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.

Instruction to Committee on Bill C-51

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have always believed that a royal recommendation is required when it is a private member's bill that introduces legislation that would incur Crown expenditures. However, if a government presents a bill, which is what we are talking about with Bill C-51, is not the royal accord to spend money implicit in that? I am rather baffled here that we would have that kind of an argument to oppose a motion such as the one that is before us today.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to start by reassuring Ms. Ablonczy that our friendship is not endangered by this. I'm one of those people who believes our political differences need to be left at the table and that all of us here are trying to do the best we can for Canadians. I have pointed this out several times when we have strayed into more personal remarks about people's positions.

When the Privacy Commissioner was appointed, the NDP expressed some reservations about Mr. Therrien because of his close connections with the government. The irony here is that his recommendations are being so thoroughly ignored by the government.

One of the things he made very clear in his letter was that a change needs to be made in information sharing. It's again one of those one-word changes that is quite significant. The test for sharing information in Bill C-51 is whether information is relevant to the recipient institution's responsibilities. Mr. Therrien says very clearly that's too low a standard and that information exchanges should take place only if that information is necessary to carry out the recipient institution's responsibility. Again, he sees that as a significant lowering of the standard by which personal information on all Canadians might potentially be shared under Bill C-51.

The simple reason is to substitute the necessary standard for sharing for the relevant standard that's contained in the bill.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it was not that long ago when the government attempted to change a different bill in terms of its scope, when it was brought before the House. The government needs to realize that it cannot have it both ways.

Back then, the government argued that it could use a private member's bill to take Canadian citizenship away from people who have dual citizenship. It had to deal with terrorism and other issues. The government then brought that issue to the floor of the House and argued why it felt it was important to change the scope. That was the intent of the private member's bill.

Now, the shoe is on the other foot. There is a huge demand out there that the government be sympathetic and act upon some serious amendments in regard to Bill C-51. Now members of the committee are looking at the scope and whether or not some of those changes might be able to be made.

For example, the leader of the Liberal Party and members of the Liberal Party have been very clear that we want to ensure that there is oversight. That is of critical importance. We want to institute mandatory legislative reviews. Again, this is something that is very important to Canadians and the Liberal Party.

We want to narrow the overly broad definitions that are being put forward in Bill C-51. Again, this is an issue that is very important to all Canadians. It is something that we in the Liberal Party have been advocating at the committee stage and during the debates inside the House.

What we do not want is for the government to use the issue of scope at the committee stage. We do believe there is merit to the motion here today, so we can express some of the concerns I just put on the record. I do not do that lightly. The leader of the Liberal Party and my caucus colleagues, particularly our critic, have been sitting through committee, listening to the presentations at committee, where we are hearing that there is a real need for change and amendments at the committee stage. The concern is that the government is not going to tolerate a number of those changes by indicating that they are beyond the scope of the legislation.

At the end of the day, we do believe that there is some merit to having the debate today on the NDP motion that has been put before the House. We would encourage you, as the Speaker, to allow that debate to occur so that Canadians can be better served in regard to the many concerns that have been addressed with respect to Bill C-51. A number of the amendments are not only being brought forward by the Liberal Party, but I understand they are also being brought forward by the New Democratic Party.

We do not want these amendments to be ruled out because of the scope of the legislation. This is a very important issue for the Liberals at the very least and, I would suggest, other opposition members and all Canadians.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank Mr. Patry for his amendment, which I support. I think it is extremely important to respect what the Privacy Commissioner told the the Standing Committee on Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness in writing about Bill C-51. It is all the more important because he is an officer of Parliament with a lot of credibility, particularly when it comes to the bill before us.

I really like the idea of the Privacy Commissioner giving his written approval. Paragraph (b) of the amendment is also important for protecting privacy, particularly when it comes to unnecessary information. The protection of Canadians' privacy in general is extremely important.

