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.

National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act

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

Madam Speaker, this is hardly my first speech in the House, but it is my first as public safety critic, and it is my pleasure to speak to such a crucial bill.

This is one of the many elements we debated during the previous Parliament in the context of Bill C-51 and the parties' election promises. I want to make it clear that we have a lot of criticisms, which I will cover in my speech.

We are willing to support the bill at second reading simply because it is a good first step. The NDP has long believed that we need to create this committee. However, there are some serious problems with the government's approach.

Before we get into the composition of the committee, I think it is important to point out many of the inconsistencies in the government's approach to this particular file, whenever it comes to proposing anything. We still have not heard, despite the minister's great grocery list in question period yesterday, what the actual plan is. There is no bill before the House, despite a lot of talk, as is becoming far too typical on the part of the government.

Well, there is one bill, the bill from my colleague, the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, which seeks to repeal Bill C-51.

That said, we are hearing about all these grand plans from the government to bring specific changes, with no actual legislative plan in place.

The other problem is that we can form committees, create all sorts of mechanisms, but the fact is some already exist. One that springs to mind is the Security Intelligence Review Committee. That committee, which currently exists, reviews the activities of CSIS. The way things stand right now, in light of the budget the government brought down in March 2016 and according to the employees of that very committee, funding is expected to drop by $2.5 million annually. Over the next few years, this will lead to the loss of 11 employees assigned to overseeing CSIS. We can certainly form a committee, but we are definitely starting off on the wrong foot if resources are lacking due to budget cuts.

The other big issue is one that has come up a few times. With all kidding aside, we have been parsing the words. The Minister of Foreign Affairs seems to want us to distinguish between “discussions” and “negotiations”. In this regard, I would like the government to understand the difference between “review” and “oversight”. These are not the same thing, despite some of the speeches we are hearing from our colleagues on the other side of the House.

The key to protecting Canadians' rights and freedoms is to have proper oversight, not after-the-fact “review” done at the behest of the minister and the Prime Minister. This word “review” is the other one we seem to be having to parse, in response to the answer given by my colleague in the previous speech.

I will concede that the reports might not be edited, but it will be hard to figure them out under all the black Sharpie that will be left by the Prime Minister on the grounds of national security. That is cause for concern.

After all, the MPs on this committee will swear an oath and be trustworthy. The bill gives the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and the Prime Minister a lot of discretion and that makes me think of the Conservatives' argument when we were debating Bill C-51 during the last Parliament.

The Conservatives argued, or at least strongly implied, that we needed to trust the authorities, that we could not trust parliamentarians to do this type of review, and that independent committees already existed.

I find it downright disturbing because giving cabinet that much power reminds me of the Conservatives' argument. Again, though the government may have changed colours, its approach remains the same.

As I said, we support the bill at second reading so that we can try to make some important changes. At the end of the day, we cannot say no to forming this committee because, after all, it is what we wanted. Nonetheless, there are some serious flaws that need to be corrected, as I said from the outset.

Clearly, the first flaw is the election of the chair. Ultimately, the chair will ensure that the committee will be independent, which will be difficult if the chair is chosen by the Prime Minister.

As I mentioned in my earlier question, we heard from our cousins from the U.K., when they came here at the invitation of the minister himself last week. They shared with us how important it was in the debate they had when creating a similar committee that the chair be elected. I heard the argument from my Liberal colleague before that this does not matter, because the opposition members will be in the majority on the committee anyway. That is not the issue here. The issue is not about which party is the majority. The issue is not leaving it up to cabinet who is carrying the committee. Parliamentarians from all parties need to have a say. I have no doubt that the Liberal members of the committee will make a wise choice to ensure the independence of the committee, much more independence than when it is coming down from the PMO.

We will have to make another important change. Once again, I am going back to the points I raised earlier. I am referring to the discretionary authority granted the minister and the Prime Minister. We have serious concerns about this and we want to debate it.

I am taking the opportunity to return to yesterday's news and the Privacy Commissioner's report.

I will read one excerpt from the chapter on Bill C-51 in the Privacy Commissioner's report. He said:

While our Office welcomed legislation to create a Parliamentary committee to oversee matters related to national security as a positive first step, we have also recommended expert or administrative independent review or oversight of institutions permitted to receive information for national security purposes.

