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.

Infrastructure

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in this place and attempt as best I can to speak on behalf of the people of northwestern British Columbia, beautiful Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

In particular, when talking about climate change, for us, the realities and impacts of climate change are an incredibly intimate and real phenomenon. It is not some esoteric exercise. It is not some group of academics speaking and musing about graphs and parts per million. It is real and it is in the forests that we live around and from which we generate our economy. It is in the oceans and the rivers that provide us with sustenance and other forms of work.

Over the last number of years we have been raising the call many times. We have seen the pine beetle infestation across northern British Columbia that has then gone into Alberta and unfortunately into other forests in other provinces. It has had an enormously devastating effect. We have also seen the impact of forest fires that have come at times that have never been seen before with an intensity unlike the fires that we were used to in the past. We have had to grapple with what this means, what these changes mean.

For our colleagues who represent the far north, the changes have been even more dramatic, more impactful on their lives, particularly for those who gain sustenance and their livelihood from the natural environment.

While this is an issue that connects all of us, I think it touches us in different ways, so legitimate and real action after so many years of disappointment on the issue of climate change is welcome and of course we will be supporting the motion.

We have some recommendations for improvement that I think the member for Halifax should welcome, simply because they put a little more specificity to what it is I think he is trying to achieve, it puts a little more teeth into it.

For those who do not follow this, and why would they, the difference between motions and bills is quite significant in terms of what their impact is. A motion is a call upon government to do such and such a thing and a bill changes law. A bill brings with it the strength and bearance of law but a motion is quicker, so there is some advantage because it does not have to proceed through so many stages like a bill does. These are the choices each of us makes when introducing private members' business.

I referred to it earlier, but the history on this particular question of how we build things, how we fund things as a federal government, and that connection to the environment and to climate change has been a bit of an unfortunate one. There was a bill introduced a number of years ago, back in 2009, in fact, Bill C-10. There was a minority Parliament and I can remember the then Prime Minister threatening the then official opposition that if they defeated any bill, that was a confidence bill.

The Conservatives started very early on to attach the notion of confidence to virtually every piece of legislation. They never fully confirmed it, but they hinted at it, and that hint was enough for the now Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was then the leader, to blink more than 140 or 150 times to vote with the then governing party and pass legislation.

One of the bills that unfortunately got past with the Conservatives and the Liberals playing the sidecar role was Bill C-10. Up until that point, every time the government funded anything, any infrastructure project, it had some kind of an environmental analysis, a lens that we passed through in order to understand what the impacts would be on the environment. It seemed logical. It was 2009. After all, we were a modern country, a very thoughtful country. Then Bill C-10 went through and said it is so bothersome, so quarrelsome to ask these annoying questions about what impact a bridge or a road might have, or funding a new thing here, there, or anywhere, so it was stripped down and eventually it was tossed out completely, which was unfortunate.

This motion tends to put some of that back together. We would have some other suggestions around bills like Bill C-51 and some others, more than just dalliances that the previous government rammed through that we would like to pull back and restore some sanity to Canadian law again, but this is a start and it is important to start somewhere.

I do believe that this government has a strong and clear mandate to take significant action when it comes to climate change. I think the so-called debate that went on was so reminiscent of those debates that my friends will remember from the seventies, eighties, and nineties about smoking. There was a debate about whether smoking caused cancer and there were just enough scientists willing to sell out their souls to say that it was in doubt and that maybe smoking does not actually affect our health and maybe second-hand smoke is not so bad either. On and on it went and it delayed action.

That exact same strategy was taken out, to great effect, by Exxon and large companies. It has now been revealed in the last couple of weeks that, since the late 1970s, Exxon knew clearly that the burning of fossil fuels contributed to climate change and that climate change was an issue and a problem that actually threatened some its facilities, as it turned out, and that is why it was so concerned because of sea level rise and big impactful storms.

