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.

[Wesley Wark]

Thank you, sir.

My desire would have been—and perhaps it was a little unrealistic in the political circumstances of the green paper and recognizing the fact that this is an unprecedented experiment—to have seen a broader opening statement about the kinds of national security threats that Canadians face now and are likely to face in the future. In part it would be to provide that sense of scope to Canadians, so that they could provide proper feedback about the instruments they might want to see deployed against this variety of threats.

It's one thing to ask Canadians what they think the best responses to terrorism might be. It gets more complex but perhaps more important to ask them what they think is the best mix of tools to deal with this range of national security threats. It does require education, and it does require people to understand that terrorism is just one of a number of national security threats, and it may not be the most important one that we face.

My concern is that if we focus too much on policy, regulation, and legislative changes, which are simply focused on the terrorism problem, we're going to leave ourselves with capability gaps, legal gaps, and policy gaps that are going to hinder our ability to deal with other kinds of threats.

The green paper was designed in large part to respond to election campaign promises and Bill C-51 issues, but I think it would have been helpful if they'd taken a fresh start on the whole question of what are the threats to Canadians that we need appropriate response tools for, and how do we build that balance that the government is so interested in. It's not just about technology. It's about the implication of other changes in our universe, including climate change. This is on the agenda of many of our allies. It's regarded as the number one national security threat for the United Kingdom in their annual threat assessments. It's high on the list of the director of national intelligence's annual statement on global threats that he presents to Congress. We haven't even started to have a conversation about what is the nature of climate change security impacts for Canada as an actor in the world and for Canada at home. The sooner we do that, and the sooner we broaden that discussion, the better off we'll be.

[Wesley Wark]

Certainly.

First of all, I think that probably all Canadians would agree that if we can in Canada, we want to avoid the problems the Americans have had with their own multiplicity of no-fly lists, border lists, watch-lists, and so on, which is a machine which is truly out of control. It impacts on Canada, to the extent that Canadians can be caught up in various American lists.

We share information with the United States and other allies. One of the problems I think around the way in which Bill C-51 deals with enhancements to the passenger protect program, which I think were necessary but I think can be fine-tuned in revised legislation, is that the whole regime for information sharing with allies, in terms of what we will share and under what circumstances, is not clearly spelled out in a way that it needs to be spelled out.

As I say, I think it would be an important exercise in public reassurance and transparency for the minister in charge, the Minister of Public Safety, to actually publish an annual report simply indicating the number of individuals on the passenger protect list. It's not naming names, but just indicating the number, so that Canadians don't feel that this list is out of control, too large, or that they don't have another kind of suspicion, that it's too small and the government is not doing their work.

I think that would be an important measure, and it's also an important measure of control and accountability. That's one of the things I would like to see. I think there are other ways in which the passenger protect provisions of Bill C-51 can be improved, including the responsibilities that the minister has to respond to appeals to be taken off the list. That is a very awkward piece of drafting at the moment in Bill C-51.

[Daniel Therrien]

I'll refer to my opening remarks. I think it's a good thing that the Green Paper goes beyond Bill C-51.

However, the Green Paper and the discussion paper on information sharing, for example between Foreign Affairs or Global Affairs Canada and CSIS, addresses only information sharing within Canada. It does not address information sharing at the international level, with countries where our diplomats work.

The entire legislative framework and all the relevant national security policies must be reviewed to have a clear idea and to ensure the lessons learned—I hope—from September 2001 are applied. It's not enough to take into consideration only Bill C-51 and information sharing within the country. We must look at the whole situation.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Okay, I'm going to run out of time.

Here's my last point on this before I turn it over to Mr. Brassard. I'm not an expert in the field but I was in the parliamentary precinct on October 22 two years ago. A lot of law enforcement and so-called experts say that if they'd had some of the powers then that Bill C-51 gives them, including sharing of information, there's a good chance that Corporal Cirillo would still be alive today. Maybe the would-be terrorist would still be alive, but that's another story. I feel it is very necessary to point that out.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Brassard at this point.

[Daniel Therrien]

I don't have the facts surrounding what happened to Mr. Driver. What this suggests to me is that these assertions that SCISA, or Bill C-51, have helped or were necessary.... I'm open to a demonstration of that, but neither—

[Daniel Therrien]

I would have a different view of my level of involvement and engagement, I must say.

