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.

Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for giving me this opportunity to remind him, through his own words, that just repeating falsehoods does not make them true. Every member of the Conservative Party and the current government should learn from the words of the parliamentary secretary, that repeating falsehoods never makes them true.

However, I will give the member an expert opinion, because, of course, we like to consider the opinions of lawyers and those who know the law better than probably most of us in this place.

Yes, the parliamentary secretary is correct in the sense that government members only accepted four amendments, and these are amendments that came from themselves. The only change that happened on the piece that he spoke of is a change from the words “legal protest” to “protest”.

However, the piece that remained, that I mentioned in my speech, and maybe he missed it, is that any acts that block infrastructure could be subject to disruption and covered as part of this anti-terror legislation. That is the truth. It is not a falsehood, it has been clarified by many experts, and that is what I speak of.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before we resume debate, I will let the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage know there are about three minutes remaining in the time allocated for government orders today. We will of course have his remaining time when the House next resumes debate on the question.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a privilege to invite all members of the House to support Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act, 2015.

The safety and security of Canada, and Canadians, is being threatened. The international jihadi movement has declared war on Canada. ISIL has named Canada as a target. We have seen its supporters urge their comrades to kill Canadians by any means and at every opportunity. Al Shabaab is urging its followers to attack targets right here in our country. We know these are not idle threats. We have seen the horrific and deadly attacks on innocent people in Paris and Sydney, and elsewhere in the world, including the cold-blooded murders in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and at our National War Memorial.

It is unfortunate and difficult to accept, but we see a concerning number of Canadians travelling to other countries to join and fight alongside terrorists from Syria to Somalia. Even more worrisome, we know that some of these radicalized Canadians have returned to this country, burning with hatred, and often with military training and combat experience.

Their values may seem medieval, and talk about an earlier time in history, but they show no reluctance to embrace technology to communicate, to terrorize, to recruit and raise funds. The threat is more complex, more insidious and more dangerous than could have been anticipated even a few years ago.

We must ensure that our security and intelligence organizations have the tools to meet this threat. To do otherwise would be to abandon our most fundamental responsibility to Canadians. That is why we must move swiftly to pass this bill. It is essential to assuring the safety and security of Canadians.

As we have heard, the anti-terrorism act, 2015 has a number of elements. I hope to get through the first one, and then re-engage on this when we return.

First, it would create the security of Canada information sharing act. Departments and agencies of the Government of Canada collect information of various kinds on a daily basis. In some instances, this information may be of considerable value to the institutions charged with identifying and responding to threats to the security of this country or its allies. Yet we have no tangible, focused or reliable way to ensure that kind of information gets to the agencies in a timely way.

I am certain many Canadians would be surprised to learn, for example, that when citizenship and immigration receives a passport application that raises security flags, it is prohibited by law from sharing that information with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

I will leave it that and return to the discussion when the time is allocated to do so.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. parliamentary secretary will have seven minutes remaining in his time for comments on the question and of course the usual five minutes for questions and comments thereafter.

It being 1:40 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from April 24 consideration of Bill C-51, An Act to enact the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act and the Secure Air Travel Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Anti-terrorism Act, 2015

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I could have spoken for 20 or even 30 minutes on this bill. It is always a great honour to be able to address the House; however, I cannot say that I am pleased about the subject we are addressing here today, Bill C-51.

The bill has a very long title because, basically, it is an omnibus bill related to security issues that affect all Canadians. Of course, I am referring to 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.

The government in power is going to ram this very cumbersome piece of legislation down our throats this week, even though the bill is being criticized to a virtually unprecedented extent in the history of committees, as we will see later.

Bill C-51 would considerably expand the mandate of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. That is what people at home need to understand, aside from the fact that this bill has a ridiculously long title and that it is an omnibus bill. We are once again faced with the same problem with this government. A majority of Canadians, and even a majority of representatives from the official opposition, could support the main objective of the bill, which is to improve protections for Canadians, especially in light of some recent, troubling events associated with the threat from the Islamic State. In principle, we can understand the desire to do better.

Once again, the problem is in how the government is going about it. Once again, the government has introduced an excessively large bill, manipulated the debate, moved time allocation and presented positions that are completely out of touch with what Canada's leading experts are saying. The official opposition will therefore present 64 amendments to try to give a voice to the overwhelming number of experts who are systematically demanding that Bill C-51 either be withdrawn altogether or be significantly amended.

I am skeptical though. I doubt that the government will even look at our amendments. Unfortunately, there is no mistaking its intention to steamroll the bill through this week. Even so, I will try to bring forward some of the arguments these experts have made in the hope that the government in power will set aside its overly strong tendency to show contempt for the work of Parliament. In making an effort to present these legitimate arguments, I hope that someone on the other side will adjust even slightly his or her position on a bill that so many say is bad.

