Bill C-22 (Historical)

An Act to establish the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts

This enactment establishes the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and sets out its composition and mandate. In addition, it establishes the Committee’s Secretariat, the role of which is to assist the Committee in fulfilling its mandate. It also makes consequential amendments to certain Acts.

Electoral Participation Act

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-65 this evening in the House, the electoral participation act. As the title of this bill suggests, one of its key priorities is to encourage participation in the electoral process. We know that democratic engagement rests on trust in our electoral system, and that is why Bill C-65 proposes to enhance safeguarding measures in the Canada Elections Act.

As we all know, Canada's democracy is among the strongest and most stable in the world thanks in large part to the Canada Elections Act, which is the fundamental legislative framework that regulates our elections in this great nation. We have every reason to be proud of this legislation, but we are not immune to the global challenges that modernized democracies face. The integrity of the electoral process in the lead-up to, during and after elections is a prerequisite for trust in our democracy. This is why it is essential that we continue to address evolving threats to our democracy through regular improvements to the Canada Elections Act. This helps ensure that our system remains robust, resilient and equipped to keep pace with the issues of our time.

It should come as no surprise that safeguarding our elections includes measures to mitigate foreign interference. Foreign interference can take many forms, including social media campaigns designed to sow disinformation. The Communications Security Establishment's latest report highlights that online foreign influence activities have become a new normal, with adversaries increasingly seeking to influence our elections. We and all Canadians have a right to be concerned about these threats. This is why the government has been proactive in taking steps to counter foreign interference.

Our government's work to protect our democracy began as early as 2016, when we tabled Bill C-22. It led to the creation of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, a committee that assembles members from both chambers of Parliament to review matters concerning national security and intelligence.

In 2018, the government put forward Bill C-59, which enacted the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency Act, giving the agency the mandate to review and investigate all Government of Canada national security and intelligence activities. That same year, we also introduced Bill C-76, which modernized the Canada Elections Act and introduced a number of prohibitions, including a prohibition preventing foreigners from unduly influencing electors, a prohibition against foreign third parties from spending on election-related activities and a prohibition against third parties from using any foreign funds.

In 2019, we put in place the plan to protect Canada's democracy, which included the security and intelligence threats to elections, or SITE, task force. The plan was subsequently updated in advance of the 2021 general election.

Most recently, we introduced Bill C-70, the countering foreign interference act, which complements measures to further safeguard our federal elections and mitigate foreign influence in Bill C-65, which I am speaking to today. Finally, last September, our government launched the public inquiry into foreign interference. We look forward to receiving the commissioner's final report as well as recommendations.

These substantial government-wide initiatives demonstrate this government's commitment to remaining vigilant in our efforts to protect our electoral system. This commitment is further reflected in the safeguarding measures proposed through Bill C-65. I would like to highlight how this bill proposes to better protect our elections from foreign influence, disinformation campaigns and the misuse of technology, all of which seek to erode trust in our institutions. We do this so that Canadians can feel safe and confident when participating in our democracy.

First, we know that election interference can happen at all times and not just during elections. This is why Bill C-65 proposes to extend the application of the existing ban on undue foreign influence at all times, rather than being limited to the election period. This means, for example, that the ban on foreign entities unduly influencing voters to vote a certain way or influencing them to refrain from voting would extend to all times.

Second, Bill C-65 would create a clearer and more consistent definition of foreign entity activities under the act to close any and all gaps. For example, currently foreign entities can circumvent the law by having more than one purpose, where the ban on undue influence is limited to a foreign entity whose only purpose is to unduly influence voters. That would no longer be possible under Bill C-65. The bill proposes that foreign entities who have even just one of their primary activities as unduly influencing electors would be captured.

Third, Bill C-65 proposes important new financing rules to increase transparency and prevent anonymous foreign and dark money from entering our elections. This includes banning the use of crypto asset contributions, money orders and prepaid instruments such as prepaid credit cards or store gift cards for regulated activities by third parties and political actors.

Bill C-65 would introduce important new financing rules for third parties. Allow me to explain. Bill C-65 would allow third parties to use only contributions they have received from Canadian citizens and permanent residents to pay for regulated election expenses. This includes partisan activities, partisan advertising, election advertising and election surveys. This means that third parties would no longer be able to use funds received from any other third parties, such as corporations or businesses, for regulated expenses. For greater transparency, third parties would also need to report on the details of the individuals who contributed in total over $200, including names, addresses and amounts of each contribution.

We understand that third parties may not all receive contributions and may have their own revenue they wish to use for regulated expenses. In those instances, third parties who meet the threshold of 10% or less of their overall annual revenue and contributions would also be able to use their own revenues to pay for regulated activities. In addition, third parties would be required to provide financial statements to Elections Canada proving the revenue is their own.

The amendments to enhance transparency on the source of third party funding are important. Under the current rules, third parties are required to report only on contributions given to them for election purposes. Contributions received for other purposes may be mixed into the third party's general revenue, leaving a transparency gap as to where the funds came from.

The Chief Electoral Officer spoke to this concern in his June 2022 recommendations report tabled here in Parliament. He noted that the proportion of third party reporting on the use of their own funds for regulated expenses increased significantly, from 8% in 2011 to 37% in 2019 and 63% in 2021. This increasing trend in third party financing is concerning, which is why the government is taking action through Bill C-65. Let me reiterate, however, that third parties who do not meet the threshold would still be able to participate in regulated activities, but they would have to do so with the contributions they received as donations from Canadian citizens and permanent residents.

The next element I would like to speak on is disinformation. Disinformation, a key tactic by malign actors, aims to fuel discord and erode public trust in the electoral process. It seeks to manipulate voters and electoral processes through intentional falsehoods, often spread online, as well as, quite frankly, intimidation at times.

In 2022, the Chief Electoral Officer called disinformation about the electoral process the most important threat to Canada's election mandate. Security agencies have noted that disinformation is a persistent threat to election integrity. In the 2021 national electors study conducted by Elections Canada following the 44th general election, 71% of electors were concerned that the spread of false information online could have a moderate or major impact on the electoral outcome. This included 37% who thought it could have a major impact. As noted by the Chief Electoral Officer, intelligence officials and leading academics, the use and impact of disinformation is not limited to the election period.

Bill C-65 aims to build confidence in our electoral process and our democratic institutions through new and expanded prohibitions to address these threats. In particular, the bill would introduce a ban on false statements about the voting process that are deliberately made to disrupt the conduct or the results of an election, all while respecting the principles of free expression and open dialogue.

Amendments provide clear guidance on the type of intentional false statements that could be made or published to ensure that contraventions of the act are clear and enforceable. This includes making or publishing false or misleading statements relating to who may vote in an election; the voting registration process; when, where and how to vote; whom to vote for; the process to become a candidate; how votes are validated or counted; or the results of an election.

Another element I would like to address is the potential misuse of technology. Technology, as we all know, has helped revolutionize democracy, but it also gives rise to risks. For example, content generated by artificial intelligence is becoming harder to distinguish from reality. When paired with disinformation, artificial intelligence such as deepfakes poses a significant threat. Today, with a computer and a few keystrokes, malicious actors can generate highly realistic videos, audio and text content that can depict people saying or doing things they never said or did.

To address this emerging issue, Bill C-65 would amend existing prohibitions in the act that can lend themselves to the misuse of artificial intelligence, namely false statements, impersonation and misleading publications, to provide clarity that they apply regardless of the means used. This would mean, for example, that the prohibition on impersonating the Chief Electoral Officer, an election official, or a candidate would apply regardless of the technology that might be used now, to include deepfakes or other technologies that may evolve in the future.

Bill C-65 would also extend the scope of the existing ban on using a computer to affect the results of an election, to now apply to the use of a computer to disrupt the conduct of an election.

The last element I would like to speak about and highlight is the importance of the personal safety of those people who participate in our electoral process. As my hon. colleagues know well, the threat environment continues to evolve. There has, sadly, been a surge in vandalism at constituency offices, increasingly violent online discourse and threats made against party leaders, candidates and election officials, as witnessed during the 2021 general election.

Bill C-65 therefore seeks to address some of these concerns by providing increased privacy and safety to electoral participants. For example, returning officers' personal information would be better protected by removing the requirement for them to publish their home address in the Canada Gazette; rather, only their municipality and province of residence would be published.