What that says, and I certainly hope it will not be the case, is that the government cannot sit on its laurels now that it has tabled this bill. This is only one piece of a far larger, more complicated puzzle.

Nonetheless, the position of inspector general of CSIS was eliminated by the Conservative government. The NDP has been asking for a long time that this position be re-established to allow greater independent oversight by people who, unlike us parliamentarians, have some expertise in the matter. Those two items are closely related and that is the important thing.

To bolster this argument, I will mention the minister's response concerning the government's approach when we asked him about the ministerial directives concerning torture. I am taking this opportunity to officially state in the house that the NDP is calling for the repeal of these directives, because it is completely unacceptable that a country like Canada allows the use of information acquired through torture. The practice does not benefit public safety in the least, and quite frankly, it is immoral and goes against our international commitments.

When we asked the minister the question, he told us not to worry and that the government would establish a committee to deal with such questions and provide oversight. Come on. It is ludicrous to claim that striking a committee makes it okay to keep such a directive in place.

I will say this with all due respect, because it is worth repeating in both official languages that we in the New Democratic Party absolutely want to see this ministerial directive that allows for the use of information on torture taken off the books and gone. It is completely unacceptable that in a country like Canada, we would even ponder using that kind of information. This is not information that will ensure the safety of Canadians and it goes against our values and our international commitments. I will say once again, when the minister stands in the House and says that it is okay, because they have Bill C-22 and we should not worry because all of these things will be supervised, that is absurd. The Liberals are using the bill as an escape hatch, and we do not want to see that.

It is important to understand that this is a first step in the right direction. Although the bill before us may be vague and flawed, it is in keeping with the concept that was also proposed by the NDP. This is one of many issues that were raised in the debate on Bill C-51. I hope that the members opposite will listen to what we have to say.

I repeat that we are trusting the Liberal members who sit on this committee to elect a chair and access the information without the Prime Minister exercising his veto power and covering that information up with a big black marker.

After all, we certainly do not want Bill C-22 to become an excuse for not repealing or making major changes to Bill C-51, which violates the rights and freedoms of Canadians.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Scarborough—Agincourt for his in-depth analysis of the way he perceives Bill C-22. I would suggest that Bill C-22 is a token gesture on behalf of the Liberal government to comply with the campaign promise that it made.

I was on the public safety committee last year when Bill C-51 came through and I think the Conservative government at the time did a very good job of presenting a piece of legislation that was effective and a useful tool for our security organizations. It better enabled them to do the job that they do, and as we can see, we have had very good results in Canada.

I am wondering if the member would agree that the committee could be strengthened in a couple of ways. First, I see a weakness in the fact that members are appointed by one individual, the chair is appointed by one individual, and one individual can redact any information provided by the committee by way of report. I see that as a weakness, and I am wondering if the member would see a benefit to there being more openness, more transparency, and more electability among parliamentarians.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I know that we disagreed with the former Conservative government when it introduced Bill C-51. In fact, all political parties, except the Liberals, disagreed with the Conservatives on Bill C-51. There is a real impact on rights and freedoms, but the Liberals voted to support Bill C-51 which has left us in a very difficult situation.

Now the Liberals have introduced Bill C-22. I think the member would probably agree with me, as I agree with him, that there are huge flaws in this legislation. Instead of providing the independent oversight that comes from having an independent chair, we would have a chair who is chosen by the government and by the Prime Minister, which certainly flies in the face of the way our major allies do this type of oversight committee. Then we would have the censorship oath in terms of the information that would be permitted to go to the oversight committee, and a censorship control of the Prime Minister's Office on what comes out of the committee.

Instead of having oversight that Canadians can have confidence in, does the member not think that we have a very flawed piece of legislation?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, for his speech.

I find it rather surprising to hear members across the way, our Liberal colleagues, saying that they are very proud to have kept an election promise, when the creation of the committee of parliamentarians is just one of many promises that the Liberals made with regard to Bill C-51, which was passed in the previous Parliament. It is just one small aspect, because the most important part of that promise was to repeal the problematic parts of Bill C-51. That was a clear Liberal promise, written in black and white.