All that is going on. The dance of deniability went on a long time and not just in industry, but it was true within governments because it is a hard thing to get at. It is a hard thing to actually look at and address. Therefore when we look at this piece of legislation, we say, all right, there would be some analysis applied, and there would be some attempt at understanding what the greenhouse gas impact would be when the federal government writes a cheque; and when Canadian taxpayers pay for something, we would ask what the impact would be on this other question, not just the questions of whether we are putting some people to work and whether it is good infrastructure for our economy. Those are all very important questions.

Also, if we look at sustainable development, we need that second and third pillar. Is it socially sustainable? Is it good for people, as radical a notion as that is? Also the third one, the environment leg we need to stick onto the stool asks if it irreparably continues to harm our planet. I know, that is another radical notion.

Here are the questions, and this is where we will be looking to get a bit more specific with my friend. An analysis is fine, but what does it mean? Does it mean that, if a project exceeds a certain amount of greenhouse gases, it will not be funded? Does it mean that a project that mitigates and reduces greenhouse gas in its construction and implementation is promoted up the chain ahead of other projects? Who needs to know this? I will say this about my Conservative colleagues. They never miss an opportunity to shoot down an effort when dealing with climate change, but they also asked an important question earlier, which is that our municipalities and all those people who write the funding proposals, our regional districts and our mayors and councils who put the proposals together, are going to want to know what this motion would do to their proposal. I think that is a very fair question.

Councils can only fund so much. They can only ask for so much. They can only do so much. If this motion says that everything that mitigates or reduces greenhouse gas emissions will rocket to the top, or if there is a per tonnage limit, that there can only be so many tonnes of greenhouse gases emitted in a project per dollar spent, some sort of transparent, open calculus, so that people who are trying to build these things can understand, that would be very helpful.

Similarly, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the Minister of Natural Resources attempted to bring clarity to the natural resource sector and unfortunately sowed a whole bunch of confusion around this same topic. This was a curiosity for me to see infrastructure but not resources, because in Canada's profile of emissions, the lion's share comes from transportation and resource extraction. Those are the big ones we have to deal with, and governments have sometimes tried.

When talking about the resource sector, the Liberals said they are the champs and are going to consider greenhouse gas emissions when looking at mines, pipelines, and all of that. Our first question, and that of industry, environment groups, and first nations, was this. It is great that they are going to consider it, but how are they going to consider it? Is it the first priority? Is it second? Is there a greenhouse gas limit to every project? Is there not? Industry, which is looking to invest billions of dollars in this or that, would like to know.

Environment groups and environmentally thoughtful Canadians would also like to know, and these are fair questions; yet all we have is vagueness, which allows people to feel uncertain and worried about things. This is why New Democrats and our leader from Outremont have pressed time and time again to say that the government went to Paris, it urged the world to go to 1.5 degrees below pre-industrial levels of greenhouse gas emissions, the world congratulated it, and then we asked what Canada's target is.

I was in Paris and asked government officials if they did any analysis of what that 1.5 degrees meant and how they would translate that into a target for Canada. The shocking answer was no. They made the 1.5 degree commitment but did not analyze what it meant. I had a Kyoto flashback. I have seen this movie somewhere before, where the government makes a bold pronouncement to the world and says Canada is there, or back, or coming again, or some other catchy phrase. Then when we ask about analysis, and how it will do this big thing, the government says it will get to that later.

We still have hope. New Democrats are hopeful people, and we ultimately want good things to happen. As we wish for ourselves, we wish for others. We want the government to succeed on this one because it does matter to our kids, and their kids, and generations to follow.

In this, the motion moves us a little way down the road, so we will be supporting it and looking for more brighter and bigger things coming from the government.

[Daniel Therrien]

Sure. As I said, the budget is around $25 million. It's $24.5 million in total, $22 million requiring approval by Parliament and another $2.5 million representing statutory forecasts for employee benefits that do not require additional approval by Parliament.

Of that amount of $24.5 million, around 69% is spent on personnel and 29% on operating expenditures. There is 2% of the budget which is spent on a contribution program for which we're responsible.

In terms of broad activities within the office, compliance activities—that would be investigations under the private and public sector laws and the audit and review group responsible for the C-51 review that we're undertaking—that represents roughly 46% of the budget.

