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.

National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the Liberal Party does support Bill C-22. We introduced the bill.

The member asked why I did not support a particular issue going to committee. Our standing committees have the potential to do phenomenal work. I have argued in the past and will argue into the future that committees are the backbone of Parliament. That is consistent with what our Prime Minister and many colleagues have said. The fine work that committees do is the backbone of Parliament going forward into the future.

We can refer virtually endless issues to committees, but today we are debating Bill C-22, a balance of rights and freedoms with the issue of security for all Canadians. If we continue to work in a co-operative way and have the bill go to committee, we could ultimately have one of the greatest parliamentary oversight committees possible.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The member will have five and a half minutes of questions and comments the next time this subject comes before the House.

It being 5:39 p.m. the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from September 27 consideration of the motion that Bill C-22, An Act to establish the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

There are five and a half minutes remaining for questions and comments following the speech of the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

The hon. member for Laurentides—Labelle.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed reading my colleague's speech in yesterday's Hansard, because due to exceptional circumstances, I was not in the House to hear the end of the debate.

My colleague will vividly recall the controversy that erupted during the 41st Parliament surrounding Bill C-51. I wonder if he could share his thoughts on the impact of the bill in the current context.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to recognize that Bill C-22 is as a direct result of Bill C-51. A major fundamental flaw when Bill C-51 was brought in was the fact that there was no parliamentary committee to oversee our security systems.

That is very important because Canadians have expectations that their government will have a balance when it comes to issues such as freedoms, our rights, and security. We believe Bill C-22 will deliver what Canadians want to see. In fact, it would be a fulfillment of a commitment made by the Prime Minister and the government that we would bring in a parliamentary oversight committee. Bill C-22 is all about that.

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

Mr. Speaker, last year in the House when the Liberals and Conservatives voted for Bill C-51, only the NDP caucus stood up for Canadians and voted against the impact that would have on the rights and freedoms of Canadians. At the same time, the New Democrats offered very solid suggestions, not taken up by the former Conservative government or by the current Liberal government, to enhance security while maintaining our rights and liberties.

We have a bill in front of us that contradicts how many of our allies proceed. All of our allies have oversight committees with an independent chair, a chair that is selected by the committee not by the government. As we have seen with our major allies as well, these oversight committees need to have full access to classified information. Of course another component that does not exist among our allies is the Prime Minister's Office's having the ability to censor any reports that are issued by the committee.

How does the Liberal government justify these three fundamental weaknesses when they are not in common with the practice of our major allies, and certainly not in common with the oversight committees that exist in other countries.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would have to agree to disagree on some of the points the member has brought forward.

One of them is that he suggests it is wrong for the Prime Minister to make the appointment. The critic for the official opposition, the Conservative Party, is one of the individuals who recommended to the minister that we should have the prime minister appointing the chair of the committee.

Other issues are in regard to just how this committee will be able to perform. If we do a comparison between what we have proposed and the other Five Eyes countries, which Canada is a part of, we will find that this legislation is far more aggressive and has the potential to be some of the best legislation going forward with respect to the other countries because of its very scope. Remember, this deals with more than just one department. We are talking about 17 departments that provide some form of security services, which is quite significant. This legislation is all-encompassing in that respect.

With regard to the Prime Minister, maybe I will get a chance to answer another question to provide—

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

Order, please. We have time for a short question and brief answer.

The hon. member for Sherbrooke.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a hard time hearing my colleague refer to this committee as a parliamentary committee.

The chair is appointed by the Prime Minister, who will also have a veto over the reports that will be tabled in Parliament. I find it hard to reconcile that with the definition of a true parliamentary committee, where there is no interference from the Prime Minister's office. That might be possible for the government when it comes to the appointments, but certainly not when it comes to drafting the reports or their content.

How can the hon. member call this a parliamentary committee when the Prime Minister's office interferes directly in the work of the committee?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the committee is made up of parliamentarians. It is important to note that the committee will consist of nine members, with seven members of the House and two senators. Up to four members will be from the governing party.

The Prime Minister will be required to consult with opposition party leaders before naming opposition members, and with the Senate before naming the senators.

It is also important that we recognize that the Prime Minister is not authorized to alter the findings or recommendations of the reports tabled. The Prime Minister's role is solely to review the report to ensure that it does not contain classified information.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and join in the debate on Bill C-22, which would establish a national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians.