The creation of this committee is just one aspect and so I am wondering why they are so proud to have kept only part of their promise. My question is very simple and will require an answer just as simple. I would like to know when the other promises made by the Liberal Party will be introduced in the House and when the government will repeal the problematic parts of Bill C-51, as promised during the election campaign.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-22, which will create a national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians. There can be no greater obligation than to protect the security of one's citizens, both here and abroad.

The government of a country such as Canada, which cherishes its hard-won freedoms, its democracy, and its rule of law, has another obligation, and that is to uphold the Constitution of Canada and to ensure that all laws uphold the rights and freedoms we enjoy as people living in a free and democratic society.

The need to simultaneously fulfill these two key obligations is at the very heart of the bill before us. This bill is a response to the threats and attacks that have targeted various countries in the world, including Canada and some of our closest allies. Faced with this violence, we must remain alert and never let down our guard.

In addition, Bill C-22 responds to the many calls over many years for enhanced accountability of departments and agencies working in the area of national security. Hon. members will recall that these calls intensified last year when the previous government introduced the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, also known as Bill C-51. At that time, our party made the argument that Canada's approach to national security legislation should avoid not only naïveté, but also fearmongering.

The threats are real, and so is the need to protect civil liberties. That is why we included improvements to our national security framework, including the creation of a national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians, as a major part of our campaign platform in the last election.

The bill before us would establish a committee with nine members. Seven of the committee members would be drawn from the House of Commons, and of these seven, only four can be government members. Two members would be drawn from the other place. This committee will be different from other committees and offices established to review security and intelligence matters.

Under the accountability framework, some review bodies can have access to classified documents, but only for a specific department or organization. The members of these committees are not sitting parliamentarians. Parliamentarians may be involved, but they do not have access to classified documents. Those external review bodies are the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which reviews CSIS, the Office of the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner, and the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP. None of those bodies include sitting parliamentarians.

On the one hand, parliamentary committees review security and intelligence issues, but they do that primarily by listening to testimony during their public meetings. On the other hand, the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence has a broad mandate to examine legislation and national security and defence issues.

Moreover, in the House, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security studies legislation or issues related to Public Safety Canada and the other agencies in the public safety portfolio. They do extremely valuable work, but as a rule, neither of these committees has access to classified information. They have neither the mandate nor the resources to dig deep into the details of national security matters in order to hold the government and national security agencies truly accountable.

Under the bill before us, members of the national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians would obtain the appropriate level of security clearance and would, therefore, have access to highly classified security and intelligence information regarding national security and intelligence activities across the Government of Canada.

I would also point out that our Five Eyes partners have review bodies that function in similar ways. In those countries, select parliamentarians have access to highly sensitive intelligence so that they can help protect the public interest with regard to civil rights while also helping protect public safety by ensuring that national security organizations are functioning effectively.

Until now, Canada has been alone among the Five Eyes partners in not having a committee where parliamentary representatives can access classified information. This bill would close that gap.

In fact, in some respects, our proposal goes a little further than that of our allies from Westminster parliamentary democracies. This committee will review all departments and agencies whose activities are related to security and intelligence. It will also have the authority to investigate ongoing operations.

When it comes to establishing a national security accountability mechanism, this bill sets a new standard that some of our allies might well follow.

Robust powers are given to this committee, its members, and its secretariat. The committee will be able to access any information it needs to conduct its reviews, subject to some specific and reasonable limits. As is the case with similar committees in other countries, while committee members are not in a position to disclose the classified information to which they will have access, they can bring tremendous pressure to bear on a given organization or the government in power by letting Canadians know that something is not right.

Clearly, this new committee represents a major step forward in strengthening the accountability of our national security and intelligence system. It will provide elected officials with a real opportunity to evaluate our national security policies and operations and to ensure that Canadians and their civil liberties are protected.

I encourage members to join me in supporting this vitally important bill.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague gave a fairly antiquarian recitation of the beginning of security, reaching back to Roman times, and he talked about how the security needs of the state had changed over the last 2,000 years.

However, I want to remind him that the development of civil and human rights is also part of that same history, traced back to Greek times. The rights of citizens to have freedom of expression, to be free from undue influence from the state, to be free from being spied upon by the state, to have civil rights, and to be free against unnecessary detention are also equally important.

It is very clear in the House that Bill C-51 abridges and abrogates many of those rights.