Research and policy development represents roughly 14% of the budget. Public education and outreach, 10%, and internal services, 30%.

[Daniel Therrien]

It's going to probably take two years or so. This fall I intend to make public the results of our initial survey to departments, so that will give a certain sense of how Bill C-51 is being applied on the ground, but there will not be much in-depth analysis of the types of information because we're not there. That will likely be for the next phase.

[Daniel Therrien]

As you know, we are proceeding with a review of how Bill C-51 is being implemented under current funding. I think that this is a priority area, but there may be limits to how broad that review would be.

With additional money we would be able to look at the practice of more departments, but we're going to do a review of certain departments with current funding.

We've estimated that with roughly half a million dollars we could review a sizable number of departments in terms of their practice. My answer to your question would be we're doing the best we can with the current funding and we will do a kind of report similar to what was envisaged, but with relatively few departments in scope, to do—

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

Okay. Perfect.

You mentioned Bill C-51. We don't know what the amendments will be, if any, to the previous legislation, but at one point the previous Liberal caucus had proposed a review of the sharing provisions every year, that there would be an annual report to Parliament from your office.

I'd be interested to know, have you turned your mind at all to what costs that might impose upon your office?

[Daniel Therrien, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I am very pleased to be here again, this time, to talk about our office's main estimates. With me today are Daniel Nadeau, our chief financial officer, and Patricia Kosseim, senior general counsel and director general, legal services, policy and research.

In my allotted time, I will discuss the technological evolution of the digital economy and its impact on privacy; our plans for the year ahead; and the challenges we face going forward given our current level of funding.

As you may know, our funding has remained stable in recent years at approximately $25 million annually, and no increase is expected in the near future. Yet our investigations workload is increasing and we have a number of new responsibilities relating to advances in technology.

The digital economy is evolving quickly as a result of constant technological innovation. This is a reality that affects many government regulators. This trend, however, has had a disproportionate, indeed revolutionary, impact on the field of privacy. When the Privacy Act came into force in 1983, computers were not mainstream. When the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act came into force in 2001, Facebook did not even exist.

Smart phones, cloud computing, big data and the Internet of Things, to name but a few data-rich technologies, all raise significant and highly complex privacy issues. Keeping up with all these changes has been a real struggle.

Despite its limited resources, my office has nonetheless effected much positive change for Canadians. Through sound management practices, we have optimized our resources and restructured our activities. Even though this has allowed us to realize significant efficiencies, we are unable to keep pace with demand. For example, despite our best efforts, by the end of fiscal 2014-15, a total of 291 out of an inventory of 759 active Privacy Act files were already more than a year old. In other words, 38% of complainants had not received a reply a year after filing a complaint. Our surveys show that 90% of Canadians feel they are losing control of their personal information. They expect to be better protected.

Turning to the year ahead, technology allows businesses and governments to collect and analyze exponentially greater quantities of information. But with great reward comes great risk. I am referring to government and corporate surveillance and massive data breaches, which occur on a regular basis.

As you know, breach reports to my office are growing year over year, particularly since 2014, when federal government reporting of material breaches was deemed mandatory under Treasury Board policy. Moreover, Bill S-4, An Act to amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, known as the Digital Privacy Act, will soon make reporting by private organizations a legal obligation. Unfortunately, we have not received any additional funding to address these new responsibilities.

At this time, we are only able to cursorily review, advise, and follow up on all but a few of the breach reports we receive. We expect this problem to continue in the years ahead.

The increased complexity of Privacy Act investigations, owing to technology and the interconnectedness of government programs, is also putting added pressure on our compliance activities, with the result that too many are not completed in a timely way.

That being said, looking ahead, my office will try to confront these realities head-on as we embark on a number of ambitious initiatives related to the new privacy priorities, which I've spoken to you about before.

As part of our government surveillance priority, we are carefully reviewing how information-sharing is occurring between federal institutions for the purposes of national security following the passage of Bill C-51, the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015. We hope our review will inform the upcoming public debate on how to amend that legislation.