I am therefore going to vote in favour of Mr. Patry's amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of sympathy for the government House leader. He would have seen the motion of instruction, and it is important to cite at this point a motion of instruction. The bible that governs us, O'Brien and Bosc, not always followed by the Conservative side of the House but followed very exactly on this side of the House by the official opposition, says the following:

Once a bill has been referred to a committee, the House may instruct the committee by way of a motion authorizing what would otherwise be beyond its powers, such as, for example, examining a portion of the bill and reporting it separately, examining certain items in particular, dividing a bill into more than one bill, consolidating two or more bills into a single bill, or expanding or narrowing the scope or application of a bill.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, being no stranger to a motion of instruction, a motion of instruction may be moved in the House even after a committee has begun its deliberations on a bill. The government House leader sees this, knowing full well that this motion of instruction is perfectly in order, and he has to construct an argument. I have a lot of sympathy for him, which is why he, basically, created the massive paper tiger out on the front lawn of the Centre Block.

He tried to say that the motion of instruction says things that it does not. He referred to an agency and government spending. As you know, Mr. Speaker, what it says is very simple, that the committee be granted the power and that the scope be enlarged on this particular bill:

...to expand the scope of the Bill in order to: (a) ensure that the government works with Canadian communities to counter radicalization; and (b) enhance oversight of Canadian security and intelligence agencies.

It is a permissive motion of instruction, it is not obligatory. That is, unfortunately, the word that the government House leader neglected to mention that makes the difference between this being in order or not. Very clearly, this motion of instruction is in order.

One has to ask why the government House leader just took 20 minutes of House time to try to stop a debate that would have taken perhaps half an hour or 45 minutes. The reality is, Mr. Speaker, as you know, there are two elements that the government House leader is acutely aware of, and that is why he wants to try to shut down this debate.

The first element is public opinion. When Bill C-51 was initially proposed by the public safety minister, public support was in the range of 80%. That has dramatically fallen as debate has continued in committee. Now a minority of Canadians support the bill and a majority of Canadians disapprove of the bill. One of the key elements to that, of course, is the lack of oversight.

The other element that the government House leader is acutely aware of is the fact that 45 out of the 48 witnesses who appeared in committee said there needed to be enhanced oversight. This includes 25 of the 28 Conservative witnesses, where the Conservatives said they were their witnesses and would hopefully reflect the Conservatives' point of view on Bill C-51.

This is what was discussed in committee. This motion of instruction ensures that the committee, in a permissive way, can look at enlarging the scope of the bill. This motion of instruction is absolutely in order and I think we can disregard the paper tiger that was constructed by the government House leader. He tried to imagine a motion of instruction that would be out of order and he has very effectively argued against that motion of instruction that he imagined in his mind. What he imagined in his mind is quite different from what we have put forward on paper. I would ask, Mr. Speaker, that you simply do what is the right thing in this case, which is to rule the motion of instruction in order so we can get on with the debate that Canadians are looking for.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

No, it's the luck of the drafting, I guess you would have to say, in how amendments come forward in terms of sections of the bill.

The amendment that we're proposing, again, only implements what's already contemplated in Bill C-51 by asking that there be an entry into written information sharing agreements.

Again, that's a recommendation of the Privacy Commissioner. The amendment asks that the Privacy Commissioner be consulted on those information sharing agreements. Again, we have the letter from the Privacy Commissioner, and this is something that he contemplates. I would ask all members of the committee to take very seriously its aim of protecting the privacy of those who are not involved in anything to do with terrorism or violence, but who run the risk, with the broad definition that the government has adopted in this bill, of having information about them shared between 17 government departments.

Thank you.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the proposed motion of instruction by the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster is actually out of order, I would submit, because it should be accompanied by a recommendation from His Excellency the Governor General.

Standing Order 79(1) instructs:

This House will not adopt or pass any vote, resolution, address or bill for the appropriation of any part of the public revenue, or of any tax or impost, to any purpose that has not been first recommended to the House by a message from the Governor General in the session in which such vote, resolution, address or bill is proposed.

