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.

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

All right.

We also heard Mr. Fadden speak about China, which has about 200,000 people conducting cyberoperations.

Do you believe that the powers granted by bill C-59 open the door to effective action against the Chinese threat in cyberspace?

[Malcolm Brown]

I will answer and my colleagues can add to my comments.

The view is that, in addition to the changes that are proposed in Bill C-59, the framework that is already available to the government in terms of addressing issues associated with terrorist financing is sufficient. Generally speaking, in the context of Bill C-59, the government is open to suggestions. I do think that in the perspectives in the private member's bill that you've mentioned there are some practical considerations that, frankly, make it problematic.

That being said, I think we're constantly challenging ourselves to ensure that all of the agencies have the tools they need to confront the challenges around terrorist financing. There are a variety of steps we can take, and at that I'll let my colleagues jump in, if they'd like, in terms of the tools we have now that, we believe, give us the capacity to respond as necessary.

Gilles.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here today. Your comments will be most helpful.

My first question concerns the funding of terrorist groups. The question is for Mr. Brown or anyone else who would like to answer.

Mr. Michael Nesbitt appeared before the committee. He expressed his concern that Canada runs the risk of being a home for terrorist financing and other activities. This is a possibility.

Our party, through my colleague Mr. Tony Clement, introduced bill C-371, which is currently being studied in the House. This bill would address what are known as covert means. It appears that the government did not want to support the bill, arguing that bill C-59 and other Canadian legislation provides the tools required to prevent funding by covert means in support of terrorism.

Could you comment on that?

[Shelly Bruce, Associate Chief, Communications Security Establishment]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, distinguised members of the committee, As associate chief of the Communications Security Establishment. I want to thank you for the invitation to appear before you, as you continue your study of bill C-59, which sets out the Communications Security Establishment Act.

I am pleased to be here today to clarify and explain certain aspects of this important piece of legislation.

Let me begin by underscoring remarks made by Minister Sajjan when this legislation was last discussed in the House of Commons. The minister said:

There can be no greater obligation than to protect the security of Canadians at home and abroad. Bill C-59 would provide CSE with the authorities and tools to maintain the highest standards in security protection while adhering to the high standards of accountability and transparency.

CSE has helped protect the security of Canadians for over 70 years by providing critical foreign intelligence about threats to our national security and our deployed forces, and by protecting Canada's most sensitive information and information systems. In order to deliver this important mandate, governments throughout those 70 years have expected CSE to respond to the priorities of the day and to ensure that it stays ahead of evolving global threats and constantly changing technology—and to meet those challenges while protecting Canadians' privacy, rights, and freedoms. That is what the proposed authorities and accountabilities in the proposed CSE act would do. They would provide CSE modernized authorities to help keep Canadians and Canada safe and secure against global threats, including cyber-threats, in a rapidly evolving technological world. They would provide new accountability measures to ensure that CSE's activities are authorized, reviewed, and are as transparent as possible.

As the committee has studied this bill a number of important questions have been raised. I would like to address a few of the more common ones now.

First, I'd like to address the provision in the proposed act around publicly available information. Questions have been raised about how CSE would use publicly available information and what impact that would have on the privacy of Canadians. To be clear, this provision exists only to allow CSE to conduct basic research in support of its mandate from the sorts of public resources that would be available to anyone in Canada. CSE does not and would not use publicly available information to investigate Canadians or persons in Canada, or build dossiers on them. That is not our mandate, and for us, mandate matters.

The proposed CSE act reinforces this by explicitly requiring that CSE have measures in place to protect the privacy of Canadians and persons in Canada in the use, retention, and disclosure of publicly available information.

How would we use that publicly available information? I can provide three quick examples. First, we could use it to provide general background information for a foreign intelligence or cyber-security report. Second, we could use it to assess the nationality of an individual or organization. Third, we could use it to consult technical manuals associated with new technologies or infrastructure.

Under no circumstances would CSE use this provision to acquire information that was unlawfully obtained. Hacked or stolen data would not constitute publicly available information under the CSE act.

This committee has also heard questions about the proposed active cyber-operations aspect of CSE's mandate, including questions on how they would be used and the potential impact on Canadian privacy. As this is a new authority for CSE, I want to clarify what this means. Active cyber operations would allow CSE, within strict legal parameters and with approvals at the highest levels of government, to take action online to disrupt foreign threats, including activities to protect our democratic institutions, to counter violent extremist and terrorist planning, or to counter cyber-aggression by foreign states. As examples, CSE could use active cyber operations to prevent a terrorist's mobile phone from detonating a car bomb; we could impede terrorists' ability to communicate by obstructing their communications infrastructure; or we could covertly disrupt a foreign threat actor from interfering in Canada's democratic processes.

The proposed legislation is also clear in the limits built into this authority. CSE would be prohibited from directing active cyber operations at Canadians, at any person in Canada, or at the global infrastructure in Canada. The act would also require that these activities be reasonable and proportionate. It would specifically prohibit CSE from causing death or bodily harm, or wilfully attempting to obstruct, pervert, or defeat the course of justice or democracy.

Let me underscore the fundamental change in our approach to ministerial authorizations.

Bill C-59 builds on CSE's current ministerial authorization regime by broadening its application and introducing new and important oversight and review functions. Under the act, CSE will seek a ministerial authorization for any activity that would interfere with the reasonable expectation of privacy of a Canadian or a person in Canada, or contravene an act of Parliament.

For CSE's foreign intelligence and cyber-security activities, these would be subject to approval by the Minister of National Defence and the intelligence commissioner. Active and defensive cyber operations are not collection activities and cannot be directed against Canadians or persons in Canada. As such, they would be approved by the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. All of CSE's activities would also be subject to full review by dedicated independent review bodies.

Mr. Chair, I'll conclude by thanking the committee for inviting me and my colleagues here today to testify.

Thank you for your important deliberations on the Communications Security Establishment Act. We look forward to answering your questions.

Thank you.

[Malcolm Brown, Deputy Minister, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'll make a few opening comments, and then I think my colleague Shelly from the Communications Security Establishment will also have some opening comments.

I'm pleased to have the opportunity to appear with my colleagues today to discuss Bill C-59, the proposed National Security Act, 2017.

As you can see, I'm joined by officials from the Public Safety portfolio, including the RCMP and CSIS, the Communications Security Establishment, and the Department of Justice.

I want to begin by thanking all the members of this committee for reviewing this bill.

As you know, this bill is the focal point of Minister Goodale's mandate with regard to national security. It is also the result of an unprecedented nationwide public consultation, one in which this committee played an important role.

The consultations undertaken by Public Safety Canada and the Department of Justice involved an online questionnaire, in-person town halls across the country, social media engagement, and much more. In total, tens of thousands of views were heard, collected, documented, and analyzed.

Of course, this committee held numerous meetings of its own on the topic of national security.

The proposed legislation reflects all of this input - from citizens, parliamentarians, community leaders, national security experts, and academics.

Bill C-59 has three core themes.

Number one is to enhance accountability and transparency. This would be done through the proposed creation of an intelligence commissioner and a national security and intelligence review agency, both of which would complement the work of the newly established National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.

Number two is to fulfill mandate commitments with respect to the former Bill C-51. This includes proposed revisions to threat reduction activities under the CSIS Act, amendments to the Criminal Code, improvements to the Secure Air Travel Act, and revisions to the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act.

Number three is to ensure that our national security and intelligence agencies can keep pace with the evolving nature of security threats. This includes measures such as modernizing the CSIS Act, establishing the proposed Communications Security Establishment Act, and making other legislative updates.

In short, bill C-59 is designed to update and modernize Canada's national security framework to reflect current realities. Its overall objectice is to keep Canadians safe, while safeguaring our rights and freedoms.

To ensure that this bill achieves this objective, Minister Goodale signalled his intention for a thorough review and analysis of its contents as it proceeds through the parliamentary process.

Beginning this past summer and continuing through to the new year, officials from Public Safety Canada and from across the security and intelligence community have engaged key stakeholders. In many ways, this has been a continuation of conversations that began with the national security consultations in 2016, which I mentioned earlier.

The aim of these discussions and interactions has been not only to respond to technical questions about the content of the bill, but also, and mainly, to obtain feedback and input about how to improve the bill.

We've had meetings and exchanges with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, the Office of the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner, and the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP.

We also had a number of exchanges with prominent academics in the field of national security in order to obtain constructive feedback to help ensure the bill achieve its objectives. I can assure you that these discussions were very helpful.

Similarly, we have taken a keen interest in the deliberations of this committee, including the testimony of witnesses and the detailed written briefs made available on the committee's website. I should note that, although separate from Bill C-59, the government announced in June that it would be adopting a national security transparency commitment to be applied across Canada's federal national security apparatus. Public Safety Canada is exercising a leadership and coordination role for implementing that commitment and supporting the establishment and operation of an advisory group. This work will complement the ultimate objectives of Bill C-59.

It is Minister Goodale's aim to have an open and thorough conversation in order to ensure that this bill is the best it can be.

It is in this spirit that my colleagues and I appear before you today. We look forward to responding to any questions the committee may have about the bill.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Even though we are a few minutes early, I'm going to call this meeting to order and ask Mr. Brown to lead off.

We're here for two hours. I'm anticipating some order in the first hour when we ask our questions, and maybe a little less formality in the second hour as we dive deeper into Bill C-59.

I appreciate the interest of all of the departmental officials in the deliberations of the committee. This is an opportunity for the committee and various officials to interact on both a semi-formal and a less formal basis.

With that, we'll start with Mr. Brown.

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

Right now, in Canada, we are studying Bill C-59, which deals with cyber attack and counter-attack capabilities.

Do you think NATO countries should have cyber attack capabilities? Could Latvia request this capability? For example, could Latvia say that it would like Canada to conduct a cyber attack against such and such an element in Russia?

Prevention of Radicalization through Foreign Funding Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. However, there is something that I need to tell him. Right now, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security is studying Bill C-59. As part of that study, we noticed that there is a gap in Bill C-59, and that could be filled by Bill C-371, which was introduced by my colleague from Parry Sound—Muskoka. It would be nice if my colleague were listening to me, but that is fine.

Today, I am pleased to rise in the House to support my colleague's bill, Bill C-371. I think it is an essential tool for combatting terrorism in Canada. As proposed, the bill would give the government the ability to establish, based on the recommendations of the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, a list of foreign states, individuals, and entities that suppress religious freedom, sentence individuals to punishment based on their religious beliefs, and engage in or support activities that promote radicalization.

This bill deals with what is known as the covert means by which money is paid to Canadian organizations and institutions that support radicalization. It would make it possible to prevent an individual, entity, or foreign state that supports, promotes, or is associated with radicalization from funding an institution through donations or gifts.

This bill is very important because the Liberals prove to us almost every day that they do not fully understand the very clear danger we are facing.

For example, all Canadians in every region of the country heard the Prime Minister say that the Islamic State jihadis can have an extraordinarily powerful voice in Canada.

It is incredible that a prime minister would make such a comment. Not only is it absurd, but it is completely irresponsible.

Many of these people have returned to Canada with terrorist training, which is based on hatred for everything that is contrary to their views. These terrorists have committed unthinkable acts of violence. They have shot homosexuals, raped women and young girls, and killed Christians, Jews, and members of other faiths.

Today, the Prime Minister not only believes that these animals can be integrated into our society, but that they can be a powerful voice. Does the Prime Minister mean that they are a powerful voice for radicalization? Does he perhaps mean that they are a powerful voice for turning back the clock on women's rights? Is the Prime Minister aware of the real danger that these people represent? Does the Prime Minister keep an eye on the news about terrorist attacks in other countries? I am not so sure.

Another example is that the Prime Minister reached a settlement agreement with a terrorist, but he is dragging our veterans, those who fought to protect Canadians, through the courts. Clearly, the Prime Minister lacks judgment. He does not have his priorities straight.

Bill C-371 is important because we know that there have been relatively few charges, prosecutions, or convictions of people who have taken part in or provided material support to the jihadi movement.

We are concerned about the failure to prosecute when it comes to terrorist financing.

We learned that between 2009 and 2014, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada identified 683 cases of terrorist financing, and that no legal action was taken under the relevant sections of the Criminal Code. The terrorist threat to the security of Canada has increased significantly.

In recent decades, a number of Canadians have been convicted in court for planning multi-target, mass-casualty strikes in this country. Threats have been forthcoming from Canadians who have joined terrorists hostile to Canada and its allies. We know that more than 80 Canadians have returned to Canada after participating with Islamist fundamentalist groups. Many of these people return with terrorist training, combat experience and may therefore pose a security risk to Canada. There have been relatively few charges, prosecutions, or convictions for participating in or providing material support to the jihadist movement.

Similarly, with the exception of the 2010 conviction of Prapaharan Thambithurai, who was charged with raising money for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, there have been no charges in the area of supporting listed terrorist entities like the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Islamic Relief Fund for the Needy and Afflicted.

Calgary imam Syed Soharwardy, as well as other witnesses, advised the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence that extremist jihadist ideology is being spread at schools and universities in Canada, often under the guise of academic freedom and away from the eyes of CSIS.

The person who told us that is an imam. Specifically, he said this:

The money comes in different ways, in secret ways. Money comes through institutions. There are two organizations in Canada. Basically they are U.S. organizations that are operating in Canada. One is called AlMaghrib Institute, the other is called AlKauthar Institute. Both work in universities, not in mosques. Both give lectures. Both organize seminars. They are the ones who brainwash these young kids in lectures.

That is what the Calgary imam told the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. I did not make that up. When Shahina Siddiqui of the Islamic Social Services Association appeared before the same committee in 2015, she said this:

I can tell you that my own organization was offered $3 million. We refused, even though I had not a penny in my account at that time, when I started the organization, because this is a Canadian organization, and we don't need funding from anywhere else.

The same thing with our mosques in Manitoba. We were offered money from Libya when we made our first mosque. We refused it.