While the bill before us would create an oversight model, the government has yet to make any substantive changes to Bill C-51, which abrogates the civil liberties and rights of Canadians. I wonder if he would like to share with us how he feels about that.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

Given that she is a Conservative member and that it was the Conservatives who passed Bill C-51, I am surprised to hear positive comments about the creation of a committee of parliamentarians to provide oversight for Canada's intelligence agencies.

When her party was in power and passed Bill C-51, which broadened the mandate of intelligence agencies, why did it not create a committee of parliamentarians to meet the needs and expectations that she just mentioned with regard to a committee of parliamentarians? That would have been a little more acceptable.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, of course I am completely aware of the Liberal Party's position on various bills that were introduced during the previous Parliament, including Bill C-51.

I will remind the member opposite that we tabled 10 amendments at committee stage during the proceedings on that bill, three of which were taken up and some of which actually expanded the definition of legitimate protest, which was a change for the good. We were actively working to strengthen the bill.

I will reiterate for the member and all members of her party that the point we made in regard to Bill C-51 is that security was a vitally important responsibility of government, but so too is balancing constitutionally protected rights and freedoms. What we committed to then and what we are doing now in delivering on the commitment is improving the aspects of that bill that were fatally flawed. Those aspects include oversight through a parliamentary committee that not only replicates what the members of the Five Eyes Alliance are doing, but actually improves upon it. Members should not take that from me, but from Prof. Forcese.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Speaker, from his preamble onward, the member talked about Bill C-51 and what a flawed bill it was.

Does the member realize that his Liberal government supported Bill C-51?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, thank you.

I guess it is now six times lucky. Our majority government has introduced Bill C-22 at long last, after 11 years of attempts and continuously being stymied by the opposition, to entrench parliamentary oversight of Canada's security and intelligence agencies.

However, we are not just replicating what we have seen among our Five Eyes allies. We are going one better. None other than Craig Forcese, the renowned law professor from the University of Ottawa and one of the foremost critics of the old Bill C-51, has said:

...this will be a stronger body than the UK and Australian equivalents. And a dramatic change for Canadian national security accountability.... This is a good bill.... I would give it a high pass....

Let me turn to the bill itself and see what people like Professor Forcese are enthused about.

This oversight committee of parliamentarians will have a broad, government-wide mandate to review any national security matter relating to all government security departments and agencies. Committee members will have top security clearance and can demand unprecedented access to classified material.

The committee is required to report back to Parliament annually, but can do so even more frequently through special reports, if it finds that a special report is required to protect the public interest.

The committee members are independent. They have the authority to self-initiate reviews of the legislative, regulatory, policy, financial, and administrative framework for national security in Canada. The committee members have tenure. They are appointed until the dissolution of the House.

This committee will not be dominated by government members, because government members will not make up the majority of the committee. Bill C-22 specifies that the committee will comprise nine persons, only four of whom may be government members of Parliament. The other five must come from the opposition parties. This is not a rubber stamp; it is actual accountability and oversight of government departments and agencies by a majority of opposition parliamentarians.

Allow me to provide an example. Throughout the extensive debate on the old Bill C-51, residents of my riding of Parkdale—High Park were very vocal about information sharing among government departments and agencies. Rightly, Canadians said that widespread information sharing may compromise privacy rights. Information sharing is precisely the type of thing this new oversight committee will scrutinize, because it will have a broad government-wide mandate over all national security departments and agencies. This can ensure that when information is shared for intelligence gathering, the rights of Canadians are not being violated or jeopardized. If a violation is identified, the committee can report that to all Canadians through Parliament.

Of course, there may be those who feel this legislation does not go far enough. The important response to those individuals is to note that Bill C-22 contains a mandatory review provision. Every five years, according to law, a committee must study this bill and report back to Parliament on how to strengthen it. In this way, the conversation of Canadians in my riding of Parkdale—High Park and around the country about how to balance security with the protection of rights and freedoms will not stagnate. It will remain dynamic.

This brings me to my third point. We want to hear from Canadians, not just in five years but now. Our government has commenced a Canada-wide consultation on our national security framework. These consultations will allow us to discuss the other campaign commitments we made to remedy the defects of the old Bill C-51, including entrenching a sunset clause, ensuring that no judge can issue a warrant that violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, guaranteeing the constitutional right to engage in advocacy and protest, and narrowing the overly broad definition of what constitutes “terrorist propaganda”.

