out that to be put on the no-fly list there's not really very much of a requirement, other than I think “reasonable grounds to suspect” someone. To get off the no-fly list involves going to court, but the court proceedings can be held in secret, so the person who wants to get off the no-fly list, the public, and that person's lawyer can't hear the evidence about why CSIS says no, to keep them on the no-fly list. You could say “why am I on the no-fly list?”, and you could say that you want to repeal that. You go to court, court happens, and the judge says, “Okay, I've heard the evidence and I've made my decision, and you just stay on the no-fly list.” When you ask why, they say they can't tell you because that's secret. That's kind of shady. That's really weird.

Those are my concerns. That's about all.

[Letchumanapihai Pathmayohan, As an Individual]

My name is Letchumanapihai Pathmayohan. Thanks for the opportunity to come here to speak. I saw this today in the newspaper so I thought of coming after I read about it.

As for the reason I'm here, I have been here in Canada for more than a quarter-century. I came from a war-torn country. I should say now that there's genocide in that country against Tamil people. When Bill C-51 came to be implemented, before that, what was happening in our community is that we were unable to bring our political matters, political issues, to the mainstream media or to the Canadian policy-makers, because we became like [Inaudible—Editor] We didn't know how to express that to the Canadian government, the policy-makers, the decision-makers, or the embassy, and we always were seeing scary things and fear tactics. We couldn't speak and we couldn't tell the truth.

When we came here, we thought that Canada had such freedom of speech and freedom of assembly all over the country. I really appreciate the Charter of Rights of Canada, which we don't have back home in my old country. We don't have any human rights there, and there is no Amnesty International. We came from that kind of country. We came here and our sovereignty.... We are free to bring these matters to the politicians, the decision-makers.

All of it it is under threat from all the terrorists, so we are going to be afraid to come forward and speak out. The majority went into the closet, even the educators and economic intelligentsia; they all went quietly. Mostly, it's keep your mouth shut. They want to go to work and they don't want to talk about these things. That disappears. The scary part is to speak out. That's what I am here to tell the committee. We had to work politically, in a political manner, and how did we want to bring it if we had this kind of a fear thing? Also, it brings the freedom fighters. The terrorists came, and they never consulted with the community people or the members in a due process as to whether it was the right thing they were doing or wrong. The people were defenceless, because we came from a troubled country. That sense of [Inaudible—Editor] does not exist here, I believe.

In Toronto, they have a lot of communities, quite a few. There is a large number of Tamil communities, but in Vancouver, we are all scattered. We are quite a few, I guess. That's what my sense of it is. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak today.

[Stephen Ellis, As an Individual]

Hi. I appreciate your time and the chance to be here.

I'm a private citizen. I'm now retired. I used to work for each of the largest telephone companies in Canada. I had dealings with CSIS. They always needed a warrant. Of course, I've been retired for a while.

I'd ask the committee to remember why CSIS was created. CSIS was created because it was seen that it was really dangerous to have a police agency that had intelligence power. CSIS was created as a separate entity to take that away from the RCMP. Bill C-51 gives police powers back to CSIS. If you don't see why that is dangerous, then you really need to do some reading. You need to understand what all the privacy commissioners in Canada have said and why they oppose this bill.

Right from the start they opposed this bill. A couple of hundred legal academics opposed it. Almost every other former prime minister opposed it. The only people that I could see who were for it were the spooks and the people in the Harper government who saw a chance to take advantage of a terrible incident and bring in these really draconian powers on the part of CSIS.

I have a couple of suggestions. One suggestion is that if you want more information about the danger of trying to put back doors into encryption, then take a look at the writings of Dr. Bruce Schneier. He has a much-read blog. He's a very well-respected part of the information security community. He's at Schneier.com. You'll get a lot of really good information there about the dangers of trying to put back doors into encryption and why it's a danger to our economy to do that. If you removed encryption, then many businesses would fail.