I'm not involved greatly in the implementation of SCISA, or what was Bill C-51. What I'm involved in is conducting an independent review of how the executive branch and departments are using and implementing this piece of legislation. I'm not involved in implementing it. I'm involved in reviewing how it is implemented.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Witnesses, thanks very much for being here.

Welcome back, Mr. Therrien. You were here just last week, I believe.

You have come out critical of Bill C-51. I have an article here from the Canadian Press about information sharing. It says:

Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and a fourth agency whose name is blacked out of the records have all used the provisions.

The article goes on to say that, even though you've been critical of Bill C-51 and the sharing of information, you've been engaged throughout the whole implementation phase.

Seeing that you're involved in that implementation, are you still critical of it? That seems contradictory.

[Wesley Wark, Visiting Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Chair, and members of the committee, it's my pleasure to have the opportunity to present my views on the government's green paper on national security, and the online consultations that Canadians are invited to take part in.

I will focus my brief introductory remarks on the following four issues: the significance and importance of consulting Canadians on national security issues, proposals for utilizing the consultation process, the green paper, and some problems with the green paper.

The first is on the importance of consulting Canadians. All democratic societies seek to establish what is often called a balance between protecting the security of the state and its citizens, and protecting civil liberties. The search for such a balance cannot be left in the hands of government alone. It requires democratic engagement, and ultimately is based on a perception of democratic legitimacy. The Canadian practice for too long has been based on a notion of paternalistic governance on national security matters, rooted in requirements of near absolute citizen trust, in exaggerated concerns about protecting secrets, and assumptions about the inability of our society to fully grasp or even respond well to national security challenges: government knows best.

This set of attitudes is fundamentally outdated, and has been eroded, in particular by the rise of new security threats in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War, and with the ascendency of global terrorism post-9/11. There are new expectations around citizen knowledge and engagement in discussions on national security that must be met.

When last in power, the Liberals issued Canada's first-ever national security strategy, in April 2004. It was an important effort at public education but proved to be an unfortunate one-off. Now the Liberal government has gone a step further and decided to engage in public consultations about Canadians' views on the effective construction of a balance of security and rights protections, framed in part in response to a very divisive parliamentary and public debate around the previous government's introduction of new anti-terrorism measures in Bill C-51.

I fully support the principle of public consultations on national security, particularly in the aftermath of Bill C-51. I'm also hopeful that these consultations can have a real impact, in two ways: first in terms of an improved public understanding of national security threats and responses; and, second, in terms of improved government legislation and policy. I do not accept the view that these consultations are an empty forum designed with a purely political objective in mind. If we decide, as some in the media would like, that public consultations and national security are a form of ragging the puck, then we are truly in a sad shape as a democracy.

The second issue, to raise it very briefly, is a question of how best to utilize the consultation process. A public consultation exercise on national security is historically unprecedented in Canada and has no counterpart that I'm aware of among our close allies. It is an experiment with an unknowable outcome. The government may well find that public responses exceed its expectations, at least in quantity. The Minister of Public Safety has recently stated that some 7,000 responses have already been logged, and there remain two further months before the online consultation is closed. The government has said it intends to use the consultations as a means to improve both policy and legislation, but has provided few details about how it proposes to handle the consultation material.

I would like to see two developments. One is for the government to create an independent expert advisory panel to study the public inputs and come up with their own summary and recommendations. I regard this as important to ensure that, in addition to the expertise provided by their officials, the government can hear other knowledgeable and diverse perspectives. The second desire is for the government to commit to producing a white paper on national security, a new national security strategy out of the green paper process. Beyond that, as part of a transparency initiative, I would like to see it commit to a regular process for the issuance of national security strategy statements to Parliament and the Canadian public. My hope, of course, is that the committee might endorse these ideas.

With regard to the green paper, green papers, as I'm sure you all are aware, are meant to be policy-relevant studies that consider a range of options or scenarios but do not indicate intended policy. The government's green paper entitled “Our Security, Our Rights” was publicly released on September 8, 2016, after a long and difficult internal birth. It comes in two forms: the shorter document, numbering 21 pages, and a longer background document weighing in at 73 pages. In addition, Canadians are encouraged to consult the terrorism threat statement issued just prior to the release of the green paper. The green paper itself was produced by a task force headed by the assistant deputy minister for national and cyber security at the Department of Public Safety and was conducted as an in-house exercise.

