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

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his good wishes. It has been almost two weeks, and so far I have very much enjoyed working with my hon. colleague and look forward to continuing.

I would agree. It goes back to what I was saying to the previous question. The problem the government has is that it made a commitment to create this committee, but as it has gone on to create it, it has realized that it is probably not a good idea. I recognize that my hon. colleague in the NDP would support the idea of a committee to oversee CSIS, for example, but it is not workable.

Instead, the Liberals want to look like they have fulfilled their commitment, but then they have realized that they cannot, so they now would create a committee that would have no power to get information and the Prime Minister would have the ability to vet all information, because I am sure that the Prime Minister's advisers have said to him that we have to be watching over this to make sure that sensitive information cannot get out.

Instead of the Liberals saying that they made a mistake and that the committee is not going to work, they have come forward with legislation that is disingenuous. As we are seeing over and over with so much of the Liberal policy, it ends up creating more confusion and more chaos and more problems than fixing any problem that might exist.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Portage—Lisgar for her speech, which brings me to mine. I am very pleased to speak today to share my concerns over Bill C-22, an act to establish the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and to make consequential amendments to certain acts.

The first thing I question, and I am not the only one to have raised this in the past two days, is the part of the title that says “committee of parliamentarians”. When we read Bill C-22 we quickly understand the type of committee that will truly be created. Let us look at this together.

Clause 3 of the bill reads:

3 The Governor in Council may designate a member of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada to be the Minister for the purposes of this Act.

It is therefore a committee of parliamentarians formed by the Governor in Council, the government, and therefore by the Prime Minister himself.

Along the same lines, subclause 5(1) stipulates that:

5(1) 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.

The Prime Minister's approval is even required for the appointment of senators to the committee, as we see in subclause 5(2), which reads:

5(2) A member of the Senate may be appointed to the Committee only after the Prime Minister has consulted with one or more other members of the Senate.

The words “Prime Minister” come up quite frequently. Even when it comes time for committee members to resign from their duties, they must inform the Prime Minister, as required by subclause 5(5), which reads:

5(5) A member may resign by notifying the Prime Minister in writing

Since we have a Prime Minister who has the utmost respect for this institution and its elected representatives, what do you think he did? The Prime Minister also retained the right to control who will be appointed as committee chair. That is what it says in subclause 6(1), which reads:

6(1) 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.

One quickly realizes from the way the bill is written that this is the Prime Minister's committee, not a committee of parliamentarians. He chooses who will sit on the committee and who will chair it. It is not a committee of parliamentarians. It is a committee for the Prime Minister so that he can show that the government is taking action on an issue that he has found it difficult to take a clear stand on.

The best response that the government was able to come up with was to create a fully sanitized committee over which the Prime Minister and his office will have complete control.

What is more, the so-called committee of parliamentarians will not report to Parliament as one would expect from its name. It will report, and I hope my colleagues are sitting down for this, to the Prime Minister himself. That is what it says in subclause 21(1), which reads:

21(1) Each year the Committee must submit to the Prime Minister a report of the reviews it conducted during the preceding year.

Subclause 21(2) also confirms that the committee can present a special report to the minister concerned and the Prime Minister.

The work done by the committee of parliamentarians will not be tabled in the House to inform the other members of Parliament, because everything clearly has to go through the central office that controls everything about this committee. Whose office is that? The Prime Minister's.

It is quite disconcerting to read this, but it was written by experts on consultation, transparency, openness, and good governance.

I would like to again quote Bill C-22, specifically subclause 21(5) on the information that is excluded from the report:

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 solicitor-client privilege or, in civil law,...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.

Consequently, if the Prime Minister does not like the reports received from the committee, he can ask that changes be made to the various reports in order to table a report that suits the government.

Subclause 21(6) refers to the tabling of the report:

21(6) Subject to subsection (4), the Prime Minister must cause to be laid before each House of Parliament, on any of the first 45 days on which that House is sitting after a report is submitted under subsection (1) or (2), a copy of the report or, if the Committee was directed to submit a revised version, a copy of the revised version.

Only this sanitized report, which may be far from truthful, will be tabled in Parliament to inform Canadians. Even Maurice Duplessis could not have come up with anything better to hide the fact that the Prime Minister, and not the committee, has the final say.

Now that I have provided ample evidence that the government's proposed committee is not truly a committee of parliamentarians but a committee of parliamentarians who will do the Prime Minister's bidding, I would like to talk about another problematic aspect of Bill C-22.

