Bill C-59 (Historical)

National Security Act, 2017

An Act respecting national security matters

Part 1 enacts the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency Act, which establishes the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency and sets out its composition, mandate and powers. It repeals the provisions of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act establishing the Security Intelligence Review Committee and amends that Act and other Acts in order to transfer certain powers, duties and functions to the new Agency. It also makes related and consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 1.‍1 enacts the Avoiding Complicity in Mistreatment by Foreign Entities Act to authorize the issuance of directions respecting the disclosure of and request for information that would result in a substantial risk of mistreatment of an individual by a foreign entity and the use of information that is likely to have been obtained as the result of mistreatment of an individual by a foreign entity.
Part 2 enacts the Intelligence Commissioner Act, which provides that the duties and functions of the Intelligence Commissioner are to review the conclusions on the basis of which certain authorizations are issued or amended, and determinations are made, under the Communications Security Establishment Act and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and to approve those authorizations, amendments and determinations if those conclusions are reasonable. This Part also abolishes the position of the Commissioner of the Communications Security Establishment, provides for that Commissioner to become the Intelligence Commissioner, transfers the employees of the former Commissioner to the office of the new Commissioner and makes related and consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 3 enacts the Communications Security Establishment Act, which establishes the Communications Security Establishment and, among other things, sets out the Establishment’s mandate as well as the regime for authorizing its activities. It also amends the National Defence Act and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 4 amends the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act to
(a) add a preamble to that Act and provide a mechanism to enhance the accountability of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service;
(b) add new limits on the exercise of the Service’s power to reduce threats to the security of Canada including, in particular, by setting out a list of measures that may be authorized by the Federal Court;
(c) provide a justification, subject to certain limitations, for the commission of acts or omissions that would otherwise constitute offences;
(d) exempt employees of the Service and persons acting under their direction from liability for offences related to acts committed for the sole purpose of establishing or maintaining a covert identity;
(e) create a regime for the Service to collect, retain, query and exploit datasets in the course of performing its duties and functions;
(f) make amendments to the warrant regime that are related to datasets; and
(g) implement measures for the management of datasets.
Part 5 amends the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act to, among other things,
(a) emphasize that the Act addresses only the disclosure of information and not its collection or use;
(b) clarify the definition of “activity that undermines the security of Canada”;
(c) clarify that advocacy, protest, dissent and artistic expression are not activities that undermine the security of Canada unless they are carried on in conjunction with an activity that undermines the security of Canada;
(d) provide that a disclosure of information is authorized only if the disclosure will contribute to the carrying out by the recipient institution of its national security responsibilities and will not affect any person’s privacy interest more than reasonably necessary;
(e) require that information disclosed be accompanied by information about the accuracy of the disclosed information and the reliability of the manner in which it was obtained; and
(f) require that records be prepared and kept in respect of every disclosure of information and that every year a copy of every record prepared in the preceding year be provided to the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency.
Part 6 amends the Secure Air Travel Act to authorize the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to collect from air carriers and operators of aviation reservation systems, for the purpose of identifying listed persons, information about any individuals who are on board or expected to be on board an aircraft for any flight prescribed by regulation, and to exempt an air carrier from providing that information, or from the application of any provision of the regulations, in certain circumstances. It amends the Act to authorize that Minister to collect personal information from individuals for the purpose of issuing a unique identifier to them to assist with pre-flight verification of their identity. It also reverses the rule in relation to a deemed decision on an application for administrative recourse. Finally, it amends the Act to provide for certain other measures related to the collection, disclosure and destruction of information.
Part 7 amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,
(a) make certain procedural modifications to the terrorist listing regime under section 83.‍05, such as providing for a staggered ministerial review of listed entities and granting the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness the authority to amend the names, including aliases, of listed entities;
(b) change the offence of advocating or promoting terrorism offences in general, in section 83.‍21, to one of counselling the commission of a terrorism offence, and make corresponding changes to the definition of terrorist propaganda;
(c) raise one of the thresholds for imposing a recognizance with conditions under section 83.‍3, and amend when that section is to be reviewed and, unless extended by Parliament, to cease to have effect;
(d) repeal sections 83.‍28 and 83.‍29 relating to an investigative hearing into a terrorism offence and repeal subsections 83.‍31(1) and (1.‍1), which require annual reports on such hearings;
(e) require the Attorney General of Canada to publish a report each year setting out the number of terrorism recognizances entered into under section 810.‍011 in the previous year; and
(f) authorize a court, in proceedings for recognizances under any of sections 83 and 810 to 810.‍2, to make orders for the protection of witnesses.
Part 8 amends the Youth Criminal Justice Act to, among other things, ensure that the protections that are afforded to young persons apply in respect of proceedings in relation to recognizance orders, including those related to terrorism, and give employees of a department or agency of the Government of Canada access to youth records, for the purpose of administering the Canadian Passport Order.
Part 9 requires that a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of this enactment take place during the fourth year after section 168 of this enactment comes into force. If that section 168 and section 34 of Bill C-22, introduced in the 1st session of the 42nd Parliament and entitled the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, come into force within one year of each other, the reviews required by those sections are to take place at the same time and are to be undertaken by the same committee or committees.