This national consultation will allow us to hear from Canadians what else they want to see from their government. We do not just want to implement our campaign commitments, but to improve upon them. Throughout this, one thing will always be top of mind, that in seeking to balance security and the protection of rights and freedoms, we will work with Canadian communities, not against them.

Here, I address the House as a Muslim member of the Liberal caucus. The practice of our new government is not to vilify groups or to sow division, but to engage communities and to listen to their concerns. We have done this through our comprehensive efforts to counter Islamophobia. We have done this through our 2016 budgetary commitment of over $35 million over five years to create an office of community outreach and counter-radicalization. We have done this through our efforts to welcome, not shun, the victims of Daesh, which has translated into our accepting nearly 31,000 Syrian refugees to date. We have done this through our efforts today to improve the rights of those who inadvertently find themselves on no-fly lists, by creating a passenger protect inquiries office, and implementing a Canada-U.S. redress working group.

I know that Canadians prefer this approach. It is an approach they voted for in October 2015. It is an approach that seeks to address security concerns on multiple fronts, and one that engenders the confidence of all Canadians, including the very minority groups, like mine, that were disproportionally bearing the brunt of the previous government's surveillance.

I will end with this. It is a fine balance. Ensuring safety while simultaneously protecting rights and freedoms is not easy, but I am confident that Bill C-22 will help do just that. I am proud to support this legislation that has been 11 years in the making. At this time, I urge the members opposite to get behind it, rather than standing in our way.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of Bill C-22. The bill would create a committee of parliamentarians to oversee Canada's security agencies. For the first time in history, a multi-party group of members of Parliament and senators would hold Canada's security apparatus to account.

Bill C-22 represents a Liberal initiative that dates back to 2005 in fulfillment of a key part of our campaign commitment to Canadians to reverse the legacy of the old Bill C-51. I am proud to stand in support of it and the important idea that Canadian security must never come at the expense of our rights and freedoms.

I will start by turning back the clock to early 2015 and the previous government's introduction of Bill C-51.

In my riding of Parkdale—High Park last year, I heard about Bill C-51 over and over again at the doors. Residents in my community in Toronto are smart. They are engaged, and when they sense injustice, they speak out. They told me that they expect better from their government, that ensuring public safety is the preeminent responsibility of any government, but that it is not acceptable to pursue security at any cost. My constituents, and indeed all Canadians, want a government that respects Canadians' rights and one that will put in place mechanisms to protect those rights.

As a human rights and constitutional lawyer, I listened to those residents as a candidate in the past election. I communicated those very valid concerns to my party, and the party responded. In 2015, we committed on the campaign trail that if we were fortunate enough to earn the respect of Canadians and to form government, we would significantly amend that flawed bill and put in place the mechanisms that Canadians want to protect their rights while simultaneously keeping them safe. That is what Bill C-22 would start to do.

However, we cannot take all the credit. The idea of ensuring that parliamentary representatives oversee security agencies, like the RCMP, CSIS, and CSE, did not come to us as some sort of epiphany. It is exactly what our allies have been doing for many years. Every single member of the Five Eyes alliance but Canada has some oversight mechanism in place. Those are Australia, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States.

The Auditor General identified the need for parliamentary oversight in a seminal report in 2003. Our party initiated this in 2005 when then public safety minister Anne McLellan introduced Bill C-81. That bill died on the Order Paper when the opposition parties voted down the minority government of then prime minister Paul Martin, triggering the election that brought us Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

A similar oversight committee was attempted no less than four more times in private members' bills, as introduced by Liberal Derek Lee on two occasions, in 2007 and 2009; by the member for Malpeque in 2013; and by the member of Parliament who sits right next to me, the member for Vancouver Quadra, Joyce Murray. On each of those occasions, the private members' bills were not passed in the House.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member for Portage—Lisgar has taken on new responsibilities as the opposition House leader, and I certainly appreciate working with her. We disagree on some things, there is no doubt. We disagreed on Bill C-51. The Conservatives brought it forward. Liberals all voted in favour of it, despite the impact on civil rights and liberties.