In keeping with our reputation and privacy priority, we are consulting widely on matters related to online reputation as we work to establish a position on such things as the “right to be forgotten” in the Canadian context.

Under our economics of personal information priority, we are examining the current consent model, the efficacy and even viability of which many are now questioning in the context of modern technologies. Our aim there is to identify potential improvements, to implement those that fall within our legal framework, and to recommend legislative changes where necessary.

We will also offer new guidance to businesses and individuals on privacy protection, paying special attention to small and medium-sized businesses, as well as vulnerable groups such as children and seniors.

We also look forward to working with Parliament in the year ahead to update the Privacy Act.

That Canadians would feel uninformed about their privacy rights and not able to control their personal information is hardly surprising given the speed and breadth of technological change. In my view, improving public education and regulatory protection through OPC guidance and industry codes of practice, in addition to completing investigations in a timely way, are all critical to meeting public expectations and maintaining trust in the digital economy.

For example, we've been unable to fulfill our statutory role to encourage private sector organizations to develop industry codes of practice. We would also like to be able to offer timely guidance to Canadians on fundamental issues such as big data and the Internet of things. We're also concerned about our ability to invest in key public education tools, such as the web, and in drawing the public towards these tools to help address privacy knowledge gaps amongst Canadians.

Furthermore, it is critical that we increase our capacity to monitor and research technology in order to better understand how it affects privacy, and that we promote privacy-enhancing technologies.

In closing, it is clear that technology has fundamentally changed the privacy landscape, and for us as a regulator, it is imperative that we stay ahead of these changes. I'm confident that the strategic priorities we have chosen position us well for this task. Still, new regulatory responsibilities and an ever-growing investigative workload have added to expectations of my office. Ensuring we can continue to provide Canadians with the level of privacy protection they expect while also maintaining their trust in government and the digital economy remains our primary goal, but it is one that is increasingly challenging to achieve, given our current funding levels.

I would, therefore, welcome a discussion on whether additional funding for my office would be appropriate to do what is expected of us by organizations, by Canadians, and of course, by Parliament.

I look forward to your questions.

Thank you.

[Ken Rubin]

That's why I say you need a multi-transparency approach, because the people need to participate. One way you do it is through consultations and not just through accessing records.

In the case of the Access to Information Act, and this committee is partly in the dark too, they have not announced exactly, to 2018, how they're going to handle that. That's detrimental to everybody in the system.

In the case of Bill C-51, the minister has said he will hold consultations, but has not announced it.

I've recently received some access documents with everything blanked out except those three approaches. Part of the problem in this country is we don't take seriously anymore.... We used to produce white papers and do much more discussion. We don't take consultations that seriously. Yes, there's a defence process under way, pushed by certain interests, but how do you engage the public?

I think it's really—and electronically too—important, and we're doing a miserable job. The problem is we're hiding when people are putting these things forward for the next two or three years, just like the budget figures they tried to hide beyond two or three years. You have to put these things forward if people are going to feel comfortable and not cynical about wanting to participate.

[Ziyaad Mia]

Thank you for the compliment. A lot of people worked on Bill C-51, there were various community advocates and lawyers who were quite active on it.

In terms of national security issues, let's focus on the Muslim community impact. For whatever reasons, Muslims in Canada are disproportionately affected by the national security file and the war on terror, globally, and in Canada as well. That can sometimes have discriminatory impacts directly.

So you have cases where we've had the security certificate issue where Muslim men were detained without charge, without access to counsel essentially, and with secret hearings because they didn't even have a trial per se. In that case, in the Charkaoui decision, the Supreme Court ruled in that instance.

That I believe was funded by CCP on a section 15 issue—and I still think there's a section 15 issue there—and they lost on that issue but they won on section 7. It's just fundamental justice that in Canada and in our system having essentially a secret hearing is antithetical to our system of justice and the rule of law. The special advocate model was created as a result of that decision.