Did some mosques accept money from overseas because it was legal to do so? If we want to curtail that practice, we have to make it illegal, not just for Muslims but for all groups. One person said no. M. Siddiqui from Islamic Social Services said that he refused money. He was offered $3 million from Libya. He knew it was irregular. There was nothing stopping him from accepting that money. That is what is meant by secret ways. That money could have come in through the back door and, if these people were not honest, they could have had that money. There is no way to control that.

Richard Fadden, former director of CSIS and national security advisor to former prime minister Harper and to the current Prime Minister during the first few months of his mandate, confirmed that there are concerns about foreign financing of Canadian religious and quasi religious institutions. The danger is real. This bill would serve as another tool to counter those who hate our society. As I said earlier, Bill C-59 is a massive, 140-page document that includes a lot of things. However, ever since the committee started hearing from witnesses, we have seen that this bill is flawed. I mentioned to my colleagues that Bill C-371 would address the gaps in Bill C-59. Despite the government's claims, I think that passing this bill would be very appropriate.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate. As we continue to read Bill C-371, I would like to say that I support the purpose of the bill and the ideas that inspired it.

Curbing or preventing the flow of money that supports terrorism is one of the government's key concerns. Bill C-371 seeks to prevent the flow into Canada of foreign funds donated by sources who have been associated with radicalization. During our last debate, several hon. members pointed out that there was some overlap in the bill that conflicts with mechanisms that are already in place in Canada.

The bill also has significant flaws that would be hard to overcome. For example, under Bill C-371 some charitable organizations might be unduly penalized. This would prevent religious, cultural, or educational institutions in Canada from accepting money or goods from sources affiliated with the countries on the list, including senior officials, family members, or partners. Accepting donations from these individuals would become a crime.

The problem is that there would be no list of individuals barred from donating. Charities would have to do thorough background checks on everyone who offers them a cheque, and could face criminal penalties if they fail to do so. The due diligence required would be excessively complex and would require investigative capacity well beyond that available to most charities. Furthermore, the government would probably not be able to enforce the prohibitions in the bill because they are too vague and general. For example, people associated with the countries on the list would not be on the list.

Moreover, the bill is incompatible with government policies on radicalization that leads to violence. The fact is that existing laws and initiatives already fulfill the stated purpose of this bill. I would like to point out that the government is already taking concrete, effective measures to fight terrorism and radicalization leading to violence in Canada. Canada has a robust set of tools to protect Canadians and registered charities from the risk of terrorism and its deplorable acts. One of those tools is the terrorist listing regime in the Criminal Code.

As soon as an entity is added to that list, banks and financial institutions can freeze its assets. In fact, being added to the list can also lead to the criminalization of all support activities to help stop potential sympathizers in Canada from providing any financial assistance to terrorist groups. The Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act resulted in the creation of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or FINTRAC, which oversees the financial system and gathers information to support investigations into terrorist financing.

FINTRAC is also supposed to hand over to the Canada Revenue Agency any financial information it has regarding charitable organizations suspected of being linked to terrorist financing. In addition, the State Immunity Act includes a list of foreign countries that support terrorism. The act makes is possible for victims of terrorism to seek justice from the countries on the list.

Bill C-371 states that anti-terrorism efforts should include charities. Once again, we already have effective mechanisms to do so. The Canada Revenue Agency already monitors registered charities to ensure that they remain focused on their stated charitable goals. Under the current rules, any charity using its resources to support terrorist activities, radicalization to violence, or incitement to hatred would be denied registered charity status or could have this status revoked.

The government also has measures in place to denounce and combat religious persecution, torture, and other human rights violations.

For example, some provisions of the new Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act make it possible to freeze the assets of those responsible for serious human rights violations.

There are apparently several measures already in place that can achieve the objectives of Bill C-371 without making legitimate charitable organizations liable to penalties. Consequently, despite the bill's good intentions, I cannot support it because of the overlaps and shortcomings in the bill.

Of course we all want to fight terrorism and extremism. That is why, for example, the government established the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence to fight the radicalization of young Canadians. In budget 2016, the government allocated funding of $35 million over five years for the work of the Canadian centre. The centre provides national leadership to support local efforts. It makes all the difference.

Communities across the country receive assistance through effective, innovative programs to combat radicalization leading to violence. This assistance often brings together law enforcement authorities, communities, and service providers. Furthermore, our security and intelligence agencies also have access to a series of prevention measures to help them monitor and intercept threats, maintain a no-fly list, refuse or revoke a passport, maintain public order, and lay criminal charges if there is sufficient evidence.

The government also introduced Bill C-59, which will increase accountability and effectiveness in Canada's national security framework. This bill was introduced in response to Canada's largest-ever national security consultation.

I know that all hon. members are united in the resolve to combat extremism, prevent terrorist violence, and bring perpetrators of such acts to justice. Unfortunately, Bill C-371 will not be an effective tool to help us achieve this common goal. I am sorry that I cannot support it, but I look forward to working with the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka and all hon. members to ensure that Canadians are as safe as possible and can live free from all forms of extremism and violence.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you again for being here.

I want to take off just a little bit from what my colleague Ms. Damoff was talking about. You mentioned in your previous testimony, Mr. Nesbitt, I believe it was, that the culture of security agencies to protect information is a barrier to centralizing information and that ensuring that the right information gets to the right people in a timely manner is problematic.

Would you say that Bill C-59 is well placed to deal with this issue; that is, this mandatory reporting agency that compels information rather than sitting back and waiting? Are we dealing with this right with respect to Bill C-59 being the mechanism and the way it's going to play out?

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

Would you suggest, then, that there might be an opportunity to strengthen Bill C-59 by adding some provisions that have to do with this specifically?

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

To follow up, in 2015, in an article you authored for the National Post, you wrote that “Canada cannot claim to have taken the threat of ISIL funding seriously in the way the U.S. has. Canada’s sanctions, legislation and enforcement are outdated, under-funded and limited in scope.”

Does Bill C-59 address this issue of terrorist group funding in a meaningful way?

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

Thank you.

Professor Nesbitt, in your testimony on the national security review, you suggested that there needed to be better coordination of agencies and organizations.

Is this achieved here in Bill C-59? Do you see the new NSIRA as an ideal group to conduct this centralized information collection and analysis and then to put it together in a bigger picture?

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

Yes. It's in a different form in Bill C-59 than it was in C-51, if I am correct.

[Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer, National Office, B'nai Brith Canada]

Thank you. I will be sharing my time with Mr. Matas.

We thank the committee for inviting us to appear. I will provide some introductory remarks. My colleague David Matas, our senior legal counsel, will elaborate on some of our key points on the proposed legislation.

B'nai Brith Canada is this country's oldest national Jewish organization, founded in 1875, with a long history of defending the human rights of Canadian Jewry and others across the country. We advocate for the interests of the grassroots Jewish community in Canada and for their rights such as freedom of conscience and religion.

B'nai Brith Canada testified before this committee in 2015 and, most recently, in February 2017, on what was then Bill C-51. Our testimony today will develop the same points we had previously expressed, and we will focus on specific areas that touch on our work, particularly part 7.

Our latest audit of anti-Semitic incidents in Canada contains a key truth: Jews are consistently targeted by hate and bias-related crimes in Canada at a rate higher than that of any other identifiable group. Statistics Canada recently released its report on 2016 police-reported hate crimes, and once again Jews were targeted more than any other group in the country. But police-reported hate crimes are only the tip of the iceberg. We require better tools—data and analysis—to gain greater insights into all hate crimes and to do a better job of countering them.

Bill C-59 includes proposals to change the Criminal Code aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the terrorist entity listing regime. We endorse those proposals providing for a staggered ministerial review of listed entities and granting the minister the authority to amend the names, including aliases, of listed entities.

In the past, B'nai Brith has been supportive of measures to empower security officials to criminalize advocacy and promotion of terrorism, and seize terrorist propaganda. We supported these measures to deny those intent on inspiring, radicalizing, or recruiting Canadians to commit acts of terror and who exploit the legal leeway to be clever but dangerous with their words. Bill C-59 seeks to change the law's articulation of this offence from “advocates or promotes” to “counselling” the commission of a terrorism offence. This is a weakening of the law that we believe is unhelpful. We have noted the assurances provided by the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, but we are still uncertain that such a change, which in our view weakens the law, is needed.

The change of advocacy and promotion to “counselling” also impacts on the definition of “terrorism propaganda”. Bill C-59 would remove the advocacy and promotion of terrorism offences in general from the definition. This is also a weakening of the law.

We accept that the right to freedom of expression is an important consideration, but the right of potential victims to be free from terrorism and the threat of terrorism must be a greater priority.

The importance of a clear articulation of the penalties for advocacy and promotion of terrorism should include the glorification of terrorism, something that should be of concern to all of us.

These are specific points I wanted to raise. There are others that, while not specifically part of the proposed amendments to Bill C-59, are intimately associated and are of interest and concern to B'nai Brith Canada. There are further points here. I'd like to highlight some.

The continuing manifestation of anti-Semitism, hate crimes, and hate speech in Canada affects not only the Jewish community. B'nai Brith Canada sees these worrying trends as national security issues. Organizations such as ours working with law enforcement agencies at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels must address these issues collaboratively.

The government's framework to counter youth radicalization is also extremely important. We endorse the work of the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence. We look forward to a stronger dialogue with them.

How can we collaborate in the more effective monitoring of groups engaged in hate speech or incitement directed at children, including those using coded messages that are nonetheless threatening, even where these might fall short of actual crimes? This is very much the focus in countering radicalization at an early stage, where civil society can have better dialogue with law enforcement.

How can we ensure that government agencies shun questionable organizations and groups, particularly those that receive government grants and nonetheless are operating in ways inimical to the fundamental rights and freedoms of Canadian society? We would welcome a channel of dialogue for this purpose.

Lastly, how can we better engage in dialogue with the Canada Revenue Agency to ensure diligent follow-up to complaints regarding organizations engaged in or supporting those expressing hate speech at odds with their charitable status?

There are other points, as I mentioned, in our paper. I'm sure we can answer those in questions.

I'd like to cede the floor to my colleague David Matas.

[Prof. Michael Nesbitt]

Thank you so much.

Let me start by thanking you all for this wonderful opportunity and for undertaking the crucial task of reviewing Bill C-59. It is truly indeed an honour and a privilege to be here today and to sit with you.

I have been asked to focus my attention today on part 3 of Bill C-59, the proposed CSE act, and that is what I intend to do. In general, there is no question to me that updating the antiquated authorities governing the CSE and putting the establishment on solid statutory footing is vitally important. As a result, I am strongly in favour of the initiative to craft a CSE act. Indeed, it is obvious to me that the result of this endeavour is a carefully crafted piece of legislation that tries hard to balance the operational needs of CSE to protect Canada's national security interests with Canada's commitment to democracy and the rule of law.

Obviously, given its size and complexity, there will also be much work to do. That simply goes with the territory. In this regard, I have had the distinct benefit of reading the briefs and testimonies of the witnesses that have already presented to this committee. While each guest has offered thoughtful commentary that I encourage you to strongly consider, my overarching sense is that none of us will foresee all the legal or operational challenges to come.

This is the reality of dealing with such a large, important, complex, and highly technical bill. Therefore, more than anything else, it will be vitally important that the current review of the CSE act is thorough and rigorous and that such rigorous review and oversight continues, particularly in the early days and years. This is not an act that should look precisely as it does now, by this summer, or when it is first reviewed, years after coming into force. It will have to be updated to keep pace with technological, operational, and legal developments.

In my mind, the best bet is to focus on robust review and oversight, such that, the issues that do arise in the coming days and years come to the attention of Parliament, to the public, and to the CSE itself, and that there is an opportunity to make the necessary corrections when the time comes.

Neither the law nor Canada's security is well served, if the CSE's legal and/or operational fault lines are kept in the shadows, and it is my sense that the CSE would agree with that sentiment. For this reason, I would start by encouraging you to adopt Professor Kent Roach's recommendation that the review contemplated in part 9 of the act take place sooner, rather than later.

The same goes for the CSE Commissioner's recommendation with regard to the need for the proposed intelligence commissioner to produce an annual report on his or her authorizations, to be tabled in both Houses yearly. Also, there is the need to ensure that any activities that implicate a reasonable expectation of privacy, and thus implicate section 8 of the charter, by necessity, are properly overseen by the intelligence commissioner.

Here, I have three things in mind. First, the CSE Commissioner has recommended that proposed section 37(3) of the CSE act be amended to require the IC approval of ministerial authorizations to extend foreign intelligence operations. Indeed, if the original operation requires IC approval, so too should any follow-up. Arguably, the IC will have more information on which to base a decision at this re-authorization stage. More to the point, it is at this later stage that we will really see whether, and how much, incidental collection of Canadian content is forming a part of the foreign intelligence collection.

This brings me to my second point fairly neatly. I encourage you to focus your legal review of the proposed CSE act on those sections that implicate the collection of incidental information not, as we commonly say, directed at Canadians. In the past, including recently in both the U.S. and Canada, we have seen that lack of oversight over just this sort of incidentally collected information can cause great legal and political controversy that I don't believe anyone is looking for.

In the context of the proposed CSE act, I would then encourage you to adopt Professor Craig Forcese's call to amend subsections 23(3) dealing with the collection of foreign intelligence, and 23(4) dealing with cybersecurity. CSE is made to seek ministerial authorization, and thus IC oversight, where its activities will contravene an act of Parliament, as it currently states, or involve the acquisition of information in which a Canadian or person in Canada has a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Our charter demands oversight where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. Therefore, it is very hard to see how, without ministerial authorization and IC oversight, the bulk collection of information that implicates the reasonable expectation of privacy, which under the current wording could be permitted, would hold up in any court of law in Canada.

Third and finally, I believe that you have heard testimony that has expressed concern about the collection of publicly available data, without the oversight of the IC. I'd be happy to provide more detail here during the question period. For now, I will simply say that one can certainly be sympathetic to the carve-out for publicly available data. If the public can access it, surely there is no need for the CSE to get approval to do the same, or so the theory might go.

