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.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

With regard to this, first, I don't think it's necessary. We already have in Canada a system of robust coordination and oversight over our law enforcement and security agencies.

Although it's not deemed to be out of scope with regard to this bill, I think it's certainly out of scope with what the intentions of Bill C-51 were in order to fill the existing gaps in legislation clearly identified by our security agencies. Therefore, I'm not going to be supporting this amendment.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

We put forward this amendment because throughout the testimony, and even sometimes in the media, I heard from some of my colleagues that somehow CSIS was being turned into a secret police and that we're moving to a police state and everything else. Of course, we've heard this before. We've heard similar comments from organizations going way back to 1983. But I just want to be clear that Bill C-51 does not give CSIS police powers. There's no ability to arrest. Under Bill C-51, CSIS will remain a civilian security intelligence agency dedicated to investigating and addressing threats to the security of Canada, including the amendments in this bill. Nonetheless, we have added this proposed subsection:

(4) For greater certainty, nothing in subsection (1) confers on the Service any law enforcement power.

We do so in order to clearly set aside any of the rhetoric we have heard about secret police and so forth. That is completely ridiculous and complete and utter nonsense, and that's why we've added this amendment to the bill.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

I believe this amendment is not consistent with the intent of the bill, which is to give CSIS an effective mandate to reduce all threats to the security of Canada as defined in the CSIS Act.

By limiting the scope of the threat reduction mandate, the amendment would greatly reduce the value of threat reduction as a national security tool. Although the focus of Bill C-51 is terrorism, the rationale for a threat reduction mandate applies equally to the full range of threats to the security of Canada as defined in the CSIS Act. Opportunities to reduce threats have been identified beyond terrorism, but CSIS, lacking the necessary threat reduction mandate, has been unable to take advantage of those opportunities. We need to advantage them, and therefore I am not in favour of this amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, but as the chair indicated earlier, this is inadmissible. It follows my previous statement regarding Mr. Garrison's amendment, that section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Act is not being amended by Bill C-51. Therefore, it is the opinion of the chair that this amendment is inadmissible.

Now we have two clauses, 40 and 41.

Can we deal with them together, Mr. Garrison and Mr. Easter?

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

I have of course counsel from the legislative clerk, and I will just refer to it, Mr. Garrison. The amendment proposes to modify section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Services Act. As House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, states on pages 766 to 767 “...an amendment is inadmissible if it proposes to amend a statute that is not before the committee or a section of the parent Act, unless the latter is specifically amended by a clause of the bill.”

In this case, since section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Act is not being amended by Bill C-51, it is therefore the opinion of the chair that the amendment is inadmissible.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The amendment would change the current law, which requires that a police officer “suspects on reasonable grounds” that the detention of the person in custody is necessary in order to prevent the carrying out of a terrorist activity. Given the serious nature of a terrorist activity and the potential harm it could cause, raising the grounds here to “believes on reasonable grounds” would make preventative arrests more difficult, and thus would be inconsistent with Bill C-51's legislative objective to facilitate the use of these terrorism prevention tools, which, I might add, has been supported by the Supreme Court in the past.

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

Mr. Chair, similarly, amendment 35 looks at when the peace officer needs to believe, on reasonable grounds, that the detention of a person is necessary to prevent the carrying out of a terrorist activity that involves serious or imminent threat to the life or health of another person. It's an attempt to deal with the many critics who see this bill as going far too far in a free and democratic society.

I saw that Roxanne didn't like the reference to the BC Civil Liberties Association, so I'll quote someone from the Conservative ranks: Conrad Black. I think he is really quite extreme in saying that if we don't act, Bill C-51 will leave us waking up in “unrecognizable despotism”.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

This amendment would remove the lowering of existing legal thresholds for obtaining a terrorism recognizance with conditions under subsection 83.3(2), and the terrorism preventative arrest provisions of subsection 83.3(4), because it proposes to delete all of Bill C-51's amendments in this area. However, this amendment would leave in the provisions of the bill that would propose the extension of judicial remand and the recognizance with conditions scheme from three to seven days, with periodic judicial review.

The proposed amendment is inconsistent with the scope and principle, I believe, of this. I believe it is inconsistent with the scope and principle of Bill C-51, which seeks to make it easier to obtain a terrorism recognizance with conditions by removing the proposed lowering of the legal threshold. Therefore, we'll not be supporting it.

[Claude Patry, Bloc, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This amendment has to do with eliminating the expanded scope of arrests without a warrant. Under Bill C-51, there are fewer conditions to initiate an investigation or to arrest an individual by replacing words like “will commit” with “could commit”, and “necessary to prevent” with “is likely to prevent the carrying out of the terrorist activity”.

Our amendment would prevent these conditions from being lowered and eliminate the authority of the Federal Court to issue preventive detention warrants without acceptable proof.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, there is an appeals process. It's clearly in this bill. Regarding the amendments that we have discussed in part 2 of Bill C-51, we've had the officials on hand and they have clarified the questions and the concerns. I understand that the opposition parties want to get some more of their viewpoints on the record, but clearly the legislation is there. It's clear that there are safeguards in place. We heard that from witnesses, and the officials have been here to answer any of those concerns directly. So I just wanted to put that out there as well.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I won't repeat what I said with regard to NDP-13, except to say that I hope that the threat of terrorism goes away tomorrow, but I believe that when this act is no longer needed and becomes redundant, I am sure that our elected officials in Parliament, no matter who they are, would review any of the legislation if it isn't needed or acted upon. Until that occurs, I think we need legislation such as Bill C-51 to make sure that Canadians are afforded the best safety possible in a world that's very insecure.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

It is a sunset clause that would provide for a review. I suggest that my colleague reread the amendment and she might change her mind. I think it's important for parliamentarians to do a good job. This review would enable us, after three years, to see whether Bill C-51 worked well or if changes are needed. At the end of the day, it is up to us to ensure that what we did worked well.

I think it would be honourable if the government were to change its position on this amendment, which I think is perfectly reasonable, in light of the scope of the bill, and more specifically clause 11.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

I believe the provision in Bill C-51 would allow the presiding judge to see all information relevant to the government's actions while still protecting sensitive information from public disclosure. The provision ensures fairness to the applicant while giving judges flexibility to consider information from a variety of sources. There is no reason to limit the judge's discretion in the manner proposed by this amendment.

Public Safety

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, most of the witnesses that we heard from, including those called by the government, confirmed what we have been saying from the beginning.

Bill C-51 is a botched bill. It does not include any kind of oversight mechanism and it jeopardizes our rights and freedoms. From the outset, the Conservative government has been turning a deaf ear, and its stubbornness could undermine the freedoms of Canadians.

Will the minister finally do the right thing and withdraw his bill?

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, I hope the member has listened to the many witnesses. Here is one to whom I would like him to pay attention.

Bill C-51, and this is an important reminder, is directed against Islamist jihadists to prevent them from achieving their stated objective of carrying out terrorist threats against the west, including Canada. Our country is facing a serious threat.

—the measures proposed in Bill C-51 to deal with the nature of threats Canada faces are quite rightly and urgently needed....

That was professor Salim Mansur from Western University in Ontario.