In addition to selecting the members of the committee responsible for overseeing the activities of a number of agencies that play a significant role in keeping Canada and Canadians safe, the Liberal government is not giving the committee much latitude to do its work. In theory, the committee has access to all kinds of sensitive and classified national security information, but the government retains the right to refuse to provide some types of information the committee might request, as stated in subclause 16(1), which reads as follows:

Refusal of information

16(1) The appropriate Minister for a department may refuse to provide information to which the Committee would, but for this section, otherwise be entitled to have access and that is under the control of that department, but only if he or she is of the opinion that

(a) the information constitutes special operational information, as defined in subsection 8(1) of the Security of Information Act; and

(b) provision of the information would be injurious to national security.

Refusal of information is final and may not be appealed, as stated in subclause 31(1):

31(1) The appropriate Minister’s determination that a review referred to in paragraph 8(b) would be injurious to national security or the appropriate Minister’s decision to refuse to provide information under subsection 16(1) is final.

Bill C-22 therefore provides no meaningful mechanism by which the committee can appeal the decision, which might be questionable and put the government in an awkward position without necessarily being a threat to national security. Bill C-22 provides nothing, as indicated in subclause 31(2), which states:

31(2) If the Committee is dissatisfied with the determination or the decision, the Committee is not to bring the matter before the courts, but it may note its dissatisfaction in a report referred to in section 21.

The committee can note its dissatisfaction, but the government could choose to completely ignore the report, for the committee members will be inclined to say nothing, in order to continue sitting on the committee. On top of that, this protest report will never be tabled in the House.

From the way this was presented, the Liberals have a lot of work to do to get the unanimous support of the House. I strongly believe that something like this should have the unanimous support of all members of the House. We are talking about oversight of bodies that are responsible for ensuring the safety and security of Canadians. This is not about partisan politics. Unfortunately, from the way this bill was presented, it appears as though the top of the pyramid wants to make sure it can lead all of the work without any problems.

Let me be very clear: our intention is not to go public with any state secrets or any information that could compromise national security, far from it. We simply want to ensure that the committee is able to have the flexibility and independence needed to properly fulfill its mandate. If we are going to do something, we might as well do it right.

To sum up, what really matters to me is that a committee such as this be founded on trust. It must have the full confidence of all government members and all opposition members, across party lines. With this kind of committee on national security, we need to be working from a place of absolute trust. I will be the first to say it.

Let us listen to our colleagues in the governing party and let us all acknowledge these facts.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague said that what matters is that everyone co-operates. He is right; that is very important.

He said it is not a parliamentary committee, but a committee formed in another manner, as he said. Would he not agree that it is important that the members who sit on this committee not have the privilege to disclose sensitive information in the House without any consequences? Does he not think it is important to take this privilege away from the committee members, with respect to top secret government matters?

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, my esteemed colleague asked a very good question. That is what makes Bill C-22 so complex, and that is why we are in this debate to talk about what we want to see.

As I said at the end of my speech, Bill C-22 would set up an all-party committee of parliamentarians to examine highly strategic and important public safety and national security issues.

However, because of the way Bill C-22 was written, the Prime Minister has complete control, which means that opposition members of the parliamentary committee will not be able to speak as freely as usual or even discuss things with their party leader because they will be sworn to secrecy.

The Prime Minister has given himself total control, and the parliamentarians who sit on the committee will not even be able to talk about it. If this is to be a truly parliamentary committee, the Prime Minister has to give up some of that power and give the committee its independence. That is the real problem here.

Yes, secrecy around national security matters is very important, but the opposition members who sit on the committee need some measure of control. If not, what is the point of the committee?

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles for his remarks. I very much enjoy working with him on the defence committee.

I think the member said something really important, which I hope people on that side have written down. What we are trying to do is to create a committee that will have the confidence of the public so that the public will believe it is an independent committee, believe it is an effective committee, and believe that the government will have no ability to cover up any excesses or inefficiencies in national security. The member said the best way to do that was to have a bill that had the unanimous consent of all parties. That is really important and I hope the Liberals are listening to it.

The Conservatives have chosen to oppose the bill at second reading. We have chosen to give it conditional support, but I think there is a lot of common ground on this side.

I want to know if the member agrees with me that there are a few things, like having an independent chair, having unrestricted access to information, and having the committee report to the House of Commons and not the Prime Minister, that would make it easy to get all of us onside if some of those elements were present in the bill. Would the member agree with me on that?

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for making those points.

I also want to mention to the House that, on March 1, our public safety critic, the member for Durham, sent the Minister of Public Safety 18 recommendations relating to Bill C-22, all of which were designed to improve the bill and bring about consensus.