But not all publicly available information is the same, and bulk publicly accessible information in the hands of the state is a very different thing indeed from that information in the hands of an individual like you or me. For example, unlawfully obtained information, hacked passwords for example, can become public but nevertheless will also be thought of as private information—at least in the eyes of those who hold those passwords. Moreover, discrete pieces of public information may seem harmless on their own, but when harnessed together by the state to produce big data analytics that can also be publicly purchased and then collected as one piece of information, the amalgam of public information can offer very private insights into the lives of individuals. Of course, all of this adds to the thinking, which is already present with respect to some publicly available information, that in the right context public information can itself implicate a reasonable expectation of privacy and thus implicate section 7 of the charter once again.

Put another way, just because it was accessed publicly, does not mean it doesn't implicate the privacy protections of our charter. This will, of course, have ripple effects for how that information can be used and shared. With IC oversight, for example, such private “public” information might be shared with the RCMP for prosecutorial purposes. Without IC oversight, information collected in violation of the charter will not likely be able to be used in support of such prosecutions.

In short, unless CSE's collection of public information is brought under the purview of the IC, there is real reason to fear that we have both a security and a liberty concern here.

Thank you very much for your time.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

The work that both of your organizations are doing, making sure that our private lives are well protected and our rights are well protected, is needed. We salute that.

I had the privilege of leading more than a dozen consultations on Bill C-59 in the first year I was here. People were very loud, on both sides of the fence. There were those who wanted to have a bit of protection, and those who accepted the fact that we need to maybe compromise—if the word works—part of our privacy in order to make sure we are safe.

I'm sure you did a lot of research here and there to make sure you got the most precise and value-added comments supporting both sides of the fence. What is the nature of the comments you received from those who accept reducing their privacy in order to be more secure?

[Laura Tribe]

I think one of our concerns is that it's unclear what publicly available means. We would love to have that addressed through the amendments to Bill C-59, so that it is really clear on exactly what these things do or don't mean so they aren't left to law enforcement to interpret themselves. With publicly available information, unless it explicitly says that people are not allowed to purchase commercially available information, to purchase huge datasets, then, as far as we're concerned, that's still a possibility and a real concern for us.

We would put forward the idea that the ability to Google everything and start recording all of those datasets is problematic. Collecting that mass amount of information, in general, is of concern. Additionally, proactively purchasing and growing those datasets without any direct targets, without any clear suspicion or motivation is really concerning as citizens who are trying to live our lives, who are feeling like we are victims or targets or suspicious actors in our own state. The ability to engage as a citizen is really hard to do without putting a lot of information on the Internet right now. Feeling like anything you put out there is now also being proactively collected and stored by your own government is quite terrifying.

[Laura Tribe]

I'm not certain what the powers are that CSE would use. I know that based on experts' reading of Bill C-59 and the proposed CSE act, those are the capabilities that are possible within the powers that are being given to CSE. I think that's the concern, that we might not be in a position right now where those are being used, but if we continue to grant those powers, we could be in a place where they are used. That's our concern.

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

I'm having trouble understanding your reasoning. Fundamentally, Canada does not want to take an aggressive position against any international community, but we have to protect ourselves. According to what you've written and what you've provided to the committee, we are giving CSE too much power, but we have to be prepared to defend our institutions and systems.

You see the rise of certain practices in Canada as a potential gateway to intervention abroad. That's what I'm having trouble wrapping my head around. I appreciate that you don't want a cyber-arms race, but we have no choice. We want to protect ourselves, and we need the tools to do so.

Your group, OpenMedia, posted a video on YouTube. According to the video, Bill C-59 will give Canada's electronic spying agency near-limitless powers in the international realm, in terms of what you were saying, and make it possible to spread false information online for the purpose of influencing foreign elections, as the Russians are said to have done in the 2016 U.S. election.

Is it your position that CSE will proactively influence the democracies or elections of other countries?

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming forward today. It's nice to see you again at the committee.

We've had a fair bit of testimony, and I've asked witnesses about the way CSE is using information gathered from the global information infrastructure, and the fact that right now, while they don't spy on Canadians, Canadians' information can get wrapped up in it, whether they're abroad or whether they've been transmitting through this global information infrastructure. Would you recommend that we amend Bill C-59 to clarify that a ministerial authorization should be required when CSE acquires information from or through this global information infrastructure, when a Canadian is implicated in it?

[Timothy McSorley, National Coordinator, International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group]

Thank you. I'm very glad to be able to present today on behalf of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group and our 45 member organizations. I'd like to thank OpenMedia for inviting us to join them today.

I'd like to touch on three main points: first, review and oversight; second, some of the changes to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act; and third, the no-fly list.

Regarding oversight and review, the ICLMG greatly welcomes the creation of the national security and intelligence review agency, as well as the intelligence commissioner. However, we believe there are important ways in which both bodies could be strengthened. We hope the committee and government take this opportunity to ensure that both the NSIRA and the intelligence commissioner have the powers and resources they need to carry out their important work. Others have given feedback, which we largely support, regarding the intelligence commissioner, so I will focus on the NSIRA.

The ICLMG has long supported an overarching review mechanism as a way to ensure Canadians' rights are not violated, and to monitor the effectiveness of Canada's national security activities. Bill C-59 does away with the silos that have restricted the various review agencies' work, which alone is a major improvement.

I would highlight three issues, though, that we think the committee should examine regarding strengthening the NSIRA. First, to ensure independence we suggest that the NSIRA members be appointed via vote in Parliament and not through Governor in Council. Second, the complaints mechanism in the NSIRA act should apply not just to the RCMP, CSIS, the CSE, and security clearances, but be expanded to include, at a minimum, the national security activities of the CBSA as well as Global Affairs Canada, although ideally the complaints mechanism would actually include all federal national security related activities.

Third, SIRC has faced important criticism over the lack of transparency in its complaints system. There is, in fact, an ongoing lawsuit over this issue. We have also raised concerns about SIRC's inability to make binding recommendations. The NSIRA act would transpose these problems onto the new agency. We urge the committee to take this opportunity to improve on the SIRC model and ensure we have a strong, effective, overarching review body.

Next, regarding changes to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, CSIS's threat-reduction powers were introduced with Bill C-51 and were heavily criticized at the time. Bill C-59 attempts to solve some of these issues by restricting the powers to a set list of activities. However, we must reiterate in the strongest possible terms our opposition to granting an intelligence agency, which operates in secret, powers akin to those of law enforcement.

My time does not allow me to go into all our specific concerns, but at the heart of this is that CSIS's creation was meant to separate intelligence activities from law enforcement, and today we continue to have the same concerns we had at that time. Even in cases that require a warrant, we believe that a non-adversarial system will not ensure the protection of a target's civil liberties. We do not believe that this is an issue of “if” the system will violate an individual's rights, but “when”.

We are also concerned about new powers granting CSIS agents immunity for acts or omissions that would otherwise constitute an offence. The Canadian Bar Association, among others, raised serious concerns when these powers were granted to law enforcement officers, calling it antithetical to the rule of law. We believe this even more so when such powers are granted to intelligence agents operating in secret, and we think this section should be removed from Bill C-59.

Finally, regarding the Secure Air Travel Act and the no-fly list, we support the tremendous efforts by the No Fly List Kids and other groups to bring about a redress system. However, we believe the government must go further and address the more fundamental problems with the no-fly list regime. Bill C-59 does not address the due process issues that have been raised since 2007. We cannot condone a system that is used to restrict individuals' travel and to place them on what amounts to a terrorist watch list but does not allow them full access to the information against them, in order to mount a full and adequate defence. We have also yet to be shown that it improves upon Criminal Code provisions already in place that can be used to restrict the activities of an individual suspected of planning a crime. While we appreciate potential solutions put forward by others, such as introducing a special advocate system into the appeals process, we do not believe it is sufficient to restore due process. We maintain our fundamental opposition and call for the repeal of the no-fly list regime.

For more on our positions, we sent a brief to the committee, which I believe was circulated yesterday. I'd also be happy to take any questions, or follow up with any members, following the meeting.

Thank you.

[Laura Tribe, Executive Director, OpenMedia]

Good morning. My name is Laura Tribe, and I am the executive director of OpenMedia, a community-based organization committed to keeping the Internet open, affordable, and surveillance-free.

I'm here today with Tim McSorley of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, who were unfortunately not invited by the committee to testify in these proceedings, but whose contributions OpenMedia believes to be critical for an informed discussion of Bill C-59.

OpenMedia's work on privacy and digital security dates back to Bills C-13 and C-30, but has focused more recently on the serious security violations introduced by the previous government's Bill C-51. The OpenMedia community's lengthy efforts on these issues include producing “Canada's Privacy Plan”, a positive vision for the future of privacy in Canada that was crowdsourced from over 125,000 contributors; over 300,000 people speaking up against Bill C-51; two national days of action against Bill C-51, organized in partnership with organizations across the country; over 15,000 citizen comments submitted to the government's national security consultation; and over 6,000 submissions to this committee's written consultation on Bill C-59.

Public Safety Canada's report summarizing the national security consultation results showed that Canadians are overwhelmingly in favour of increased protections for personal privacy. More than four in five responses indicated that their expectation of privacy in the digital world is the same as or higher than in the physical world.

As a result, when Bill C-59 was introduced, we were relieved; it was a sign that change was coming. However, the more we analyzed the bill, the more our worries returned. The changes are less substantive than we had hoped, and invasive new powers were even introduced.

Bill C-59 fails to adequately address the information disclosure provisions and terrorist speech offences brought in by Bill C-51, but also brings in new data collection, cybersecurity, and information-sharing powers that further threaten our privacy and security.

Today this committee has a chance to make this right. Over 6,000 Canadians submitted their concerns about Bill C-59 via OpenMedia's written submission to this consultation. Since then, in the past two weeks, we've had almost 10,000 more Canadians sign a new petition concerning the expanded cyber-operations powers proposed in the CSE act included within Bill C-59. It's addressed to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security and reads:

“As a concerned Canadian, I am urging you to address the dangerous new powers being proposed for CSE in Bill C-59. Throughout the process of reforming Bill C-51, Canadians have been very clear on the need to scale back the drastic and invasive national security measures in the bill.

“Public Safety Canada's own 'What We Learned' report, which formed the basis of Bill C-59, confirmed that a majority of stakeholders and experts called for existing measures to be scaled back or repealed completely, and that most participants in the consultations 'opted to err on the side of protecting individual rights and freedoms rather than granting additional powers to national security agencies and law enforcement...'.

“The new active and defensive cyber-operations powers proposed in Bill C-59 for CSE are directly opposed to the wishes of the majority of Canadians. We asked for privacy, but instead we got an out-of-control spy agency with even more extreme powers than before.

“Security and privacy experts throughout Canada have expressed in great detail the issues with the proposed bill and the changes that need to be made to protect the privacy and security of Canadians. Experts have warned of the consequences of granting powers like these, powers that will be all the more dangerous given the lack of adequate oversight included in the bill.

“I would like to point you to the 'Analysis of the Communications Security Establishment Act and Related Provisions in Bill C-59' report, produced by the Citizen Lab and the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, CIPPIC. The recommendations laid out in this report should be adopted by the SECU committee.

“In a world and time where digital technologies are being used by so many to threaten our digital safety, we need our government to be helping make the world better, not actively undermining our security.”

As of this morning, our petition has been signed by 9,633 Canadians. On behalf of these signatories, plus the over 300,000 against Conservative Bill C-51, and the other concerned civil society groups who have been unable to join these proceedings themselves, we respectfully ask that you make things right. We are asking you, our elected representatives, to stand up for our privacy and continue the work of repealing Bill C-51. Digital security is critical to Canada's infrastructure, economy, and future. Please do not compromise this in the name of fear or following other countries' bad practices to lead us in a race to the bottom. We need to be stronger than that.

Thank you.

[Dominique Peschard]

Our hope is that the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency can verify that the agencies respect Canadians' rights in the course of their work. That is why we think the agency must first have the necessary resources, as Mr. Mirza previously mentioned. Second, the agency must also be seen and act somewhat as the Privacy Commissioner of Canada does with respect to privacy. In other words, the agency must be clearly seen as an independent organization that also has expertise and whose mandate is to be accountable to the public.

We think that what's wrong about Bill C-59 is that, under it, the agency would report much more to the department and the government than to the people on the way the agencies conduct their business. Bill C-59 could be amended to make the agency operate more as a watchdog reports to the public on the way the agencies respect rights in carrying out their mandates.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Mirza, let me begin with you and your group. Thank you to both groups for being here today. It's appreciated by the committee.

Mr. Mirza, what would you add to Bill C-59 that you think is absolutely critical for public safety, balancing the need for privacy and rights?

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

Thank you very much.

Thanks to all the witnesses for being here.

My first question is actually for both of you. Currently in Bill C-59 there's no necessity threshold to retain personal information that is disclosed under SCISA. I'm just wondering if you think that an amendment introducing a necessity threshold for the retention of personal information as well as a destruction obligation for information that does not meet the necessity threshold would be helpful to increase transparency and also to protect individuals' privacy.

Maybe I'll first turn to the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association.

[Denis Barrette, Spokesperson, Ligue des droits et libertés]

First of all, the fact that we are abandoning judicial inquiries is one of the welcome aspects of Bill C-59.

Furthermore, it was a fiasco because it was the only time, following the very sad Air India incident, that those provisions were used. However, they were completely ineffective in the Air India trial. We know they did not produce the results desired by the police departments.

In addition, there was a problem with the way it was done: the accused and the media were not informed. The media accidentally learned at the time that a judicial inquiry was under way. If you read the summary of facts in the Air India affair judgment, you will see that this was not a glorious chapter in the history of Canadian law, particularly since it was a tragedy.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Barrette, when you appeared before the Committee, you said that the use of investigative measures in the Air India affair had caused a fiasco and that thought should be given to the necessity of the powers conferred on police officers.

I note that, in clauses 145 and 147 of Bill C-59, we would repeal the investigative measures that have not been used since the Air India affair. I would like you to enlighten us on the fiasco caused by the use of those investigative measures.

[Dominique Peschard, Spokesperson, Ligue des droits et libertés]

I will be giving the presentation on the Ligue's behalf. Both of us will then answer questions.