We have also seen reports of or have personally experienced a growing uncivil discourse and behaviour targeting members of Parliament, including me. Members from all parties have spoken out against unacceptable harassment and threats, as well as intimidation.

Indeed, the Sergeant-at-Arms and Corporate Security Officer of the House of Commons recently noted that harassment of people elected to serve this very institution has skyrocketed, increasing 800% in the last five years. To respond to this alarming trend, Bill C-65 proposes two changes to the disclosure of requirements for regulated fundraising events over $200 that include a prominent attendee, such as a party leader. To ensure the safety of all participants, the requirement to provide five days' advance public notice of such regulated fundraising events would be repealed. To ensure ongoing transparency, precise location details for events would continue to be provided to the Chief Electoral Officer as part of the party's postevent reporting requirements under the act.

However, to protect the security of hosts of events who engage in politics or book a political event, the requirement for a public-facing postevent report 30 days later would only include the municipality and the province of the event. This approach aims to prevent bad actors from undermining the safety of participants and hosts at these events. It aims to strike an appropriate balance between the very real security threats faced and the ongoing need for transparency.

In closing, I know that safeguarding our democracy is a priority shared by all of my hon. colleagues in this House. The amendments to the Canada Elections Act proposed in Bill C-65 build on existing safeguards and propose a number of targeted but critical improvements to continue to build trust in our democratic processes.

I am confident that all members of Parliament can work together to ensure that Bill C-65 is studied and passed in time for all measures to come into force before the next fixed-date general election.

Report Stage

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is an amazing question because I do have the answers. Let us give a few little examples. Let me see. The Liberals did it as well. For example, in the notice paper on November 26, 2018, a notice of a motion deleting the short title for Bill C-87 happened. That was interesting.

Again, on March 6 of the year before, the parliamentary secretary put a motion to delete the short title of Bill C-22. Yes, that was two, but we have to give three, right?

The third is on June 6, 2018. We need to mix things up a little bit. The NDP member for Victoria seconded an amendment by the BQ member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert to delete the short title of Bill C-218.

Public Complaints and Review Commission Act

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP-Liberals stand in the House today and say it is a waste of time to be debating this very important legislation. It is not a waste of time for all the civil society organizations that have very serious concerns about the bill, concerns that were not fully addressed at committee.

The National Police Federation, union officials and working people are concerned that, if there is an unfounded allegation against them, they are off work for a year and are not going to get paid. Conservatives put forward amendments to try to ensure that they would get back pay if the allegation was unfounded. The Liberals defeated them. That is why it is so important to have debates on this in the House.

I would draw the attention of the House to the parliamentary secretary himself. He is saying that these are ridiculous motions. On November 26, 2018, he himself moved a notice of motion to delete the short title of Bill C-87; again, on March 6, 2017, the parliamentary secretary put a motion on notice to delete the short title of Bill C-22. The Liberal parliamentary secretary is being a hypocrite in the House. He has done this on numerous occasions, and he should be ashamed.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Mr. Speaker, the member referenced that I was pining over the fact that the member for Carleton or the previous government had never done anything about this. However, that was just the context I was using to set the stage for telling members about all the things we did do, as well as all the things we have done since becoming elected, that Conservatives have routinely voted against, including this member.

Bill C-22 created NSICOP, which he now speaks so highly about. Conservatives voted against it. Bill C-59 created and established NSIRA. Conservatives voted against it. Bill C-76 limited foreign ability to influence elections through monetary contributions. Conservatives voted against it.

Conservatives have routinely voted against initiatives that the government has brought forward to combat foreign interference. The fact that the previous Conservative government did nothing is just the context to set in order to highlight everything that we have done.

Could the member share with the House why he and his colleagues voted against all those measures?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Madam Speaker, let us just recap for a second.

In 2013, the Conservatives and the former democratic reform minister, the member for Carleton and Leader of the Opposition, received a report from CSIS saying that election interference was real and was going to continue. He did nothing for two years and literally sat on the report.

Later on, in 2017, after we came into government, we introduced Bill C-76, which limited funding from foreign actors. The Conservatives voted against it. We introduced Bill C-22 shortly before that, to create NSICOP. Conservatives would not even let it go to committee. They voted against it after the first or second reading.

I am wondering how the Conservatives can actually stand here and try to claim that they have any credibility on the issue of foreign interference, when they did nothing and routinely voted against every measure that we brought forward.

Government's Alleged Non-compliance with an Order of the House

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, the motion on the floor of the House tonight asks the House to find the Public Health Agency of Canada to be in contempt for its failure to obey three orders, one being an order of the House and the other two being orders of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, and to order the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada to appear at the bar of the House to receive a formal admonishment and deliver the unredacted documents ordered by the House.

The issue in front of us today is simple. Has the government complied with the order made by the House on June 2 of this year and the two orders made by the special committee on March 31 and May 10 of this year, orders which mandated that the government provide the unredacted documents concerning the government's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba? The answer is clearly no.

These three orders are binding. They are not resolutions of the House or its committees. They are not an expression of the opinion of the House or of its committee. They are orders that must be complied with, just as Canadians have been required to comply with the public health orders of the government during the last 15 months of the pandemic, orders that concerned quarantines, movement, mask-wearing and many other things.

Since the adoption of the order on June 2, the government has said it has given the unredacted documents to NSICOP. That is not where the House order specified the unredacted documents be delivered to. The House order was clear. In part (a) it states:

(a) these documents shall be deposited with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, in both official languages, within 48 hours of the adoption of this order

NSICOP is not the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. It is that simple. The government does not get to decide what part of a binding House order it gets to comply with and what part of a binding House order it gets to ignore, just as Canadians do not get to decide what part of quarantine orders they get to comply with and what part of quarantine orders they get to ignore.

Let us set aside for a moment the fact that the House order compels the government to deliver the documents to the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. Let us set aside for a moment that House order. Let us think about, in general terms, in the absence of these three orders, whether or not NSICOP is the appropriate place to hold the government accountable.

In our Constitution there is only one place to which the government is accountable and that is the House of Commons. We do not elect governments in Canada. We elect a legislature of 338 members, out of which a prime minister and government are appointed by the Governor General, on the assessment of the Governor General as to which member has the support of the majority of the members of the House. That is why this place is the only place in the land where the confidence convention exists.

The government's accountability to the House is not just a singular moment when it is appointed based on that assessment. The government's accountability to the House is not just the confidence convention. It is the daily and ongoing proceedings of the House and its committees, through question period, through committees, through debate, through votes and through so many other proceedings.

One reason that NSICOP is not the right place to hold the government accountable is that NSICOP is not a committee of this place. It is not a committee of the other place. It is not a committee of Parliament.

The act that governs NSICOP is the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, and in subsection 4(3), under “Not a committee of Parliament”, it states:

The Committee is not a committee of either House of Parliament or of both Houses.

Not only is it not a committee of Parliament, but MPs and senators on NSICOP actually give up their parliamentary rights. Subsection 12(1) of the act says:

Despite any other law, no member or former member of the Committee may claim immunity based on parliamentary privilege in a proceeding against them in relation to a contravention of subsection 11(1) or of a provision of the Security of Information Act or in relation to any other proceeding arising from any disclosure of information that is prohibited under that subsection.

Furthermore, subsection 5(1) of the act governing the committee says:

The members of the Committee are to be appointed by the Governor in Council, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, to hold office during pleasure until the dissolution of Parliament following their appointment.

In other words, members of NSICOP hold office at the pleasure of the Prime Minister.

Subsection 6(1) of the act says:

The Governor in Council is to designate the Chair of the Committee from among the members of the Committee, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.

In other words, the Prime Minister decides who will chair the committee.

Subsection 16(1) gives the minister the authority to refuse information requested by the committee. Paragraph 8(1)(b) gives a minister the right to block the committee's review of any matter. Subsection 21(5) gives the Prime Minister the power to direct the committee to revise reports and remove information. It says:

If, after consulting the Chair of the Committee, the Prime Minister is of the opinion that information in an annual or special report is information the disclosure of which would be injurious to national security, national defence or international relations or is information that is protected by litigation privilege or by solicitor-client privilege or the professional secrecy of advocates and notaries, the Prime Minister may direct the Committee to submit to the Prime Minister a revised version of the annual or special report that does not contain that information.