The green paper addresses 10 issue areas, to promote, as the minister's foreword indicates, a “framework that upholds both security and rights”. I'm going to very briefly break down these 10 issue areas.

The first two deal with accountability and prevention, and these address Liberal campaign promises. The next four, threat reduction, information sharing, the passenger protect program, and Criminal Code terrorism measures directly address issues raised by the debates around Bill C-51.

There are two further issues around procedures for listing terrorist entities and terrorist financing. The background to their appearance in the green paper is a mystery to me, and I don't regard either of them as particularly amenable to public discussion. They're very technical and perhaps non-controversial.

The final two issues raised are what we might call unresolved and challenging legacy problems. “Investigative Capabilities in a Digital World” revisits a stalled legislative and public debate over what we have long described as lawful access. The intelligence and evidence problem dates back to the decision to create CSIS in 1984 and to separate security intelligence from police work. It was studied more recently and intensively, of course, in the context of Justice Major's Air India inquiry and report.

I would judge at least eight of the 10 issues worthy of public debate. They are both framework issues and, in some cases, directly relate to current anti-terrorism legislation. Of the eight issues identified, the most forward looking concerns investigative capabilities in a digital world. Canada needs a new approach to digital security and digital intelligence gathering, but one that must be embedded in strong privacy and rights protections. On the digital intelligence gathering side, we need a better understanding of metadata collection powers as exercised by Canadian intelligence agencies and of the use of social media intelligence, which is now widespread, and we need better controls to ensure privacy.

I do have some regrets about the green paper's construction. I think it narrows the frame of public discussion too much by its focus on terrorism-related threats alone. The green paper also fails to deliver enough information about the organization of the Canadian security and intelligence community and about the existing capabilities that that community possesses to deal with threats. We cannot find a balance between security and rights in Canada unless our knowledge is sufficiently well balanced to include an understanding of threats, an understanding of available responses to threats, and an understanding of rights.

To conclude, let me turn to some problems I've identified with the green paper itself.

The shorter version of the green paper presents itself as scrupulously neutral and asks very general questions in its conclusion. The longer background document suggests more of an effort to steer the public conversation through selective attention and raises questions, in my mind at least, about the degree to which the government has already made up its mind or been captured by official advice on some issues.

It is important, I think, that the government really listen to the consultation exercise and keep an open mind about policy and legislation in this very complex field. I see some problems in terms of potential closed-mindedness and bureaucratic capture in the following areas.

On accountability, the green paper does not sufficiently address the problems with the existing system of independent external review of security and intelligence agencies, and it does not address the questions of transparency, public education, and sustaining public knowledge.

On prevention, experts will caution against an over-commitment to a theory about radicalization to violence that does not fully reflect the research that has been done to date and may be a problematic concept in other ways.

On threat reduction, the green paper does not ask fundamental questions about whether threat reduction capabilities in the form created by Bill C-51 are needed and who should have the power to deploy them. It makes no distinctions between the very different circumstances of threat reduction activities at home and threat reduction operations abroad.

On domestic national security information sharing, no effort at all is made to genuinely question the changed definition at the heart of SCISA, the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, which was part 1 of C-51, and that changed definition shifted from, as you will know, section two of the CSIS Act, “threats to the security of Canada”, which has been long our understanding, to something different and admittedly broader called “undermining the security of Canada”.

On passenger protect, Canadians need a commitment to transparency around the no-fly list so that fears of it burgeoning out of size and control can be allayed. I do not mean absolute transparency but an annual reporting of global, anonymized figures for the SATA list, plus more publicly available information about how the SATA list is actually built.

On investigative capabilities in a digital world, this is an important conversation that we need to build into the discussion of controls around metadata collection and the use of social media intelligence.

On intelligence and evidence, it's important to understand this issue is a matter that extends well beyond legal considerations, to include our historical context and the relationship, in particular, between the RCMP and CSIS.

I have not enlarged on any of these concerns but would be happy to address them in questions. I would hope to have a future opportunity to discuss these issues with the committee, particularly when specific amendments to Bill C-51, or new policies and legislation see the light of day.

Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the committee for inviting me to appear before you today.