The Ligue des droits et libertés, the LDL, wishes to thank the members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security for inviting it to testify regarding Bill C-59. Since September 11, 2011, the LDL has made regular representations to defend the rights and freedoms established in international instruments and our charters, and to prevent their violation in the "war on terror."

In the fall of 2016, during public consultations and the hearings of this Committee, the LDL called for the complete withdrawal of Bill C-51, which we considered dangerous and unnecessary. The LDL also called for the introduction of an oversight mechanism for national security activities, similar to the recommendations of the Arar Commission. Bill C-59 addresses these issues only to a certain degree.

First, we welcome the establishment of the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency. However, some conditions must be met before the Agency can fulfil its mandate as watchdog. The size of the task awaiting the Agency should not be underestimated. It should not simply receive public complaints and reports from the organizations it oversees. It should have the authority to initiate investigations itself.

In addition, the Agency must be specifically mandated to verify that organizations are carrying out their national security activities in compliance with the rights and freedoms established in the Constitution. This mandate must also include the review of ministerial directions to ensure compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. On this point, we would like to note that ministerial directions concerning information sharing must be amended to be consistent with the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

A significant number of organizations are involved in intelligence sharing. The Arar Commission counted 24 in 2005. The oversight mechanism will have a considerable task, and it will be an empty shell if it lacks the material, human and financial resources needed to do its job. We would also like to note that provisions in C-59 concerning the Agency's public accountability do not go far enough, and an annual report is insufficient. The minister as well as the public and Parliament should be informed when the Agency discovers practices that are non-compliant with the Charter.

The fact that the Agency's recommendations are non-binding is also a concern. If the recommendations remain non-binding, the organizations concerned should be required to report publicly on the steps they have taken to implement the recommendations.

Lastly, the Agency should have the authority and resources to work with similar organizations from other countries. National security and intelligence organizations cooperate internationally, and the agencies that monitor them should be able to do likewise.

The next issue is the authority given to the CSE. The CSE can intercept anything in the international information infrastructure, regardless of any federal or foreign law. For example, the CSE can intercept communications from U.S. citizens, and the National Security Agency can do the same regarding Canadian citizens, for the purpose of sharing this information. Bill C-59 must prohibit Canadian agencies from receiving information on Canadians from other agencies that they would not have been able to obtain under Canadian law.

While Bill C-59 provides better guidance for the more worrisome provisions of C-51, some fundamental problems remain. The repeal of judicial investigations is a positive move. However, an individual could still be placed in preventive detention for seven days without being charged, even though C-59 raised the threshold for this detention. We urge that this measure and any previous provisions concerning this measure be removed.

There is major concern over the powers given to CSIS, as set out in Bill C-51 and amended by C-59. It is unacceptable for CSIS to be authorized to compile datasets on Canadians. There are no limits on the data that CSIS can compile, provided that the data is considered "public." Judges may approve the compilation of other datasets based on a very weak threshold. The only requirement is that the data "is likely to assist" CSIS.

These provisions make it legal for CSIS to continue to spy and compile dossiers on protest groups, environmental protection groups, Indigenous groups and any other organization that is simply exercising its democratic rights. CSIS can count on the support of the CSE, which is also authorized to collect, use, analyze, retain, and disclose publicly available information, and whose mandate includes providing technical and operational assistance to agencies responsible for law enforcement and security. These datasets also pave the way for big data and data mining, which in turn leads to the compilation of lists of individuals based on their risk profile. We are opposed to this approach to security, which places thousands of innocent people on suspect lists and targets Muslims disproportionately.

Bill C-59 allows CSIS to continue to address threats through take active measures such as disruption. These measures can limit a right or freedom guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms if so authorized by a judge. It is important to note that this judicial authorization is granted in secret and ex parte, so that the persons whose rights are being attacked cannot appear before the judge to plead their "innocence" or argue that the measures are unreasonable. They may also be unaware that CSIS is behind their problems, which would make it impossible for them to lodge a complaint after the fact. These powers recall the abuses uncovered by the Macdonald Commission, such as the RCMP stealing the list of PQ members, burning down a barn, and issuing fake FLQ news releases to fight the separatist threat. We are therefore strongly opposed to granting these powers to CSIS.

We are extremely disappointed to see that the Secure Air Travel Act preserves the no-fly list. Persons are not told why their names have been placed on the list and, if they appeal, the judge hears the case ex parte based on evidence that the individuals cannot challenge and that may even be inadmissible in a court of law.

The Human Rights Committee condemned this lack of effective recourse in its 2015 comments to Canada. It has never been proven that this list increases the safety of air travel, making the situation even more unacceptable. England, France, and other countries that are targeted by terrorists far more than Canada have no such lists, and the safety of their aircraft is not affected. We ask that the Secure Air Travel Act be repealed and any no-fly list be destroyed.

The Security of Canada Information Sharing Act allows 17 government agencies to share among themselves information that is in the possession of the Canadian government. While C-59 amends the preamble to the Act to state that information must be disclosed in a manner that respects privacy, the Act's provisions contradict this very principle. As the Privacy Commissioner told the Committee on December 7, 2017, the Act does not comply with privacy requirements. The threshold for disclosing and receiving information must be strict necessity. We also support the Commissioner's request regarding the role he should play in enforcing this Act.

In conclusion, we would like to submit the following list of recommendations regarding Bill C-59. While some of the bill's provisions are beneficial, a number of other provisions should be amended or deleted to truly protect Canadians' rights and freedoms.

Our recommendations are as follows: that the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency have the material, human and financial resources needed to carry out its mandate; that the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency be mandated to ensure that national security organizations carry out their activities in a manner consistent with the rights and freedoms established in our constitution; that the Agency report publicly on any rights violations that it has found and on its recommendations; that the organizations concerned be required to report publicly on the way in which they have carried out the Agency's recommendations; that, in the course of its mandate, the Agency be authorized to share information with equivalent agencies in other countries; that Canadian organizations not be allowed to obtain information on Canadians from other international organizations that they would not have been able to obtain themselves under Canadian law; that Bill C-59 repeal section 83.3(4) of the Criminal Code authorizing individuals to be placed in preventive detention for seven days without being charged; that "strict necessity" be the threshold for disclosing and receiving information under the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act; that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada be mandated to ensure that Canadians' privacy is respected under the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act; that CSlS be stripped of the power to address threats through active measures such as disruption; that the Secure Air Travel Act be repealed and any no-fly list be destroyed.

Thank you.

[Faisal Mirza, Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association]

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. On behalf of the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association, thank you for the invitation to provide submissions about Bill C-59.

I will start with our background. This year will be our 20th anniversary. We are based in Toronto, with approximately 200 members across Canada who work in all areas of the legal field, including private practice and government.

In terms of advocacy, we have consistently appeared at the Supreme Court of Canada dealing with balancing individual rights with state interests. We also assist the legal community and the general public with legal education.

Our underlying goal is to promote a justice system that is fair. Since 2001, we have had the privilege of providing testimony to parliamentary and senate committees responsible for considering national security policy and law.

In terms of my background, I am a criminal defence lawyer with 16 years of experience mitigating cases at all levels of court. I have acted as counsel on several national security cases. I am also an instructor on national security at the University of Toronto. Today I am speaking to you in my role as the chair of the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association.

In terms of my contribution, I wish to discuss two fundamental areas.

The first is the positive. We see the national security intelligence review agency as having great potential, especially if it's staffed properly.

Second, I will raise our sources of concern. In particular, this bill does not address a key area of security, the legal threshold for searches of digital devices at the border. Further, there are real concerns about a lack of fairness and charter compliance regarding listed entities, which are noted at part 7 of the bill.

I'll deal first with the national security intelligence review agency. This is at part 1. For simplicity, I'll refer to it as NSIRA. This institution has the potential to be a strong pillar of our democracy by providing robust review of national security agencies and their related partners. With more powers being granted to intelligence agencies to deal with evolving threats, this agency reflects the greater need for effective review and oversight. It certainly has a broad mandate, which we think is positive, including to review the activities of CSIS, the CSE, and the RCMP; to investigate complaints against those services; to direct studies and to prepare annual reports; and to report to the Minister of Public Safety.

This strong mandate is a reflection of the expanding powers that are being provided to different agencies in order to effectively conduct national security operations. Clearly there is more power to collect data, more power to share information, more power to conduct surveillance, greater protection of informants, and more powers to engage in preventive measures.

All of this is primarily done either ex parte or behind closed doors. As a result, it is critical to have a very strong review agency to try to prevent mistakes before they happen.

Therefore, how do we ensure that a robust review agency is able to address its role in a fair manner? This government has indicated that it is committed to representative institution, and NSIRA will handle the review of security activities and investigate complaints. It is our submission to this committee that for it to be effective, it is essential that it be composed of a diverse group of persons. It should not fall into the trappings of ineffective oversight bodies that are staffed by people who lack independence and impartiality.

In the 2006 response to the Arar tragedy, recommendations 19 and 20 specifically advised that the RCMP, CBSA, and CSIS improve composition and training of their staff to prevent mistakes based on racial and religious profiling. The same logic must apply to NSIRA. Our concerns are that, as evidenced by the recent lawsuit brought by several CSIS employees alleging that some CSIS managers discriminate and stereotype against Muslims, there is little accountability when this misconduct is reported, and as a result, there needs to be stronger training, better oversight, and diverse composition.

In addition to NSIRA's members, which are statutorily governed to be no fewer than three persons and no more than six persons, there will obviously be a significant staff that's going to assist with investigations and provide assistance to those members. There will be an executive director, who will assist with staffing the agency.

It is our view that individuals in those qualified high-level positions must be aware of the community's perspective. The nature of the information to be drawn and the review of decisions would benefit from having a diversity of perspective.

Our friends in law enforcement have confirmed that working with the Muslim community is key to identifying threats and solving major cases. There are numerous instances where that has happened, but there are also instances of things going wrong and members of the community being mistreated by those very same agencies. For NSIRA to have legitimacy, it must recognize that perspective.

It would be helpful if there were some statutory guidance with respect to the required qualifications and composition of the agency members and from where people are going to be drawn in order to staff it. For instance, having one from the judiciary, one person from academia, and one person from the community with knowledge of these issues would be an important addition to the legislation.

Moving ahead, my concern about what's missing from Bill C-59 is that there needs to be some statutory guidance on when the CBSA may search digital devices at the border. We can debate and go over at length the fact that the bill has made progress with respect to balancing individual rights with state interests, but the reality on the ground is all of that can be circumvented by searches of individuals' digital devices at the border. The Customs Act needs to be revisited and reviewed. It is legislation from the 1980s, when digital devices were not the norm, and it contemplated searches of people's luggage.

The use of data collection is the future of national security and the devices that people carry with them obviously are integral in terms of preserving a balance between individual interests and state interests and in protecting our security. In today's era, most people travel. Returning Canadians can easily have their digital devices searched without restriction. A better legal threshold that reflects the nature of the technology needs to be established. Currently it's the position of customs and the government that there is no legal threshold to search individuals' cellphones, laptops, etc., when returning at the border. Even with a reduced expectation of privacy in that context, it becomes critical that there at least be some legal threshold; otherwise, the provisions in the Criminal Code or amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act or amendments to try to protect information sharing become easily circumvented when individuals are coming back through the border with no protections whatsoever.

The last point I'll touch on very briefly is with respect to part 7 of the bill, regarding listed entities. There is a fundamental omission in the Criminal Code legislation that needs to be addressed and fixed.

Listed entities, as you are aware, are currently listed by process of an administrative regime whereby the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, based on a balance of probabilities, determines whether an entity should be listed or not.

The difficulty is that organizations whose assets have then been stripped and frozen have no ability to hire counsel in order to engage in submissions with the minister or to engage in the statutory judicial review. In fact, it's our understanding that this omission results in a constitutional violation. There's a section 7 breach tied in with a section 10 breach, in that these entities are not given an opportunity to hire and retain counsel in order to defend themselves. That constitutional frailty could be a significant problem for this legislation in the future.

Thank you for the opportunity. That's my submission at this time, subject to your questions.

[Chantelle Bowers]

With respect to complaints before the organization, the access to information in that regard is more narrow. Up until now, we've had access to everything, including solicitor-client privilege documentation. Now we notice that in Bill C-59, that access to information is limited. It specifically removes solicitor-client privileged information, for instance. That's the problem we were highlighting.

[Pierre Blais]

I might look at the problem the other way round. The entity that has been added to the limited group is the committee of parliamentarians. I hope you're not suggesting that it's parliamentarians who present a threat.

This new committee of parliamentarians will take a more direct approach to the facts. CSIS has been around for 30 years, and I believe in all modesty that our experience has shown that we haven't been in the news for the wrong reasons. We have managed to maintain confidentiality.

Confidentiality is still a very important factor, but trust is as well. We need to establish that trust and a sense of responsibility among the organizations not here contemplated.

Consider this example. The Department of Finance is not used to seeing someone come in to determine whether something isn't right from a national security standpoint. If that department, or the Department of Agriculture and Agri-food or Transport or any other federal government entity, is concerned by a national security issue, it should be glad that independent organizations are verifying whether its work is being done right and that it isn't making any mistakes in its national-security-related actions.

You must have noticed that Canadians would like to know more about what is going on. They also want to be certain the law is obeyed. I think Bill C-59 meets that demand.

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

Thank you for your answer.

Part 4 of Bill C-59, which concerns CSIS more specifically, contains a point respecting the thresholds of what is authorized. It concerns new measures and ways of making applications. Do you think these changes proposed in Bill C-59 can reduce CSIS's ability to disrupt threats?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here today, ladies and gentlemen. Your assistance is very important.

I will begin with you, Mr. Fadden.

You said at the outset that you would have voted for Bill C-59 at second reading. However, in accordance with the procedure that was used, the bill was not considered at second reading and was referred to the committee with the recommendation from theHon. Ralph Goodale (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness) that the parliamentarians around this table propose serious and worthwhile amendments.

You more specifically reviewed part 4, but, if you had any changes to suggest to the bill as a whole today, what would they be?