These provisions allowing the Prime Minister to direct the committee to revise reports on the Prime Minister's opinion that information is injurious to national security, national defence, international relations or solicitor-client privilege are so broad and all-encompassing that they give the Prime Minister great latitude to see reports revised that might be embarrassing to the government.

NSICOP is not a committee of Parliament. Its members give up the rights they have as parliamentarians. Its members and its chair serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister. Any minister has the broad latitude to refuse the committee information and to block a committee's review, and the Prime Minister has the broad power to change committee reports before they are made public.

All of this is not new. It is the exact criticism Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault gave in her testimony about Bill C-22, which passed in the last Parliament and now governs this committee. Clearly it is the wrong committee to hold the government accountable. It is like the fox guarding the henhouse, and that is why it is the wrong committee for the redacted documents to be sent to.

The argument I have just made about NSICOP being the wrong committee is really beside the point, because the three orders of the House and its special committee are clear. The unredacted documents are to be sent to the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, not to NSICOP.

I have heard the government make reference to the fact that NSICOP is similar to committees that exist in other democracies. That is not accurate. NSICOP is not similar to the U.K.'s Intelligence and Security Committee. Unlike NSICOP, the U.K.'s Intelligence and Security Committee is not under the control of the British prime minister. In addition, the U.K.'s Intelligence and Security Committee is a committee of Parliament. It consists of nine members, one of whom is the chair. While the prime minister nominates candidates for the committee, both houses of Parliament must confirm their respective parliamentarians, and both the House of Commons and the House of Lords have the power to reject the nominated candidates. Also, the chair of the committee is not appointed on the recommendation of the prime minister, but is elected by committee members at the first meeting of the committee.

As a result, the U.K.'s Intelligence and Security Committee has autonomy from the Prime Minister and the government. It is a committee of Parliament, with the ability to hold the British government accountable.

The government has said it will not hand over the documents because it is concerned about national security. That argument is not cogent, because in all three orders of the House and its special committee, a provision was made to protect national security or any details of an ongoing criminal investigation. In the order adopted by this House on June 2, paragraph (d) says:

(d) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall confidentially review the documents with a view to redacting information which, in his opinion, could reasonably be expected to compromise national security or reveal details of an ongoing criminal investigation, other than the existence of an investigation;

There is a difference between the three orders with respect to the Winnipeg lab documents and the House order of December 2009 that required the previous Conservative government to hand over documents concerning Afghan detainees. The difference is this. All three orders of this House and its special committee in this Parliament regarding the Winnipeg lab documents have provisions to protect national security and any details of an ongoing criminal investigation. The House order of December 2009, which had been moved by Mr. Dosanjh on December 10, 2009, contained no such provisions. It simply ordered the government to hand over the documents about Afghan detainees in their original and uncensored form forthwith, which meant they would have to be immediately and publicly released without any redactions. We took great pains in the drafting of these three orders for the Winnipeg lab documents to address the national security concerns expressed by the government at that time.

Another point to make is this. The first two orders adopted by the special committee had the support of all members of the committee, including members of the ministerial party. That was not an oversight. The members of the ministerial party knew exactly what they were voting for and knew exactly what the order of the committee said. Therefore, even members of the ministerial party believed the government must hand over these documents to the House and the special committee.

Since March 31, two and a half months ago, the government has ignored these orders, and now its ignorance has caught up to it. Initially, the government hid behind the Privacy Act, ignoring parliamentary supremacy and ignoring the fact that paragraph 8(2)(c) of the Privacy Act itself grants an exemption for personal information that is disclosed in compliance with an order made by a body with jurisdiction to compel the production of information.

After that argument did not seem to hold any more water, the government hid behind the excuse of national security, ignoring the fact that all three orders made provisions for the protection of national security. The reality is that one has to conclude that the government is doing nothing more than buying time to avoid providing this House and its special committee with information, hoping the clock will run out with the adjournment of the House next week on Wednesday.

My colleagues and I have not taken this decision lightly to pursue this motion of censure and to call the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada to the bar. We understand the constitutional implications of this and we understand the stress that public servants at the Public Health Agency of Canada must be feeling. However, there are bigger issues at stake here, including the strength of our parliamentary institutions, their rights and their privileges, which have been under immense pressure in the last year, some would even say in retreat because of the restrictions of the pandemic.

Since March 31, we have repeatedly urged the government to comply with the order. We have given the government ample time to comply with the orders, making clear the consequence of not doing so, including earlier this week at the special committee meeting on Monday evening. Despite all these admonitions, despite all these urgings, the government has chosen not to comply.

I make one last appeal to the government at this late hour. I urge the government to comply with the orders of this House and its special committee and deliver the unredacted documents to the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House. I urge all my colleagues in the House to vote for this motion if the government continues to refuse to comply with these orders.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to add to the debate of Bill C-3 today.

An independent review and complaints mechanism for the Canada Border Services Agency would fill an important gap for our national security agencies. This is not a new issue for parliamentarians. Members will recall that similar legislation was introduced and debated in the last session, as Bill C-98. That bill received unanimous consent just eight months ago, and since that time our government has had the benefit of considering comments made on previous legislation. With its introduction as a new bill, it is reflective of many of the comments and recommendations previously made.

CBSA oversight is not a new idea. In fact, Bill S-205, introduced by former Senator Moore in the other place a few years ago, proposed a CBSA review body. That was, in part, in response to a previous call by senators to create an oversight body through the 2015 report of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. Many parliamentarians, academics, experts and stakeholders have made similar calls over the years. That is largely because Canada is the only country among our closest allies not to have a dedicated review body for complaints regarding its border agency. Furthermore, the CBSA is the only organization within the public safety portfolio without such a body. Bill C-3 would change this environment.

Canadians need to be confident that their complaints are handled and addressed appropriately and independently. They deserve enhanced reporting on how border services operate, which the bill also proposes. To expand on that, under Bill C-3, the new body would be able to not only report on its finding but also make recommendations as it sees fit. Those reports would include the PCRC's findings and recommendations on everything from the CBSA's policies and procedures to its compliance with the law to the reasonableness of the use of its powers.

This is about accountability and transparency. To parse why this is so important, we must take a look at the rapidly changing context of the CBSA.

On a daily basis, CBSA officers interact with thousands of Canadians and visitors to Canada at airports, land borders, crossing ports and other locations. To put that in numbers, that is 96 million interactions per year with travellers and $32 billion per year in duties and taxes, according to the 2017-18 statistics. That is 27.3 million cars, 34.5 million air passengers and 21.4 million commercial releases. All of that happens at 13 international airports, 117 land border crossings, 27 rail sites and beyond. This will only increase. That is why the government introduced a federal budget last year proposing investments of $1.25 billion for the CBSA to help modernize some of our ports of entry and our border operations. After all, we know that business at the border never stops and is growing year after year.

As hon. members know, ensuring that business continues while protecting Canadians requires CBSA officers to have the power to arrest, detain, search and seize, and the authority to use reasonable force when required. We know that Canada's over 14,000 CBSA officers are truly world class, providing consistent and fair treatment to travellers and traders.

However, as business grows along with demands for accountability, the CBSA cannot reasonably be expected to handle all the complaints on its own, nor should Canadians expect it would. Currently, complaints about conduct and the service provided by CBSA officers are handled internally. If an individual is dissatisfied with the results of an internal CBSA investigation, there is currently no mechanism for the public to request an independent review of these complaints. Bill C-3 would neatly remedy all of this. For example, such an individual would be able to ask the PCRC to review his or her complaint. At the conclusion of a PCRC investigation, the review body would be able to report on its findings and make recommendations as it sees fit. The president of the CBSA would be required to respond in writing to the PCRC's findings and recommendations.

The PCRC would also accept complaints about the conduct and service provided by CBSA employees from detainees held in CBSA facilities. These could include complaints related to treatment and conditions in detention.

