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.

Public Safety

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, it is no wonder they want to avoid any serious study of this bill.

Ramming Bill C-51 through without improved oversight is reckless. Despite the Prime Minister's insistence, the Security Intelligence Review Committee is not an oversight body; it is a review body that looks at what CSIS does after the fact. SIRC's spokesperson is clear: “...we are not involved in the operational decision-making”.

Does the Prime Minister still maintain that SIRC is adequate oversight of CSIS when even the committee itself says it is not?

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, so it is a no.

As Mr. Fahmy's case so clearly illustrates, serious human rights violations can be committed in the name of national security. That is why, unlike the Liberals who blindly support the government, the NDP believes it is essential to seriously study Bill C-51.

Does the Prime Minister recognize that it is important to study this bill at length and ensure that security and human rights experts are not only heard, but also listened to?

Opposition Motion—Special Committee on the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Carter v. Canada

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, comparing Bill C-51 with Canada v. Carter is a real stretch, but I will accept that 82% of people who have responded with regard to Bill C-51 are in favour of what our government is doing, and that is pretty significant to me.

With regard to Canada v. Carter, the fact is that this is very personal, well beyond something a police officer should look at. This is about human life. This is about a decision between people and their physicians as to whether they believe they should live or die.

We need to have broad consultation on this to ensure that we get it right, because we need to get this right. I believe the best way to move forward is with extreme broad consultation, which our government will propose and move forward with.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to mix apples with oranges, but when we look at Bill C-51, the Conservatives may limit expert testimony on the anti-terror bill. They may want to limit the number of experts. Canadians want to know more about it and experts want to get involved. In this case, the Conservatives want to shut down the debate.

In the other case, it seems the Conservatives want to open the debate up to 33 million people and they want to take two years if it is possible. However, for the anti-terrorism bill, which Canadians are very concerned about it, they are saying no, that they do not want to hear from them. The Conservatives have the answer.

I would like to hear his comments, especially since his former job was a police officer in the justice system. As a justice person, he should be able to give me a good answer on this.

Anti-terrorism Act, 2015

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, at a minimum, obviously we want to have the kind of oversight that the inspector general provided under CSIS, but even that was not enough. I cite the Campbell Clark article from the Globe and Mail today, where Mr. Clark talks about getting warrants. He said that when CSIS applies for warrants, a judge only hears one side of the argument; the judge does not hear a counter-argument to that. It is up to CSIS if it wants to get a warrant. Judges just routinely give these warrants.

We need better oversight of the existing powers of CSIS. These extended powers are not warranted—at least the government has not made a case for them.

I would urge my colleague from Trinity—Spadina and all of his colleagues in the Liberal Party to please not just rubberstamp the bill. I would urge them not be stampeded by the Conservative government and fear of public opinion. I would urge them, please, to take a principled stand and to stand up for Canadians' rights and oppose Bill C-51.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague five questions about five necessary measures in the bill.

Does she agree with preventing potential high-risk terrorists from boarding a plane in order to stop them from committing terrorist acts?

Does she agree that our intelligence officers should meet with parents in order to prevent a young person from being radicalized?

Does she agree that a Foreign Affairs official should be able to speak to an RCMP officer in order to identify an individual who represents a threat to national security?

What does she think of blocking a website that contains hate and jihadist propaganda?

Finally, does she agree that we should give our police officers the ability to prevent an imminent terrorist attack against Canadian citizens by an individual?

These five measures are found in Bill C-51.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-51. I have been getting many email messages from constituents in my riding. I have been collecting them. They are unanimously critical and opposed to the bill. I think as more Canadians find out what is in it and they understand the implications of it, that opposition will increase.

I want to be very clear in criticizing the process with which the Conservatives are rushing the bill through the House. It is of course another omnibus bill that changes many existing pieces of legislation. After two hours of debate in the House, they brought in a closure motion, which will mean that after a grand total of 10 hours of debate, they want the bill hustled off to a committee, which, hopefully, they will not rush through in order to have a very full study. However, that has not been their practice so far.

I want to be clear that the Conservatives could have continued the very collegial atmosphere last October when we were all shocked by a shooting on Parliament Hill. Two young men lost their lives. It was frightening, it was shocking, and we all agreed at that time that we would work together and that we should not sacrifice our democracy and our principles in a rush, in a stampede to act out of fear and insecurity.