On April 15, having received no response, he sent another letter to the minister informing him that the official opposition, the Conservative Party, had worked hard to provide constructive suggestions designed to make the parliamentary committee work.

Once again, I am asking the government members to consider that and work with us.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Madam Speaker, the lack of consultation, the power of the Prime Minister, the way the chair was chosen, and this committee's lack of investigative capability are all huge problems that fly in the face of the openness and transparency the Liberals campaigned on.

The security and intelligence committee in the U.K. that the Liberals say they fashioned this committee after has nine members, and they are appointed after consultation with the opposition, and then by all members of both Houses.

Does the member agree that this bears no similarity to that Westminster tradition in the U.K.?

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have nothing to add.

In closing, I just hope we can make this parliamentary committee work.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Before resuming debate, I want to advise the House that the question and comment period is now down to 10 minutes for speeches, and five minutes for questions and answers.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of Bill C-22. The bill would create a committee of parliamentarians to oversee Canada's security agencies. For the first time in history, a multi-party group of members of Parliament and senators would hold Canada's security apparatus to account.

Bill C-22 represents a Liberal initiative that dates back to 2005 in fulfillment of a key part of our campaign commitment to Canadians to reverse the legacy of the old Bill C-51. I am proud to stand in support of it and the important idea that Canadian security must never come at the expense of our rights and freedoms.

I will start by turning back the clock to early 2015 and the previous government's introduction of Bill C-51.

In my riding of Parkdale—High Park last year, I heard about Bill C-51 over and over again at the doors. Residents in my community in Toronto are smart. They are engaged, and when they sense injustice, they speak out. They told me that they expect better from their government, that ensuring public safety is the preeminent responsibility of any government, but that it is not acceptable to pursue security at any cost. My constituents, and indeed all Canadians, want a government that respects Canadians' rights and one that will put in place mechanisms to protect those rights.

As a human rights and constitutional lawyer, I listened to those residents as a candidate in the past election. I communicated those very valid concerns to my party, and the party responded. In 2015, we committed on the campaign trail that if we were fortunate enough to earn the respect of Canadians and to form government, we would significantly amend that flawed bill and put in place the mechanisms that Canadians want to protect their rights while simultaneously keeping them safe. That is what Bill C-22 would start to do.

However, we cannot take all the credit. The idea of ensuring that parliamentary representatives oversee security agencies, like the RCMP, CSIS, and CSE, did not come to us as some sort of epiphany. It is exactly what our allies have been doing for many years. Every single member of the Five Eyes alliance but Canada has some oversight mechanism in place. Those are Australia, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States.

The Auditor General identified the need for parliamentary oversight in a seminal report in 2003. Our party initiated this in 2005 when then public safety minister Anne McLellan introduced Bill C-81. That bill died on the Order Paper when the opposition parties voted down the minority government of then prime minister Paul Martin, triggering the election that brought us Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

A similar oversight committee was attempted no less than four more times in private members' bills, as introduced by Liberal Derek Lee on two occasions, in 2007 and 2009; by the member for Malpeque in 2013; and by the member of Parliament who sits right next to me, the member for Vancouver Quadra, Joyce Murray. On each of those occasions, the private members' bills were not passed in the House.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order, please.

The member is not to mention anyone by name. I want to remind the member he can refer to the member by their riding, but not by their name.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, thank you.

I guess it is now six times lucky. Our majority government has introduced Bill C-22 at long last, after 11 years of attempts and continuously being stymied by the opposition, to entrench parliamentary oversight of Canada's security and intelligence agencies.

However, we are not just replicating what we have seen among our Five Eyes allies. We are going one better. None other than Craig Forcese, the renowned law professor from the University of Ottawa and one of the foremost critics of the old Bill C-51, has said:

...this will be a stronger body than the UK and Australian equivalents. And a dramatic change for Canadian national security accountability.... This is a good bill.... I would give it a high pass....

Let me turn to the bill itself and see what people like Professor Forcese are enthused about.

This oversight committee of parliamentarians will have a broad, government-wide mandate to review any national security matter relating to all government security departments and agencies. Committee members will have top security clearance and can demand unprecedented access to classified material.

The committee is required to report back to Parliament annually, but can do so even more frequently through special reports, if it finds that a special report is required to protect the public interest.

The committee members are independent. They have the authority to self-initiate reviews of the legislative, regulatory, policy, financial, and administrative framework for national security in Canada. The committee members have tenure. They are appointed until the dissolution of the House.