I will put to you, Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what this proposed motion seeks to do in its instruction.

The purpose of Standing Order 79(1) is to incorporate into our Standing Orders and thus put within the jurisdiction of the chair the requirements of section 54 of the Constitution Act, 1867, which was known as the British North America Act back when I was growing up, and section 54 reads very similarly to Standing Order 79(1):

It shall not be lawful for the House of Commons to adopt or pass any Vote, Resolution, Address, or Bill for the Appropriation of any Part of the Public Revenue, or of any Tax or Impost, to any Purpose that has not been first recommended to that House by Message of the Governor General in the Session in which such Vote, Resolution, Address, or Bill is proposed.

This requirement extends to motions of instruction in respect to bills. It is quite clear, as it says there, that it is not limited to simply bills. It says “any Vote, Resolution, Address, or Bill for the Appropriation of any Part of the Public Revenue”.

Page 754 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, is actually quite authoritative and quite definitive on this. It refers to a motion of instruction, which is what we are dealing with here:

A motion of instruction will also be ruled out of order...if it extends the financial prerogatives of the Crown without a royal recommendation for that purpose.

At this point it is already quite definitive that it is the case in fact that the member cannot move that absent a royal recommendation, and there is, of course, no royal recommendation forthcoming for the purposes he is asking the committee to amend the bill on instruction from the House.

Following this citation offered for that authority, one can trace this proposition back to a ruling of Mr. Speaker Fitzroy of the United Kingdom House of Commons given on February 4, 1930, and recorded at column 1721 of the Official Report.

Coming back to Canada, let me quote citation 596 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, 6th edition, with respect to how legislative amendments intersect with the requirement for a royal recommendation:

The guiding principle in determining the effect of an amendment upon the financial initiative of the Crown is that the communication, to which the Royal Recommendation is attached, must be treated as laying down once for all (unless withdrawn and replaced) not only the amount of the charge, but also its objects, purposes, conditions and qualifications. In relation to the standard thereby fixed, an amendment infringes the financial initiative of the Crown not only if it increases the amount but also if it extends the objects and purposes, or relaxes the conditions and qualifications expressed in the communication by which the crown has demanded or recommended a charge.

In this particular motion for instruction, both elements of it would contemplate an additional charge. Setting up an additional oversight agency would obviously create additional expenses for the government, an additional charge on the public purse. Similarly, new programs of the type that are contemplated, above and beyond those which already exist for counter-radicalization, would also involve new charges, so in that sense, both aspects of the motion of instruction would require a royal recommendation. The committee would not be in a position to be able to amend it to create these powers without a royal recommendation. There is no such recommendation, and I think it is quite clear that none will be forthcoming.

I would submit that as a result, it is quite clear that both elements proposed are beyond the objects and purposes contemplated by the Governor General in His Excellency's recommendation as it exists on Bill C-51. There is a royal recommendation there, but not for these additional powers that the motion for instruction seeks to establish.

A former principal clerk of the House, Michael Lukyniuk, wrote the article “Spending Proposals: When is a Royal Recommendation Needed?” which appeared in the Spring 2010 edition of Canadian Parliamentary Review. This passage from page 30 speaks to the situation we face with the motion of the NDP House leader:

To apply a consistent and objective approach to each case, the Speaker is guided by two basic principles: that the terms and conditions of the royal recommendation cannot be expanded upon, and that a new and distinct request for expenditure must be accompanied by a royal recommendation.

It continues:

Terms and conditions: The royal recommendation states that an appropriation of public funds must be made “under the circumstances, in the manner and for the purposes set out” in the bill to which it is attached. The terms and conditions of the royal recommendation are a specific expression of the financial initiative of the Crown and amendments may not propose measures which go beyond these qualifications.

That is what I see is happening here. The article continues:

New and distinct requests for expenditure: This refers to measures which propose spending and are not supported by any existing statute. When considering a bill or amendment, the Speaker reflects on whether some entirely new activity or function is being proposed that radically diverges from those already authorized. The simplest examples are bills which propose the establishment of new offices, agencies or departments. Speakers have consistently ruled that such measures require a royal recommendation.