[Pierre Blais]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss Bill C-59. I will focus my presentation on two main areas. The first part will lay out SIRC's high-level response to the bill. In the second, I will offer a few suggestions for improvements to the language of the bill based on SIRC's experience in this area.

This is a positive time to be working in the area of review and accountability for intelligence in Canada. Not long ago, I was here to discuss the creation of a committee of parliamentarians in the context of Bill C-22. I'm here again, this time to discuss the government's proposal to create the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, or NSIRA. I will use this abbreviation. I hate using those acronyms of NSIRA, NSICOP, SIRC, CSARS, etc., but we have to. I will go on with NSIRA, which will be responsible for reviewing intelligence and national security activities across government.

Indeed, as included in the bill before you, NSIRA is to review any activity of CSIS or CSE carried out in any other department or agency that relates to national security or intelligence and any other matter related to national security referred to it by the minister. This will bring a dedicated national security review of the type that SIRC has been doing for more than 30 years to a large number of other departments and agencies, including in particular the CBSA and the RCMP. This will answer the gap that so many, including SIRC, have commented on over the years.

The recently created National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, or NSICOP, has been added to the proposals respecting the new intelligence commissioner. Together the three entities will represent a substantial change in the accountability system for intelligence in Canada.

I will just take a minute to describe for the committee the mandate and responsibilities of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, or SIRC. I will stress that SIRC is an independent external review body that reports to Parliament on CSIS's activities.

SIRC has three core responsibilities: to carry out in-depth reviews of CSIS's activities, to conduct investigations into complaints, and to certify the CSIS director's annual report to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. In essence, SIRC was created to provide assurance to Parliament, and by extension to Canadians, that CSIS investigates and reports on threats to national security in a manner that respects the law and the rights of Canadians.

SIRC has discharged its mandate faithfully over its history, and it has had an impact. This was demonstrated most recently by the Federal Court of Canada decision of October 2016 that confirmed SIRC's long-standing practice of assessing the lawfulness of CSIS activities, including how CSIS applies the “strictly necessary” threshold to its collection and retention of information, which is one element that is all over the place now. Through its review work, SIRC contributed to high-level discussions on the type of intelligence that CSIS can collect and retain, as we see in the dataset provision of Bill C-59.

But the legislation makes clear that the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, or NSIRA, is an entirely new entity, to be created—not from SIRC or the Office of the CSE Commissioner—but from a desire to push the accountability agenda forward in Canada. SIRC and the Office of the CSE Commissioner will be dissolved when NSIRA is created.

SIRC, along with its partners and counterparts in the review community, have long called for change of this nature that will break down the silos that have hampered review for so long.

When the decision was made in Canada more than 30 years ago to create SIRC, it represented some of the best, most forward thinking at the time on accountability for intelligence. But this is a new era, with new challenges for accountability. Canada has an opportunity to again fashion itself after the best of thinking on accountability, taking into account the important experience of others.

The parliamentary element of accountability means designing a committee of parliamentarians, which, I imagine, you already know. I am pleased that the government did not stop at the creation of NSICOP and has included equal attention to expert review.

Internationally, we can see our allies similarly adding substance to the review and oversight structures responsible for national security. In the U.K., there is the new Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Office. In New Zealand, there has been a doubling of the size of its inspector-general. In Australia, expanding the size and remit of its inspector-general for intelligence is actively being discussed as we speak.

Canada's deliberations on accountability are happening at a time when there has been a shift in thinking on accountability for intelligence agencies, translating into expectations among the public of greater transparency. To that end, one of the great strengths of the bill is the provision that allows for the agency to issue special reports when it decides that it is in the public interest to report on any matter related to its mandate. The new agency will issue these reports to the appropriate minister, who must then cause them to be tabled before each House of Parliament.

This will allow the new agency to signal a significant issue to the minister and the public in a timely way. SIRC is not currently able to do this, and it has been a limitation for SIRC in its ability to present the results of its work in a timelier manner. In light of the government's recent statements regarding transparency, this is an important provision. At the same time, we note that there are no provisions in the bill requiring CSIS to issue a public report to match the requirement of CSE in this regard. In the interests of transparency, SIRC views this as an important gap that SIRC puts to the committee to consider in its deliberations.

The proposed legislation makes clear that SIRC and its experience will be central to what is coming. The transitional provisions clarify that, at the coming into force of part 1, SIRC members, of whom I am one, are to be continued as NSIRA members for the remainder of their term. In the majority of—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I call this meeting to order. I see we have quorum. Time is always the enemy of a really interesting discussion and presentation.

This is the 95th meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. We, of course, have the reference of dealing with Bill C-59.

We have two very well-known and experienced witnesses before us. I'll simply go in the order you're presented on the order paper. From the the Security Intelligence Review Committee, we have Pierre Blais, chair, accompanied by Chantelle Bowers, acting executive director. As well, we have Richard Fadden, who is appearing as an individual.

Please go ahead, Mr. Blais.

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

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

Mr. Edelmann, I want to ask you questions given your background. If you were to add something to Bill C-59 that you think is absolutely critical for public safety, balancing the need for rights and privacy, what would you suggest that be?

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

Amendments have been made to the wording of Bill C-59, in order to make it more specific or broader.

[Dr. Christina Szurlej, Endowed Chair, Atlantic Human Rights Centre, St. Thomas University, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair, Mr. Clerk, and honourable committee members, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you regarding Canada's national security framework.

Following a set of national consultations regarding the Anti-terrorism Act, formerly Bill C-51, the Liberal government drafted Bill C-59, An Act respecting national security matters to replace the Anti-terrorism Act.

I have reviewed the bill and will comment on it through a human rights lens. Securing the safety of its populace is a fundamental function of government. It is without question that government and its agencies must be equipped with the means necessary to prevent, counter, and address evolving threats in the digital age. In that same vein, a balance must be struck between securing public safety and respecting rights, ensuring any limitations placed on rights are necessary, proportionate, and reasonable.

As a human rights professor, I am pleased to see language recognizing the need to maintain respect for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the rule of law, accountability, and transparency within Bill C-59. The establishment of a national security and intelligence review agency with a mandate to review national security activities, consider complaints, and advance investigations is arguably the most significant advancement.

The bill also establishes an intelligence commissioner to review the reasonableness of Canadian Security Intelligence Service and Canadian Security Establishment authorizations regarding, inter alia, intelligence gathering and cybersecurity. Though Bill C-59 has addressed some shortcomings found in the Anti-terrorism Act of 2015, concerns remain regarding its impact on human rights, particularly the rights to privacy, freedom of assembly and association, freedom of expression, liberty and security, democratic rights, due process rights, and anti-discrimination protections.

Due to time constraints, this testimony focuses on concerns with amendments to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act regarding the collection, querying, exploitation, and retention of datasets. The act defines a “dataset” as the collection of information stored as an electronic record and characterized by common subject matter. A dataset could thus encompass any thematic electronic documentation, provided it is a publicly available dataset, relates primarily to non-Canadians living outside of Canada, or constitutes an approved class.

Though it is reassuring that a newly established intelligence commissioner would review classes of datasets to safeguard against abuse, the remainder of section 11.05(2) is read with caution. Use of the term “publicly available dataset” is misleading, as it can include information that is considered private under the Privacy Act, but is available in the public arena, potentially without the consent or knowledge of the person concerned. In other words, publicly available data can extend to private information made public on request, by subscription or by purchase. Rather than exploit this vulnerability by legitimizing and encouraging the commodification and exploitation of the public's data, the Government of Canada has a positive obligation to protect its populace against infringements by third parties that may compromise individual privacy in exchange for profit.

Granting government authority to collect publicly available data appears innocuous, but can reveal highly personal information in violation of the right to privacy. I also caution Canadians against blindly accepting mass government surveillance of foreigners. Though targeted surveillance may be necessary to thwart legitimate threats to peace and security, mass surveillance opens the door for foreign nations not accountable to Canadian voters to collect information about Canadians and share it with our governments, other nations, or corporations.

Under these circumstances, the Government of Canada could also place foreigners in danger by revealing compromising information to governments with poor human rights records. Differential respect for the privacy of Canadians versus non-Canadians outside the country also constitutes a violation of non-discrimination under the international covenant on civil and political rights.

The United Nations special rapporteur on the right to privacy has maintained that the distinction between one's own citizens and foreigners is not in compliance with the principles of the universal right to privacy.

Failing to properly restrain invasions of privacy could prompt charter violations of section 8 protecting against reasonable search or seizure or the promotion of presumption of innocence under section 11(d). In order to satisfy that such limitations are “demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society”, the onus is on the Government of Canada to prove these limitations are of sufficient importance, rationally connected to the objective, minimally impair rights, and produce an outcome that outweighs the gravity of the problem it seeks to address.

Though protecting public safety and national security is of sufficient importance to warrant a well-defined, targeted invasion of privacy, the mass collection of data that could lead to results that are relevant to the performance of CSIS's duties and functions is not sufficiently important to encroach on constitutionally protected rights.

Similarly, blanket collection of datasets merely “relevant” to the duties and functions of the service fails to demonstrate a direct rational connection to protecting public safety. If there is no direct connection to maintaining public safety and national security, why does the Government of Canada consider these proposed powers to be a necessary component of the national security framework?

The United Nations special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism has warned that “restrictions falling short of being necessary...constitute 'arbitrary' interference” with the right to privacy. The special rapporteur further stressed that, “for a restriction to be permissible, it is not enough that it serves one of the enumerated legislative aims; it must also be necessary for reaching the legislative aim.” Given that the aim of Bill C-59 is to protect national security, the blanket collection of any data relevant to the work of CSIS does not satisfy this test.

Information respecting the protection of public safety and national security in Canada should be narrowly defined and collected only “to the extent that is strictly necessary” and when there are reasonable grounds to suspect a threat to the security of Canada. If we allow the bulk collection and storage of personal data without a person's knowledge, consent, or ability to challenge the nature and authenticity of information collected, the next step could be to misuse, alter, deliberately conceal, or manipulate information.

Indeed, the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency Act allows a CSIS director to authorize designated employees to commit direct “acts or omissions that would otherwise constitute offences” in carrying out their duties and responsibilities. Theoretically, the minister could authorize the collection of datasets intended to assist CSIS employees with carrying out otherwise criminal activity. Are these powers consistent with the preamble of Bill C-59, which claims to respect the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the rule of law, as well as accountability and transparency, while championing national security?

Amendments to the act do advance safeguards, but the nature of these safeguards raises concerns. The bill includes provisions calling for this service to delete information and datasets regarding the physical or mental health of an individual, information subject to solicitor-client privilege, and material in foreign datasets regarding Canadian citizens. This suggests some datasets will encapsulate information that should be accorded the highest degree of privacy.

The question is, why would the minister and intelligence commissioner approve a dataset that could potentially reveal this type of information about someone who has done nothing wrong? Further, the amendments should expressly state that accidental collection of such data will result in its total destruction, which clarifies the desired outcome more precisely than using the term “delete”.

The Supreme Court of Canada has emphasized that “the protection of privacy is a prerequisite to individual security, self-fulfilment and autonomy as well as the maintenance of a thriving democratic society.” Though not constitutionally protected itself, the right to privacy is essential for the maximum expression of most rights found under the charter, including freedom of expression; freedom of peaceful assembly; freedom of association; the right to vote; the right to life, liberty, and security; fair trial rights, including prevention of unreasonable search and seizure, protecting the presumption of innocence, and maintaining solicitor-client privilege as part of satisfying the right to a fair trial, particularly, the provision against self-incrimination.

Acknowledging the impact on constitutionally protected rights, any limitation of privacy rights should be justified under section 1 of the charter by applying the Oakes test. If the courts identify—

[Peter Edelmann, Member-at-Large, Immigration Law Section, Canadian Bar Association]

Thank you very much for inviting me to appear before you today.

Bill C-59 proposes complex and major updates to national security law. It would address several decisions of the Federal Court of Canada, and widespread concerns expressed about Bill C-51 in 2015.

The Canadian Bar Association generally supports the goals and structure of Bill C-59 as a positive change, modernizing the legal framework for Canada’s national security infrastructure and increasing transparency, oversight and review, features that have previously been lacking. Our comments and analysis of the proposals in Bill C-59 are offered in hopes of further improving the bill.

Our written submissions provide a number of specific recommendations and I would refer you to those for the more technical amendments we propose. I will use my time today to focus on two or three areas of broader concern.

First of all, we support the creation of the national security and intelligence review agency, the NSIRA. I just have a couple of comments with respect to it but in particular with respect to the mandate. While we commend the decision to avoid language that would unnecessarily restrict the agency's mandate, an overly broad mandate could hinder the agency's ability to focus and assess its performance against its mandate.

In the way that it's drafted now, the NSIRA has responsibility for broad review of any activity of “a department that relates to national security or intelligence”. “Intelligence” is a very broad term. It could include things that are done by anything from the Canada Revenue Agency to Fisheries and Oceans, police departments, etc.

“National security” is also problematic given the multiple definitions that we see in different pieces of legislation. In particular, we remain concerned about the SCISA, the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, or with the amendments that we have today. The breadth of the definition of an “activity that undermines the security of Canada” in section 2 is still very broad and notably it's different from the definition in the CSIS Act of “threats to the security of Canada”. Having two definitions is not helpful. It's confusing and it doesn't provide a clear mandate for national security agencies and in particular for an oversight or review agency.

I would also note in passing that the amendment to the exception in section 2(2) of the SCISA is troubling as it actually substantially reduces the protection under the current version. Several legitimate political activities might be seen on their face as undermining the sovereignty or territorial integrity of Canada.

In the past, we've recommended that there be one coherent, clear definition of “national security” and we continue to be of that view. It's also unclear whether certain other activities fall under the definition of “national security” at all. For example, the Secure Air Travel Act, SATA, does not refer to national security and it's unclear whether the review of SATA activities would fall under the NSIRA or not. In other words, is this national security legislation? Does it fall under NSIRA?