I would like to highlight the attempts that my NDP colleagues on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security have been making in recent weeks to do what I am trying to do today. I particularly want to draw attention to the work of my colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca. We are now at third reading, and we will soon run out of ways to try to prevent Bill C-51 from being passed. Nevertheless, my colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca has been proposing amendments ever since second reading. He made a number of very good points that, unfortunately, still apply after the committee's study.

Bill C-51 threatens our way of life by asking Canadians to choose between their security and their freedoms. There is something my friend, the leader of the NDP, often says. He points out, and rightly so, that in the French version of Canada's national anthem, it says that we must “protect our homes and our rights”. They are given the same priority. Even our national anthem notes the importance of applying our collective intelligence to ensure that we protect these two aspects of our lives. The remarks from across the way are veering more and more off track, suggesting that in order to protect our homes, some of our rights, including our right to privacy, may have to be negotiated or diminished. Let us not forget the wisdom of our national anthem, which emphasizes that the government has a duty to balance these two aspects and must never promote one at the expense of the other.

Another point that was made at second reading, is that Bill C-51 irresponsibly provides the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, with a sweeping new mandate without equally increasing oversight. Later we will see how dire this problem really is. The bill also contains definitions that are broad and vague and that threaten to lump together legitimate dissent with terrorism. This point comes up all the time. The bill gives CSIS tremendous powers. If the net is cast that wide, are we really responding to an imminent problem of a potential terrorist threat or are we facilitating abuses that could violate Canadians' rights? The answer to that question is quite worrisome.

The Liberals voted against these amendments—and that is typically the Liberal way—despite the fact that former Liberal prime ministers wrote a letter stating that they strongly disagree with Bill C-51. From the beginning, the current Liberal leader painted himself into a corner by saying that he would vote for the bill, probably for a very sad reason. In fact, the first poll showed that 80% of Canadians were in favour of the bill. Support for the bill has subsequently collapsed and now 60% of Canadians do not support Bill C-51. However, the Liberal leader painted himself into a corner and unfortunately will vote for the bill.

There are some worrisome observations in the amendments presented by my colleague, and they are now shared by more than 60% or 70% of Canadians. I have never seen that. This is one of those rare bills that people know by name. In federal politics, it is very rare for people to ask me to assure them that I will vote against Bill C-51. It is obvious just how much Canadians are interested in and concerned about this bill, given that they are calling it by its official name.

In our opinion, not enough leading experts on privacy and personal information were invited to appear before the standing committee. However, most of the witnesses who did appear said that this bill should be struck down or heavily amended.

The debate on Bill C-51 is so important that I want to highlight some of what the witnesses said because this is an issue that goes beyond party lines. We need to have an opportunity to raise awareness of the fact that Bill C-51 should not be passed, particularly as it now stands. I will begin by quoting Daniel Therrien, the Privacy Commissioner. He said:

...the proposed changes to information sharing authorities are not accompanied by measures to fill gaps in the national security oversight regime.

That is what he said and he is very knowledgeable about the subject. The truth of his statement is obvious given that, in the 2012 budget, the Conservatives eliminated the position of inspector general of CSIS, who was responsible for internal oversight by ensuring that all of CSIS's activities complied with the law.

When an organization is granted vast surveillance powers, we always have to ask ourselves who watches the watchers, when their powers could, for example, threaten a person's right to privacy. Who watches them? Experts agree that the minister's and the government's answers are completely inadequate.

The Minister of Public Safety rejected the need for additional oversight of CSIS, calling it needless red tape. I fell off my chair. It is unbelievable that the minister would consider the need for proper oversight of those who have surveillance powers to be red tape. I am prepared to work 60 hours a week to ensure that business owners do not lose too much time to red tape. However, referring to the need to watch the watchers as red tape floored me. That is unacceptable.

Here is one last quote from the commissioner:

This Act would...allow departments and agencies to share the personal information of all individuals, including ordinary Canadians who may not be suspected of terrorist activities.

This is what the NDP and my colleague fear. Those were the words of the Privacy Commissioner. Canada's top privacy official concluded that there were some serious concerns with Bill C-51.

To conclude, in the debate on Bill C-51, we were faced with a string of time allocation motions and we had a limited number of witnesses in committee, despite the fact that almost all the experts demanded that Bill C-51 be withdrawn or significantly amended. I fear that this is not what will happen this week.

Bill C-51 will be rammed through the House and will be a threat to Canadians' privacy.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, a wide array of information has been pushed out by the NDP, whether it be intentionally or through a complete lack of understanding of the bill. Even in committee, when we were going through clause by clause, the critic for the NDP actually felt that the information sharing act, not the CSIS Act, would determine the subject of CSIS's activity. The officials who were on hand at that committee had to correct him, on the record, and tell him he was wrong.

The fact that the NDP still is pushing out information that is inaccurate is very harmful to this country with respect to national security and the protection of Canadians.