I will be sharing my time today with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.

National security has taken on even greater importance over the last number of years. Abroad, we have seen horrific jihadist attacks just months ago, in fact, month after month in countries like France, Belgium, and even the United States.

Right here in Canada, we saw a jihadi inspired attack in October 2014. Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent was killed in Quebec, and Corporal Nathan Cirillo was killed while he was on guard at the National War Memorial, just steps away from where we are standing today. Many of us who served in the last Parliament will recall being locked down, and not knowing what was going on, and we remember that day.

It is important that our national security agencies have the tools they need to do their job, and keep us safe from terrorists. That is why the previous Conservative passed the Anti-terrorism Act in 2015, more commonly known as Bill C-51. Bill C-51 is good legislation that struck an appropriate balance between protecting national security and protecting the privacy of others.

In fact, the director of CSIS recently told the committee in the other place that CSIS agents have used the powers created under that legislation at least two dozen times. That record speaks volumes.

Today, I am not here to talk about that bill, but I am here to talk about Bill C-22, and how to ensure that the rights and liberties of Canadians are appropriately protected through extensive review and oversight of our national security agencies.

While our men and women in these agencies do excellent work each and every day to keep us safe, it is always important to have a third party watchdog. Currently, national security agencies have a substantial review mechanism. CSIS is reviewed by the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which is composed of former parliamentarians and other prominent Canadians. The Communications Security Establishment is reviewed by the CSE Commissioner, and the RCMP is reviewed by the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission.

However, we note that the Liberals, in their platform, promised that they would “create an all-party committee to monitor and oversee the operations of every government department and agency with national security responsibilities.” Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, depending on how we look at it, that is not the bill that we have before us today.

First, the bill does not provide for any oversight of national security agencies, in fact, the word oversight is not even in the bill. It is nowhere in the description or in the body of the bill. What it provides is a review mechanism for after-the-fact assessment, but it does so with enormous caveats. In fact, there are seven large caveats contained in section 14 of the bill.

These caveats allow the cabinet to deny the committee, a committee of duly elected parliamentarians sworn to secrecy, the access to any confidence of the Queen's Privy Council, any military operation information, any information on the Investment Canada Act, and any information that may lead in future to criminal charges, among other things.

That pretty well covers off all of the information in the possession of the Canadian Armed Forces, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. That is pretty well all of the information that this so-called committee would need to do the so-called oversight that it is created to do.

Unfortunately, what we have under this legislation is a committee that does not actually have any access to any relevant information. What is more, it is not actually a parliamentary committee. Right here in black and white in subsection 4(3), the bill states that this would not be a committee of Parliament, rather it would be a committee made up of parliamentarians.

What we have right now is a committee made up of parliamentarians with no ability to collect information. We will also learn it has absolutely no teeth to do anything because it cannot report anything outside of the committee, and we have the Prime Minister and ministers able to cleanse the report before it is brought to Parliament.

We kind of have a glorified parliamentary friendship group here, and really nothing more, because the committee cannot review any information. It cannot do anything with the information that it finds because if the Prime Minister deems it is not appropriate for a number of reasons, the Prime Minister or the Prime Minister's Office can change it. Really, this is a pretty hollow shell and nothing more.

I want to speak a bit about the fact that in section 12 parliamentary privilege is eroded by making it clear that a whistleblower could be prosecuted for making any of the information public. Let us think about that for a minute.

The Liberals have said they want this committee to fix the situation where they felt it left the public uninformed and unrepresented on critical issues, but they have established, through this legislation, a system where it would be a crime for a whistleblower to disclose anything from the committee. So, how can there be any access to the information by regular Canadians?

The bill before us does not even come close to meeting the Liberal platform commitments. In fact, it is a bill that further serves to centralize power in the Prime Minister's Office.

Typically, like in the United States and Great Britain, committees of this nature would report directly to the legislative branch rather than to the executive. Yet, in this legislation, the Prime Minister gets to play middleman between the committee and Parliament.

Under this legislation, it says in subsection 21(1) the Prime Minister will receive all annual reports, special reports, and other findings of the committee, so the Prime Minister is going to get everything before Parliament does. He will then have the opportunity to edit and change any report to suit his liking, and subsection 21(5) says that the Prime Minister can refuse to release information at his discretion.