On the rare occasion that there be a serious incident involving CBSA personnel, Bill C-3 would legislate a framework to not only handle and track such incidents, but also to publicly report on them. It would in fact create an obligation for the CBSA to notify local police and the PCRC of any serious incident involving the CBSA officers or employees. As I have noted, the legislation would also allow for the PCRC to review, on its own initiative or at least at the request of the minister, any non-national security activity of the CBSA.

National security activities would be reviewed by the new national security intelligence review committee, which is the National Security Intelligence Review Agency, or NSIRA. As colleagues know, the NSIRA is responsible for complaints and reviews relating to national security, including those relating to the RCMP and the CBSA. Members will see provisions in Bill C-3 that would facilitate information sharing and co-operation between the PCRC and NSIRA.

I would point out that the PCRC would not have the authority to review, uphold, amend or overturn enforcement, trade or national security decisions made with the CBSA, nor would it consider complaints that could be dealt with by other organizations, such as the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages or the Office of the Privacy Commission. What it would do is provide a reasonable, long-sought-after framework to build accountability in our public safety agencies and trust among Canadians.

As I close, I would like to point out that this is the latest in a line of recent measures to enhance accountability in our national security apparatus. The former Bill C-22 led to the creation of the now operational National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, which has a broad mandate to review national security and intelligence organizations.

The former Bill C-59 led to the creation of the NSIRA. NSIRA now has the authority to review any activity carried out by CSIS or the Communications Security Establishment and any national security or intelligence-related activity carried out by federal departments and agencies.

All of this amounts to unprecedented enhancements in our national security accountability, on top of the government's creation of a national security transparency commitment, which is all about integrating Canada's democratic values into our national security activities.

These measures build on the government's broad national security consultations in 2016, which sought to engage Canadians, stakeholders and subject matter experts on issues related to national security and the protection of rights and freedoms. In those consultations, four-fifths, or 81%, of online responses called for independent review mechanisms for departments and agencies that have national security responsibilities, including the CBSA.

This outline should provide some rationale for bipartisan support for Bill C-3 by parliamentarians, academics, experts and stakeholders alike and other Canadians. Our security and intelligence communities must keep pace with evolving threats to the safety and security of Canadians and with a rapidly changing border environment. They must do so in a way that safeguards our rights and freedoms, and the people's trust in how the government works. That is why I ask the House to join me in supporting Bill C-3 today.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, through you, I would like to welcome the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley to this place.

It is true that this legislation has been called for for a long time. After we were elected in 2015, we brought a robust number of bills to the public safety committee. The public safety minister at the time, Ralph Goodale, was introducing more legislation than was coming from any other department. He was fixing the previous national security framework in Bill C-59. We brought in Bill C-22 and we did introduce Bill C-98 to deal with the CBSA review agency. Unfortunately, the bill ran out of time in the Senate before it could be passed.

It is my hope that we can do this quickly and get it sent to committee and the Senate and finally get this review body in place.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-3, which seeks to establish a new, independent public complaints and review body for the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA. This represents another step forward in the government's commitment to ensuring that all of its agencies and departments are accountable to Canadians.

As a member of the public safety committee during the last Parliament, I am quite proud to have participated in legislation that made remarkable change and took the number of measures we took to ensure greater accountability of our security agencies and departments.

Two years ago, our Bill C-22 received royal assent, establishing the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. That addressed a long-standing need for parliamentarians to review the Government of Canada's activities and operations in regard to national security and intelligence. It has been in operation for some time now and is a strong addition to our system of national security review and accountability. As members will know, the committee has the power to review activities across government, including the CBSA.

To complement that, our committee studied our national security framework, as well as Bill C-59, which allowed for the creation of the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, or NSIRA. NSIRA is also authorized to conduct reviews of any national security or intelligence activity carried out by federal departments and agencies, including the CBSA. All of this is on top of existing review and oversight mechanisms in the public safety portfolio.

The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP investigates complaints from the public about the conduct of members in the RCMP, for example, and does so in an open, independent and objective manner. The Office of the Correctional Investigator conducts independent, thorough and timely investigations about issues related to Correctional Service Canada.

Bill C-3 would fill a gap in the review of the activities of our public safety agencies. The existing Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, which is responsible for complaints against members of the RCMP, would see its name change to the public complaints and review commission and its mandate expanded to include the CBSA. It would be able to consider complaints against CBSA employee conduct or service, from foreign nationals, permanent residents and Canadian citizens, regardless of whether they are within or outside of Canada. Reviews of national security activities would be carried out by NSIRA.

Here is how it would work in practice. If an individual has a complaint unrelated to national security, she or he would be able to direct it either to the commission or to the CBSA. Both bodies would notify the other of any complaint made. The CBSA would be required to investigate any complaint, except those disposed of informally. The commission would be able to conduct its own investigation of the complaint in situations where the chairperson is of the opinion that doing so would be in the public interest. If an individual is not satisfied with the CBSA's response, the commission would be able to follow up as it sees fit.

The new PCRC would also be able to produce findings on the CBSA's policies, procedures and guidelines. It would also be able to review CBSA's activities, including making findings on CBSA's compliance with the law and the reasonableness and necessity of the exercise of its powers. Indeed, the commission's findings on each review would be published in a mandatory annual public report.

Bill C-3 not only fills a gap in our review system. It answers calls from the public and Parliament for independent review of CBSA. Most significantly, the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence, in its 2015 report, encouraged the creation of an oversight body. I would like to acknowledge Bill S-205 from our last Parliament, introduced in the other place not long after the government took office, which proposed a CBSA review body as well.

Certainly we have heard from academics, experts and other stakeholders of the need to create a body with the authority to review CBSA. During testimony at the public safety committee on December 5, 2017, Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International, said, “how crucial it is for the government to move rapidly to institute full, independent review of CBSA.” This was reflective of much of the testimony we heard, and I am pleased the government is acting on this advice. I would also like to acknowledge my colleague from Toronto—Danforth for her efforts and advocacy for the establishment of a CBSA review body.

The CBSA has a long and rich history of providing border services in an exemplary fashion. It does so through the collective contribution of over 14,000 dedicated professional women and men, women like Tamara Lopez from my community, who is a role model for young women looking for a career in the CBSA.

The CBSA already has robust internal and external mechanisms in place to address many of its activities. For example, certain immigration-related decisions are subject to review by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, and its customs role can be appealed all the way up to the Federal Court.

That said, when it comes to the public, the CBSA should not be the only body receiving and following up on complaints about its own activities. Indeed, some Canadians might not be inclined to say a word if they do not have the confidence that their complaint will be treated independently, objectively and thoroughly. Bill C-3 would inspire that confidence.

The Government of Canada is committed to ensuring that all of its agencies and departments are accountable to Canadians. Bill C-3 would move the yardstick forward on that commitment. It would bring Canada more closely in line with the accountability bodies of border agencies in other countries, including those of our Five Eyes allies.

The accountability and transparency of our national security framework has improved greatly since we were elected in 2015. This bill would continue these efforts by providing border services that keep Canadians safe and by improving public trust and confidence. Bill C-3 would ensure that the public continues to expect consistent, fair and equal treatment by CBSA employees. That is why I am proud to stand behind Bill C-3 today.

In the last Parliament, the House of Commons unanimously passed Bill C-98, which was a bill to bring oversight to CBSA. Although that bill died in the Senate, it is my hope that all parties will again come together to pass this bill.

I listened to the member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner speak earlier in this debate. He spoke at length about firearms and his petition opposing our promise to make Canadians safer by enhancing gun control. I would remind him that almost 80% of Canadians support a ban on military-style assault rifles according to an independent Angus Reid survey.

I know he and his party supported oversight of the CBSA in the last Parliament. I hope he and all members will join me in supporting oversight in this Parliament under Bill C-3 and assure the bill's passage this session.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will continue with the public safety minister's comment at committee:

[T]he government is launching, almost immediately, a public consultation process on our national security framework that will touch directly on the subject matter of this bill, and I need that consultation before I can commit to specific legislation.

Well, that was almost three years ago. To say that the bill is late would obviously be an understatement. It has taken the minister over three years to bring forward this legislation. That is quite a long time for a minister who said he was already working on something in 2016.

In keeping with his recent history on consultations, there appears to have been little or no external consultation in preparation for the bill. Hopefully, at committee, the government will be able to produce at least one group or organization outside of the government that will endorse the legislation. However, I am not holding my breath.