I now feel the Conservatives are in fact rushing to bring this bill in and get it passed out of political expediency, because they think it will help them get re-elected. They also do not want to give Canadians the time to actually find out what is in the bill. They know that once they do, they will be more opposed to it.

The New Democratic Party, and I believe our leader has articulated this very clearly, believes we should have legislation that provides security, that will keep Canadians safe, but that also protects our civil liberties. Security and civil liberties and public safety are all Canadian values, and they are not a trade-off, they are not a balancing act. We need to have both security and our civil liberties. We need to protect our freedom as much as we protect our security.

We could have, and there is still time for the government and the third party to agree to this, a more serious, evidence-based approach to anti-terrorism legislation. We could stop playing politics with this and we could hear from experts in Canada and around the world. We could look at what other countries are doing. We could, in fact, choose the best. After a thorough review, engaging all parties, all of our ideas, coming to the table and after a full debate, we could come to what I believe would be an effective bill for public safety, one that would include strong oversight of our security and intelligence agencies, one that would devote appropriate resources to security and intelligence agencies rather than make cuts to these agencies, which the government has done, and one that, rather than fanning the flames of Islamophobia, would work with at-risk communities on counter-radicalization programs. That is what is needed in our country and that is where the government has failed.

The criticisms of the bill are of course many, but let me highlight just a few of them. There has been a lot of concern about how sweeping this law is, how vague it is and probably how ineffective it is. In the short time allotted to me today, I do not have time to get into a detailed analysis of this.

I would just say that after repeated tough questioning in the House of Commons by the Leader of the Opposition, neither the Prime Minister, nor the Minister of Public Safety, nor the Minister of Defence could offer a single example of a crime that could have been stopped or a danger thwarted by this legislation that is not already covered by existing legislation. They could not offer even one example to the House, which is pretty shocking. Surely, if they are going to fix the problem, they had better understand what the problem is and better know that what they are proposing will fix the problem. They could not give one single example. That is pretty shocking.

There is serious concern that because of the vagueness and overreach of the legislation, those who are engaged in legitimate lawful dissent, or in some cases perhaps pushing the limits a bit, might also be swooped up under the bill.

Coming from the city of Toronto in particular, I think of the people who were detained and kettled in downtown Toronto during the G8 and G20 talks. Not one charge was laid, but these people were detained in very difficult conditions and their rights were not respected. To me, Bill C-51 is continuing down that very slippery slope.

When constitutional lawyers across the country, former prime ministers, and former premiers are all sounding the alarm bells about the constitutionality and the dangers of the bill, perhaps we should pay attention. Again, it is not necessary that we violate our civil liberties in order to provide for public safety.

I live in a neighbourhood in our country where people are worried sick about highly flammable toxic substances transiting our riding in tank cars. These are the same kind of tank cars that exploded and incinerated people in Lac-Mégantic. I would like the government to invest more in public safety for rail safety and food safety. I want to see investment in all aspects of our public safety, not just in a knee-jerk response like we are seeing with Bill C-51.

Lack of oversight is also a serious concern that has been raised. As the former vice-chair of the finance committee, I was on the finance committee in 2012 when an omnibus bill was brought before that committee. We had as a witness, Paul Kennedy, who was one of the people involved in setting up our spy agency, CSIS. He, at that time, was sounding alarm bells about a proposal in the budget bill to get rid of the oversight of CSIS. I want to quote him, because I think his comments are very important:

For anyone to sit here and possibly think that because CSIS doesn't like this, CSIS should be accommodated and it should be removed is sheer insanity.

It really is. CSIS does not get to make that call. The minister's job is to give the public assurances and to make sure the tools are there. If someone came up with a better model, fine, but he was critical that existing oversight model of CSIS was being removed. When that model was set up, the spy agency was separated from policing. There was CSIS and the RCMP. What Bill C-51 does is to blur those two. Yet, having taken away the oversight, not replaced it, and in fact having cut resources to CSIS and the RCMP, somehow the government wants the public to believe that it is treating security and public safety seriously. I do not buy it and, increasingly, neither do Canadians.

Thank goodness there is one principled leader in this country, the leader of the official opposition, who is standing up and challenging the government and poking holes in the error of this legislation. All Canadians will be thankful for it.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House today and lend my voice in support of Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act, 2015.

Working to secure the safety and security of Canadians is a sacred duty that our government takes very seriously. That is why our counterterrorism efforts, guided by a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy, have been front and centre in our legislative agenda.