That's one instance on particular communities, communities that my organization has experience with, or take, for example, the Arar issue. There wasn't legislation per se, but the charter can challenge government action, so what actions the Government of Canada took to lead to Mr. Arar's horrible situation in Syria. Those are the sorts of situations where national security can come up.

There's what I've sort of coined as trickle-down discrimination after national security. You have the front-end national security disproportionate impact on Muslims and those who are thought to be Muslims, and then you have the trickle-down effect.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you.

I want to ask Mr. Mia a couple of questions, if I may. First of all, I would like to congratulate you on all of the work you personally did on C-51. We're very grateful to you that we did excellent work on that. I was surprised, therefore, that you didn't spend any time in your presentation talking about the Charkaoui case, and cases like that, so I'll give you an opportunity to talk about the court challenges program in that context.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm glad to see there's no snow here, but it is a little chillier than Toronto. It's good to be here.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the committee and fellow witnesses. My name is Ziyaad Mia and I'm a member of the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association. I'm with the legal advocacy committee. I used to run that committee for a number of years and I was also on the board of this organization in the past.

The Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association is pleased to have this opportunity to contribute to the study of access to justice, and in particular, the restoration of the court challenges program.

Our organization is a national organization of more than 300 lawyers now. It started in the late 1990s with a few lawyers in Toronto that began, as any lawyers' group does, as a social networking group trying to find opportunities for business. That grew as 2001 hit with national security legislation coming forward. We got very active on human rights, national security, and civil rights.

For the last 16 years we have been very active in the discourse on human rights, national security, and civil liberties. We've appeared and I myself have appeared many times at parliamentary committees on various issues, most recently last year on Bill C-51.

I believe you have our brief written submission, but I'll take a few moments today to talk about what's in that submission and some of the rationale behind what we're recommending and why we think restoration of the CCP is important for the country and also for ensuring access to justice.

As a starting point for our organization, our fundamental touchstones are the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the values that it holds. They are the ground for our organization, its values, and the work that we do.

The other piece is the rule of law in Canada. As we know, we see chaos in many parts of the world. I think it goes to those very issues, that there's a lack of rule of law and fundamental values where government can be held accountable. For the CMLA that's very important because it really undergirds the liberal democracy that we have here that functions well, that we can sit here and respectfully debate and hold government to account and improve our legislation.

The third piece for the CMLA is really the dignity of all persons in Canada, and to promote those values in human rights, in national security, and in other ways. Certainly, we will speak when Muslim Canadians and Muslims in Canada are adversely affected by national security law and in terms of discriminatory impact where they practice their faith, those sorts of things. But that is not exclusively our focus. We see that as a subset of the dignity of all persons.

As many of you in the room are lawyers and parliamentarians, you know that the adoption of the charter was a landmark in our nation's history and further ensured that the rule of law and fundamental rights became a part of our legal culture and political tradition.

The core of the charter stands for two things. Number one, it is an entrenching of fundamental values and a public expression of those values and rights to the citizens, to the politicians, to the courts, to the institutions, to everyone in society that these values are important.

The second important piece of a charter or a bill of rights type of mechanism in all societies that have that, and where it functions well, is that it is a check on government. That is what the charter is designed to be, and when government acts it needs to be respectful of those fundamental rights and values. It's subject to scrutiny and justification. That's essentially what the charter does and how it operates. It holds government to account. For citizens, that is an important piece, because without that and the courts...you know, no disrespect, but even well-meaning governments can make mistakes. We do need courts and the rule of law to hold governments to account.

Is the CCP relevant, and is the charter relevant? That would be the bigger question. I think the charter is more relevant today than it was in 1982, for the precise fact that it is a check on government. Because the modern state has grown significantly in those 30-some odd years, I think it is more relevant today than it was when it was introduced.

That's where I come to the charter litigation as an access to justice item. Charter litigation is a key piece of access to justice. You've heard it from other witnesses today and in previous hearings you've held. It's a key piece in holding government to account. Certainly, there is the media and there are other pieces in civil society that hold government to account, but in terms of access to justice and the legal system in our division of powers, this is an important piece.