I will just ask the member a very brief question. Is that member intentionally pushing out information that is inaccurate, or is it because he has a complete lack of understanding of the bill?

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when more than 80% or 90% of the competent individuals and experts associated with matters relating to protection of privacy and personal information strongly criticize the bill, the government has to start reconsidering how it sees things.

It is not people like the NDP members who are spreading false information. There is a huge amount of information from competent individuals about how Bill C-51 is troubling and inadequate and should be amended or withdrawn.

I wish I had the exact number from my colleague's last count, which was about 14 of the first 15 witnesses. They stated that Bill C-51 should not be passed as is and asked the government not to pass it.

The last ones on the list—who could in no way be described as far left—were part of an association of entrepreneurs in emerging technology and said that Bill C-51 as currently written is completely unacceptable. That is factual information.

Will I repeat that so all Canadians hear it? Yes, I will keep saying it until the election and make sure that we take power and overturn these decisions that are literally a threat to the privacy of Canadians and small and medium-sized businesses working in emerging technology.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the NDP is confused on this issue. The member just finished saying that if it forms government, the NDP is going to dismiss it, implying that it is going to get rid of it.

Let me tell him what his leader says about the bill. Tom Clark, on Global TV, asked, “If you become the government, would you scrap this piece of legislation?” That is what he asked the leader of the New Democratic Party. His response was, “We would change it for sure”.

That does not mean they are going to scrap it. In fact, members of this House have stated that when they form government, they are going to change it.

I believe that the NDP is in a very awkward position. It recognizes that this legislation would build on powers of preventive arrest and that it would make better use of the no-fly list.

There is no doubt that there is a need for serious amendments, and in about 15 minutes, I am going to talk about that. However, my question is this: Who is right here, the member of who just made his statement or the leader of his party?

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one expression that I have never used in the House is “a desperate attempt”. This looks very much like a desperate attempt.

The Liberals now totally disagree with former Liberal prime ministers. They realized in committee that this bill cannot be supported by basically anyone who has expertise in this field.

For the benefit of those at home, there is no question that we will change a law and that my friend the Leader of the Opposition will continue to say that we will change a law, because that is how Parliament operates. You have to take the existing law and turn it into something completely different, even if we want to transform it altogether.

There is no inconsistency in the NDP's position on this issue, not at all. The most—

[Alain Giguère]

Pathetic.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, pathetic.

The most pathetic inconsistency that we have seen in this House in quite some time is the Liberals' inconsistency. They plan to stand up and vote for Bill C-51 even though the greatest leaders in the history of their own party have said that we should not vote for such a thing.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act, 2015. During my time today I will be addressing the elements of part 4 of the bill. These elements would broaden CSIS's mandate to include the authority to disrupt threats to Canada's national security. In particular, I would like to outline the legal parameters of this new authority as well as the robust accountability framework from which threat disruption measures would be taken by CSIS and how these would be authorized and reviewed.

I want to be clear. The international jihadi movement has declared war on Canada and its allies. Canadians are being targeted by terrorists simply because these terrorists hate our society and the values it represents. That is why our government has put forward these measures to protect Canadians against jihadi terrorists who seek to destroy the very principles that make Canada the best country in the world in which to live.

Throughout its history, CSIS has played a vital role in investigating and advising the government on national security threats, but it has also been limited to those functions of collection and advice, even as it has encountered early opportunities to disrupt threats in the course of these investigations. How frustrating that must be.

Today we must reconsider this narrowly constructed mandate and the tools required to protect Canadians. The threats from terrorism we face today demand that we do this. These threats are also the reason we are investing $292 million over the next five years in our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, as announced in this year's budget.

In the context of this bill, and specifically of the new mandate for CSIS, we must consider the rigorous framework in which CSIS's threat disruption activities would take place.

CSIS has established a 30-year history as an intelligence service. It is respected globally and is known for its rigorous framework of ministerial accountability, judicial authorization, and independent review. I want to expand on that point.

Canada is unique in that judicial, not executive, authorization is currently required for CSIS to engage in intrusive investigative techniques. That means, for example, that for the past 30 years, before CSIS has tapped a phone, it has been required to seek a warrant from the Federal Court, which is a rigorous and thorough process. The key tenets of the current warrant process are laid out in the CSIS Act. Among other things, the law requires that warrant applications to the Federal Court first be approved by the minister.

All of the activities of CSIS are also subject to ministerial direction, and the minister is kept apprised of CSIS's operations, routinely and through a detailed annual report. These reporting requirements are laid out in both the CSIS Act and through ministerial direction. In addition, as set out by the CSIS Act, all CSIS activities are subject to review by SIRC. This model of judicial authorization review is routinely cited as embodying the best practices in the area of intelligence service governance.