Now we have a piece of legislation. I think all members of the House are surprised to learn that there is an oversight committee that is under double censorship; it censored in terms of information from the oversight committee the Liberal government is proposing and censored in terms of what the Prime Minister's Office will actually permit the committee to put out.

At the same time, as the member for Portage—Lisgar pointed out, we are talking about a partisan chair of the committee, something that none of our major allies have done, for the simple reason that it is inappropriate.

I would like the member to comment on whether she agrees with the NDP analysis that the committee would be handcuffed by the Liberal government.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and join in the debate on Bill C-22, which would establish a national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians.

I will be sharing my time today with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.

National security has taken on even greater importance over the last number of years. Abroad, we have seen horrific jihadist attacks just months ago, in fact, month after month in countries like France, Belgium, and even the United States.

Right here in Canada, we saw a jihadi inspired attack in October 2014. Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent was killed in Quebec, and Corporal Nathan Cirillo was killed while he was on guard at the National War Memorial, just steps away from where we are standing today. Many of us who served in the last Parliament will recall being locked down, and not knowing what was going on, and we remember that day.

It is important that our national security agencies have the tools they need to do their job, and keep us safe from terrorists. That is why the previous Conservative passed the Anti-terrorism Act in 2015, more commonly known as Bill C-51. Bill C-51 is good legislation that struck an appropriate balance between protecting national security and protecting the privacy of others.

In fact, the director of CSIS recently told the committee in the other place that CSIS agents have used the powers created under that legislation at least two dozen times. That record speaks volumes.

Today, I am not here to talk about that bill, but I am here to talk about Bill C-22, and how to ensure that the rights and liberties of Canadians are appropriately protected through extensive review and oversight of our national security agencies.

While our men and women in these agencies do excellent work each and every day to keep us safe, it is always important to have a third party watchdog. Currently, national security agencies have a substantial review mechanism. CSIS is reviewed by the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which is composed of former parliamentarians and other prominent Canadians. The Communications Security Establishment is reviewed by the CSE Commissioner, and the RCMP is reviewed by the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission.

However, we note that the Liberals, in their platform, promised that they would “create an all-party committee to monitor and oversee the operations of every government department and agency with national security responsibilities.” Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, depending on how we look at it, that is not the bill that we have before us today.

First, the bill does not provide for any oversight of national security agencies, in fact, the word oversight is not even in the bill. It is nowhere in the description or in the body of the bill. What it provides is a review mechanism for after-the-fact assessment, but it does so with enormous caveats. In fact, there are seven large caveats contained in section 14 of the bill.

These caveats allow the cabinet to deny the committee, a committee of duly elected parliamentarians sworn to secrecy, the access to any confidence of the Queen's Privy Council, any military operation information, any information on the Investment Canada Act, and any information that may lead in future to criminal charges, among other things.

That pretty well covers off all of the information in the possession of the Canadian Armed Forces, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. That is pretty well all of the information that this so-called committee would need to do the so-called oversight that it is created to do.

Unfortunately, what we have under this legislation is a committee that does not actually have any access to any relevant information. What is more, it is not actually a parliamentary committee. Right here in black and white in subsection 4(3), the bill states that this would not be a committee of Parliament, rather it would be a committee made up of parliamentarians.

What we have right now is a committee made up of parliamentarians with no ability to collect information. We will also learn it has absolutely no teeth to do anything because it cannot report anything outside of the committee, and we have the Prime Minister and ministers able to cleanse the report before it is brought to Parliament.

We kind of have a glorified parliamentary friendship group here, and really nothing more, because the committee cannot review any information. It cannot do anything with the information that it finds because if the Prime Minister deems it is not appropriate for a number of reasons, the Prime Minister or the Prime Minister's Office can change it. Really, this is a pretty hollow shell and nothing more.

I want to speak a bit about the fact that in section 12 parliamentary privilege is eroded by making it clear that a whistleblower could be prosecuted for making any of the information public. Let us think about that for a minute.

The Liberals have said they want this committee to fix the situation where they felt it left the public uninformed and unrepresented on critical issues, but they have established, through this legislation, a system where it would be a crime for a whistleblower to disclose anything from the committee. So, how can there be any access to the information by regular Canadians?

The bill before us does not even come close to meeting the Liberal platform commitments. In fact, it is a bill that further serves to centralize power in the Prime Minister's Office.