This committee will not be dominated by government members, because government members will not make up the majority of the committee. Bill C-22 specifies that the committee will comprise nine persons, only four of whom may be government members of Parliament. The other five must come from the opposition parties. This is not a rubber stamp; it is actual accountability and oversight of government departments and agencies by a majority of opposition parliamentarians.

Allow me to provide an example. Throughout the extensive debate on the old Bill C-51, residents of my riding of Parkdale—High Park were very vocal about information sharing among government departments and agencies. Rightly, Canadians said that widespread information sharing may compromise privacy rights. Information sharing is precisely the type of thing this new oversight committee will scrutinize, because it will have a broad government-wide mandate over all national security departments and agencies. This can ensure that when information is shared for intelligence gathering, the rights of Canadians are not being violated or jeopardized. If a violation is identified, the committee can report that to all Canadians through Parliament.

Of course, there may be those who feel this legislation does not go far enough. The important response to those individuals is to note that Bill C-22 contains a mandatory review provision. Every five years, according to law, a committee must study this bill and report back to Parliament on how to strengthen it. In this way, the conversation of Canadians in my riding of Parkdale—High Park and around the country about how to balance security with the protection of rights and freedoms will not stagnate. It will remain dynamic.

This brings me to my third point. We want to hear from Canadians, not just in five years but now. Our government has commenced a Canada-wide consultation on our national security framework. These consultations will allow us to discuss the other campaign commitments we made to remedy the defects of the old Bill C-51, including entrenching a sunset clause, ensuring that no judge can issue a warrant that violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, guaranteeing the constitutional right to engage in advocacy and protest, and narrowing the overly broad definition of what constitutes “terrorist propaganda”.

This national consultation will allow us to hear from Canadians what else they want to see from their government. We do not just want to implement our campaign commitments, but to improve upon them. Throughout this, one thing will always be top of mind, that in seeking to balance security and the protection of rights and freedoms, we will work with Canadian communities, not against them.

Here, I address the House as a Muslim member of the Liberal caucus. The practice of our new government is not to vilify groups or to sow division, but to engage communities and to listen to their concerns. We have done this through our comprehensive efforts to counter Islamophobia. We have done this through our 2016 budgetary commitment of over $35 million over five years to create an office of community outreach and counter-radicalization. We have done this through our efforts to welcome, not shun, the victims of Daesh, which has translated into our accepting nearly 31,000 Syrian refugees to date. We have done this through our efforts today to improve the rights of those who inadvertently find themselves on no-fly lists, by creating a passenger protect inquiries office, and implementing a Canada-U.S. redress working group.

I know that Canadians prefer this approach. It is an approach they voted for in October 2015. It is an approach that seeks to address security concerns on multiple fronts, and one that engenders the confidence of all Canadians, including the very minority groups, like mine, that were disproportionally bearing the brunt of the previous government's surveillance.

I will end with this. It is a fine balance. Ensuring safety while simultaneously protecting rights and freedoms is not easy, but I am confident that Bill C-22 will help do just that. I am proud to support this legislation that has been 11 years in the making. At this time, I urge the members opposite to get behind it, rather than standing in our way.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Speaker, from his preamble onward, the member talked about Bill C-51 and what a flawed bill it was.

Does the member realize that his Liberal government supported Bill C-51?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, of course I am completely aware of the Liberal Party's position on various bills that were introduced during the previous Parliament, including Bill C-51.

I will remind the member opposite that we tabled 10 amendments at committee stage during the proceedings on that bill, three of which were taken up and some of which actually expanded the definition of legitimate protest, which was a change for the good. We were actively working to strengthen the bill.

I will reiterate for the member and all members of her party that the point we made in regard to Bill C-51 is that security was a vitally important responsibility of government, but so too is balancing constitutionally protected rights and freedoms. What we committed to then and what we are doing now in delivering on the commitment is improving the aspects of that bill that were fatally flawed. Those aspects include oversight through a parliamentary committee that not only replicates what the members of the Five Eyes Alliance are doing, but actually improves upon it. Members should not take that from me, but from Prof. Forcese.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

There is a rather significant nuance to be made in the title of the bill. The title talks about a “committee of parliamentarians”, which is quite different from a “parliamentary committee”. It is a slight nuance in French that is perhaps more obvious in English.

It is a committee of parliamentarians instead of a parliamentary committee.

It is an extremely important nuance since this committee should have been called “the Prime Minister's committee”. That title would have been more accurate and more to the point.

I would like to ask my colleague why they chose that name for the committee when in reality, the committee reports directly to the Prime Minister, who appoints the chair. What is more, all the reports the committee submits to the House will be verified and possibly changed by the Prime Minister himself.