This is where our concern is. Without the CCP, vulnerable and disadvantaged persons and communities in Canada may not have the resources or the capacity to hold governments to account. Where their rights are infringed or threatened by government action, they may not be able to access the courts, because as we know—many of us are lawyers—it's a costly business to go to court, and it's an increasingly costly business to go to court.

At the end of the day, those disadvantaged people in Canada may then become invisible to the justice system itself, and the court's doors essentially will be closed to them. What's the effect of having that happen to those people? Over time, that lack of access to justice will really distort the contours of charter jurisprudence.

What you're going to have is a society where some people just can't exercise their rights and where those who are well-heeled and can afford to exercise their rights will go to court. You're going to get this lopsided jurisprudence. You're won't be getting a reflection of the real concerns that are out there in society.

That's why we think the CCP is crucially important. It's not the only piece in access to justice—don't get me wrong—but it is an important piece in making that happen. We think it's important to not have a lopsided jurisprudence with respect to the charter, and that's essentially why we support the restoration of the program.

In terms of restoration, we would like to see the restoration of the essential elements of the old program—we don't get into details, but I'd be happy to answer your questions—such as equality rights, for sure, and language minority rights, on which there has been some discussion about whether they're parsed off. We're not wedded to a particular model, but certainly we're interested in having those things preserved, as well as independence from government, for sure.

Also, the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association is asking for the mandate and scope to be expanded to include section 7 of the charter, not to be a subsidiary right to section 15. I'm being clear. With all due respect to my colleagues from the CBA, I appreciate that perspective and I agree with where she's going with that, but I would like to see section 7 stand alone.

I don't want a disadvantaged community or individual turned away for a section 7 claim where they don't have a neat fit into an enumerated or analogous ground, because that would actually just be a bureaucratic way or an unforeseen circumstance. If our goal is to have disadvantaged people have access to justice and their charter rights, we don't want to tell them to go away because they don't fit into one of those neat boxes.

Let's take the Carter case, for example. We could say that's a disadvantaged class of persons who suffer and who may need to access that right to die, but those people cross every faith community, different economic boundaries, sex, and religion—I mentioned that—so it could cross a lot of the enumerated grounds, and they may technically be knocked out of a charter challenge program.

The other piece, the section 7 substantive “right to life, liberty and security of the person”, holds a lot of promise for litigation. In particular, a lot of people have talked about socio-economic rights. I don't know whether it's in there or not. Courts will decide, but this is the point of having test case litigation, and this is the reason why we need to have charter support for those cases.

We'd like it extended to provincial law and action as well, for the very fact that it is not about jurisdictional battles or politics. This is about the charter, and the charter applies to all government action. It is a check on government. That's the lens we should look at in terms of application.

We would like the program to be independent of government and funding to be sustainable and stable.

Those are my submissions. I look forward to your questions. Thank you.

Citizenship Act

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to speak in support of Bill C-6 today, although I do feel that it falls short in a number of areas.

As has been said by several speakers here today and yesterday, most Canadians come from immigrant families, and many of us have stories of parents and grandparents who came to this country to ensure a better life for their children. My mother's family, the Munns, came from Scotland to Newfoundland in 1837, and I was very happy and honoured to hear the member for Avalon read a statement on Tuesday regarding my great-great-uncle John Munn, who came here in 1837 as a young entrepreneur and started Munn and Co., one of the greatest merchant companies in the storied history of Newfoundland, a company that was taken over by my great-grandfather, Robert Stewart Munn, in 1878.

My father's father, on the other hand, came from more humble beginnings, the slums of Bristol. He went to the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia in 1907, and I am proud to use the leather case that he was given by his colleagues when he left England. I use it in recognition of the courage that he showed in giving up his life in England and moving to the wild west over a century ago.

To my way of thinking, Bill C-6 and its attempt to fix some of the serious shortcomings in citizenship law in Canada is a very welcome step. I would like to talk about the provisions in this bill that repeal the parts of Bill C-24 that relate to people who hold dual citizenship in Canada.