Another suggestion I have is about this idea of CSIS going before a judge to get a warrant. Although it doesn't appear to be happening, that's very troubling. When CSIS does go before a judge to get a warrant, there's nobody representing the other side. CSIS on their own makes the decision of whether they should go for a warrant. Then they're the only ones presenting information to the judge. I think you need to involve the privacy commissioners or somebody like that to provide a counterbalance for what CSIS is requesting.

The privacy commissioners are a resource in the country that I think you're not utilizing. Your government is not utilizing that resource with respect to CSIS.

I can go on for a long time, but I don't think we have much more time.

[Kathryne Ayres]

I'm scared. I think that Bill C-51 is dangerous. It's going to be used as an excuse to do things that Canadians don't really want to see done in the name of protection, but it's actually for a certain kind of misuse of power.

Thank you very much.

[Kathryne Ayres, As an Individual]

I'm not very well prepared because I only found out about the hearings this morning and I've been working all day.

I want to speak about the issue of accountability and the lack of expert oversight...CSEC, CSIS, the RCMP, all of the agencies working together as they would under Bill C-51, and as they have been.

I'm fairly new to understanding the importance of intelligence in making a country safe because, as many people of my background, politics has not been in the forefront. Once I started learning about what was really happening in Canada, I became very alarmed. What really opened up my eyes was the layoff of Eva Plunkett. She was the inspector general of CSIS, and Mr. Harper laid her off with no excuse, other than he wanted to save a million dollars. He would save a million dollars by laying her off. Well, officially she retired, but he closed the department. That was expert oversight of CSIS.

All that was left were Mickey Mouse SIRC committees with questionable leaders, one who actually was working for an oil company, Chuck Strahl. I have lost all trust that our spy agency CSIS is really working the way it should.

One of the reasons that Eva Plunkett was let go is because she was critical of CSIS. She provided reports that raised questions that were not taken very willingly by the government at the time.

We've had four years without expert oversight of our spy agency. We talk about Bill C-51 and all the problems there—and are there ever a lot of problems. Nobody is even talking about the fact that nobody is really looking after CSIS, and that's one major cog in this wheel.

I want to know if the Trudeau government is going to reinstate the inspector general office; if they are going to respectfully request the services of Eva Plunkett, who was extremely knowledgeable about what was going on there; and if they can be on top of looking at the problems in Bill C-51, of looking at what's really been going on over the past four years.

[Michael Burnside, As an Individual]

Hello. Thank you for holding this. I'm very confident you would see a lot more people here if there was more advance notice. I'm really grateful to everybody who did show up. I thank all of you. I only heard about this today.

I think the whole premise of Bill C-51 is based on the idea that we're under threat of terrorism, which I think is ludicrous on its face in the first place. I think the whole thing is based on the fact that we went in on this aggressive military act in the Middle East following the U.S., and it was a mistake, and as a result we drew aggression towards us. The fact that we have this bill now to try to combat something that we drew upon ourselves, and overreaches what is necessary and what is sane, is ludicrous.

Whatever kind of demographic you may ascribe to me personally in terms of age or gender, I want you to understand that I'm representing everybody I know, because there's not a single person who supports this. This bill is poison. It's completely useless. It's far over the top. We're not under threat of terrorism.

I support a full repeal. I don't think you can pick and choose. I don't think it's adequate. I don't think it accurately addresses the actual concerns that we have going forward in the future. All the wonderful points by the people brought out from OpenMedia are absolutely accurate. You cannot guarantee the security of devices when you build in back doors. You can't have laws in Canada where you can lock up people who do peaceful environmental protests. You can't do that. We're not going to support this, and we're going to continue fighting to have a full repeal.

There's not one of us. Is there anybody here who is in support of Bill C-51? What is the ratio of people you have met who support this versus those who do not? I mean real people, not friends, not family, but constituents. I've never met a single person in Canada or abroad who supports Bill C-51.

That's it. Thank you.