We continue to make real progress in measured and decisive ways to improve our country's ability to address the terrorist threat. Notably, we brought in the Combating Terrorism Act, which made it a crime to travel or attempt to travel to engage in terrorist activity abroad. I am compelled to note that the NDP opposed making it a crime to travel abroad to engage in terrorism. In fact, the member for Surrey North said that the Combating Terrorism Act:

...is not about preventing terrorism. We already have a comprehensive justice system and enough legislation to protect Canadians from acts of terrorism, as well as a variety of capable institutions to facilitate these laws. Rather, this bill fundamentally attacks our rights and freedoms.

To this claim I would say two things. First, jihadi terrorism is not a human right; it is an act of war. Second, and tragically, we saw very clearly in late October that more tools need to be made available to law enforcement to stop terrorism.

More recently, we introduced the protection of Canada from terrorists act to ensure CSIS has the firm legal footing it needs to investigate threats to the security of Canada from wherever they originate. Yet again, the NDP stood against these common sense measures, measures that are moving us in the right direction.

As I have said, recent events demonstrate we have more work to do to ensure Canada is as well equipped as possible to confront the multi-faceted and evolving national security threats we face, not only those direct threats posed by international terrorists like al Qaeda and the Islamic State but also those from within our very borders, including terrorist travellers and lone-wolf actors whose actions can be difficult to detect and disrupt.

It is difficult to overstate just how considerable and pressing these threats really are. The attacks we have seen recently against our country and our allies are grim and painful reminders of the threats we face to our security, to our freedom, and to our liberties.

The threat remains real. In recent months the RCMP has made arrests and laid terrorism-related charges on several individuals, including individuals in our nation's capita, but these attacks have also strengthened our resolve. As parliamentarians, it is incumbent upon us to take action with decisive measures to protect Canada and Canadians from rapidly evolving national security threats, just as we have proposed in the legislation before us.

These measures will allow for more effective information sharing between federal government departments when it comes to legitimate matters of national security. They will allow us to capitalize on the significant and unique expertise of CSIS by providing the organization with a mandate to engage in activities that will help disrupt threats to our great country. They will allow us to take action to stem the tide of terrorism material on the Internet.

The bill before us will allow us to do all these things, but during my time today I would like to outline the measures we have proposed to improve an existing national security tool, the passenger protect program. This program, introduced in 2007, serves as an important component of Canada's multi-layered approach to aviation security. It complements other aviation security measures such as the screening of people and goods, the physical protection of facilities and aircraft, and airport policing.

As members may be aware, the Government of Canada maintains a specified persons list under the program and provides it to air carriers in a secure manner. Air carriers must screen all passengers booked on flights to, from or within Canada against the list and report any potential matches to Transport Canada officials, who decide if it is necessary to issue an emergency direction to deny boarding. As it stands, the goal of the program is quite simple: to keep individuals who may pose an immediate security threat from boarding commercial flights. Its entire focus is to target threats to transportation security such as terrorist or other criminal acts that pose a danger to passengers, crew, aircraft or aviation facilities.

While this remains a concern, we also have to contend with another disturbing threat reality.

I would remind all members that our nation's top security officials have voiced their concern about a growing number of individuals with Canadian connections travelling by air to places like Syria, Somalia and Iraq to participate in terrorist activities. They engage in attacks. They engage in recruitment. They receive training. As of early 2015, the government is aware of a number of individuals who have left Canada for these types of activities in conflict zones. We can only imagine the sleep that officials lose over the fact that some of these individuals return quite possibly with the determination and know-how to plan and, worse, to carry out attacks on Canadian soil. While such individuals do not pose a direct threat to aviation security at the time of their departure, nonetheless they are a menace to Canada, to our allies and certainly to their destination country.

The program is currently not designed to address this very real and present threat, and must be updated to remain a relevant and effective national security tool. In order to deny boarding, the current requirement to demonstrate an immediate threat to aviation security precludes the program from mitigating lower levels of risk.

Authorities are limited in their ability to prevent individuals from travelling by air for terrorism purposes when a case does not meet the threshold for criminal prosecution or other law enforcement tools. Therefore, through this legislation, our government is taking to strengthen and expand the program to better address this type of threat.

As we have heard, this proposed legislation will usher in important changes that will see the program evolve into a more effective tool in our counterterrorism arsenal. To that end, we are proposing a new stand-alone act to provide a firm legislative basis for the program. This is significant since the program is currently defined under administrative policies, rather than enshrined in law. Putting it on a firm legislative foundation will go a long way toward improving its administration and operation.