In particular, I will be focusing my comments on the government’s Green Paper, which was recently released. We will present our formal response to Public Safety by December 1. In the meantime, I am happy to provide preliminary comments, in the hope these may be helpful as you prepare to engage with Canadians in several cities across the country.

The stated purpose of the Green Paper is to prompt discussion and debate about Canada’s national security framework, which is broader than the reforms brought about by Bill C-51, the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015. I fully support the need to review the entire legislative framework, not just the changes brought about by Bill C-51. But to do that in a comprehensive way, the focus cannot be only on addressing challenges faced by national security and law enforcement agencies. It must also take into account legislative changes and other developments that have had an impact on human rights, including international information sharing and the need to adopt rules to prevent another tragedy like the one lived by Maher Arar.

In order to ensure our laws adapt to current realities, it is important to consider all that we have learned since 2001, including the revelations of Edward Snowden regarding government information gathering and sharing activities, as well as other known risks regarding the protection of privacy and human rights, including those identified during commissions of inquiry. Obviously, we must also consider recent terrorist threats and incidents.

In my public statements on Bill C-51, I expressed significant concern with the broad information sharing authorized by the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act. I warned that the lowering of thresholds for sharing could lead to large amounts of personal information on law-abiding citizens being disclosed. Edward Snowden demonstrated how government surveillance powers can be used on a massive scale. Unfortunately, there is nothing in the Green Paper that addresses the lowering of legal standards for information sharing.

When Bill C-51 was tabled, the government maintained SCISA was necessary because some federal agencies lacked clear legal authority to share information related to national security. The Green Paper addresses complexity around sharing, which can prevent information from getting to the right institution in time. These references to the complexity of the old law do not clearly explain its shortcomings. Situations where there is no legal authority for sharing information related to national security can be identified, but so far they have not. I strongly urge this committee to ask specific questions on the subject. A clearer articulation of the problems with the previous law would help define a proportionate solution.

The green paper speaks of the challenges of law enforcement getting access to what it calls “basic subscriber information”, which is cast as relatively innocuous on the premise that it does not include the contents of communications. There has been extensive work done by my officials and other technical experts that finds that this subscriber information, or metadata, is far from benign. Daniel Weitzner, who founded the Internet Policy Research Initiative at MIT, considers metadata to be “arguably more revealing [than content] because it's actually much easier to analyze the patterns in a large universe of metadata and correlate them with real-world events than it is to go through a semantic analysis of all of someone's email and all of someone's telephone calls.”

The GCHQ, the British signals intelligence agency, has publicly stated that metadata is more revealing for intelligence purposes than the content of communications. If, as the green paper suggests, new legislation is to be informed by the privacy expectations Canadians have about metadata, Canadians should be clearly advised of the personal information metadata can reveal about them.

The green paper presents a scenario in which a police officer wants to obtain metadata from an Internet service provider but is unable to do so when the investigation is still in its early stages, and there is not enough information to convince a judge to provide authorization. While we appreciate that it might be useful information to have “at the outset of an investigation”, as it says in the green paper, it is unclear to us why neither the evidentiary threshold required to obtain judicial authorization via production order or warrant nor the exigent circumstances exception articulated in R. v. Spencer can be met.

I should add that preservation orders can be obtained on a reasonable grounds to suspect threshold, a very low standard indeed. In that context, we would urge the committee to probe government for precise explanations of why current thresholds are unreasonable and why administrative authorizations to obtain metadata, rather than judicial authorizations, sufficiently protect charter rights.

Encryption, another issue raised in the discussion paper, represents a particularly difficult dilemma. On the one hand, as a technological tool, it is extremely important, even essential, for the protection of personal information in the digital world. On the other hand, as a legal matter, individuals who use it and companies that offer it to their customers are also subject to laws and judicial warrants that may require access to personal information where legitimately needed in cases in which public safety is at risk. Ultimately, the issue is whether it is possible to enable authorized access for the state without creating technological vulnerabilities imperilling the privacy of significant numbers of ordinary citizens. Where it is not possible to do this, I think it is important to ask which of these two important public interests should prevail. We expect to have more to say on this by December.

The green paper lists accountability mechanisms, including ministerial oversight, judicial review, Parliament, and review by independent bodies of experts. On the issue of parliamentary review, I would note that Bill C-22, which proposes to create the national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians, fills the need for democratic accountability and brings us into alignment with other western democracies. I would note, however, that many agencies that have a role to play in national security or public safety are not currently subject to any independent expert review. This is an omission that, in my view, needs to be addressed.