During a very long election campaign, like everyone in the chamber, I talked to thousands of people across my riding. As we found out on election day, most of them were desperate for a change in government. When I spoke with citizens on their doorsteps or answered questions at forums, they had a long list of concerns with the former government, but what really surprised me about the depth of these concerns was the fact that many people actually knew the names and numbers of a couple of the bills that bothered them.

I was not so much surprised that they knew about Bill C-51, as there had been a number of local rallies in my area and the bill had been well covered in the news, but I was really surprised to find out how many people immediately named Bill C-24 as their biggest concern. It is not often people know the names and numbers of bills. They were particularly vehement in their discussions around its provisions for stripping people with dual citizenship of their Canadian citizenship. It did not matter that this bill supposedly targeted only terrorists and spies; when taken in context with Bill C-51, there was a lot of concern at the time over who might be considered a terrorist, a spy, or a traitor.

A couple of years ago, I attended a meeting of environmental activists in a church basement in the Okanagan Valley. Most of the people there were elderly folks who were worried about the impacts of oil tankers along the Pacific coast. They were learning the basics of door-to-door canvassing. We found out some years later that a federal agent had attended the meeting and that some of the volunteers were followed and photographed as they canvassed neighbourhoods.

The previous government clearly treated anti-pipeline activists as traitors, and Bill C-51 came close to legalizing that view. Who is to say what future governments may decide about the definition of these serious charges? That is why I am very happy to see that Bill C-6 will repeal those parts of Bill C-24 that created two kinds of Canadian citizens: those who were safely Canadian and those who could lose their citizenship at the whim of some future minister.

This section of Bill C-24 has been denounced by the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and many respected academics. Many of these experts feel that Bill C-24 does not comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or international law. Like many other bills from the previous government, it was given a rather Orwellian doublespeak name. In this case it was called the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, when it clearly did the opposite.

When we welcome immigrants to Canada and grant them citizenship, they become Canadians, citizens like every one of us here in this chamber. They deserve to be given the same rights of citizenship as all of us, whether or not they choose to retain the citizenship of another country.

On top of that, one has to wonder why we would want to strip people of their citizenship and deport them, even if they have been convicted of treasonous or terrorist acts. Would we want them plotting against Canada from some foreign country, where they could easily be drawn into terrorist groups to harm Canadians and other citizens, or do we want them to be safely behind bars in prisons here in Canada?

I would like to turn now to talking about welcoming new immigrants. We all know the great benefits that immigrants bring to our country. Their hard work helps build this country, and we should remove unnecessary barriers to citizenship. I am happy to see that Bill C-6 begins to address some of these issues.

One of those barriers is the requirement that most new citizens be proficient in one of our two official languages. My daughter works in an immigrant support centre teaching English to refugees and new immigrants. Lately her classes have included refugees who have come to our region from Syria. I have met her students and can attest to their enthusiasm for learning English so that they can become fully integrated into the local community, get jobs, and become productive members of our society.

That said, I do support the provision in Bill C-6 that returns the age restriction to this requirement to 54 years of age, since older immigrants have strong family support and in turn are supporting their children's family at home. Many of these older immigrants have difficulty learning a new language and can contribute to Canadian society through their relationships with their children and other community members.

On that note, I would like to bring up the extreme difficulties just mentioned by my colleague that face young families of new Canadians who are trying to reunify their families and bring their parents to Canada.

I have had numerous representations, as I am sure many here have, from constituents who have been trying for years to bring parents to live with them in Canada. I have one family that has been trying for almost 10 years to bring their parents to join them in Canada. It breaks my heart to tell them that they have another six and a half years to wait. In the meantime, their parents are getting older and older. They do not think it is useful to continue the process because it is just so frustrating, so I hope the government acts on its promises to quickly clear up this backlog by replacing the present system with one that is fair and really works.

I would also like to note that many immigrant support centres across this country have had their federal funds cut over the past two years, making it difficult for these centres to help refugees and new immigrants get the language lessons and the other help they need to integrate into our communities.

To conclude, I urge the government to continue to remove unnecessary barriers to new immigrants in Canada, both through legislative action and through proper funding for immigrant support.