National Security Act, 2017

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Trois-Rivières for his excellent speech and for his clarifications on Bill C-59, in particular the reasons why this bill does not meet Canadians' expectations.

His first reason has to do with the no-fly list and the unacceptable delays in funding a redress mechanism. The NDP has long been working closely with No Fly List Kids, which seeks to fix the fact that children unfortunately end up on no-fly lists because they have the same name as criminals who are banned from air travel.

The government could have produced a much better bill by developing a redress mechanism that would finally allow all Canadian citizens to be free to travel as they wish. It is not right that people experience problems because they have the same name as someone else.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Drummond for his very relevant point, which could even apply to another bill we are waiting on from the Liberal government, to protect air passengers with a bill of rights.

Even the omnibus transport bill does not yet contain a bill of rights to protect the rights of air passengers and offer redress when these rights are violated.

When people are not allowed to fly because they have the same name as someone on the list, it causes huge inconveniences, especially when it happens to children. It happens most often during family vacations and not when a child is travelling alone. This is another reason why the government should ensure that airlines do their best to eliminate duplications on the no-fly list.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on Bill C-59. I hope my hon. colleagues will indulge me over the course of the next 10 minutes. I am not fearmongering, but I want to talk about a snapshot in my life that fundamentally changed the way I look at things.

Everybody knows, as I have related this a number of times, that I worked in aviation for over 20 years on the airline side and on the regulatory side with Transport Canada, as well as on the airport side and in the consulting world. I know exactly where I was at 5:46 a.m. B.C. time on September 11, 2001. That was exactly when American Airlines flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Centre building. At 9:03, United Airlines flight 175 crashed into another World Trade Centre building, and at 9:37, American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Then at 10:07, flight 93 crashed into a field in Somerset, Pennsylvania. These incidents killed all of the people on board those aircraft, as well as over 3,000 people on the ground.

Up to that point, I would say that we had a different mindset. As was the case in the U.S., in Canada we lost our innocence. The world really lost its innocence. We started to see terrorism in a different light. We started looking at how it could have happened.

Let me talk about that day. Immediately after the first aircraft hit the first tower, my phone started to ring. I was one of the managers at Prince George Airport, and our job at that time was to scramble to get to the airport and figure out what was going on. We were to monitor all of the security information that was coming in. Many people probably do not know that for the first few hours of this crisis, Canadians were at the helm of monitoring the crisis at the NORAD centre.

I can tell members that it was something else. It brings me right back to it when we started talking about this.

Prior to that, my role in aviation on the airline side, and then again on the airport side, was to work with inner agencies to determine how we could protect and prepare our airlines and airports in cases of disaster. At that point, it was about preventing criminal organizations from transporting drugs and smuggling people.

It was quite staggering to think that an airliner would be used to crash into a building. We never thought that would happen. We live in a different world.

After 9/11, Canada adopted its very first anti-terrorism law, and we started to look at things a little differently. We started to look at how our security organizations, those groups that were tasked with protecting Canadians, shared their information. We started to look at our industries, whether aviation, roads, marine systems, rail, or logistics.

How did we protect those areas? How did we protect our ports and airports? How did we protect Canadians and Americans coming across the border? We looked at things as whether it would be better to do away with that northern border. That is what the U.S. calls it. Do we start considering, perhaps, a perimeter border all around North America, Canada, and the U.S.? We could really work at interoperability in its best sense, with the sharing of data and key information that would protect our citizens so that we could prevent any other terrorist attack.