In this case, the committee is being asked to go in the direction of establishing an entirely new agency of oversight. That would require a royal recommendation. The member comes to the House with the motion absent such a royal recommendation.

Later in the article, Mr. Lukyniuk writes at pages 32 and 33:

When a legislative proposal envisages a new role or function for an existing organization or program, a royal recommendation is required because the terms and conditions of the original royal recommendation which created that organization or program are being altered.

It continues:

In the first situation, the terms and conditions that established an organization or program are being altered so that a new and distinct authorization for spending is being permanently created. This initiative must be accompanied by a royal recommendation.

Paragraph (a) of the NDP House leader's motion speaks to amendments which would “ensure that the government works with Canadian communities to counter radicalization”. Though ill defined as to who and how, it certainly speaks to a new and distinct element to be added to the statute book through Bill C-51. In any event, my hon. friend the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and his officials within the public safety portfolio, one which I also had the privilege of leading at one time, have been working and continue to work hard on developing and seeing through strategies to prevent Canadians from being radicalized by violent ideologies.

Meanwhile, paragraph (b) contemplates amendments which “enhance oversight of Canadian security and intelligence agencies”. Again, this sounds like a new purpose for Bill C-51, either as a new or enlarged purpose for either an existing or new government entity, which was not contemplated in His Excellency's recommendation. Of course, as the House well knows by now, the key new powers in the anti-terrorism act, 2015, are subject to judicial review and to prior judicial authorization. In other words, this will be the role of judges and our courts, and there is no better authority to review these matters.

Legislative provisions similar to what is proposed in paragraph (b) of the motion have previously been seen as turning on the financial initiative of the crown. For example, earlier this session, the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra proposed Bill C-622, an act to amend the National Defence Act (transparency and accountability), to enact the intelligence and security committee of Parliament act and to make consequential amendments to other acts, which is almost identical to what is being sought here. Certainly, if we are to discern or divine from the repeated public statements of the opposition, that is exactly what it is seeking to do in this case.

On October 8, 2014, the Assistant Deputy Chair of Committees of the Whole made the following statement at page 8414 of the Debates:

As members know, after the order of precedence is replenished, the Chair reviews the new items so as to alert the House to bills that at first glance appear to impinge on the financial prerogative of the crown.

He continues:

Accordingly, following the September 23, 2014, replenishment of the order of precedence with 15 new items, I wish to inform the House that there is a bill that gives the Chair some concern as to the spending provisions it contemplates.

It is Bill C-622...standing in the name of the member for Vancouver Quadra.

I would add that neither that hon. member, nor any other member, rose in the House on a point of order to make submissions rebutting the presumption established by the Chair at that time. Therefore, here we have a clear case in this Parliament in which the ruling has come from the Chair in which you sit, Mr. Speaker, that an effort to achieve something, like this motion seeks to achieve by way of a private member's bill, could not proceed without a royal recommendation. The same would apply to this motion for instruction.

Similar legislation was introduced by the previous Liberal government, when Bill C-81, the national security committee of parliamentarians act, was introduced in 2005. I will note that when the Liberals sought to establish a parliamentary committee with oversight, they never carried through with it, but it was proposed. It was not a bill they saw worthy of finally passing, but it was proposed.

However, they did, with that bill, have a royal recommendation. There was a recognition, certainly by the Liberal government of the day, to take the step that this motion for instruction seeks to take. Even if it is to be a committee of parliamentarians, that step would be a new initiative that would require a royal recommendation, again, one that is absent in this motion. Clearly, the Liberals think that this sort of step is properly accompanied by a royal recommendation.

The financial initiative of the Crown in its constitutional standing, which I cited at the opening of my argument, has even been considered by our highest court. For example, in the unanimous 1991 judgement of the Supreme Court of Canada in Reference Re Canada Assistance Plan, Mr. Justice Sopinka wrote:

Under s. 54 of the Constitution Act, 1867, a money bill, including an amendment to a money bill like the Plan, can only be introduced on the initiative of the government.