The government even hired a former clerk of the Privy Council to conduct an independent report. Mel Cappe conducted a review and provided his recommendations in June 2017. It was only because of an access to information request by CBC News that Parliament even knows of this report.

A CBC News article noted:

The June 2017 report by former Privy Council Office chief Mel Cappe, now a professor at the University of Toronto, was obtained by The Canadian Press through the Access to Information Act....

[A] spokesman for [the] Public Safety Minister...would not comment directly on Cappe’s recommendations, but said the government is working on legislation to create an “appropriate mechanism” to review CBSA officer conduct and handle complaints.

The proposed body would roll in existing powers of the civilian review and complaints commission for the RCMP.

The government and the minister had the recommendations two years ago, yet they are bringing this forward at the last minute. It appears to be an afterthought. Again, in February of this year, the minister said that they continue to work as fast as they can to bring forward legislation on oversight for the CBSA.

Perhaps the Liberal government was just distracted by its many self-inflicted wounds. It created many challenges for Canadians, and now it is tabling legislation in the 11th hour that deals with real issues and asking parliamentarians to make up for the government's distraction and lack of focus on things that matter to Canada, Canadians and our democracy. These are things like public safety, national security, rural crime, trade, energy policies and lower taxes.

There is an impact to mismanagement and bad decision-making. The Liberals' incompetence has had a trickle-down effect that is felt at every border crossing and also across many parts of the country.

We know that RCMP officers had to be deployed and dedicated to dealing with illegal border crossings. When the Liberals set up a facility to act as a border crossing in Lacolle, Quebec, RCMP officers were there covering people entering into Canada. Those RCMP officers were not commissioned that day. They were pulled from details across the country. They were pulled from monitoring returned ISIS fighters and from monitoring and tackling organized crime. They were taken and redeployed, most likely, from rural detachments across the country. We know that in my province of Alberta, the RCMP is short-staffed by nearly 300 officers. It is not a surprise, then, that there was a rise in rural crime while this was going on. Rural crime is now rising faster than urban crime.

However, it is not just the RCMP that has been impacted by the mismanagement at the border. It is also border officers, who will have the added oversight created through Bill C-98.

CBSA officers told me and many other MPs about more shifts and about workers being transferred to Manitoba and Quebec. The media reported that students were taking the place of full-time, trained border officers at Pearson airport. This is the largest airport in Canada, and the impacts of having untrained and inexperienced officers monitoring potentially the top spot for smuggling and transfer of illegal goods are staggering.

We have a serious issue in Canada at our borders, one that is getting worse. We know from testimony given during the committee's study of Bill C-71 that the vast majority of illegal firearms come from the U.S. They are smuggled in. At the guns and gangs summit, the RCMP showed all of Canada pictures of firearms being smuggled in as part of other packages. The minister's own department is saying there is a problem with smuggled goods, contraband tobacco and drugs coming across our borders.

Rather than actually protect Canadians, we are looking into oversight. Do not get me wrong. Oversight is good, but it is not the most pressing issue of the day.

The media is now reporting that because of the Liberals' decision to lift visas, there are many harmful and potentially dangerous criminals now operating in our country. This comes on the heels of reports that there are record-high numbers of ordered deportations of people who are a security threat. There were 25 in 2017. There are also record-low removals. Deportations were about or above 12,000 to 15,000 per year from 2010 to 2015, but that is not what we are seeing now. The Liberals, even with tens of thousands of people entering Canada illegally, are averaging half of that.

We know that the CBSA is not ignoring these issues and security threats. It just lacks the resources, which are now dedicated to maintaining an illegal border crossing and monitoring tens of thousands more people.

This failure is not just my opinion. It is the opinion of many Canadians.

A Calgary Herald headline from last August read, “Confidence in [The Prime Minister's] handling of immigration is gone”. The Toronto Sun, on May 29 of this year, wrote, “AG report shows federal asylum processing system a mess”. Another reads, “Auditor General Calls out Liberal Failures”. The news headlines go on and on.

This is not something the minister did when he implemented reforms in Bill C-59, the national security reforms. Under that bill, there would be three oversight agencies for our national security and intelligence teams: the new commissioner of intelligence, with expanded oversight of CSIS and CSE; the new national security and intelligence review agency, and with Bill C-22, the new parliamentary committee. This is in addition to the Prime Minister's national security adviser and the deputy ministers of National Defence, Foreign Affairs and Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

Oversight can be a good thing. Often, because of human nature, knowing it is there acts as a deterrent. From my career, knowing that police are nearby or ready to respond can deter criminals, and knowing that someone will review claims of misconduct will add credibility to an already reputable agency, the CBSA.

It is probably too bad that this was not done earlier, because it could have gone through the House and the Senate quite easily. It could have been a law for a year or two already, perhaps even more. Sadly, the late tabling of the bill seems to make it a near certainty that if it reaches the Senate, it might be caught in the backlog of legislation there.

The House and the committee can and should give the bill a great deal of scrutiny. While the idea seems sound, and the model is better than in other legislation, I am wary of anything the government does on borders. It has not managed our borders well and has not been up front with the House or Canadians about that. In 2017, the Liberals told us that there was nothing to worry about, with tens of thousands of people crossing our borders illegally. They said they did not need any new resources, security was going well and everything was fine.

Well, the reality was that security was being cut to deal with the volume, provinces and cities were drowning in costs and overflowing shelters, border and RCMP agencies were stretched and refugee screenings were backing up. According to the ministers, everything was fine. Then, in the budget, came new funding, and in the next budget, and in the one after that. Billions in spending is now on the books, including for the RCMP, the CBSA and the Immigration and Refugee Board.

What should we scrutinize? For one, I think we should make sure to hear from those people impacted by this decision, such as front-line RCMP and CBSA officers who will be subject to these evaluations.

A CBC article had this to say:

The union representing border officers has heard little about the proposal and was not consulted on the bill. Jean-Pierre Fortin, national president of the Customs and Immigration Union (CIU), said the president of the CBSA also was left in the dark and could not inform the union of any details of the legislation.

How reliable is legislation when the agency it would actually impact and involve was left out of the loop?

It seems odd that the Liberals would appoint one union, Unifor, to administer a $600-million media bailout fund just after they announce a campaign against Conservatives, and, yet, the border services officers union is not even consulted about legislation that impacts it. I would hope that consultations are not dependent on political donations and participation.

That is why Parliament should be careful about who sits on this new agency. We do not need more activists; we need experienced professionals. We need subject matter experts. We need people with management expertise. We need to make sure that the people who work on these review organizations are appropriately skilled and resourced to do their work. We need to make sure that frivolous cases do not tie up resources, and that officers do not have frivolous and vexatious claims hanging over the heads.

We need to make sure that Canadians do not need to hire lawyers to get access to the complaints commission and its process.

We need to make sure that the minister and his staff, and other staffing leaders across the public safety spectrum cannot get their hands inside the processes and decisions of these bodies. We need the agency to have transparent, clear processes and systems that are fair to applicants and defendants alike. We need to make sure that these processes do not eat away resources from two agencies that are already strapped for bodies.

I hope there is time to do this right. I hope there is the appropriate time to hear from all the relevant witnesses, that legal advice is obtained, and that we have the appropriate time to draft changes, changes that, based on the minister's track record, are almost certainly going to be needed.

As the House begins its work on this legislation, I trust the minister and his staff would not be directing the chair of the public safety committee to meet their scripted timeline, which seems a little difficult to be done now with only a week remaining. Knowing that the chair is a scrupulous and honoured individual, he certainly would not suggest that legislation needs to be finished before we can hear the appropriate testimony.

There is a lot of trust and faith needed for the House to work well on legislation like this and many other pieces, trust that is built through honest answers to legitimate questions, trust that is reinforced by following integrity and the need to get it right, rather than the need to just be right.

I hope, perhaps just once in this legislative session, we could see the government try to broker such trust on Bill C-98, but I will not hold my breath.

Motion That Debate Be Not Further Adjourned

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, in the last election we were very specific about the things we found inappropriate, deficient or headed in the wrong direction that had been enacted by the previous government. We enumerated those things in our platform document. Bill C-59, together with other pieces of legislation before this Parliament, has dealt very effectively with the agenda of things that needed to be corrected.