I have probably said already that we live in a completely different world. I get a little hot when we talk about this, and I am just going to bring us back to April 23 of this year in Toronto. There was a van attack in which 10 people lost their lives and many more were injured. Let us talk about the high school students in Canada who are being radicalized and are going overseas to serve with ISIS or other terrorist groups. Let us talk about the events that we do not know about.

We can have this flowery idea that we live in a safe world and everything is good, because the people who are tasked with protecting us are stopping these events before we know about them.

What Bill C-59 does is to limit the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's ability to reduce terrorist threats. It limits the ability of government departments to share data amongst themselves to protect national security. It removes the offence of advocating and promoting terrorism offences in general.

One of the other areas, as if that were not enough, is that CSIS, the agency that we task to protect us and make sure that domestic and international threats are minimized, and the RCMP are not allowed to use social media. They are not allowed to use any public data, potentially. They cannot use that. What if the person who is going to use a van for an attack said, “I am going to do this” on a Facebook page a day or two before he did it. Can the RCMP use that information, or does it have to wait, and perhaps come before some politicians to see if it is possible to stop the attack?

In the study and amendment stage of this bill, in part 3 of the bill dealing with restrictions on security and intelligence and the assessment of publicly available data, the Liberals put additional barriers on the use of public information. They said that the collection of public information, from social media like Facebook and Twitter, would be restricted. How are these people finding out about recruitment?

What about the high school shootings? Students are talking on Facebook about what they want to do. Bill C-59 is going to limit those agencies that we task with protecting us from using that to stop it.

It is shameful that we are talking at this point, after all we know, in terms of terrorist groups. Here is a report that just came out, an internal CSIS report that was leaked or somehow made public. It says that domestic extremists are likely to continue to target Canadian uniformed personnel and related installations in neighbourhoods that are familiar to them, like police stations and military recruitment centres. This was from January 24, 2018. It was in the newspaper.

We have to be doing everything to protect Canadians and to make sure that Canadians are safe. We should not be trying to work in some information vacuum. That is exactly what this is. Regardless of whether academics are saying this or that, what are the security agencies, those who are tasked with protecting us, saying about Bill C-59? They have serious concerns. We should not be making it harder for them to do their job of protecting Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I also turn my mind back to September 11, 2001, where the member started his speech and I can share with him. He remembers that there were Canadians controlling NORAD. A constituent of mine in my Rotary Club, Captain Mike Jelinek, was in command of what they call “the mountain” in Colorado at NORAD. It is an extraordinary story. Can anyone imagine being in more of a crucible of decision-making stress and yet keeping control? One of the things that a lot of people do not know, but that he shared with me, and it is public information, was why those in charge did not scramble military jets to shoot down the planes the hijackers had taken control of to aim at buildings. They could not because the hijacking terrorists had turned off the transponders. Therefore, what they saw on their radar was just a sea of dots, but the ones that were actually the hijacked planes had disappeared from view. That is why they had to make all of the planes in the airspace land, so they could then see what was going on. It is a very complex story.

I differ with my friend on Bill C-59. I was here for the debates on Bill C-51. I learned a lot from the security experts who testified at the committee. None of that advice was taken up by the previous government, but I will cite one piece of testimony that came before the Senate. Joe Fogarty is the name of a British security expert, actually a spy for the Brits, who had been doing work with Canada at the time. He told us stories of things that had already happened, such as when the RCMP knew of a terrorist plotters' camp but did not want to tell CSIS, or CSIS knew of something and did not want to tell the RCMP.