The coordination of the work of the NSIRA with other review agencies is obviously key although we would note that there remain significant gaps in the review framework. The problem is particularly stark with the Canada Border Services Agency, and we've expressed concerns about this lack of independent review of the CBSA in several past submissions.

CBSA remains one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the country and has no independent oversight or review at all. This is not a role that NSIRA should take on although it does highlight the problem of having a vague definition of “national security” because arguably everything that Canada Border Services Agency does could fall into a broad understanding of national security in a vague sense.

Everyday complaints about problems at the border should not be burdening NSIRA and its resources. A specialized review agency is required.

We also have concerns, in particular, with respect to NSIRA's access to information, and in particular that NSIRA would have access to any information other than a cabinet confidence that it deems necessary to conduct its work. This would extend explicitly to information subject to solicitor-client privilege, professional secrecy of advocates and notaries, or litigation privilege, creating an open-ended mechanism to review legal advice given to the government. This is of significant concern to the CBA.

The role of solicitor-client privilege is fundamental to the functioning of our justice system and this is as true for government actors as it is for private actors. It has been argued that privileged information must be made available because the practices of security agencies often depend on the legal advice they receive.

However, without assurances of privilege, legal advice will be sought less often, based on less candid disclosure by client agencies, or worse, sought and received but not documented.

The other problem with respect to the disclosure of solicitor-client privileged information is how the NSIRA then deals with it in its reports. It's not helpful for the NSIRA to have solicitor-client privileged information. What they need is information about how this is actually deployed in the agency, not the advice that was given behind those decisions.

Concerning the intelligence commissioner, the CBA supports the creation of an independent specialized office for the oversight and authorization of activities by the CSE and CSIS. We have generally called for judicial oversight, but we recognize the advantages of a dedicated commissioner with staff and resources to allow effective ongoing oversight.

The nature of the review mandated by sections 14 to 21 of the proposed intelligence commissioner act does create some concerns for us because there's a system of nested reasonableness findings. Instead of the normal process in front of a judge for a warrant where a judge would find whether there are reasonable grounds to issue a warrant, what the legislation currently foresees is that the minister would make a finding on reasonable grounds, and then the intelligence commissioner would review that on a reasonableness standard.

This creates two problems from our perspective. First, it's unclear how much deference that implies. There's an extensive debate in the courts right now around the application of the reasonableness standard at all and how that plays out in terms of deference.

There's no need to bring that confusion into this area, and there is not that confusion around the reasonable grounds standard, so there's no reason for this nested reasonableness finding other than creating a level of confusion as to how much oversight is actually being provided, in particular because it's going to be provided behind closed doors. It's important for Canadians to understand what the intelligence commissioner is doing and that it be clear.

With respect to the CSE, the CBA generally supports the more detailed mandate of the CSE, and we support the structure as it's being proposed. There are several elements of the proposed mandates that are in tension with one another, in particular, the offence and defence in cyber-operations.

We would recommend that there be an explicit vulnerabilities equities process as part of the mandate of the CSE, so that the balancing can happen in a transparent way. The U.S. has a process in place that might work as a model, or at least give ideas with respect to that.

With respect to CSIS, we continue to have concerns around the disruption powers. In particular, giving kinetic powers to CSIS comes away from the mandate of creating CSIS in the first place, after the McDonald Commission.

I'll refer you to our written submissions with respect to our concerns around section 12.1(3.2). We continue to have concerns similar to those we've had in the past with respect to these warrants limiting charter rights in that context.

Finally, I would note with respect to the Criminal Code provision of counselling of terrorism offence, in my view, following the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court in Hamilton, the counselling offences in the Criminal Code already cover everything this offence covers. There is no need to further complicate the Criminal Code. It's already too complex. It ought to be simplified, and the counselling offence covers everything you're hoping to cover here.

Thank you very much for your time, and I apologize if I went a little bit over.

[Gillian Carter, Staff Lawyer, Legislation and Law Reform, Canadian Bar Association]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee. My name is Gillian Carter, and I am a staff lawyer with the law reform directorate at the Canadian Bar Association. Thank you for inviting the CBA to discuss Bill C-59 with you today.

The CBA is a national association of more than 36,000 lawyers, notaries, law teachers, and academics. An important aspect of our mandate is to seek improvements in the law and the administration of justice, and that is what brings us here today.

The CBA has offered its views and expertise at many stages in the development of Canada's national security and anti-terrorism regime. Our written submission on Bill C-59 was prepared by multiple sections of the CBA, including the criminal justice, immigration law, charities and not-for-profit, military law, and privacy and access to information law sections. With me today is Peter Edelmann, a member of the immigration law and criminal law sections and a lawyer specializing in immigration law.

I will now turn it over to Peter to address the main points of our submission.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Okay. Thank you very much.

We heard from the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association a few days ago, who told us of a number of concerns. In a subsequent article that was written since their testimony there was concern expressed about Bill C-59 on cyber-operations that could be conducted by the Communications Security Establishment. Since you focused today a great deal on the technological aspects of terror and how that can jeopardize Canadian security, I want to ask you about that.

Their view is that Bill C-59, by empowering the CSE to conduct cyber-operations against foreign actors, constitutes a danger. Specifically, it would normalize state-sponsored hacking. Can you speak again to the importance of cyber-operations from a security perspective? How critical is this? The nature of security is changing. Canadians deserve to be protected. We have to make sure that our approaches are keeping up with changes that are under way.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

A higher threshold was indeed put in place in Bill C-59. That responded to a long-standing concern among civil rights advocates who were of the view, and I think it's a reasonable position to hold, that to detain someone without a warrant for up to seven days, without applying a criminal charge, as the preventative arrest measure allows for, is questionable. In a democracy, you can at least have that debate.

The government has looked at Bill C-51 and introduced a change. Under Bill C-51, as we heard, an arrest could happen when it was “likely to prevent” a terrorist act. Now, in Bill C-59, an arrest can be made when, on reasonable grounds, there is suspicion to believe a terrorist act might be taking place. You still have that ability to lay an arrest, and in emergency situations it's there. This isn't preventing you from acting as police, correct?

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

You just talked about people who went abroad to join the jihad and then came back; that’s one problem. Another is the domestic issue in Canada. You said that, in Vancouver, the number of identified individuals has gone up from 13 to 268, and that there is a problem with resources.

For the purposes of our study, we need to know whether parts of Bill C-59 may be reducing your legal capacity to intervene. You talked about the need to request a warrant from a judge in order to intervene if the possibility of a terrorism offence is detected.

Do you think Bill C-59 contains problematic provisions that are likely to interfere with your work on the ground?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to the witnesses as well.

Your testimony on national security is very important. Our primary objective is to see whether Bill C-59 will allow the police forces you represent to continue to do their work.

As I understand it, terrorism and the return of ISIS fighters worries you a great deal. On the one hand, without giving much away, the government has confirmed that some safeguards are in place, but on the other hand, you seem to be saying that there is a problem.

Can you give me more information about this? Is there a problem with communication between Canada’s intelligence services, the RCMP and the police forces you represent at more regional and municipal levels?

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

We also heard about challenges caused by law enforcement working in silos. You have the RCMP, CSIS. Do you think the proposed national security and intelligence review agency created in Bill C-59 will help ensure that information will be shared in a timely manner? Have you looked at that aspect of it?

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

Turning to the legislation itself, we have had testimony on this, as well as an open letter that was talking about the new offence that was in Bill C-51 on advocating or promoting the commission of terrorism offences in general and the broad definition of “terrorist propaganda”. When we had the minister here, he talked about how, in Bill C-59, we've amended that wording because it was actually too vague and no charges had been laid because they weren't enforceable in court.

Do you feel these changes will assist you in actually being able to lay charges that can be enforced in court?

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

Thank you.

I have one last question for each you. I have about three minutes left.

Chief, you spoke specifically to the three concerns that you have as a police association with respect to terrorism peace bonds—which we've kind of covered off—the intel-to-evidence, and the encryption. We've heard from a few witnesses so far at this committee who have expanded upon their thoughts and given us some indication of what they would like to see more of or improved upon in this bill as it's currently written, which is why we're having the debate now, before second reading. We can make some changes, which is great.

If you were to change Bill C-59 in ways that you think would be absolutely critical for public safety—keeping in mind the balance between rights and privacy—what would those changes be, and how would they be accomplished?

I'd like to hear from both of you on that, if I could.

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

We have the peace bonds, but the other aspect now of Bill C-59 is the preventative arrests. We understand the language in the new legislation limits it to an arrest that “is necessary” to prevent a terrorist activity. Under the old Bill C-51, the threshold was “is likely to prevent”, which was the language that was used. In fact, the committee heard from the justice department earlier in this study, and they confirmed that the threshold to make a preventative arrest was being raised. They said that, “It would require the police to present evidence of a greater link between the conditions to be imposed on the person or the arrest of the person and the prevention of terrorist activity.”

Again, similar to peace bonds, do you believe that this higher threshold will make it more difficult for law enforcement to make preventative terrorism-related arrests?

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

Thank you, Chief Martin and Deputy Rankin, for being here today.

I want to go back to the comment one of you made earlier with regard to peace bonds. We know that Bill C-59 increases the threshold from “is likely” to “is necessary” to prevent a terrorist activity in order to even obtain a peace bond in the first place.

Determining that a peace bond with certain conditions is necessary to prevent an act of terrorism is a pretty high bar. The amount of evidence that would go into proving that is nearly the same as to prove a criminal charge, to lay an information.

Can you explain to the committee the importance of peace bonds, and if you've used them, how often you've used them? In your opinion, could this new, increased threshold be a risk to Canadians?

Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague touched on a whole host of issues. However, I would like to quickly address his comments with respect to Phoenix.

The member talked about the fact that we were advised to dial back in January of 2016. However, the reality is that the previous Conservative government fired 700 compensation advisers throughout the public service. These were the people who did that work. Therefore, to suggest that we could suddenly stop the process is completely inaccurate. We could not have done that. The motions were already in process, individuals had been fired or let go, and there was no opportunity to start dialling back and not implement Phoenix.

Let us talk about the legislation being introduced today.

Bill C-59, which had been introduced by the previous Conservative government, had provisions in it that took a heavy-handed approach to perhaps some bad apples in the bunch. In my experience of dealing with the public service and unions, when we can work collectively with unions, when we can collaborate together to bring forward good policy, that is when we truly get the benefit of this. That is what the legislation before us today would do. It attempts to create an environment in which we can work with the unions to bring forward good legislation so we can have decent policy from which they can benefit and we can also benefit.

Does the member not see the value in working collaboratively with our unions?

[Micheal Vonn]

Thank you for the question. I hope it's appreciated that the BC Civil Liberties Association takes security very seriously. The importance of getting this correct, getting these rights and freedoms of Canadians to fit together with the ability of the government to provide national security protection occupies a great deal of our bandwidth.

Canada, as you may know, was really—to use some of the language that has already been introduced—a bit of a laggard in a number of arenas, including having the kinds of transparency and accountability mechanisms that are standard in many of our ally countries. We welcome the ability to enshrine in legislation and make more transparent the accountability that is needed for Canadians to trust that national security is working in their interests. We have advanced in that regard.

Our concern about Bill C-59 is that there is a sense in which this is the moment to get the big pieces right. When we bring forward our concerns about the thresholds for bulk data surveillance, which has never been appropriately debated at a parliamentary level, we are saying that we welcome this opportunity to put the big thinking together in relation to these pieces, but that in part because we have an omnibus bill before us, some of those aspects are being given insufficient attention.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

On November 20, I spoke in the House on Bill C-59, and I talked about part 5, which amends the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act. We have heard and read repeatedly that information sharing and breaking down the silos for information are critical to protecting Canadians. Do you believe that Bill C-59 is increasing or decreasing our ability to share information?

[Raymond Boisvert]

Again, I think Bill C-59 is a good balance. I think Canadians will be better served by it and I think we'll have as good an opportunity as in the past to deal with emerging threats.

[Raymond Boisvert]

Do you mean if Bill C-59 is passed in its current form or if we have more layers?

[Micheal Vonn]

Thank you.

It's of critical concern to civil libertarians that the public understand that collection, incidental or otherwise, of personal information into national security agencies is not innocuous. In part because we do have these alliances, information sharing does flow in ways that are potentially problematic for those individuals, even with the notion that perhaps we're not exploiting it and perhaps we're not using it.

We're going to try to give assurances, but we don't know what's being used in terms of exploitation. We know it's everything from network mapping to profiling, which has been identified as a huge problem. It definitely resonates with Canadians as a threat to their own personal security. All those aspects of trying to figure out what the jeopardy is for this collection, use, retention, and exploitation are critical. It's critical to figure out those tentacles and ensure that we have mechanisms that are not merely paper mechanisms when we say we have measures. What are those measures? How do we know where they work? Do they cover off all the aspects?

Those are aspects behind the curtain that goes on with national security that most Canadians cannot see. We've come to have reason to distrust, because we haven't seen, for example, the simple definitions for things that would allow us to have the insight that we should have for democratic accountability.

When we see failures of definitions in Bill C-59 around things like publicly available information, to pick up my colleague's point, and a national security agency can acquire data through a data broker using the kinds of techniques that were just being described and ingest that into a system in which information may get shared with allies abroad, you can see the magnification effect of the impact on security of individuals—not national security, but personal security—in relation to all of those data practices.

People are not as alive as we would like them to be to these threats, but they're increasingly alive that these are the problems, as you illustrate.

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

The current government had some critical comments to make about Bill C-51. We then proposed Bill C-59 to change certain things. We are often reminded that we must not violate the rights and freedoms of Canadians; we all agree on that. However, in a defensive context, we have to have the means to protect ourselves.

In your opinion, will Bill C-59 excessively constrain or weaken the government's safeguards?

[Raymond Boisvert]

In my time at CSIS, although now dated—it's been almost six years since I left—when I was responsible for the counterterrorism operations team, a number of charges were difficult in this even more complex choreography around intel-into-evidence. In other words, we were proceeding against certain targets that met the CSIS threshold of reason to suspect, versus then transferring some information protecting sources. Of course, Bill C-59 provides new tools to assist with that in some respects.