For example, we said there needed to be a committee of parliamentarians to deal with national security and intelligence issues. We created that through Bill C-22. We said we needed to protect the right to civil protest and dissent to make sure those civil rights were never impinged upon. That is dealt with in Bill C-59. We said we needed to make clear that threat reduction measures would not violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That too is dealt with in Bill C-59.

If we went through each one of the items that were enumerated during the course of the election campaign, we would find that in Bill C-59 and in other pieces of legislation that have already been adopted by the House, commitments made in 2015 have, in fact, been satisfied by legislation.

National Security Act, 2017

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

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today.

I ask for the indulgence of the House and I hope no one will get up on a point of order on this, but because I am making a speech on a specific day, I did want to shout out to two of my biggest supporters.

The first is to my wife Chantale, whose birthday is today. I want to wish her a happy birthday. Even bigger news is that we are expecting a baby at the end of July. I want to shout out the fact that she has been working very hard at her own job, which is obviously a very exhausting thing, and so the patience she has for my uncomparable fatigue certainly is something that I really do thank her for and love her very much for.

I do not want to create any jealousy in the household, so I certainly want to give a shout-out to her daughter and our daughter Lydia, who is also a big supporter of mine. We are a threesome, and as I said at my wedding last year, I had the luck of falling in love twice. I wanted to take this opportunity, not knowing whether I will have another one before the election, to shout out to them and tell them how much I love them.

I thank my colleagues for their warm thoughts that they have shared with me.

On a more serious note, I would like to talk about the Senate amendments to Bill C-59. More specifically, I would like to talk about the process per se and then come back to certain aspects of Bill C-59, particularly those about which I raised questions with the minister—questions that have yet to be answered properly, if at all.

I want to begin by touching on a more timely issue related to a bill that is currently before the House, Bill C-98. This bill will give more authority to the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP so that it also covers the Canada Border Services Agency. That is important because we have been talking for a long time about how the CBSA, the only agency that has a role to play in our national security, still does not have a body whose sole function is to review its operations.

Of course, there is the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, which was created by Bill C-22, and there will soon be a committee created by Bill C-59 that will affect the CBSA, but only with regard to its national security related activities.

I am talking about a committee whose sole responsibility would be to review the activities of the Canada Border Services Agency and to handle internal complaints, such as the allegations of harassment that have been reported in the media in recent years, or complaints that Muslim citizens may make about profiling.

It is very important that there be some oversight or further review. I will say that, as soon as an article is published, either about a problem at the border, about the union complaining about the mistreatment of workers or about problems connected to the agency, the minister comes out with great fanfare to remind everyone that he made a deep and sincere promise to create a system that would properly handle these complaints and that there would be some oversight or review of the agency.

What has happened in four whole years? Nothing at all.

For years now, every time there is a report in the news or an article comes out detailing various allegations of problems, I have just been copying and pasting the last tweet I posted. The situation keeps repeating, but the government is not doing anything.

This situation is problematic because the minister introduced a bill at the last minute, as the clock is winding down on this Parliament, and the bill has not even been referred yet to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

I have a hard time believing that we will pass this bill in the House and an even harder time seeing how it is going to get through the Senate.

That is important because, in his speech, the minister himself alluded to the fact that in fall 2016, when the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, of which I am a member, travelled across the country to study the issue and make recommendations ahead of introducing Bill C-59, the recommendation to create a committee tasked with studying the specific activities of the CBSA was one of the most important recommendations. As we see in Bill C-98, the government did not take this opportunity to do any such thing.

It is certainly troubling, because Bill C-59 is an omnibus piece of legislation. I pleaded with the House, the minister and indeed even the Senate, when it reached the Senate, through different procedural mechanisms, to consider parts of the bill separately, because, as the minister correctly pointed out, this is a huge overhaul of our national security apparatus. The concern with that is not only the consideration that is required, but also the fact that some of these elements, which I will come back to in a moment, were not even part of the national security consultations that both his department and the committee, through the study it did, actually took the time to examine.

More specifically, coming back to and concluding the point on Bill C-98, the minister does not seem to have acted in a prompt way, considering his commitments when it comes to oversight and/or a review of the CBSA. He said in his answer to my earlier question on his speech that it was not within the scope of this bill. That is interesting, not only because this is omnibus legislation, but also because the government specifically referred the legislation to committee prior to second reading with the goal of allowing amendments that were beyond the scope of the bill on the understanding that it did want this to be a large overhaul.

I have a hard time understanding why, with all the indicators being there that it wanted this to be a large, broad-reaching thing and wanted to have things beyond the scope, it would not have allowed for this type of mechanism. Instead, we find we have a bill, Bill C-98, arriving at the 11th hour, without a proper opportunity to make its way through Parliament before the next election.

I talked about how this is an omnibus bill, which makes it problematic in several ways. I wrote a letter to some senators about children whose names are on the no-fly list and the No Fly List Kids group, which the minister talked about. I know the group very well. I would like to congratulate the parents for their tireless efforts on their children's behalf.

Some of the children are on the list simply because the list is racist. Basically, the fact that the names appear multiple times is actually a kind of profiling. We could certainly have a debate about how effective the list is. This list is totally outdated and flawed because so many people share similar names. It is absurd that there was nothing around this list that made it possible for airlines and the agents who managed the list and enforced the rules before the bill was passed to distinguish between a terrorist threat and a very young child.

Again, I thank the parents for their tireless efforts and for the work they did in a non-partisan spirit. They may not be partisan, but I certainly am. I will therefore take this opportunity to say that I am appalled at the way the government has taken these families and children hostage for the sake of passing an omnibus bill.

The minister said that the changes to the no-fly list would have repercussions on a recourse mechanism that would stop these children from being harassed every time they go to the airport. This part of the bill alone accounted for several hundred pages.

I asked the government why it did not split this part from the rest of the bill so it would pass sooner, if it really believed it would deliver justice to these families and their kids. We object to certain components or aspects of the list. We are even prepared to challenge the usefulness of the list and the flaws it may have. If there are any worthy objectives, we are willing to consider them. However, again, our hands were tied by the use of omnibus legislation. During the election campaign, the Liberals promised to make omnibus bills a thing of the past.

I know parents will not say that, and I do not expect them to do so. I commend them again for their non-partisan approach. However, it is appalling and unacceptable that they have been taken hostage.

Moreover, there is also Bill C-21.

I will digress here for a moment. Bill C-21, which we opposed, was a very troubling piece of legislation that dealt with the sharing of border information with the Americans, among others. This involved information on citizens travelling between Canada and the United States. Bill C-59 stalled in the Senate, much like Bill C-21.

As the Minister of Public Safety's press secretary was responding to the concerns of parents who have children on the no-fly list, he suddenly started talking about Bill C-21 as a solution for implementing the redress system for people who want to file a complaint or do not want to be delayed at the airport for a name on the list, when it is not the individual identified. I think it is absolutely awful that these families are being used as bargaining chips to push through a bill that contains many points that have nothing to do with them and warrant further study. In my view, those aspects have not been examined thoroughly enough to move the bill forward.

I thank the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness for recognizing the work I did in committee, even though it took two attempts when he responded to my questions earlier today. In committee, I presented almost 200 amendments. Very few of them were accepted, which was not a surprise.

I would like to focus specifically on one of the Senate's amendments that the government agreed to. This amendment is important and quite simple, I would say even unremarkable. It proposes to add a provision enabling us to review the bill after three years, rather than five, and make amendments if required. That is important because we are proposing significant and far-reaching changes to our national security system. What I find intriguing is that I proposed the same amendment in committee, which I substantiated with the help of expert testimony, and the Liberals rejected my amendment. Now, all of a sudden, the Senate is proposing the same amendment and the government is agreeing to it in the motion we are debating today.

I asked the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness why the Liberals were not willing to put partisanship aside in a parliamentary committee and accept an opposition amendment that proposed a very simple measure but are agreeing to it today. He answered that they had taken the time to reflect and changed their minds when the bill was in the Senate. I am not going to spend too much of my precious time on that, but I find it somewhat difficult to accept because nothing has changed. Experts appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, and it was very clear, simple and reasonable. Having said that, I thank the minister for finally recognizing this morning that I contributed to this process.