The Liberals have said that this is to protect serious national information and security information, but let us read the text of the bill:

If,...the Prime Minister is of the opinion that information in an annual or special report is...injurious to...international relations...the Prime Minister may direct the Committee to submit...a revised version of the annual or special report.

I want to remind my hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary, that the Prime Minister actually can direct the committee to submit a revised report. In this case, it would be if it contravened or hurt international relations.

What does that mean? That means that the Prime Minister and his office could delete or eliminate information that they thought might hurt international relations. From what we have seen recently, does that mean if this report said something that would show that the Chinese are doing something they should not be doing, that the Prime Minister would say not to say anything about the Chinese because we do not want to offend them? Maybe the Prime Minister would be concerned that his vanity project of getting a seat on the UN Security Council might be offended.

With the Prime Minister having the motivation, and the naïveté that he seems to be displaying, it is very concerning that this power would be in the Prime Minister's Office to vet this information, and eliminate information that he thinks would not be beneficial to international relations. This is not transparency in any way, shape, or form.

It is definitely not transparent that several months before this legislation was even tabled, we found out, through the media, that the member for Ottawa South was given the sweetheart deal as chair of this committee. That in and of itself is very disingenuous.

The government and the Liberals could have at least had respect for Parliament and for its own platform to have withheld that. I do not know why the Liberals felt they had to make that announcement, and do that so quickly unless it had to do with an inside deal that they were concocting.

How can someone become a chair of a committee that has not even been constituted by Parliament in legislation? With a partisan appointment like this, it is clear that the government is not taking the non-partisan goals of this committee seriously.

Let us look at the facts. The Minister of Public Safety and many of the Liberals who have spoken before me have touted that this proposed committee is modelled after the United Kingdom, but the Liberal partisan appointment of the chair is completely different from the U.K. model which allows its committee to elect its own chair.

Second, the committee reports to the Prime Minister, not to Parliament, and the Prime Minister has the ability to omit items and ask for revised reports.

There is more that I could say on this piece of legislation but at the end of the day we are seeing more and more that this is a hollow shell with no substance. This committee will be made up of parliamentarians with no power to do anything, with no power to get information, and with the Prime Minister vetting all of the information. It looks again like the Liberals want to look like they are fulfilling a campaign promise but they are actually not fulfilling it and they are being disrespectful and disingenuous by doing so.

Unless there are major changes to the bill, I cannot support it.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member mentioned information access concerns. The minister can refuse to give access relating to matters that are injurious to national security. She mentioned concerns that whistleblowers would not be able to present the information to the public. Does the member have ideas that would improve the process, these two processes in particular?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Madam Speaker, when I was parliamentary secretary for public safety, we felt that the mechanisms in place for overseeing CSIS, for example, were sufficient. We know, as parliamentarians, that even though we are supposed to keep things quiet, sometimes things leak out. This is probably not a good idea on behalf of the Liberal government, but again, it wanted to fulfill its promise and in doing so realized that it may have created a problem it does not want to have, and that is that very sensitive information is going to be in the hands of parliamentarians.

The Liberals created this problem, and now they are creating more problems. There really is no easy solution to this. They cannot create a committee of parliamentarians that is going to have oversight and real teeth and the ability to oversee something without members having information, but the government is concerned about letting this information out and what is going to happen with it. It was not a well-thought-out campaign promise, and it is not a well-thought-out strategy to address that campaign promise.

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

Madam Speaker, the member for Portage—Lisgar has taken on new responsibilities as the opposition House leader, and I certainly appreciate working with her. We disagree on some things, there is no doubt. We disagreed on Bill C-51. The Conservatives brought it forward. Liberals all voted in favour of it, despite the impact on civil rights and liberties.

Now we have a piece of legislation. I think all members of the House are surprised to learn that there is an oversight committee that is under double censorship; it censored in terms of information from the oversight committee the Liberal government is proposing and censored in terms of what the Prime Minister's Office will actually permit the committee to put out.

At the same time, as the member for Portage—Lisgar pointed out, we are talking about a partisan chair of the committee, something that none of our major allies have done, for the simple reason that it is inappropriate.

I would like the member to comment on whether she agrees with the NDP analysis that the committee would be handcuffed by the Liberal government.