The responsibilities for the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and the Minister of Transport will be clearly defined to reflect the most important change we have proposed to the program, which is a new mandate. With this legislation, we would expand its mandate so it would serve not only as a tool to mitigate threats to aviation security but one that would further support our commitment and our duty to prevent individuals from travelling by air for terrorism purposes.

The bill would authorize the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to establish a list of persons when there would be reasonable grounds to suspect that the individual would pose a threat to transportation security or would travel by air to engage is terrorist-related activities. As well, the minister would be authorized to issue directions to air carriers in order to respond to the threat posed by a listed person. These operational directions could include denial of boarding or additional physical screening prior to boarding. By establishing the passenger protect program as a tool with a dual mandate to prevent threats to aircraft and help prevent terrorist travel, we would ensure it would be much more reflective of today's threat environment.

Finally, whether it is changes to the program or it is other measures outlined by my colleagues today, this comprehensive legislation contains precisely the kinds of adaptations we need to make to address the ever-changing threat environment. I therefore call on all members of the House for their support of the bill.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her thoughtful speech on the very serious issue of fighting terrorism.

First, let me say that nobody in the House supports terrorist activities. However, what I see happening in the House today is an absolute travesty and an attack on parliamentary democracy. I was elected by my constituents and was sent here to represent them, but there will only be two hours of debate on Bill C-51, which is major legislation. It needs to be examined very seriously. I heard the parliamentary secretary say just a few minutes ago that it is going to go through the parliamentary rigour of Parliament, yet many MPs' voices are not going to be heard because they cannot debate.

I would ask my colleague to comment on that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am indeed relieved to find an opportunity for a speaking slot when time allocation is imposed on such legislation. It is rare for any one of us who sits on this side of the House representing one of the smaller parties to have an opportunity.

Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act, is such a dangerous piece of legislation that I am very relieved to have a chance to explain my concerns before it goes to committee.

First of all, let us set some context. We keep hearing here today in the context of this debate, and in fact when the Prime Minister launched this bill, not on the floor of the House of Commons, but in a campaign-style event, that we are in a dangerous world and that we must be terrified, that we must be afraid all the time of a monstrous terrorist threat. We are told we are at war.

The reality is that we are not at war. We are a country at peace. There is definitely a threat from a terrorist group, and terrorist groups around the world. They are particularly a threat in the regions in which they operate. ISIL and ISIS are despicable. There are not enough words in a thesaurus to sum up the brutality and the sadism of their acts.

However, the reality is that if Canada were at war, I do not think our Minister of Foreign Affairs would just have resigned his position, announcing to this House that things were in good shape as he left.

We are a country, thank God, that is at peace. I hate to remind colleagues, but there have been terrorist threats around world for a long time, and they have not always stayed far from Canada's shores. I think all of us remember the troubles with Great Britain and what they called “the Irish troubles”, the troubles of Northern Ireland, in which members of the royal family were blown up by IRA bombs. Terrorism operated in the Commonwealth then.

We have seen the threat of Tamil Tigers. We have seen the threat of FARC. There are, and continue to be, dreadful assaults by Boko Haram throughout Nigeria. We also know that these terrorist activities have come to Canada, the most extreme of these events being in 1985, when, in a Canadian airport, a plane was loaded with a bomb. As we all know, in the Air India disaster, 329 people died, most of them Canadians.

These things have taken place before, and I think it is a disservice to the people of Canada to ramp up the fear factor. Where there is a threat, we need to be clear-eyed, sober, sensible, and, above all, not fearful. People do not make good decisions when they are too afraid to think straight. This is a time when leadership requires that we think clearly and calmly, and that we do not exaggerate or torque the nature of the threat for partisan gain, which I think is what is happening here.

Let us all agree that where there are threats of terrorism, we take them seriously, that we do everything possible to reduce the risk of terrorism. In the context of Canada, that means reducing the threat of radicalizing Canadian citizens and Canadian residents to take up—inspired through all sorts of misguided, alienated, disenfranchised, and misinformed views—the cause of ISIS or other extremist groups. We must avoid the radicalization of Canadians by these monstrous organizations.