I also want to talk about some of what concerns us about the bill. There are two pieces specifically with regard to what was Bill C-51 under the previous government, and a few aspects new to this bill that have been brought forward that cause us some concern and consternation.

There are two pieces in Bill C-51 that raised the biggest concerns at the time of debate in the previous Parliament and raised the biggest concerns on the part of Canadians as well, leading to protests outside our committee hearings when we travelled the country to five major cities in five days in October 2016. The first has to do with threat disruption, and the second is the information-sharing regime that was brought in by Bill C-51. Both of those things are concerning, for different reasons.

The threat disruption powers offered to CSIS are of concern because at the end of the day, the reason CSIS was created in the first place was that there was an understanding and consensus in Canada that there had to be a separation between the RCMP's role in law enforcement, which is making arrests and the work that revolves around that, and intelligence gathering, which is the work our intelligence service has to do, so they were separated.

However, bringing us back closer to the point where we start to lose that distinction with regard to the threat disruption powers means that a concern about constitutionality will remain. In fact, the experts at committee did say that Bill C-59, while less unconstitutional than what the Conservatives brought forward in the previous Parliament, had yet to be tested, and there was still some uncertainty about it.

We still believe it is not necessary for CSIS to have these powers. That distinction remains important if we want to be in keeping with the events that led to the separation in the first place, namely the barn burnings, the Macdonald Commission and all those things that folks who have followed this debate know full well, but which we do not have time to get into today.

The other point is the sharing of information, which we are all familiar with. We opened the door to more liberal sharing of information, no pun intended, between the various government departments. That is worrisome. In Canada, one of the most highly publicized cases of human rights violations was the situation of Maher Arar while he was abroad, which led to the Arar commission. In such cases, we know that the sharing of information with other administrations is one of the factors that can lead to the violation of human rights or torture. There are places in the world where human rights are almost or completely non-existent. We find that the sharing of information between Canadian departments can exacerbate such situations, particularly when information is shared between the police or the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

There is an individual who was tortured abroad who is currently suing the government. His name escapes me at the moment. I hope he will forgive me. Global Affairs Canada tried to get him a passport to bring him back to Canada, regardless of whether the accusations against him were true, because he was still a Canadian citizen. However, overwhelming evidence suggests that CSIS and the RCMP worked together with foreign authorities to keep him abroad.

More information sharing can exacerbate that type of problem because, in the government, the left hand does not always know what the right hand is doing. Some information can fall into the wrong hands. If the Department of Foreign Affairs is trying to get a passport for someone and is obligated by law to share that information with CSIS, whose interests are completely different than those of our diplomats, this could put us on a slippery slope.

The much-criticized information sharing system will remain in place with Bill C-59. I do not have the time to list all the experts and civil society groups that criticized this system, but I will mention Amnesty International, which is a well-known organization that does excellent work. This organization is among those critical of allowing the information sharing to continue, in light of the human rights impact it can have, especially in other countries.

Since the bill was sent back to committee before second reading, we had the advantage of being able to propose amendments that went beyond the scope of the bill. We realized that this was a missed opportunity. It was a two-step process, and I urge those watching and those interested in the debates to go take a look at how it went down. There were several votes and we called for a recorded division. Votes can sometimes be faster in committee, but this time we took the time to do a recorded division.

There were two proposals. The Liberals were proposing an amendment to the legislation. We were pleased to support the amendment, since it was high time we had an act stating that we do not support torture in another country as a result of the actions of our national security agencies or police forces. Nevertheless, since this amendment still relies on a ministerial directive, the bill is far from being perfect.

I also proposed amendments to make it illegal to share any information that would lead to the torture of an individual in another country. The amendments were rejected.

I urge my colleagues to read about them, because I am running out of time. As you can see, 20 minutes is not enough, but I would be happy to take questions and comments.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Madam Speaker, the reason is that the subject matter is different. Any security or intelligence activities of CBSA will in fact be reviewable under the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and under the provisions of Bill C-59. What remains to be done, and this is the subject of Bill C-98, is a review mechanism for the activities of CBSA that do not relate to national security and intelligence. That is what Bill C-98 covers. The intelligence and security part of CBSA is covered by Bill C-59 and by the previous bill, Bill C-22.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Madam Speaker, I think the hon. gentleman will find that the whole pattern of our amendments to national security law over the last three and a half years has in fact been to become more aligned, rather than less aligned, with our allies.

For example, our allies have had, for years, the concept of a parliamentary mechanism for reviewing security and intelligence activities. Canada had never had that, until this House passed Bill C-22 and created the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. All of our allies had that; we did not. We changed the law, and now that provision exists.

The point I was about to finish on the previous question was to give my colleague, the member for Beloeil—Chambly, some credit for actually having raised the three-year number in the first place. Now that it is going to be in the law, I think he can assume both some credit and some responsibility for that.

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, commencing upon the adoption of this Order and concluding on Friday, June 21, 2019:

(a) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be 12:00 a.m., except that it shall be 10:00 p.m. on a day when a debate, pursuant to Standing Order 52 or 53.1, is to take place;

(b) subject to paragraph (e), when a recorded division is requested in respect of a debatable motion, including any division arising as a consequence of the application of Standing Order 61(2) or Standing Order 78, but not including any division in relation to the Business of Supply or arising as a consequence of an order made pursuant to Standing Order 57, (i) before 2:00 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of Oral Questions at that day’s sitting, or (ii) after 2:00 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or at any time on a Friday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of Oral Questions at the next sitting day that is not a Friday, provided that, if a recorded division on the previous question is deferred and the motion is subsequently adopted, the recorded division on the original question shall not be deferred;

(c) notwithstanding Standing Order 45(6) and paragraph (b) of this Order, no recorded division in relation to any government order requested after 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 20, 2019, or at any time on Friday, June 21, 2019, shall be deferred;

(d) the time provided for Government Orders shall not be extended pursuant to Standing Order 45(7.1) or Standing Order 67.1(2);

(e) when a recorded division, which would have ordinarily been deemed deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on a Wednesday governed by this Order, is requested, the said division is deemed to have been deferred until the conclusion of Oral Questions on the same Wednesday;

(f) any recorded division which, at the time of the adoption of this Order, stands deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on the Wednesday immediately following the adoption of this Order shall be deemed to stand deferred to the conclusion of Oral Questions on the same Wednesday;

(g) a recorded division requested in respect of a motion to concur in a government bill at the report stage pursuant to Standing Order 76.1(9), where the bill has neither been amended nor debated at the report stage, shall be deferred in the manner prescribed by paragraph (b);

(h) for greater certainty, this Order shall not limit the application of Standing Order 45(7);

(i) when one or several deferred recorded divisions occur on a bill at report stage, a motion, “That the Bill be now read a third time and do pass”, may be made in the same sitting;

(j) no dilatory motion may be proposed after 6:30 p.m., except by a Minister of the Crown;

(k) notwithstanding Standing Orders 81(16)(b) and (c) and 81(18)(c), proceedings on any opposition motion shall conclude no later than 5:30 p.m. on the sitting day that is designated for that purpose, except on a Monday when they shall conclude at 6:30 p.m. or on a Friday when they shall conclude at 1:30 p.m.;

(l) during consideration of the estimates on the last allotted day, pursuant to Standing Order 81(18), when the Speaker interrupts the proceedings for the purpose of putting forthwith all questions necessary to dispose of the estimates, (i) all remaining motions to concur in the Votes for which a notice of opposition was filed shall be deemed to have been moved and seconded, the question deemed put and recorded divisions deemed requested, (ii) the Speaker shall have the power to combine the said motions for voting purposes, provided that, in exercising this power, the Speaker will be guided by the same principles and practices used at report stage;

(m) when debate on a motion for the concurrence in a report from a standing, standing joint or special committee is adjourned or interrupted, the debate shall again be considered on a day designated by the government, after consultation with the House Leaders of the other parties, but in any case not later than the 31st sitting day after the interruption; and

(n) Members not seeking re-election to the 43rd Parliament may be permitted to make statements, on Tuesday, June 4, and Wednesday, June 5, 2019, at the expiry of the time provided for Private Members’ Business for not more than three hours, and that, for the duration of the statements, (i) no member shall speak for longer than ten minutes and the speeches not be subject to a question and comment period, (ii) after three hours or when no Member rises to speak, whichever comes first, the House shall return to Government Orders.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Motion No. 30, which allows for the extension of the sitting hours of the House until we rise for the summer adjournment.