John Major, the judge who ran the Air India inquiry, told us that passing Bill C-51 would make us less safe unless we had pinnacle control, some agency or entity that oversaw what all five of our spy agencies were doing. Bill C-59 would take us in the right direction by creating the security agency that will allow us to know what each agency is doing, because the way human nature is, and we heard this from experts, is that people will not share information, and Bill C-59 would help us in that regard.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, our hon. colleague speaks of that day. About two years after that day, I was representing Canada at the centennial of flight and I had the honour of being with some of our Canadian Snowbirds. One of the pilots I was with that night and I were talking about 9/11. One of the stories people do not tell is that there was a 747, loaded, coming over from Asia. It was right over Whitehorse and it was going to land at our airport, but we did not know whether there were terrorists on board. Our hon. colleague is correct. We did not know whether there was one aircraft coming or more aircraft that were coming loaded with terrorists. There was a lot of uncertainty. I relayed this story about the 747 and that we were preparing and scrambling all of the emergency vehicles. At one point, I said that it was very close to being shot down, and this pilot said, “It was literally seconds away because we were the jets that were scrambled and I was one of the jets that was scrambled beside this.” The threats are very real.

To the hon. colleague's comment, there is a lot going on that we do not know about. That is because we trust our organizations that when we go to bed at night, they will be doing their job and making sure that we are safe and sound, but they are sharing that information. I offered this, and our hon. colleague mentioned Air India and the sharing of data.

We must make sure that there is interoperability. I will remind folks very quickly in my closing remarks that everything we do in Canada impacts our relationships with our friends across the way. If we weaken our security laws here, we are going to see retaliatory measures on the other side whether in respect to goods or people. We need to make sure we are in lockstep with all of our partners, whether North American or international, in terms of security.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-59, an act respecting national security matters. This is a massive omnibus bill, more than 140 pages long. It seeks to amend five existing acts with significant amendments. It introduces four new acts. It overhauls Canada's national security framework.

Having regard for the breadth and scope of the bill and the important subject matter it touches, namely Canada's national security, it is extremely disappointing that the government has done just about everything to shut down debate in the House, to prevent and limit the ability of members of Parliament to speak and debate this piece of legislation.

Perhaps one of the reasons for this is that the government is really quite embarrassed by this piece of legislation. Before there was even a second reading vote on the bill, as a result of changes to our Standing Orders, it went to committee, where it was torn to shreds. It was such a sloppy bill that 235 amendments were brought forward at committee, including 43 amendments from Liberal MPs. The bill falls short in many respects.

The threat of terrorism is real. We know that September 11 really did change the world. While September 11 is now nearly 17 years ago and for many an increasingly distant memory, the threat of terrorism in Canada is as real today as it was the day after September 11.

We have seen terrorist attacks on Canadian soil, including here on Parliament Hill a few years ago. Just last year, an Edmonton police officer, Mike Chernyk, was killed when he tackled a terrorist, who then tried to run down Edmontonians. By the way, Edmonton is a city that I am very proud to represent, and this really hit home for many of my constituents.

We know that the threat of terrorism is real, and we know that we need to give our security, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies all the tools possible to be able to disrupt terrorist plots, to stem the flow of financing to terrorist groups and terrorist actors, and ultimately to keep Canadians safe.

That is why our previous Conservative government brought Canada's anti-terrorism and national security laws into the 21st century with Bill C-51, legislation that, by the way, the Liberal Party, to its credit, supported. It is also true that the Liberals had some reservations about Bill C-51. During the last election, the Prime Minister promised that he would make revisions to Bill C-51, so we have Bill C-59, which is the government's response.

As I said, it falls short in a number of areas. Where it falls short is that instead of giving law enforcement and national security agencies more tools to keep Canadians safe, Bill C-59 takes away tools. What kinds of tools is Bill C-59 taking away that they otherwise had as a result of, among other measures, Bill C-51?

One of those tools is the ability of CSIS to carry out disruption activities without a warrant. Under Bill C-51, CSIS could undertake some very limited disruption activities, provided that those activities were consistent with Canadian law and respected the privacy rights of Canadians. Bill C-59 takes that tool away. In practical terms, what would that mean? One example would be that right now, as a result of Bill C-51, CSIS could contact the parents of a radicalized youth to seek parental intervention and advise them that their son or daughter has been radicalized. Under Bill C-59, CSIS would have to get a warrant. How does that make sense, and how does that make Canadians safer?

Another example would be to misdirect a potential terrorist who might be in the midst of carrying out a terrorist plot. Of course, in disrupting terrorist plots, time can so often be of the essence. It is not possible to run into court to get a warrant. Under Bill C-59, the government would be tying the hands of CSIS, even at a critical time when that could make a difference for stopping a terrorist attack by simply misdirecting the terrorist. How does that make sense, and how does that make Canadians safer?