However, are we hopeless? Are we helpless right now? Have we not passed laws? In fact, we have. Since 9/11, there have been no fewer than eight laws passed which have expanded powers to fight terrorists. The RCMP has new powers, and has had them for more than a decade. Let us remember that the RCMP has been successful in locating, disrupting, and arresting people who had in mind a terrorist plot: the Toronto 18, and the VIA Rail plot.

Full credit is to be given to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for using the tools they have already been given by this place to monitor those who are extreme, to watch what they are planning, to move in to intercept them, and to arrest them and subject them to trial.

We already have security certificates, which it can be argued violate fundamental principles, like habeas corpus, that violate the right to know exactly the charges against a person and one's right to having a lawyer. These have been accepted in Canada.

The RCMP and CSIS have not yet used all the powers that existing laws have already given them to confront the terrorist threat, yet we are here today confronted with an omnibus bill that goes further than anything ever brought forward in a Parliament of Canada to trample on our rights and liberties, unlike in the U.K.

In the U.K., they just passed the Counter-terrorism and Security Act 2015, which proactively puts programs in schools, mental health institutions, and prisons to address the threat of radicalization. We now have good information that at least one of the factors in the terrible events recently in Paris and Copenhagen was radicalization in prison. Surely we should be following the lead of those countries that are using approaches to engage to preempt and avoid radicalization in those institutions. The bill before us does not do that.

We need mental health and addiction counselling. I do not subscribe to the view that I have heard repeated in this place over and over again that the events of the shooting of October 22 here in Parliament and earlier that week in Quebec were terrorist attacks. They were horrific. They were murders, like the attacks on RCMP officers in Moncton or in Alberta, where RCMP officers were shot by people who were either criminals or mentally ill and disturbed. We absolutely condemn such actions, but to describe them as terrorism is both to expand the reach and branding rights of despicable groups like ISIS and to misunderstand what took place.

We know that the man who broke into this place, having just murdered Corporal Nathan Cirillo, had just two years earlier gotten himself arrested by sharpening a stick and trying to rob a McDonald's. He then waited for the police to show up so he could beg a judge to send him to jail so that he could get addiction counselling, so that he could get help, because he knew he was a threat to himself and to others.

It is a failure of our system not because we did not have enough laws to put him in jail at that time or have surveillance on him as a potential terrorist; it is a condemnation of the system that he fell through the cracks for mental health counselling and addiction counselling. We could have saved two lives, Corporal Nathan Cirillo's and the shooter's, had we had a program in place. That is where we should be putting our attention.

To turn my attention to the bill before us and what is wrong with it, and there is so very much wrong with it, I will start with the fact that in its information sharing provisions, it is so over-broad and overreaching that it could require information collected about every Canadian. There is almost no one who could not be seen to be snagged at some point by this definition and the way in which information would be shared.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Daniel Therrien, has expressed his concerns. Virtually every privacy expert in Canada thinks the information sharing contemplated by part 1 of the bill is extreme. It would essentially apply to every agency of Canada and could provide a complete profile of every citizen and everything they do. This must be tightened up. If we are going to have this kind of information provision in the interest of terrorism, then the definition should be about terrorism, not about things that could include dissent of all kinds.

Again, I have heard many Conservative members of Parliament say that there should be no concern about non-violent civil disobedience, but then they parrot back to me a definition that clearly excludes non-violent civil disobedience. It says:

For greater certainty, it does not include lawful advocacy, protest, dissent and artistic expression.

Well, the use of the word “lawful” at the beginning of that phrase has been interpreted by other legal analysts, not just me, but by numerous scholars who have been looking at this proposed law since it was brought forward, to apply to all aspects. If people violated a municipal bylaw, they would no longer be engaged in a lawful activity.

This needs to be clarified, and despite my efforts in asking the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, the Minister of Justice, and the Prime Minister, no one has yet said that it is not their intention to cover and criminalize non-violent civil disobedience, beyond a level that is already criminal, because people take an active conscience to break a law they find unjust.

There is more here than I can get to. However, moving ahead, in part 4 we have been told that there is judicial oversight. There is no such thing. It is only in instances where CSIS agents believe that what they are about to do will violate the charter that they would go to a judge to get a warrant. This is not judicial oversight. Are these CSIS agents going to be trained in the law? The Minister of Justice and the Supreme Court of Canada frequently disagree about what is a charter violation.

We have lost the inspector general for CSIS. That position of oversight was removed in an omnibus bill in 2012. This bill cannot be simply fixed with more oversight. It would be better to scrap it and start over, starting with an evidence-based question: What do law enforcement agencies tell us they need that they do not already have?