I would like to direct members to the 2010 report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on good practices in legal and institutional frameworks for intelligence agencies, in which CSIS received positive mention several times. It is in this context, and in today's threat environment, that we introduce this legislation to expand CSIS's mandate.

Pursuant to this bill, CSIS would have the authority to disrupt threats to our national security. This would provide the government with an invaluable and flexible new tool to combat threats to our security and safety, which we know have now increased, both in tempo and in complexity. We saw another tragic attack in the United States today.

Make no mistake, this bill would not give CSIS a blank cheque to do whatever it wishes; far from it, in fact. This legislation, in numerous provisions, would require that all threat disruption measures undertaken by the service be reasonable and proportionate. These measures would not be arbitrary, and they would be narrowly focused on disrupting a particular activity that constituted a threat to the very security of our nation. This threshold is clearly articulated in law.

Ray Boisvert, the former assistant director of CSIS, said:

...the warrant process is the most onerous warrant process of its kind, in my estimation, around the world.... The enhancements being proposed will add layers of requirements, giving direction to the judiciary and...those who are composing the warrant.... [Seizure] warrants typically go on for hundreds of pages per target, explaining the rationale and making the case to be able to obtain those powers that allowed us...to lawfully intercept some of these communications.... I am still encouraged that this will not change. My sense from reading the legislation is that those safeguards are protected and are further enhanced.

I would also like to point out the key differences between CSIS's collection mandate and the proposed disruption mandate of this legislation.

CSIS may investigate activities suspected of constituting threats to the security of Canada, an entirely appropriate threshold for its investigative mandate. The threshold for engaging any threat diminishment activity, however, would be much higher. For CSIS to disrupt a threat, the bill states that there would have to be reasonable grounds to believe that a given activity constituted a threat to the security of Canada. That is an important distinction between those two roles and those two activities.

Let me be frank. Some have raised the spectre of what are, quite frankly, disturbing scenarios or outcomes due to this legislation. I want to put those concerns to rest here and now.

The legislation would specifically prohibit certain activities. Let me emphasize that this bill would also not make CSIS a law enforcement body. Our Conservative amendments have reinforced this point for greater clarity.

Further, this new threat disruption mandate would be subject to new ministerial direction, managed within a rigorous framework and subject to an independent review by SIRC.

The bill clearly states that when a warrant was required, a judge would determine if a measure was reasonable and proportionate in the circumstances in regard to the nature of a threat, the nature of the measures, and the reasonable availability of other means.

In addition, the judge could include any terms or conditions deemed advisable in the public interest: judicial authority; judicial power. Further, these warrants would be narrowly time bound, with a maximum duration of 120 days, and would only be able to be renewed twice, as they would be time limited.

To provide added assurance about the nature and implementation of the threat disruption measures, this legislation would also impose specific reporting requirements on both CSIS and SIRC. CSIS would be specifically required to report to the minister on the measures it has taken. SIRC would then be required to annually review at least one aspect of the service's performance in taking these measures and to report on the number of warrants issued for these activities.

For added assurance, as members will know our government just announced its intention to double the budget of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, providing an additional $12.5 million over five years to further strengthen SIRC's capacity to review the activities of CSIS. This is on top of announcing $300 million that we put in place to combat terrorism here at home. These elements combined, namely our rigorous system of judicial authorization, enhanced independent review by SIRC, and specific statutory prohibitions, are designed to assure Canadians that this mandate would be exercised by CSIS responsibly.

This is a regime Canadians can feel confident is in keeping with their values and is a framework in which the imperatives of national security will always be duly balanced with the rights of an individual.

This legislation would protect Canadians, enhance our national security, and keep in place what we value dearly: our rights and freedoms.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate some of the effort by my colleague to indicate some of the safeguards in the bill. Nobody is saying that safeguards were not written in, in certain ways. However, this bill lacks adequate oversight and review and equivalent powers for oversight agencies to match the beefed-up powers in this bill for CSIS and other agencies that can now exchange information more broadly than they could before. It does not beef up their powers; it just means that they have more information to use their powers with. That is a huge problem.

I would ask my colleague this. Would he accept that one of the strongest critiques of the sharing of information act is that these new provisions do not come with the corresponding power for review bodies to share information for a more integrated form of review? That is one of the central concerns of the commissioners who have spoken out against the bill.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, in my discussion I talked about the supervision, the authorization and how we had increased the resources for review agencies like SIRC to ensure CSIS followed its mandate appropriately. With every step of the way, there is ministerial and judicial review, and we have an enhanced SIRC to provide enhanced authorization to enhance CSIS.

The nature of the bill is solely to protect Canadians from an international terrorist threat that we have all seen both in Ottawa and in Quebec, but also in the nightly news around the world. This government must protect the citizens of this nation. It is one of the primary things a government is expected to do. Canadians would expect that different departments in this government would share information with the ability to stop a potential threat.