As I mentioned, my office will be submitting a formal written response to this green paper once we've fully analyzed some of its newer proposals. In the meantime, I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. For instance, I think it would be important to discuss how monitoring of the Internet to prevent radicalization should not create a climate such that ordinary Canadians feel they cannot enjoy fundamental freedoms.

Thank you very much, and I look forward to your questions.

Public Safety

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

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-22 is only one piece of the puzzle to fix the breach in Canadians' rights that that minister voted for.

Still on the worrisome subject of Bill C-51, today we learned that CSIS and Global Affairs Canada finalized an information-sharing agreement.

This is despite the fact that the ministerial directive allowing the use of information obtained through torture, which happened recently with Canadian citizens tortured in Syria, is still in place under the Liberal government.

Will the government repeal that ministerial directive or at least give us a good reason for not doing so?

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

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals promised a massive rollback on Bill C-51. Yet it is a year into their mandate and they have absolutely nothing to show for it. Now we learn that CSIS is collecting information on Canadians using consular services without their knowledge or consent. This is exactly what Canada's Privacy Commissioner warned us of last week.

While it is mired in more consultations, can the government at least tell us what kind of information is being shared and what it is doing to protect Canadians' rights and freedoms?

National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we see that an attempt is being made to solve problems that really resonate with people. Many people considered these security issues to be important.

I have to say that that people talk about them constantly and for good reason. We all share this planet and we are grappling with complicated issues. Everyone is concerned about potential abuses. I am thinking first and foremost of indigenous people who, under Bill C-51, will come under suspicion if they oppose a pipeline route. We must resolve these issues.

What remains worrisome is that the Liberal election campaign identified a popular issue and promised the moon. We must watch the Liberals because they have a habit of signalling left and then turning right after an election.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very appropriate question.

I am not an expert in national security and police inspections, but I think that people back home are well aware of the value of wanting to oversee operations in real time and not after the fact, as my colleague says.

That being said, I would say to my colleague that his government repeatedly announced that it would make changes to Bill C-51. Now that is being pushed back. The government has decided to form a committee to oversee operations, but under Bill C-51, this adds to everyone's work because almost everyone is potentially under surveillance.

To use a very fine analogy: this work is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Bill C-51 essentially dumps a pile of hay on the bale. That is just great.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in light of some of the reports we have heard on CBC over the past week, clearly, it seems appropriate to ask some questions. There were reports of incredible abuses committed against Canadian citizens who were literally sent to be tortured at the request of various Canadian agencies. That is precisely why I am pleased to rise here today to speak to Bill C-22 at second reading.

My good friend, the member for Victoria, has been handling this issue skilfully and intelligently. I will therefore be voting in favour of the bill at this stage so that it can be studied further in committee. As always, that is where the real work is done for the benefit of Quebeckers and Canadians.

We certainly commend the government's initiative in bringing this bill forward. Not only does it respond to a very clear call from various commissions of inquiry over the past several decades, but it also fulfills a promise made during the election campaign last fall regarding some recent issues.

This bill to create a national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians is crucial. The committee has to be formed not only with the greatest of care, but also with the necessary tools to be credible in the eyes of everyone, citizens and politicians alike, as well on the international stage. Half measures are not an option.

When it comes to credibility and legitimacy regarding national security, the truth is that the previous Conservative government missed the mark with Bill C-51 in the last Parliament. They went in exactly the wrong direction. A critical mass of national security experts were against that bill that was rammed through.

The NDP was the only party that firmly opposed this bill, and Canadians overwhelmingly rejected this intrusive approach that did nothing to balance national security with the protection of the individual freedoms of Quebeckers and Canadians.

Let us be clear: the Liberals have to keep their promise to get rid of the problematic provisions in Bill C-51. We will hold them to it. If we as parliamentarians, and the government MPs in particular, want to win back the trust of Quebeckers and Canadians, then this is definitely the right first step.

Honestly, the public's trust in our institutions should be among the primary objectives of Canada's security policy. Let me explain.

We live in a world that is constantly evolving and, unfortunately, as shown by the tragic events in Istanbul, London, New York, Paris, and Brussels, it is unpredictable and quite dangerous. The length of this list should be enough to attest to that.