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to join the debate on Bill C-51, anti-terrorism act, 2015.

Today's world is a dark and dangerous place. We find existential threats to western civilization all around us. We saw the manifestation of these threats in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and in Ottawa this past October.

However, Canada is not in isolation. Terrorists have struck the hearts of Paris, Sydney, Copenhagen, and Brussels. This past weekend, jihadi terrorists called for attacks on shopping centres around the world, including the iconic West Edmonton Mall.

It is clear that jihadi terrorists have declared war on Canada and her allies. This war is not only against our physical existence and our people, but also our values. These terrorists hate us for the very reason that Canada is the greatest country in which to live, work, and raise a family. They dislike our equality; they dislike our modernity; and they dislike our prosperity.

However, Canada will not be intimidated by threats from any terrorist organization, which is why we are not sitting on the sidelines. Instead, we are joining our allies in supporting the international coalition in a fight against ISIL.

Our national security and law enforcement agencies are continually monitoring for threats against Canada and its citizens and will take the appropriate actions to ensure the safety of all Canadians. Terrorist threats such as these demonstrate why our Conservative government is committed to passing the anti-terrorist act, 2015, to further protect Canadians against jihadi terrorists who seek to destroy Canada.

In line with measures taken by our allies, we are taking additional action to ensure that our law enforcement and national security agencies can counter those who advocate terrorism, prevent terrorist travel and the efforts of those who seek to use Canada as a recruiting ground, and disrupt planned attacks on Canadian soil. The bill would also make it easier for law enforcement agencies to detain suspected terrorists before they can harm Canadians, and toughen penalties for violating court-ordered conditions on terrorist suspects.

Recent events in Canada and around the world remind us that we live in a dangerous world where terrorists target anyone who does not think like them. That is why our Conservative government is intent on giving law enforcement agencies the tools they need in order to counter these threats.

Much has been said by the NDP about the new Criminal Code offence in the legislation of promoting terrorism. It has suggested simultaneously that this power would be overly broad and would not accomplish anything. How it performs these verbal gymnastics is a matter for another day.

However, allow me to say that on this side of the House we believe that jihadi terrorism is an act of war and not a human right.

Allow me to give an example of how this power would work in practice.

Let us say that a terrorist entity puts on YouTube a terrorist propaganda video that concludes with the words “Attack Canada” on the screen, and, through investigation, an individual in Toronto has been identified as the person posting the video. There is no description of the kinds of attacks to be carried out.

Under the current law, counselling the commission of a terrorist offence is criminal, whether the attack is carried out or not. However, the counselling must relate to committing a specific terrorism offence, for example, counselling someone to kill someone for a political, religious, or ideological purpose. That would be the terrorist offence of committing an indictable offence that constitutes a terrorist activity.

In this scenario, there is insufficient detail in the video to allow one to conclude that the person is counselling a specific terrorist offence under the Criminal Code to kill someone, as opposed to disrupting an essential service. Under the new powers in the anti-terrorism act, 2015, posting such a video with its call to carry out attacks in Canada in general, which is a form of active encouragement, would now be caught by the criminal law.

Further, the NDP has also alleged that there are insufficient grounds to justify broadening the powers of law enforcement agencies to lower the threshold for terrorism peace bonds.

Allow me to give another example of why this power is urgently needed.

Let us say that the RCMP is conducting an ongoing investigation of an individual, after being alerted by a family member that he is planning to travel to Syria to participate in terrorist training. After an initial investigation, he explains that his wish is only to visit a dying relative. The RCMP discovers social media web postings to the effect that he is planning to leave very soon for Syria, but no other information is available. He has not made any travel plans. There is not enough evidence to support a criminal charge. However, the RCMP wishes to obtain a terrorist peace bond to stop him from travelling.

Under the current law, the RCMP can seek a peace bond if there are reasonable grounds to fear that an individual will commit a terrorism offence. While the act of leaving Canada for the purpose of receiving terrorism training is a terrorism offence, he has not yet attempted to leave for Syria. The current requirement of “will” may be too high of a threshold to meet with the available evidence in this case.