I would like to reiterate that Canada is a country of immigrants that should continue to welcome new Canadians from around the world. Bill C-24 was a giant step in the wrong direction, and Bill C-6 is a good step back toward making Canada a welcoming country, a country that we can all be proud of.

[Daniel Therrien]

That's an interesting question. Obviously there should be rigour before legislation is amended. I will say that obviously national security legislation needs to be up to date in terms of the threat faced by Canada, and the arguments for Bill C-44 had to do with updating the legislation to be in line with the current threat environment, the fact that it's international in nature, etc., so there was some foundation for the objective.

In terms of how to ensure the protection of rights in an environment where CSIS is given more powers, absolutely this deserves more scrutiny, and perhaps Bill C-44 should be looked at at the same time as BillC-51. That might be a possibility. All of these laws deal with what should be the legal architecture in Canada to deal with the terrorist threat. Apparently the government wants to have some form of review, particularly of Bill C-51. There would be some merit to extending that more broadly.

[Daniel Therrien]

Bill C-51, whose short title is the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, had a number of parts. The first part pertained to the sharing of information between federal institutions, including personal information held by federal institutions. Such information can now be shared between government departments and 17 agencies that have specific responsibilities for suppressing or detecting terrorism. What Bill C-51 does is allow all federal departments to disclose personal information to these 17 agencies if it is relevant to detecting or suppressing terrorism.

We had concerns about the lack of comprehensive oversight mechanisms and the evidence threshold for sharing information, among other things.

I understand that the government plans to introduce a bill or conduct a study to review Bill C-51. We think that is an excellent idea.

The purpose of Bill C-44 was to give the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, explicit authority to operate outside Canada. Before this bill was introduced, CSIS exercised its powers in Canada. Bill C-44 enabled CSIS to extend its activities outside the country. CSIS and the government were of the opinion that this was already provided for implicitly. Bill C-44 authorized it explicitly. The bill more explicitly authorizes information sharing between CSIS and similar agencies in other countries.

The concern we raised had to do with the risk of human rights violations, depending on the countries to which this information would be disclosed. We recommended that steps be taken to control this information sharing in order to avoid torture, for example, in the worst-case scenario.

Bill C-13 had to do with online crime in general, but amended the other law that my office administers, the Competition Act, to allow private companies to give information to police in investigations where electronic documents or personal information could be relevant. That applies in the case of online crime, but also more generally.

We had some concerns about that as well. We felt that the scope of the bill was too broad and that some provisions might not comply with a recent Supreme Court decision in Spencer, which provides for protection of some metadata when people use the Internet to share personal information.

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

Thank you.

I have a second question.

Regarding the disclosure of personal information, you said in your 2014-15 report that Bills C-13, C-51, and C-44, if I'm not mistaken, which now have the force of law, had a serious impact on the disclosure of personal information without people's consent.

Can you elaborate on Bill C-51? We have heard a great deal about information sharing between institutions. I am less familiar with Bills C-13 and C-44. I'd like you to talk a bit more about these three bills and the changes they made when it comes to disclosure.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to raise two hypothetical situations for the hon. member for Surrey—Newton.

I want to say on the record how pleased I am that the new government is bringing in Bill C-6. I wish that the Liberals would repeal Bill C-24 in its entirety.

I will give another example to the member for Calgary Midnapore, who paints the worst case. I will take that worst case and ask how does it benefit world peace and security to take someone who is dangerous and put them back in their country of origin? Would that government feel well with them? Are they barred from ever coming back to Canada?

Let me take another example. The reckless Bill C-51 passed by the previous government included offences of so-called terrorism. Part 3 of Bill C-51, which I call the “thought chill section”, deals with things placed on websites that might encourage “terrorism in general”. It could include a Che Guevara poster the way it is worded. Therefore, a person who is innocent, but might have dual citizenship, could be found guilty of a terrorism-related offence for something as innocuous as an image on a website. It is anti-democratic and wrong, and thank God the current government is bringing it down.