There is another tool in the tool box that the government is taking away, namely preventive detention. It is true that it is not taking away the tool, in the sense that it is still there, but from a practical standpoint it is going to make preventative detention much more difficult. Preventative detention is an important tool. It is a tool that has been used and has kept Canadians safe. The threshold for law enforcement to use preventative detention is high. There must be evidence that using preventative detention would likely prevent a terrorist attack. Under Bill C-59, that threshold would be increased to detention being “necessary” to prevent a terrorist attack. Between “likely to prevent” and “necessary to prevent”, the threshold has increased considerably. There is a big difference in that regard. What it means is that it would be much more difficult for law enforcement to use preventative detention, even when there is evidence that preventative detention would likely prevent a terrorist attack. Again, how does that make sense, and how does that make Canadians safer?

Another tool the government is limiting in a significant way for law enforcement is the tool of a peace bond, where there are no reasonable grounds to charge someone with a criminal offence, but there is sufficient evidence that the individual needs to be monitored and subject to conditions whereby if the individual violates the order, he or she could be subject to criminal charges. The threshold is that a peace bond be likely to prevent a terrorist attack from occurring. Just as the government has done with respect to preventative detention, it has increased that threshold to “necessary to prevent” a terrorist attack. It basically defeats the entire purpose of a peace bond, because the evidentiary threshold that the government has set is more or less as high as reasonable grounds, which would result in delaying criminal charges. How does that make sense, and how does that make Canadians safer?

For these and other reasons, we cannot support this bill, because it would take too many tools away from our law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and it would make Canadians less safe.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was here during the debate on Bill C-51, and it was a very different public atmosphere in terms of the types of comments we were receiving. There was a great outcry from Canadians in virtually all regions of the country saying that the government had gone too far. As the opposition party, even though we supported Bill C-51, part of our election platform was to make changes to it, and that is what Bill C-59 is all about. We also added the parliamentary standing committee on oversight of our agencies. We see it as a positive thing.

When I reflect today on what the public is saying, the opposition to Bill C-51 is quite profound, and there appears to be a fairly good consensus across the country in support of the bill before us. Could the member provide his thoughts on why that might be the case?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, before I address the question from the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, I just want to make one correction. I made reference to Mike Chernyk from EPS and inadvertently said that he was killed, but he was injured, and I want to correct the record with respect to that.

With respect to Bill C-51, it is true that the Liberals supported it, and it is true that their support was conditional on bringing subsequent changes. The problem is that the changes the government has brought forward would make Canadians less safe and take away important tools from law enforcement and from our intelligence agencies.

We on this side of the House are quite happy to work with the government in a non-partisan way on an issue that should not be partisan, which is the safety and security of Canadians. However, instead of striking the right balance between protecting the collective security of Canadians and protecting the rights and freedoms of Canadians, this legislation would tilt the balance in a way that undermines the ability of law enforcement and our security agencies.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy the trenchant analysis and passion of my friend from St. Albert—Edmonton, with whom I have the honour to serve on the justice committee.

The member spoke about Bill C-59 in comparison to Bill C-51, the Conservatives' bill. He suggested, if I can summarize, that as a result of the changes the law would make us less safe. He cited a number of examples, including the requirement of a warrant for disruption activities and changes to the preventative detention sections, among others.

The legislation is being redrafted, and some of the changes would make it less likely to be struck down under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which, of course, was the critique of so many when the Conservatives' bill was before Parliament. I wonder if it would have been more prudent, in fact, to make those changes to avoid the cost and delay of having those cases go before the courts only to find that these sections are unconstitutional. I would like the member's thoughts on that.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that in most respects the sections in Bill C-51 are constitutional. Yes, they could be subject to challenge, but we have some serious concerns about the way in which the government has moved forward with amending several aspects of what had been Bill C-51. While I agree with the hon. member that there may be some concerns about certain sections and while in some cases it may be prudent to make some amendments and some changes, we do not believe that the government has done it the right way.

Another change that the government has introduced that causes us serious concern is with respect to promoting terrorist activity. That is another section that the Liberals have significantly reduced in scope, limiting it to counselling with respect to a specific act or a specific individual. Again, we think that the government has created a big loophole in that area. Instead of clamping down with those who are promoting terrorism, it is in fact going to give those on social media—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

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

Mr. Speaker, I find myself surprised to have a speaking spot tonight. For that I want to thank the New Democratic Party. We do not agree about this bill, but it was a generous gesture to allow me to speak to it.