With the proposed changes, the RCMP would need to satisfy the court that it has reasonable grounds to fear that the individual in question may commit a terrorism offence. Under this new lower threshold, the court would more likely find that the oral testimony of the family member and the public social media posting to be sufficient to order the terrorism peace bond. In this case, if the peace bond were granted, it is likely that the court would consider imposing conditions that the individual report to the police and not leave the jurisdiction without permission, surrender his passport, and, if available in the jurisdiction, provide for electronic monitoring and/or counselling.

These are concrete examples of what the legislation would do. It is absolutely necessary that these measures be put in place to keep Canadians safe.

While the Liberals have a checkered history, full of opposition to common-sense national security policies, like voting against combatting the so-called Islamic State, I am pleased to see that they have indicated their support for this legislation. Conversely, I would note that the NDP has stayed consistent with its soft-on-terror approach and will vote against this legislation. This is similar to its previous votes to allow convicted terrorists to keep their citizenship, and to stop travelling abroad for terrorist purposes from becoming a criminal offence.

I certainly hope that my remarks, as well as those of my colleague, will have changed a few minds on the other side of the House. All Canadians are watching in anticipation to see whether members on the other side of the House will join our Conservative government in taking responsible action to protect our national security.

[MGen Christopher Coates]

—and it's my sense that it would be the chief of defence intelligence who would be the recipient of any benefits that would come from that. I understand there may also be an operational element to Bill C-51 and maybe that would have an effect on us as we work with our other government department partners in addressing certain scenarios. But I'm not at the point where I could answer better than that.

[MGen Christopher Coates]

Sir, I only have a cursory knowledge of Bill C-51—

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

It's an interesting proposition because the old axiom is that we're already well prepared to fight the last war, and this is a whole new dimension.

There's a lot of conversation right now about Bill C-51 and all of that terrorist thing. Would Bill C-51 have any impact on your daily business, in effect, because part of the strength of it is more interoperable coordination among the various assessments—

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on Bill C-51 today.

Canadians are well aware of the harm that terrorism can cause and the fear that it can bring. The overarching aim of terrorist activity is to instill fear and to divide us from one another and weaken our society. An important duty of Canadians, therefore, is to be vigilant against this divisiveness, as we will always be stronger when we are working together and united against acts of intimidation.

In recent decades, particularly since the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, the global security landscape has undergone massive changes, in part due to the evolution of the Internet and electronic technologies. An important responsibility that falls on the government and parliamentarians is to improve our security system and framework so as to meet the challenges of our times in a manner that upholds our most cherished democratic values and principles. The Liberal Party and most Canadians recognize that our laws must adapt to reflect the changing global security landscape, and Bill C-51, the government's anti-terrorism act, takes some productive steps to meet our collective security needs.

One measure that this bill would put in place is to lower the evidentiary threshold for detaining a suspected terrorist. In fact, had it been in place six months ago, this measure might have prevented the tragic death of Quebec CAF member Patrice Vincent. His murderer was under surveillance and that person's passport had been revoked in June of last year, but due to the lack of concrete evidence, he remained free.

The bill also would serve to put certain important programs, such as Canada's no-fly list, on a firmer legal foundation. Better coordination of information sharing among Canada's many security departments and agencies is also a positive aspect.

However, there are deficiencies in this bill, many of which have been pointed out to me by constituents of Vancouver Quadra, and the Liberals have written amendments to address those weaknesses.

The bill does not include the critical accountability that is provided by review and oversight mechanisms to ensure proper checks and balances on information sharing. This is in fact one of the overarching areas for improvement to this legislation that should be articulated through debate and expert testimony at committee, and there should be fair consideration of amendments. A bill of this importance deserves a proper, thorough, and non-partisan process.

Bill C-51 is inadequate in other areas, particularly with regard to the far-reaching and vaguely articulated definition of “national security” in terms of the lack of a sunset clause to provide Parliament with an opportunity to quickly review and correct any negative consequences of the bill.

Finally, there should be a much more robust commitment to preventing the radicalization of Canadian young people in the first place by funding and working with their families and communities to that end and by strengthening our social safety net regarding mental illness.

I would like to talk more about the need for greater oversight and review.

As many members know, last year I put forward my private member's bill, Bill C-622, the CSEC accountability and transparency act. This bill proposed to modernize the framework for accountability and transparency for Canada's signals intelligence agency, the Communications Security Establishment Canada. It would have brought the 14-year-old laws governing this agency up to date to account for advances in Internet and communications technologies and it would have strengthened the mandate of the CSE commissioner. Furthermore, Bill C-622 would have assigned a committee of parliamentarians with security clearance the responsibility to review and report on all of the intelligence and national security activities of our government, the very oversight that is being called for right across Canada by experts and non-experts alike.