Typically, like in the United States and Great Britain, committees of this nature would report directly to the legislative branch rather than to the executive. Yet, in this legislation, the Prime Minister gets to play middleman between the committee and Parliament.

Under this legislation, it says in subsection 21(1) the Prime Minister will receive all annual reports, special reports, and other findings of the committee, so the Prime Minister is going to get everything before Parliament does. He will then have the opportunity to edit and change any report to suit his liking, and subsection 21(5) says that the Prime Minister can refuse to release information at his discretion.

The Liberals have said that this is to protect serious national information and security information, but let us read the text of the bill:

If,...the Prime Minister is of the opinion that information in an annual or special report is...injurious to...international relations...the Prime Minister may direct the Committee to submit...a revised version of the annual or special report.

I want to remind my hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary, that the Prime Minister actually can direct the committee to submit a revised report. In this case, it would be if it contravened or hurt international relations.

What does that mean? That means that the Prime Minister and his office could delete or eliminate information that they thought might hurt international relations. From what we have seen recently, does that mean if this report said something that would show that the Chinese are doing something they should not be doing, that the Prime Minister would say not to say anything about the Chinese because we do not want to offend them? Maybe the Prime Minister would be concerned that his vanity project of getting a seat on the UN Security Council might be offended.

With the Prime Minister having the motivation, and the naïveté that he seems to be displaying, it is very concerning that this power would be in the Prime Minister's Office to vet this information, and eliminate information that he thinks would not be beneficial to international relations. This is not transparency in any way, shape, or form.

It is definitely not transparent that several months before this legislation was even tabled, we found out, through the media, that the member for Ottawa South was given the sweetheart deal as chair of this committee. That in and of itself is very disingenuous.

The government and the Liberals could have at least had respect for Parliament and for its own platform to have withheld that. I do not know why the Liberals felt they had to make that announcement, and do that so quickly unless it had to do with an inside deal that they were concocting.

How can someone become a chair of a committee that has not even been constituted by Parliament in legislation? With a partisan appointment like this, it is clear that the government is not taking the non-partisan goals of this committee seriously.

Let us look at the facts. The Minister of Public Safety and many of the Liberals who have spoken before me have touted that this proposed committee is modelled after the United Kingdom, but the Liberal partisan appointment of the chair is completely different from the U.K. model which allows its committee to elect its own chair.

Second, the committee reports to the Prime Minister, not to Parliament, and the Prime Minister has the ability to omit items and ask for revised reports.

There is more that I could say on this piece of legislation but at the end of the day we are seeing more and more that this is a hollow shell with no substance. This committee will be made up of parliamentarians with no power to do anything, with no power to get information, and with the Prime Minister vetting all of the information. It looks again like the Liberals want to look like they are fulfilling a campaign promise but they are actually not fulfilling it and they are being disrespectful and disingenuous by doing so.

Unless there are major changes to the bill, I cannot support it.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, last year in the House when the Liberals and Conservatives voted for Bill C-51, only the NDP caucus stood up for Canadians and voted against the impact that would have on the rights and freedoms of Canadians. At the same time, the New Democrats offered very solid suggestions, not taken up by the former Conservative government or by the current Liberal government, to enhance security while maintaining our rights and liberties.

We have a bill in front of us that contradicts how many of our allies proceed. All of our allies have oversight committees with an independent chair, a chair that is selected by the committee not by the government. As we have seen with our major allies as well, these oversight committees need to have full access to classified information. Of course another component that does not exist among our allies is the Prime Minister's Office's having the ability to censor any reports that are issued by the committee.

How does the Liberal government justify these three fundamental weaknesses when they are not in common with the practice of our major allies, and certainly not in common with the oversight committees that exist in other countries.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to recognize that Bill C-22 is as a direct result of Bill C-51. A major fundamental flaw when Bill C-51 was brought in was the fact that there was no parliamentary committee to oversee our security systems.

That is very important because Canadians have expectations that their government will have a balance when it comes to issues such as freedoms, our rights, and security. We believe Bill C-22 will deliver what Canadians want to see. In fact, it would be a fulfillment of a commitment made by the Prime Minister and the government that we would bring in a parliamentary oversight committee. Bill C-22 is all about that.