However, many operational opportunities were left wanting, first because we had difficulty transitioning information from intelligence into usable evidence, and secondly because, quite often, I found the perspective of crown prosecutors was always extremely cautious. As a Canadian, I think that's very important, because it adds one more check and balance, definitional things, so that we essentially have a prosecutorial system that is inclined to ensure that there is very little chance this prosecution could not proceed successfully. More often than not, cases ended up dropping below the threshold, even though perhaps in another jurisdiction—south of the border, as one example—they would have proceeded full guns.

[Raymond Boisvert, Associate Deputy Minister, Office of the Provincial Security Advisor, Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for this opportunity to speak to everybody today.

As you know, I am the provincial security advisor for Ontario. I began this role in January of 2017. Prior to that, I spent almost five years as a consultant to private and public organizations in the area of national security-related risks, including cyber-threats. Prior to that, I was with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, and left that organization in 2012 as the assistant director.

As a result of joining CSIS at its inception in 1984, I've witnessed a tremendous number of milestones that shaped Canada's security intelligence environment, more specifically in regard to the organizations that are central to Canada's threat response.

At this moment, we find ourselves yet again at the cusp of change, and obviously important change. Although the CSIS Act has been widely viewed as a model of effective security intelligence legislation, it has required renovation from time to time, perhaps not so much due to any particular failings but rather to the necessity of changing times socially, culturally, politically, and, now more than ever, technically.

Of all the elements of import in Bill C-59, it is time to consider essential changes for an organization that I did not work for but to which I maintained important operational connectivity over many years. It is time for CSE to have its own enabling legislation, as its current mandate is 16 years old.

Most critical to that transformation of mission and mandate is the area related to cyber-threats. Canada must now join the community of like-minded nations determined to resist the growing threat of globalized criminal enterprise, nation-state-directed theft of intellectual property or interference in our society, and the potential for catastrophic destruction of critical infrastructure, be it the result of fifth-dimensional warfare or terror attack. We must support and connect and keep pace with our allies, from Australia to the EU. They themselves have recognized the nature of this new 21st century threat environment.

The nations that do not support or believe in these values certainly have discovered the benefits of hybrid or fifth-domain warfare. They are extremely active in targeting our key infrastructure and our future prosperity through the theft of the best and most important intellectual property the country has to offer. They've also noted the ease and the immediate benefits of undermining our democratic processes by undermining people's trust in institutions, as well as our ability to conduct respectful and constructive dialogue.

There are a number of areas to explore in this discussion today, but first let me say that I've also been a long-serving and vocal advocate of increased accountability for the security intelligence community. The establishment of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency will now meet the majority of my concerns on the need to enhance accountability and transparency across the security establishment.

However, as part of my opening proposition, let me now address more directly aspects of the threat and our need to effectively respond to that reality.

We live in unprecedented times. Never in my career, which has spanned a little over three decades, have I perceived such a set of local and global challenges, from climate change and food security to irregular migration and unprecedented numbers of refugees, as well as social and political upheaval, nuclear threats, and shifting global hegemony. Threat actors from around the globe now target Canada with ease. Conversely, Canadians with the intent to harm others or target Canadian interests abroad can now operate from far-flung regions of the world, not just from typical conflict zones.

In this security intelligence equivalency of globalization, it is critically important that CSE continue to support CSIS, the Department of National Defence, and law enforcement agencies in the pursuit of lawful investigations or mission requirements wherever threats may emerge around the world. Whether that means assisting CSIS to collect intelligence on an emerging violent extremist network targeting Canadian travellers or diplomats abroad, assisting the Canadian Forces in the protection of a deployed unit delivering training, or perhaps even helping the RCMP bring human traffickers to justice, we need to provide the best available toolsets. The tools or capabilities I'm suggesting here are ones that only our signals intelligence organizations can provide.

Equally important, and I believe critical, is that we rely on Canadian-controlled and accountable capabilities rather than on the efforts or competencies of other nations that may not share our full set of standards and intentions.

With respect to part 3 of the bill, specifically dealing with cybersecurity and information assurance, let me say that as the provincial security advisor for Ontario, I am concerned most about this area, the cyber-threat targeting our vast investments in critical infrastructure.

Outside of the protection of intellectual property from either front-door or backdoor acquisition, what is key to our current and future prosperity is the protection of life-sustaining critical infrastructure assets, be they publicly owned or in private hands. Therefore, the enhanced ability for CSE to provide assistance towards protecting our critical infrastructure is vital for Ontarians and, I dare say, for all Canadians.

I believe this to be true because we now exist in a hazardous environment where 400-plus new malware threats are produced every minute and where ransomware attacks a person somewhere in the world every 10 seconds. As localized proof, the Government of Ontario’s cybersecurity operations team manages approximately 40 billion security events per month. Yes, that's billions per month. Although we are within industry norms, over 90% of the emails the Ontario public service receives are blocked due to botnet or spam threats.

With respect to defensive cyber operations, I believe that only CSE can bring to bear the technology, know-how, and library of threat-related data necessary to build effective cybersecurity resilience so necessary in this kind of environment. From conversations I've had with private industry and with large independent agencies of government, such as those involved in energy, health care, education, and transportation, I know that all feel the effects of constant cyber-threats. In essence, we and they can no longer do this alone. It is a global threat phenomenon requiring a national-level strategy and capability.

With regard to active cyber operations, let me simply say that the best defence always begins with a good offence. When more than five dozen countries around the world are reported to be actively developing cyber-operational capabilities, in my view, we must develop offensive cybersecurity measures to respond, and on certain occasions that means beyond our borders.

Offensive cyber-tactics have been developed and are being applied by the best private security firms in the world. Engaging the so-called dark web or darknet to gather intelligence in advance of an attack and to protect systems, such as those in the financial sector, has been the norm for some time. I know that because I've worked directly in that sector. When the time comes to face a targeted attack intended to manipulate the operating systems of an energy facility to cause a malfunction or perhaps even to destroy something, as we’ve seen in cases from Ukraine to Germany and even New York State, we will need CSE to “degrade, disrupt, influence, respond to or interfere with the capabilities [or] intentions” of those threat actions or their actors.

More commonly, and as another example, the frequency and prowess of so-called denial of service attacks or DDoS events are intensifying. One day soon, I predict, CSE will be required to assist a Canadian service provider or a subnational level of government to repel a massive DDoS attack.

With the advent of the Internet of things, we’ve already seen or witnessed botnets created out of smart devices being harnessed to launch attacks of one terabyte per second against institutions typically associated with information sharing, anti-spamming facilities, social networks, human rights workers, and mainstream media. Rest assured that this will only get worse, especially when we are facing autocratic regimes around the world that have no inhibitions.

On the issue of changing times, my current role as provincial security advisor is an important example of how the world has changed and how Canada’s view of itself and how it operates must also change. Ontario is but one of 14 core jurisdictions in this country. By itself, Ontario’s economy would rank 18th in a G20 context. No doubt, like Ontario, all subnational jurisdictions are conscious of the multitude of threats that continue to adversely affect prosperity and security.

To my mind, an effectively legislated security establishment that balances security requirements with accountability, transparency, and respect for the rights of Canadians is indeed the blueprint for our future success as a nation in this increasingly tumultuous world.

Thank you.

[Micheal Vonn, Policy Director, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association]

I'm happy to go first. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee for this invitation.

My prepared remarks are about the CSE and CSIS bulk data collection.

In his testimony to this committee, Professor Craig Forcese made a very important point about the thresholds for authorizations for CSE data collection.

Proposed section 23 of what would be the new CSE act sets out that activities carried out by the CSE in relation to its various mandates must not be directed at Canadians or persons in Canada. This is of course a continuation of the current situation in which the CSE is required not to direct its activities in this fashion.

Nevertheless, it is well established and conceded that the information of Canadians and persons in Canada is collected, because some collection, and by no means insignificant collection, is unavoidable due to the complexity of communication networks. Thus, Canadians' information is collected incidentally or unavoidably.

Part of the new regime proposed for the protection of Canadians' privacy interests is to require that the CSE seek a ministerial authorization that is then approved by the intelligence commissioner. The trigger that initiates this process of authorization and intelligence commissioner vetting would occur when the CSE's activities would otherwise contravene an act of Parliament.

We agree with Professor Forcese that this trigger is under-inclusive, a view that is now echoed by Citizen Lab, the Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic, and others.

As Professor Forcese notes, there is concern that the proposed threshold would not ensure that the authorization process would, for example, be initiated for activities that incidentally collect Canadians' metadata, which is obviously of critical importance.

Craig Forcese proposes a more expansive trigger, in which the authorization process is required for activities that would otherwise contravene any other act of Parliament or “involve the acquisition of information in which a Canadian or person in Canada has a reasonable expectation of privacy”, a threshold that has already been referenced.

Our problem with this proposed addition is simply this: that the question of what precisely attracts “a reasonable expectation of privacy” is typically the central dispute in almost any emergent privacy issue, and this threshold would be adjudicated internally by the CSE.

We know, not least from years of reports from the CSE commissioner, that disputes over the interpretation of legal standards and definitions have been of ongoing concern, and national security activities in general are plagued with the “secret laws” problem of having words in a statute or directive interpreted in sometimes obscure or deeply troubling ways, and ways that may not be unearthed for years. Therefore, a trigger that involves a colourable definition is inherently problematic, in our view.

However, we read the latest CSE commissioner's report as indicating that the CSE has conducted its signals intelligence activities under just three ministerial authorizations since 2015. It appears that these authorizations tend to authorize a broad sphere of activities. Our understanding that the frequency and scope of “incidental collection” suggests that most, or even all, of the authorizations are apt to at least implicate Canadians' data. In other words, there are only a small number of authorizations, and almost all are apt to require the authorization regime of vetting by the intelligence commissioner.

Surely, then, it is best and still entirely feasible and efficient—to ensure that this authorization process does indeed examine everything that we are hoping it will—to simply have one uniform process of authorization approval by the intelligence commissioner for all classes of activities undertaken outside of the technical and operational assistance mandate, which is, as you know, its own sphere of activities.

For everything else, we recommend that the question of threshold be resolved by eliminating the need for a threshold and ensuring that every class of activities authorized be subject to the new accountability procedure of ministerial authorization and vetting by the intelligence commissioner.

I will turn now to bulk data collection by CSIS. It was most certainly our concern coming out of the national security consultation that the government response to the CSIS bulk data scandals, if you will, would be to simply empower the agency to do what it had previously been doing unlawfully without having a meaningful democratic debate about mass data acquisition in the context of national security. We certainly appreciate that having bulk data collection squarely on a legislative footing does improve transparency, but we are deeply concerned with the low threshold that is proposed in Bill C-59 and that this critically important matter is, quite frankly, receiving insufficient attention in the context of a large omnibus bill.

It was only recently that SIRC did its first-ever audit of the bulk data collection programs of CSIS. SIRC is of the view that appropriate bulk data collection by CSIS can occur under CSIS's current section 12 standard of strict necessity for data collection. In our view, it is hard to imagine a body that would be better positioned to assess this, both from the perspective of accountability and respect for the rule of the law and from the perspective of the operational needs of CSIS.

SIRC's proposal for the standards and criteria for bulk data collection is a three-part test: that there be a clear connection to a threat to the security of Canada, that no less intrusive means are available, and that there be an objective assessment of intelligence value.

Now, compare that standard with the standard set out in Bill C-59. Bill C-59 allows CSIS to collect publicly available datasets, with no definition of that term, on the basis of a bare relevance standard. With respect to Canadian datasets—which, we need to remember, are expressly defined as datasets that contain personal information expressly acknowledged as not directly and immediately relating to activities threatening the security of Canada—the test for their acquisition is simply that the results of their querying or exploitation could be relevant and that this assessment must be reasonable.

It may be argued that this vast scope for bulk data collection is at least mitigated by the requirement for judicial authorization for the retention of those datasets, but rather than providing significant gatekeeping, this authorization simply compounds the effects of the very low standards that lead up to it. Personal information that does not directly and immediately relate to threats to the security of Canada is allowed to be collected if it “could be relevant”, if this assessment is “reasonable”, and if the judge then decides that the dataset can be retained on the standard of “is likely to assist”.

These, then, are the thresholds of what most Canadians would call mass surveillance, and we believe most Canadians would reject these thresholds as shockingly low standards. Thus, a genuine opportunity to meaningfully shape these surveillance practices is being squandered in Bill C-59.

The proposed standard represents a mass erosion of the privacy protections from the strict necessity standards that currently apply. We recommend that the CSIS bulk data provisions be revised to be expressly within the strict necessity standard, and not in exception to it, and that the criteria for bulk data collection, such as that fashioned by SIRC as implicitly principled and workable, be set out within the legislation.

Those are our prepared remarks. Thank you.

[J. William Galbraith]

In terms of whether or not we have adequate resources, the transitional clauses in the bill are quite clear. What we have in terms of the commissioner, the employees, and the appropriation from Parliament all transition to become the intelligence commissioner and his office.

What are the requirements? The requirements are having intimate knowledge of CSE activities and of CSIS activities. Clearly we have the knowledge of CSE from the work that we conduct currently in reviewing the activities of CSE, but we also have on staff now individuals who have experience and knowledge of CSIS. We had the opportunity to do some staffing over the last year, or since June at least, and we have hired individuals with knowledge and experience of CSIS activities. As well, we have engaged special legal counsel, which we have with us here, to deal with the complexity of Bill C-59.

As to whether the staff is going to be adequate going forward, there are a number of unknowns in terms of the number of authorizations that will be required from CSIS or CSE. Only once the bill is enacted and the activities begin will we have a sense of what the volume of authorizations will be, but clearly there was a sense that we have a reasonable starting point. The drafters of the legislation and the government must have felt that we at least had a good start with what we have to transition into the new organization.

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

Okay. Thank you.

When you look at your resources and at what Bill C-59 is proposing, do you feel confident in the capacity that you have? Do you have enough resources to monitor anyone deemed to be a threat, or would those resources deal only with those who are deemed to be a top-level threat?