Despite widespread support from security, defence, and privacy experts and from opposition MPs, my bill unfortunately did not receive support from the government and was therefore defeated.

To put a need for this kind of parliamentary oversight and review mechanism into perspective, Ottawa-based journalist John Ivison has correctly pointed out that “Canada is the only country among our close allies that lacks a dedicated parliamentary committee with substantial powers of review over matters of national security and intelligence.”

He is right, and we should have one. Just as our security laws must be improved to meet the challenges of today, so too must Canada's framework for transparency and privacy protection evolve in order to cope with fast-paced, changing technology.

As journalist Glenn Greenwald noted in the Oscar-winning—as of last night—documentary, “When the decisions that rule us are taken in secret, we lose the power to control and govern ourselves.”

That is not what Canadians want. The federal Privacy Commissioner and all our provincial privacy commissioners stated in a recent communique:

Canadians both expect and are entitled to equal protection for their privacy and access rights and for their security. We must uphold these fundamental rights that lie at the heart of Canada's democracy.

What do our partners south of the border think about these things? One example is the United States Department of Homeland Security, in which this understanding of that balance is explicit. The department “embeds and enforces privacy protections and transparency” in all of its systems, programs, and activities, according to its privacy commissioner, who oversees a staff of 40 people in that department alone. In a recent speech, Homeland Security's deputy secretary Mayorkas confirmed that not only is this integral to the DHS mission and crucial to maintaining public trust, but it has also resulted in Homeland Security becoming a stronger and more effective department.

If the government adopts the Liberal Party's reasonable amendments to create this balance, we can move beyond the dichotomized debate that pits security against Canadians' freedom and liberty.

As it stands, Bill C-51 would give CSIS broad powers to disrupt not only real or perceived terrorist threats but also threats that might undermine the economic or financial stability of Canada. This is too broad. It is just not necessary for guarding against any legitimate risks and threats from terrorists. It could also be very harmful in further chilling important rights for citizens to have a voice and for the rights for civil society groups that disagree with government policies in a peaceful way. The Liberal Party will be proposing amendments to rein in and better define the vague and far-reaching new powers that would be granted to CSIS in the bill.

To assess Bill C-51's effectiveness in keeping Canadians safe and ensuring our freedoms and values are respected, a future Liberal government will require a review of the entire bill in three years to ensure any aspects that are unaccountable or harmful are quickly identified and fixed.

In addition to granting CSIS greater powers, let us acknowledge that preventing individuals from becoming radicalized and falling into violent extremism in the first place is important and is an effective second track toward reducing these incidences and the terrible harm they create. Let us not forget that several of the recent actual and planned terrorist attacks involved young men who were suffering from mental illness and addiction and turned to violence. Canadians experienced a deep sorrow on behalf of the victims and their families.

This situation is the reason the government must allocate more resources and be a partner. The government must consult with a variety of stakeholders from police to social agencies and from families to religious leaders and collaborate in developing community-based strategies to prevent radicalization at the outset and to improve support for those suffering from mental illness and addiction. That is a commitment that the Liberal Party has made and will bring into our platform.

Currently, through the work of local and provincial governments, community and religious leaders, and friends and family members of the disaffected youth, there are a number of innovative models for supporting youth at risk and lending them support and guidance. However, more funding and more focus on this aspect are needed. A Liberal government would provide them.

As an aside, I want to mention that supporting mental illness would have a great deal of benefit to society, aside from reducing terrorist risks. Let us not forget that over 3,000 men commit suicide every year. Many of them are in their 20s, and most of them are under the age of 45. The grief and sorrow caused to their families and to our society could be significantly reduced with a greater emphasis on the second track, the track of prevention and support for those with mental illness challenges.

In 2001, in response to the September 11 attacks, the Liberal government introduced a number of anti-terrorism measures. We understood then, as we do today, that sometimes quick action is needed. We did, however, make sure there were full hearings. Amendments were made. We heard from the public. We heard from Parliament in committees. We also built in a sunset clause so that the bill could be corrected and be great legislation.

We believe that is possible. The Conservative government has the choice to take that path rather than the path of unilaterally charging ahead. We invite the Conservatives to take our amendments seriously. If not, we will be campaigning on them. If elected, we will be sure that they are put into effect in order to respect our most deeply prized democratic values.