We must ensure that our national security organizations, the RCMP, CSE, and CSIS, have the necessary tools and resources to do their job, but that they also do not operate without administrative transparency, so that Canadians can know that they are effective and that they protect Canadians' rights in the best possible way.

Make no mistake, the world in which we live is not a John le Carré or Ian Fleming novel set in the cold war. The duty to protect is particularly important, but entails a responsibility.

I agree, our national security organizations already have oversight bodies, but the truth is that these bodies operate somewhat haphazardly and do not have full and systematic access to sensitive information.

The mandate of oversight and review bodies is limited to examining the work of their target organization. They are unable to follow the thread that connects them to various government organizations.

I want to remind everyone that the annual budget for CSIS, the RCMP, and CSE is close to $4 billion. That responsibility, not to mention the significant amount of taxpayer money involved, justifies the creation of this committee of parliamentarians. I know that every MP represents his or her constituents admirably. That is the spirit in which the members of this parliamentary committee will be tasked with overseeing these operations.

To get back to my first point, the committee must be put together very carefully. All of our allies have parliamentary committees for international security, but they differ in their makeup and especially in their mandate. We can learn from both their experience and their flaws to ensure that our review committee is robust.

Quebeckers and Canadians want a watchdog with sharp teeth. The new committee must have full access to classified information, sufficient resources, and independence. Within reasonable limits, it must be able to share its findings with Canadians in an informative and transparent way.

Twelve years ago, an interim committee of parliamentarians on national security recommended that, should such a committee be created, it should have complete access to all of the information it needs.

Of course, the NDP will be working hard to ensure that this new committee has access to that information.

In that regard, Kent Roach and Craig Forcese, legal experts and authors of a book that was recently published on Bill C-51 and Canada's anti-terrorism laws, have said that without full access to classified information, the committee would not be able to accomplish its task. Mr. Forcese added that this is a good bill, albeit one with inevitable flaws, which likely reflect compromises designed to reconcile elements within the government. Bill C-22 is a good start, but even the best review mechanism in the world cannot make up for flawed legislation, such as Bill C-51. It is therefore important not to lose sight of the bigger picture. These are very clear statements from very competent individuals.

It seems obvious to me that the new parliamentary oversight committee must act as a sufficient counterbalance to restore Canadians' confidence and, more importantly, prevent the kind of abuse that we have seen or bring it to light.

On that note, in order to demonstrate why we need an oversight committee with adequate powers, I would like to draw the House's attention to fact that the excellent journalists at CBC/Radio-Canada managed to report that, from 2001 to 2004, Canadians were imprisoned and tortured in Syria with the complicity of Canadian authorities.

Following the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York, CSIS and the RCMP wanted to find al-Qaeda cells located within the country. In the end, that contributed to massive human rights violations and complicity in the torture of three individuals in Syria. CBC/Radio-Canada had to comb through some 18,000 documents to bring this story to light.

Let us be clear: complicity in torture is unacceptable. It is unacceptable for our authorities to use such an approach. While waiting for a proper parliamentary committee with the right tools to be set up, it is up to talented reporters, like the ones at CBC/Radio-Canada, to ensure that our national security institutions do not engage in this sort of abuse.

I think it is high time that we had this tool so that Quebeckers and Canadians can have confidence in the institutions responsible for protecting us.

Public Safety

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, on Monday, I introduced my bill to repeal Bill C-51. The New Democrats are still saying today what we said from the beginning: Bill C-51 infringes on our civil liberties without doing anything to make us safer.

The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness now calls Bill C-22 the centrepiece of Liberal national security policy. During the campaign, of course, the Liberals' centrepiece was fixing Bill C-51.

What we have in Bill C-22 is a necessary but flawed review committee, a case of bait and switch, plus more consultation. Yet, more consultation is cold comfort to Canadians whose rights are under threat, including those engaged in legitimate dissent, like first nations leaders and environmentalists, or even ordinary citizens who value their privacy.

We all know what works when it comes to combatting terrorism. We need to devote adequate resources to de-radicalization and to traditional intelligence and enforcement work. Neither restricting our rights nor collecting so much information on all of us that we lose focus on the real threats will help keep us safe. That is why it is time to repeal Bill C-51.