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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present two petitions today.

The first is from residents of my riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands, as well as Victoria, Winnipeg and Toronto. The petitioners call on the House of Commons to reject Bill C-51, the so-called anti-terrorism act, as a violation of Canadians' rights and freedoms, while at the same time not making us more safe.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition from students at the University of Victoria calling on the House to reject Bill C-51, the so-called anti-terrorism bill of 2015.

Students call on all members to join with the NDP caucus in voting down this deeply flawed legislation. The students are not alone. They stand with prime ministers, Supreme Court of Canada justices, legal experts, privacy commissioners and the like. They stand with hundreds more who have written letters, attended meetings and spoken out across Canada, including on the streets of Victoria.

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

Mr. Speaker, police officers are not the only ones concerned about the consequences of Bill C-51.

The Government of Quebec has denounced the fact that Bill C-51 will give the Canadian Security Intelligence Service:

...such vast powers, including the possibility to take certain actions that violate the Charter....

The Conservative majority on the committee refused to allow ministers from Quebec to appear.

Why is the government refusing to hear from those who will have to enforce this deeply flawed legislation?

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

Mr. Speaker, over the past nine years, our government has increased resources allocated to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police seven times. In total, the RCMP's budget has gone up by more than a third.

Unfortunately, the New Democrats were unwilling to support us in giving our police forces those resources. We intend to stay the course to ensure that our police forces have the resources and tools they need to combat the terrorist threat. That is why Bill C-51 is on the table.

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

Mr. Speaker, in committee yesterday, more expert witnesses criticized Bill C-51.

Scott Tod, the Ontario Provincial Police's top anti-terrorism official, cautioned the government. Bill C-51 will give the police force more responsibilities but will not provide additional resources. The police force will therefore have to reallocate resources currently being used to combat organized crime.

What is the minister's plan for making sure that our police officers can continue to do their jobs well?

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

Mr. Speaker, if the member would really listen to Justice Major and the Air India commission, he would support the provision in Bill C-51 regarding information sharing.

Bill C-51 is the most important national security legislation since the 9/11 era.... Bill C-51 is designed for the post-9/11 era. It's a new legislation for a new era in terms of security threats.

Who said that? It was Professor Elliot Tepper from Carleton University. Where was the member when the witness said that?

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

Mr. Speaker, that is just the opposite of what Justice Major told us last night, but I am not asking the minister to take my word for things here. I am asking him to listen to the legions of witnesses opposed to this bad bill.

Even the Internet's Mozilla Foundation has come out swinging against the sweeping provisions of Bill C-51, calling it “an approach to cybersecurity that only serves to undermine user trust, threaten the openness of the Web, and reduce the security of the Internet and its users”.

What is it going to take for the minister to get the message that sacrificing the rights and freedoms of Canadians will not make Canadians safer?

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

Mr. Speaker, this week witness after witness has come forward to lay out the critical flaws in Bill C-51.

Last night we heard from retired Supreme Court Justice John Major, who testified that the judicial warrant the Conservatives are fond of calling oversight is simply not oversight. Major said that in order for there to be proper information sharing there needs to be oversight at the back end.

Why is the concept of more powers, more oversight, such a hard concept for the minister to understand?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you.

We're talking about resources, so let me come back and ask you that question again, Deputy Commissioner Tod. What are the consequences if there's not enough money provided to law enforcement to handle the anti-terrorism element of Bill C-51?

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Okay, and do you believe that Bill C-51 has the tools to address that issue?

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

Thank you very much.

My next question will be for Mr. Neumann.

Mr. Neumann, thank you for being here tonight on a long distance call.

You mentioned the evolving threat and how it's changing. We're from a different country and we like to compare. Would you be able to compare Bill C-51—I imagine you're somewhat familiar with it—to anti-terrorism legislation that has been enacted in your country to meet that evolving threat? Also in regard to some of the other western European countries as they try to cope with the evolving threat, how does this legislation compare? What is the degree to which it differs? Would you expand on that, please.

[D/Commr Scott Tod]

Recognizance opportunities that are included in Bill C-51 on an offence that likely may occur, as I mentioned, it allows us to.... The guiding principle of law enforcement is to preserve life. I talked about the nature of the threat now and the velocity of information required in regard to determining a solution by law enforcement is a matter of days sometimes. The ability to ensure that we have been able to establish the security level for the public, and also able to determine the veracity of that threat, is difficult to do in regard to collecting source information, confirming source information, and dealing with foreign entities. The whole aspect of being able to ensure that we preserve life by using the recognizance provisions that are in Bill C-51, in order to determine the veracity of that threat and to continue the investigation for completion, is important. It must say that the recognizance provisions that are within the new legislation are similar to the legislation that's existing in the fact that we have to provide and bring the individual before a justice. There are provisions built in there where the conditions must be fulfilled by the crown in order for a justice to order continued detention. It's the same process that we have right now in the 810 recogs for other crimes that we also use it for.

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

Thank you very much.

One of the items that we've been dealing with—one of the sections, and you did refer to it—is the recognizance with condition. That tool, from a terrorist perspective, has been used not too often, but it has been used. For people who are not familiar with law enforcement, what we commonly refer to as peace bonds, as they relate to domestic situations, make sure that for domestic assaults, for domestic situations, or for neighbours that don't get along, the justice will say, “Keep the peace; be on good behaviour“ and put on other conditions. From an anti-terrorism perspective in Bill C-51 we have changed some of the threshold to be more cognizant to the changing threat. I wonder if you could comment on the recognizance with conditions as it pertains to terrorism and the review of detention as a valuable tool to law enforcement.

[D/Commr Scott Tod]

Thank you for the question.

I do agree with you on the first point that the constantly evolving threat requires new tools. Legislation is one of them, but also there are skills development among investigators, research with academia, and better relationships with our communities and our public safety partners, which we have. Those are three major areas in which the tools can be better built to make us more successful.

As I think Professor Neumann well pointed out, the evolving threat changes. In the four years in which I've been in this position, I have seen the threat of terrorism come from the plot-driven nature, where the police or a security service, foreign or national, would advise us that there was a plot occurring and that individuals were plotting to conduct a terrorist attack. Professor Neumann put it very well that it's now an individual member. There is no communication with other people perhaps, but there's the sympathizer and supporter that may be behind the individual. That lone wolf, as much as I wish there were a different term for it, that individual actor that's going to commit terrorism is the threat we face today. That may change for tomorrow, but it's the threat we're facing right now, along with all the other past terrorist techniques or terrorist events that we have seen: the plot offences and the various extremist groups that are out there, both left and right. The most recent one we're looking at, the lone wolf, certainly is the one which is occupying many of our resources and much of our time, and is the one that requires the greatest amount of effort from law enforcement.

I do think Bill C-51 plays a part in that. As I stated, it provides the threshold that we see now. The old threshold that we had to be definitive and that an attack would occur, now is “likely may occur”. I think that deals with that lone individual. There's less chance to determine communication and less chance to determine action that's occurring that may drive an act.

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

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing today.

My first set of questions will be for Deputy Commissioner Tod.

Deputy Commissioner, in this committee we have heard evidence that the terrorist threat to this country and other countries in the western world, indeed to all the world, is constantly evolving. Would you agree with me that a constantly evolving threat requires a constantly evolving set of tools for people like your agency and the agencies you represent, the Chiefs of Police of Canada, as well as the RCMP which you work with, and CSIS, who I believe works in tandem with you? Do you believe that C-51 is part of a regime of laws that begins to meet this evolving threat? Feel free to expand on your response.