I have been very engaged in the issue of anti-terrorism legislation for many years. I followed it when, under Prime Minister Chrétien, the anti-terrorism legislation went through this place immediately after 9/11. Although I was executive director of the Sierra Club, I recall well my conversations with former MP Bill Blaikie, who sat on the committee, and we worried as legislation went forward that appeared to do too much to limit our rights as Canadians in its response to the terrorist threat.

That was nothing compared to what happened when we had a shooting, a tragic event in October 2014, when Corporal Nathan Cirillo was murdered at the National War Memorial. I do not regard that event, by the way, as an act of terrorism, but rather of one individual with significant addiction and mental health issues, something that could have been dealt with if he had been allowed to have the help he sought in British Columbia before he came to Ottawa and committed the horrors of October 22, 2014.

It was the excuse and the opening that the former government needed to bring in truly dangerous legislation. I will never forget being here in my seat in Parliament on January 30. It was a Friday morning. One does not really expect ground-shaking legislation to hit without warning on a Friday morning in this place. There was no press release, no briefing, no telling us what was in store for us. I picked up Bill C-51, an omnibus bill in five parts, and read it on the airplane flying home, studied it all weekend, and came back here. By Monday morning, February 2, I had a speaking spot during question period and called it the “secret police act”.

I did not wait, holding my finger to the wind, to see which way the political winds were blowing. The NDP did that for two weeks before they decided to oppose it. The Liberals decided they could not win an election if they opposed it, so they would vote for it but promised to fix it later.

I am afraid some of that is still whirling around in this place. I will say I am supporting this effort. I am voting for it. I still see many failures in it. I know the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety have listened. That is clear; the work they did in the consultation process was real.

Let me go back and review why Bill C-51 was so very dangerous.

I said it was a bill in five parts. I hear the Conservatives complaining tonight that the government side is pushing Bill C-59 through too fast. Well, on January 30, 2015, Bill C-51, an omnibus bill in five parts, was tabled for first reading. It went all the way through the House by May 6 and all the way through the Senate by June 9, less than six months.

This bill, Bill C-59, was tabled just about a year ago. Before it was tabled, we had consultations. I had time to hold town hall meetings in my riding specifically on public security, espionage, our spy agencies, and what we should do to protect and balance anti-terrorism measures with civil liberties. We worked hard on this issue before the bill ever came for first reading, and we have worked hard on it since.

I will come back to Bill C-51, which was forced through so quickly. It was a bill in five parts. What I came to learn through working on that bill was that it made Canadians less safe. That was the advice from many experts in anti-terrorism efforts, from the leading experts in the trenches and from academia, from people like Professor Kent Roach and Professor Craig Forcese, who worked so hard on the Air India inquiry; the chair of the Air India inquiry, former judge John Major; and people in the trenches I mentioned earlier in debate tonight, such as Joseph Fogarty, an MI5 agent from the U.K. who served as anti-terrorism liaison with Canada.

What I learned from all of these people was Bill C-51 was dangerous because it would put in concrete silos that would discourage communication between spy agencies. That bill had five parts.

Part 1 was information sharing. It was not about information sharing between spy agencies; it was about information sharing about Canadians to foreign governments. In other words, it was dangerous to the rights of Canadians overseas, and it ignored the advice of the Maher Arar inquiry.

Part 2 was about the no-fly list. Fortunately, this bill fixes that. The previous government never even bothered to consult with the airlines, by the way. That was interesting testimony we got back in the 41st Parliament.

Part 3 I called the “thought chill” section. We heard tonight that the government is not paying attention to the need remove terrorist recruitment from websites. That is nonsense. However, part 3 of Bill C-51 created a whole new term with no definition, this idea of terrorism in general, and the idea of promoting terrorism in general. As it was defined, we could imagine someone would be guilty of violating that law if they had a Facebook page that put up an image of a clenched fist. That could be seen as promotion of terrorism in general. Thank goodness we got that improved.

In terms of thought chill, it was so broadly worded that it could have caused, for instance, someone in a community who could see someone was being radicalized a reasonable fear that they could be arrested if they went to talk to that person to talk them out of it. It was very badly drafted.