The renowned constitutional expert, Peter Hogg, is unequivocal that the NDP leader cannot sidestep the Constitution with this cynical motion. On page 314 of the Constitutional Law of Canada, fourth edition, Professor Hogg writes:

There is of course no doubt as to the binding character of the rules in the Constitution that define the composition of the legislative bodies and the steps required in the legislative process.

In closing, what the NDP leader is attempting to propose here is not just out of order, it is in fact unconstitutional. Though we normally say that constitutional questions are beyond the purview of the Chair, this is an important exception. Indeed, it falls to you, Mr. Speaker, to find that this motion is out of order.

Page 837 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, O'Brien and Bosc, addresses the Speaker's role on this type of unique matter of constitutional legitimacy:

The Speaker has the duty and responsibility to ensure that the Standing Orders pertaining to the royal recommendation, as well as the constitutional requirements, are upheld. There is no provision under the rules of financial procedure that would permit the Speaker to leave it up to the House to decide or to allow the House to do so by unanimous consent. These imponderables apply regardless of the composition of the House.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, the authorities are quite clear that the motion before you is out of order and cannot be put to the House.

I understand that we are at a point where your decision on this is fairly significant and important because of timing, because the committee is already at the point of contemplating amendments in moving forward on that. As such, although this motion was put on the order paper some time ago, by delaying moving it, you are a little bit wedged, if I can put it that way, by the timing selected by the opposition House leader.

Therefore, I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that under the circumstances, if you do feel it necessary to suspend proceedings for a brief period of time in order to contemplate this issue in order to render your decision before allowing debate on this motion to proceed, we would understand and recognize that you have been put in a very difficult spot in terms of timing and that such a step may be necessary.

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

moved:

That it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security that, during its consideration of Bill C-51, An Act to enact the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act and the Secure Air Travel Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, the Committee be granted the power to expand the scope of the Bill in order to: (a) ensure that the government works with Canadian communities to counter radicalization; and (b) enhance oversight of Canadian security and intelligence agencies.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. We certainly welcome the removal of the word “lawful” as a qualifier on things that would be covered in this bill.

I have a question for the officials, perhaps from Justice Canada. There are two things in the government amendment. It's unfortunate that they have been combined, but there are two different things in this amendment. One is the removal of the word “lawful”, and the other deals with the sharing of information, but both of those are what are called “for greater certainty” clauses.

I'm looking for assistance from one of the officials to explain to us the legal impact of a “for greater certainty clause”, because it seems to me that it's simply a modifier or a general instruction about the interpretation of a clause, but that the main clause stands.

The reason I raise this question is that we've talked about that definition by which information will be shared as being too broad, and that it becomes, in Bill C-51, the basis of the law.

I'd like to know how much the “for greater certainty” restricts that general clause, and since that's used in both of these, could someone give us some assistance on that?

[Dr. Amit Kumar]

I have outlined five recommendations, and I'm not going chronologically based on my opening statement but rather am speaking offhand. One is the fact that FINTRAC has always been blamed for not sharing enough information with the law enforcement, but the way things are played in the FIU business, unless FINTRAC gets the counterterrorism intelligence blended information from law enforcement, it's not able to inform and educate the financial community or the financial institutions as to what to look for in a suspicious activity report.

What is suspicious activity? There has to be a dovetailing of the law enforcement counterterrorism information with the financial intelligence that's gathered by FINTRAC from financial institutions in order to remove the problem of defensive filing of suspicious activity reports, overregulation, or not exact.... Because the financial institutions badly need guidance from the government. That is one recommendation I'd like to make.

Then there's always this fact of Canada being an active member of the UN and funding a lot of UN programs and making requests to the UN al Qaeda monitoring team as well as the counterterrorism executive directorate for impact assessments and implementation effectiveness assessments. Where are the taxpayers' funds going? There has to be some accounting for that. There hasn't been any study of either impact or implementation effectiveness.