There is a clear and recent precedent for this extension of hours to give the House more time to do its important work. It occurred last year at this time and also the year before that. As well, in the previous Parliament, the hours of the House were extended in June 2014.

Four years ago, our government came forward with an ambitious mandate that promised real change. Under the leadership of our Prime Minister, our government has introduced legislation that has improved the lives of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. However, we have more work to do.

So far in this Parliament, the House has passed 82 government bills, and 65 of those have received royal assent. The facts are clear. This Parliament has been productive. We have a strong record of accomplishment. It is a long list, so I will cite just a few of our accomplishments.

Bill C-2 made good on our promise to lower taxes on middle-class Canadians by increasing taxes on the wealthiest 1% of Canadians. There are nine million Canadians who have benefited from this middle-class tax cut. This tax cut has been good for Canadians and their families. It has been good for the economy and good for Canada, and its results have been better than advertised. On our side, we are proud of this legislation. We have always said that we were on the side of hard-working, middle-class Canadians, and this legislation is proof of exactly that.

As well, thanks to our budgetary legislation, low-income families with children are better off today. We introduced the biggest social policy innovation in more than a generation through the creation of the tax-free Canada child benefit. The CCB puts cash into the pockets of nine out of 10 families and has lifted nearly 300,000 Canadian children out of poverty.

Early in this Parliament, in response to the Supreme Court of Canada, we passed medical assistance in dying legislation, which carefully balanced the rights of those seeking medical assistance in dying while ensuring protection of the most vulnerable in our society.

Also of note, we repealed the previous government's law that allowed citizenship to be revoked from dual citizens. We also restored the rights of Canadians abroad to vote in Canadian elections.

We added gender identity as a prohibited ground for discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act. Also, passing Bill C-65 has helped make workplaces in federally regulated industries and on Parliament Hill free from harassment and sexual violence.

We promised to give the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer the powers, resources and independence to properly do its job. We delivered on that commitment through legislation, and the PBO now rigorously examines the country's finances in an independent and non-partisan manner.

Through Bill C-45, we ended the failed approach to cannabis by legalizing it and strictly regulating and restricting access to cannabis, as part of our plan to keep cannabis out of the hands of youth and profits out of the pockets of organized crime. Along with that, Bill C-46 has strengthened laws to deter and punish people who drive while impaired, both from alcohol and/or drugs.

These are just some examples of the work we have accomplished on behalf of Canadians.

We are now heading into the final weeks of this session of Parliament, and there is more work to do. Four years ago, Canadians sent us here with a responsibility to work hard on their behalf, to discuss important matters of public policy, to debate legislation and to vote on that legislation.

The motion to allow for the extension of sitting hours of the House is timely, and clearly it is necessary. We have an important legislative agenda before us, and we are determined to work hard to make even more progress.

Passage of this motion would give all members exactly what they often ask for: more time for debate. I know every member wants to deliver for their communities and this motion will help with exactly that. We have much to accomplish in the coming weeks and we have the opportunity to add time to get more done.

I would like to highlight a few of the bills that our government will seek to advance.

I will start with Bill C-97, which would implement budget 2017. This budget implementation act is about making sure that all Canadians feel the benefits of a growing economy. That means helping more Canadians find an affordable home, and get training so that they have the skills necessary to obtain good, well-paying jobs. It is also about making it easier for seniors to retire with confidence.

Another important bill is Bill C-92, which would affirm and recognize the rights of first nations, Inuit and Métis children and families. The bill would require all providers of indigenous child and family services to adhere to certain principles, namely the best interests of the child, family unity and cultural continuity. This co-drafted legislation would transfer the jurisdiction of child and family services delivery to indigenous communities. This is historic legislation that is long overdue.

We have another important opportunity for us as parliamentarians, which is to pass Bill C-93, the act that deals with pardons as they relate to simple possession of cannabis. As I mentioned, last year we upheld our commitment to legalize, strictly regulate and restrict access to cannabis. It is time to give people who were convicted of simple possession a straightforward way to clear their names. We know it is mostly young people from the poorest of communities who have been targeted and hence are being left behind. This bill would create an expedited pardon process, with no application fee or waiting period, for people convicted only of simple possession of cannabis. Canadians who have held criminal records in the past for simple possession of cannabis should be able to meaningfully participate in their communities, get good and stable jobs and become the contributing members of our society that they endeavour to be.

Meanwhile, there is another important bill before the House that we believe needs progress. Bill C-88 is an act to amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act. This legislation only impacts the Northwest Territories, and its territorial government is asking us to act. This legislation protects Canada's natural environment, respects the rights of indigenous people and supports a strong natural resources sector. This bill will move the country ahead with a process that promotes reconciliation with indigenous peoples and creates certainty for investments in the Mackenzie Valley and the Arctic.

Earlier this month, our government introduced Bill C-98, an act to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and the Canada Border Services Agency Act. This bill would create civilian oversight of the Canada Border Services Agency. It would provide citizens with an independent review body to address complaints about the CBSA, just as they now have complaint mechanisms in place for the RCMP. Let me remind members that it was our government that brought forward Bill C-22 that established the national security intelligence committee of parliamentarians, which has tabled its first annual report to Parliament. We are committed to ensuring that our country's border services are worthy of the trust of Canadians, and Bill C-98 is a significant step towards strengthening that accountability.

We have taken a new approach. We, as a government, have consulted with Canadians when it comes to our legislation. We have seen committees call witnesses and suggest amendments that often times improve legislation, and we, as a government, have accepted those changes. We were able to accomplish this work because we gave the committees more resources and we encouraged Liberal members to do their work.

Likewise, currently there are two bills that have returned to the House with amendments from the Senate. I look forward to members turning their attention to these bills as well. One of those bills is Bill C-81, an act to ensure a barrier-free Canada. Our goal is to make accessibility both a reality and a priority across federal jurisdictions so that all people, regardless of their abilities or disabilities, can participate and be included in society as contributing members. Bill C-81 would help us to reach that goal by taking a proactive approach to getting ahead of systemic discrimination. The purpose of this bill is to make Canada barrier free, starting in areas under federal jurisdiction. This bill, if passed by Parliament, will represent the most significant legislation for the rights of persons with disabilities in over 30 years, and for once it will focus on their abilities.

The other bill we have received from the Senate is Bill C-58, which would make the first significant reforms to the Access to Information Act since it was enacted in 1982. With this bill, our government is raising the bar on openness and transparency by revitalizing access to information. The bill would give more power to the Information Commissioner and would provide for proactive disclosure of information.

There are also a number of other bills before the Senate. We have respect for the upper chamber. It is becoming less partisan thanks to the changes our Prime Minister has made to the appointment process, and we respect the work that senators do in reviewing legislation as a complementary chamber.

Already the Senate has proposed amendments to many bills, and the House has in many instances agreed with many of those changes. As we look toward the final few weeks, it is wise to give the House greater flexibility, and that is exactly why supporting this motion makes sense. This extension motion will help to provide the House with the time it needs to consider these matters.

There are now just 20 days left in the parliamentary calendar before the summer adjournment, and I would like to thank all MPs and their teams for their contributions to the House over the past four years. Members in the House have advanced legislation that has had a greater impact for the betterment of Canadians. That is why over 800,000 Canadians are better off today than they were three years ago when we took office.

We saw that with the lowering of the small business tax rate to 9%, small businesses have been able to grow through innovation and trade. We see that Canadians have created over one million jobs, the majority of which are full-time, good-paying jobs that Canadians deserve. These are jobs that were created by Canadians for Canadians.

That is why I would also like to stress that while it is necessary for us to have honest and vibrant deliberations on the motion, Canadians are looking for us all to work collaboratively and constructively in their best interests. That is exactly why extending the hours will provide the opportunity for more members to be part of the debates that represent the voices of their constituents in this place, so that we continue to advance good legislation that benefits even more Canadians.

It has been great to do the work that we have been doing, but we look forward to doing even more.