Part 4 is the part that has not been adequately fixed in this bill. This is the part that, for the first time ever, gave CSIS what are called kinetic powers.

CSIS was created because the RCMP, in response to the FLQ crisis, was cooking up plots that involved, famously, burning down a barn. As a result, we said intelligence gathering would have to be separate from the guys who go out and break up plots, because we cannot have the RCMP burning down barns, so the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was created. It was to be exclusively about collecting information, and then the RCMP could act on that information.

I think it is a huge mistake that in Bill C-59 we have left CSIS kinetic powers to disrupt plots. However, we have changed the law quite a bit to deal with CSIS's ability to go to a single judge to get permission to violate our laws and break the charter. I wish the repair in Bill C-59 was stronger, but it is certainly a big improvement on Bill C-51.

Part 5 of Bill C-51 is not repaired in Bill C-59. I think that is because it was so strangely worded that most people did not ever figure out what it was about. I know professors Roach and Forcese left part 5 alone because it was about changes to the immigration and refugee act. It really was hard to see what it was about. However, Professor Donald Galloway at the University of Victoria law school said part 5 is about being able to give a judge information in secret hearings about a suspect and not tell the judge that the evidence was obtained by torture, so I really hope the Minister of Public Safety will go back and look at those changes to the refugee and immigration act, and if that is what they are about, it needs fixing.

Let us look at why the bill is enough of an improvement that I am going to vote for it. By the way, in committee I did bring forward 46 amendments to the bill on my own. They went in the direction of ensuring that we would have special advocates in the room so that there would be someone there on behalf of the public interest when a judge was giving a warrant to allow a CSIS agent to break the law or violate the charter. The language around what judges can do and how often they can do it and what respect to the charter they must exercise when they grant such a warrant is much better in this bill, but it is still there, and it does worry me that there will be no special advocate in the room.

I cannot say I am wildly enthusiastic about Bill C-59, but it is a huge improvement over what we saw in the 41st Parliament in Bill C-51.

The creation of the security intelligence review agency is something I want to talk about in my remaining minutes.

This point is fundamental. This was what Mr. Justice John Major, who chaired the Air India inquiry, told the committee when it was studying the bill back in 2015: He told us it is just human nature that the RCMP and CSIS will not share information and that we need to have pinnacle oversight.

There is review that happens, and the term “review” is post facto, so SIRC, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, would look at what CSIS had done over the course of the year, but up until this bill we have never had a single security agency that watched what all the guys and girls were doing. We have CSIS, the RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency, the Communications Security Establishment—five different agencies all looking at collecting intelligence, but not sharing. That is why having the security intelligence review agency created by this bill is a big improvement.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the member brings a lot of context to bear on some of the questions that were referred to earlier in comparing it to Bill C-59.

The member for Calgary Shepard actually asked me about a proposed amendment the Conservatives brought forward to Bill C-59 at committee about changing the word “promote” to the words “advocate” or “counsel”. There was a brief moment in the member's speech when she referred to some reasons why that would not be a good amendment. Maybe she could elaborate on it. Her answer to the member for Calgary Shepard's question might be better than mine was.

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

Mr. Speaker, this was a very troubling provision about what kind of information posted on social media could lead to criminal charges and jail. Bill C-51 talked about the previously unknown concept of “terrorism in general”. What did it mean? Nobody knew. The concept of promoting “terrorism”, on the other hand, or “counselling” terrorist activities, makes sense to anyone within a legal context. “Promoting” is vague; “counselling” is clear. “Terrorism in general” is vague; “terrorism” is clear.

Counselling terrorism is a clearly understood and defined offence and therefore useful for security and protecting public safety. The way it was phrased in Bill C-51 was thought-chill over who knows what, but it was essentially draconian.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for her remarks, which are always well contextualized.

We are talking about a fundament law that seeks to ensure the safety of all Canadians and protect their individual freedoms. Does my colleague not find it a bit odd that a time allocation motion has been moved on such a fundamental law?

We do not always share the same opinions and we sometimes vote differently, but does my colleague not find it odd that, rather than coming up with the best possible bill, the Liberals are putting us in a situation where we will have to vote on the least bad option?