Those are two key recommendations I'd like to make. Also, I did look at whether in Bill C-51 the scope of material support could be brought in to include.... The U.S., for example, has a pretty huge and expansive scope regarding what material support is. It includes anything that has value to a terrorist organization, be it messages or money or materiel or men, or that could be of use to a terrorist organization. I would recommend having a more expansive and broader scope of material support.

Then I'd say you should work with social media companies to take down videos, like the YouTube videos, which really give a lot of information to the terrorists to do this or that. There has to be some provision. I'm glad Bill C-51 has started mentioning taking down videos, of course while balancing privacy concerns and free speech.

Basically those are the main recommendations I'd like to make. There is also the fact that when you look at foreign terrorist fighters, given Mehdi Nemmouche and other attacks, even in Ottawa, it's difficult to really pinpoint Iraq and Syria as the two regions. The ISIS phenomenon is global and worldwide. So men, materiel, messages and money could be coming from any country, transiting through any country and perpetrating acts in some third or fourth or fifth country.

I thank you for that.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank my colleague, Mr. Patry, for being here with us and proposing amendments.

Mr. Patry is proposing one small change to a definition that we think is much too broad. I do not think that is enough. In fact, it would change only one word of paragraph (f) of this broad definition that the Conservatives are proposing in Bill C-51. I am not sure that that would do exactly what the witnesses wanted.

The committee heard from many witnesses, particularly about how the definition was too broad. Many groups, particularly first nations groups and environmental leaders, are affected by this. I get the impression that we are not addressing what is really important here.

Unfortunately, I am going to oppose the amendment that Mr. Patry is proposing today.

[Daniel Therrien]

To distinguish between the current laws as they apply to FINTRAC and Bill C-51, current laws, some of which are being revisited or reconsidered including the dollar threshold, to me are reasonable because reporting to FINTRAC is either on the basis of whether a transaction is suspicious. So we're not tackling or targeting law-abiding citizens. We're targeting suspicious activities or the size of a transaction, which creates a particular risk presumably for, again, suspicious activities. The elimination of the dollar threshold would change the situation considerably in that regard. That's point one.

Point two, Bill C-51 would also change the situation in that rather than targeting suspicious activities or transactions of high amounts, FINTRAC would be able to receive and share information based on whether that information might be relevant to its mandate which is the detection of money laundering and terrorist financing. The objective standards that currently exist would be greatly diminished and would increase the risk, again, that the information of law-abiding citizens would be caught by supervision.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

You've said that amendments could help address some of your concerns in terms of Bill C-51. Have the government amendments addressed those issues?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you very much, and I do thank the officials for their assistance.

Even though the government constantly tries to re-characterize what we're saying, no one on this side has ever argued that this changes CSIS operations. It changes information sharing. The concern that we heard from witness after witness was that the definitions in Bill C-51 are much broader and risk bringing in legitimate dissent. They risk bringing in economic activities, such as protests against pipelines, and they present a risk, because of their broadness, to first nations who are attempting to defend their title and rights. We've heard witness after witness raise these concerns.

I think the purpose of our amendment is clear, and that is to narrow the scope of information sharing. We would agree with the government that if we're talking about use of violence and the common-language understanding of terrorism, obviously government departments need to be able to share that information. But when you come to this much broader list, I think we have a great deal of disagreement.

I just want to cite recommendation 2 from the Canadian Bar Association. The CBA recommended that the scope of activities subject to information sharing under the SCISA be narrowed, and that's exactly what our amendment does. It would narrow those to the much more easy-to-understand definitions that occur in the CSIS Act.

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

With regard to the last part of my question, or in other words, with regard to CSIS, the change to the definition proposed in the second clause of Bill C-51 will broaden CSIS's definition, even though the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act already includes a definition. Bill C-51 affects CSIS's definition. What tangible impact will that have on the agency?