[Jean-Pierre Plouffe]

Well, according to the actual mandate, as well as the mandate that is provided for in Bill C-59, CSE cannot target Canadians or persons in Canada. It cannot. It can target people or entities abroad only.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to all of you for being here today. It's been quite insightful, and we appreciate the recommendations you're providing to us.

As you know, the current scope of CSE's mandate is to acquire and use information from global information infrastructure. Under the current infrastructure, there really isn't clear direction on how to address the possibility of a Canadian citizen or someone who's residing in Canada having their information collected.

Do you see a benefit in recommending that Bill C-59 be amended to clarify that ministerial authorization be required when CSE does acquire information from or through global information infrastructure when a Canadian or someone residing in Canada has a reasonable expectation of privacy?

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

Since I only have one minute left, I will conclude by highlighting proposal 7, for the benefit of the members of the committee. It's an important proposal that concerns the National Defence Act. This act states that “the expected foreign intelligence value of the information that would be derived from the interception justifies it.” However, that provision does not appear in Bill C-59. So that is a good recommendation, and I thank you for it.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen.

First, thank you for the very comprehensive document you submitted to the committee. Bill C-59 is, indeed, complex to study, and the document you have provided contains very important elements.

I would like to come back to one point, the approval process.

The problem right now is cyber threats. In cyber defence, there is a maximum number of resources that can be in the know and that can counter cyberattacks. We work together on this. However, when we talk about active trading, that is, when Canada conducts cyber operations, I find that there are many levels of intervention, given the secret nature of the information. If you want to carry out an operation, you need to collect information or make computer-based interventions in the systems.

This morning, I attended the meeting of the Standing Committee on National Defence. We have heard from people who work on cyber operations. According to them, in defence, the important thing is to provide protection. In case of attacks, they will especially turn to the CSE.

According to Bill C-59, when we talk about conducting operations, we seek the approval of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On your side, you also ask for supervision by the Intelligence Commissioner.

Don't you think there are too many people involved in secret operations?

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

No.

I have one last question.

How do you think we do currently in comparison to our Five Eyes partners in combatting cyber-threats? Will Bill C-59 make us even more nimble to deal with them?

[Jean-Pierre Plouffe, Commissioner, Office of the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Chair, honourable members, I am pleased to appear before this committee again, this time on the subject of Bill C-59. I am accompanied by William Galbraith, the executive director of my office, and by Gérard Normand, special legal advisor.

I have been the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) Commissioner for over four years. I am responsible for reviewing the activities of CSE, primarily to determine whether they complied with the law. This naturally includes everything to do with protecting the privacy of Canadians and persons in Canada. I am a retired judge of the Superior Court of Québec and of the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada. As I like to often say when I appear before you:

I'm a young 75.

The phrase retired judge means that you cannot expect someone 40 or 50 years old. In order to retire, we have to be at least 69 or 70. That explains my somewhat advanced years.

The law requires the CSE Commissioner to be a supernumerary judge, meaning a judge who is on the bench part-time, or a retired judge of a superior court. My current term expires in mid-October this year, in 2018.

However, once Bill C-59 receives royal assent and part 2 enters into force, my role will change into a completely—and I emphasize completely—new function for intelligence accountability in Canada.

Indeed, the CSE commissioner will no longer perform after-the-fact review of CSE activities. The intelligence commissioner, or the IC if you prefer, will have a quasi-judicial role, of which the first part is reviewing and the second is approving authorizations issued by ministers for certain activities of CSE and CSIS before those activities can be conducted.

This specific role will be to determine whether the minister's conclusion to authorize the activity was reasonable. The test I have to apply is reasonability. In essence, this is similar to the function performed by a court of law when undertaking what we call “a judicial review”. This is, in my view, a critical role, intended to provide a quasi-judicial review of an intelligence agency's activities that may have charter and/or privacy implications.

Part 2 of Bill C-59, the Intelligence Commissioner Act, expressly provides for the transition of the CSE Commissioner into the new role of Intelligence Commissioner. The functions of post-facto review of CSE activities that I now perform will be assumed by the new National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, also proposed in Bill C-59.

This bill also requires the intelligence commissioner to be a retired judge of a superior court, which is appropriate, in my view, given the quasi-judicial function of this new position. However, this bill does not include the possibility of appointing a supernumerary judge, as is the case now with the National Defence Act for the CSE commissioner. I believe this bill should retain the possibility of a supernumerary judge, in part to ensure a broader pool of potential candidates. I was a supernumerary judge when appointed CSE commissioner four years ago, and a short time afterward, I fully retired as a judge.

The problem is the following. The pool of candidates for this job, the new intelligence commissioner, is very narrow. You must find a retired judge who has the proper background to be appointed—for example, a background in security matters or in national defence matters. The pool is very narrow. That's why I'm suggesting that we should keep in the bill what we have in the National Defence Act with regard to the appointment of the intelligence commissioner. In other words, a supernumerary judge should be appointed as the IC and then would retire maybe a few months later. It would be a transitory measure. I can see that if a sitting judge remained the intelligence commissioner for years, he might have some problems with conflicts of interest and what have you. I think for transition purposes, it might be very useful.

Previously, I submitted to this committee a written copy of substantive proposals for amendments to Bill C-59. Those comments were sent to your chair on December 6, 2017. I am also submitting today lists containing additional substantive and technical proposals that I sent to Minister Goodale and Minister Sajjan. I think you have a copy of those comments before you. I will highlight a number of these in my remarks.

The importance of the process the government has chosen to follow for this bill is, as stated by Minister Goodale, to allow new ideas and alternative suggestions to be presented before second reading in the House.

In this context, I will speak to changes I am proposing for three parts of the bill: part 2, the intelligence commissioner act; part 3, the CSE act; and part 4, amendments to the CSIS Act. While I am of the view that the proposed legislation is generally sound and that it addresses most of the recommendations made by me and my predecessors to amend part V.1 of the National Defence Act. I am also of the view, following in-depth analysis and discussions with officials and agencies directly involved, that certain amendments should be proposed. Among my substantive proposals, I will describe seven that I consider the most important.

First, I believe the intelligence commissioner should be involved in approving authorizations for CSE active cyber and defensive cyber operations which may also implicate privacy interests. Some commentators have remarked that this is a new and very broad mandate for CSE and that it is too permissive. By comparison, the CSIS Act requires CSIS to go before a federal court judge, in some instances, to have a warrant issued for similar activities.

Second, as the bill is written currently, the Intelligence Commissioner does not approve the minister's decision to extend the validity of a CSE foreign intelligence or cybersecurity authorization for an additional year. I believe the commissioner should be involved, given that he was involved in approving the initial authorization. Otherwise, in effect, the authorization would be for two years. However, this is not what the bill proposes. It proposes that this type of authorization is valid for a maximum of one year. If the minister granted extensions almost automatically without the commissioner being involved, the duration could end up being two years, instead of the one year provided for in the act.

Third, emergency authorizations for CSE issued by the minister for purposes of foreign intelligence or cybersecurity should also be reviewed by the commissioner immediately after they have been issued. This would be similar to the approach that exists in the Investigatory Powers Act in the United Kingdom. Under the U.K. legislation, the period of validity for these emergency authorizations is five days, the same validity period as in Bill C-59. However, in the U.K., the Judicial Commissioner must review and approve these authorizations within that time frame.

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

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

I really appreciate the testimony we've had on cyber defence today, and I am reassured that we're doing our best in cyber-defence, but your testimony today identified that the legislation in Bill C-59 is really going to bring CSE in line with the authority to do active cyber that DND already sees itself as having.

In the legislation, section 31 says essentially that active cyber, after being authorized, can be carried out despite any act of Parliament or any act of a foreign state. This is a very broad grant of authority.

I'm wondering whether you consider that DND is already authorized to conduct active cyber-activities without regard to any act of Parliament or the act of any other state.

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

After this meeting, I am going to go to a meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security where we will discuss Bill C-59. We'll be meeting with the CSE Commissioner, as it happens.

That bill involves transferring CSE national defence-related powers to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. The bill also contains provisions that will require the authorization of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to conduct an operation.

How do you see that?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to take the conversation in a bit of a different direction here. I think we're running into a phenomenon here of cyberwarfare not really fitting under the normal protocols of war and the rules of warfare. It operates at the edges of those. International protocols prohibit targeting civilian targets, and those kinds of principles we're used to. I know that neither of you represents CSE, but the legislation that's before Parliament in Bill C-59 proposes to allow active use of cyber-attacks in sabotage. It's a concern for me that we, as Canadians, are stepping into an area of international conflict that's not well regulated internationally.

My question, I guess, would be directed largely to Mr. Feltham. What's your relationship with CSE in terms of their, I would say, requests for moving into active cyber-attacks?

The second part of the question is this: do you feel that you are already authorized in DND to use active cyber-attacks against both foreign states and individuals for CSE? Are you already authorized to do those things? What's your relationship with CSE on those aspects?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

NATO's article 5 is summed up as an attack on one being an attack on all. It was only used once, on 9/11, and of course it was civilian infrastructure that was attacked. With Bill C-59, there's going to be a cyber-offensive posture provided to the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Communications Security Establishment. What would be classified as an article 5 in the cyberworld?

Public Safety

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, the research reports today are highly speculative, but the point is simply this. We are dealing with a flawed system that was implemented about 10 years ago by the previous government, and we are trying very hard to fix that system. It requires new legislation, new regulations, and a new computer system built from the ground up. The first step, the legal authority, is contained in Bill C-59, and I am sure that all members of Parliament will want to vote for this legislation.

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

Actually, I'll take the half minute to ask one other....

If you were to change one thing in Bill C-59, Mr. Fogel, that you think is absolutely critical for public safety and balancing the need for rights and privacy, what would it be?

[Shimon Fogel]

Mindful of the time, I'll be very brief.

It is, I think, the reverse. “Counselling” is the new language that's introduced in Bill C-59.

For me, it's less about the language that's used as it is about establishing who it's directed toward. Bill C-59 requires a direct link between someone who is promoting or counselling terrorist activity and the one who's going to act upon it, without recognizing that an individual promoting it may have the intention of creating a certain environment that will be attractive to as yet unknown or unidentified individuals, so you can't establish that direct chain.

If we were to tweak it in a way that makes it more consistent with other legislation but doesn't require that direct link on specific acts, I think it would strengthen the legislation.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I feel so privileged.

I thank both witnesses for being here and for your testimony.

I'm intrigued by your testimony, specifically about the language. I want both of you to weigh in on this if you could, please.

Changing “counselling” of terrorism to the “promotion” of terrorism, how does that change the context of Bill C-59 and what CSIS and other agencies need to do? Are we still going to be as effective with that term change?

Mr. Fogel, could you go first, please?

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

As you know—this is a bit beyond Bill C-59 but does fit into the discussion because we are talking about security—in late September, Minister Goodale issued a ministerial directive on information obtained by torture. For the purposes of the record, the new rules ban the use of information that was probably obtained through torture, except when it's necessary to save lives or to prevent against major personal injuries.

For example, last week I asked Professor Forcese if it would be more effective to enact that directive and the principles on which it is based in legislation—

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Roach, the first question is going to you.

We're talking about security matters here, and when you look at Bill C-59 and see the repeal of investigative hearings, which you're very much in favour of, I think some Canadians might sit back and read about that in an article, or hear political parties that are not in favour of it, and feel less safe.

Can you speak about investigative hearings in general terms? You called them an “unwieldy concept” in a piece with Craig Forcese, for Policy Options. An ineffective approach is basically what it comes down to, but can you expand on that?

[Shimon Fogel]

I'm not entirely familiar with that particular aspect of the case. It is good practice, and I believe, frankly, that Canada already undertakes consultation with all its like-minded allies on a routine and regular basis looking for best practices, those that we can share with others, and those where we can benefit from the experience of other nation-states.

I'm encouraged when I look at the process of Bills C-51 and C-59 and the commitment to periodically review, both to refine on the basis of experience but also to be able to be responsive to changing circumstances on the ground. That's exactly the right approach that we should be taking. I'm encouraged that we do consult with our allies in order to benefit from their experience in areas where we have less.

[Professor Kent Roach, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for inviting me to appear before the committee.

My colleague Craig Forcese has already addressed you and has focused on parts 2, 3, and 4 of the bill. I will focus on the other parts of Bill C-59.

Part 1 providing for a government-wide super-SIRC has been widely praised. In my view, it implements the important principle, if not the precise details, that animated the Arar commission's report; namely, that review should expand with the state's national security activities and that review strengthens rather than weakens security.

Improvements can still be made. I recommend that the new and very much welcome super-SIRC be somewhat supersized. In my view, it should contain a minimum of five members and up to eight members. Amnesty International has endorsed this recommendation, and you've heard some very interesting proposals about strengthening the new super-SIRC both from Professor Wark and Mr. Fogel.

We should think about having more diversity in appointments and not simply focusing on the consultation with leaders of political parties, which is very much a holdover from the original 1984 Cold War era CSIS Act. We could also include people with expertise in privacy, as you heard from the Privacy Commissioner. I think it is also important that there be representation where possible from communities that may be disproportionately affected by national security activities.

The mandate of the new review agency needs to be better defined. On my reading, the reference to “department” or “corporation”, which is incorporated in the new act, does not include the RCMP. This should be very clearly spelled out. It should be clear that the new committee can review the national security activities of the RCMP, hear complaints about the national security activities of the RCMP, and have full access to classified information that the RCMP has on the same basis that it will have access to classified information that CSIS, CSE, and other agencies involved in national security have.

Moving to part 5, I remain of the view that the SCISA part of Bill C-59 remains the weakest part of the bill. I would advocate that the definition of threats to national security in section 2 of the CSIS Act be the default trigger for information sharing, subject to carefully tailored and justified additions in cases where that may be inadequate. The novel Bill C-51 definition of activities that undermine the security of Canada was grossly overbroad. Even after the amendments in this bill, it would remain overbroad.

When I talk about overbreadth, and I know that some members of this committee have read the Air India commission report, I refer to overbreadth not only from a civil liberties perspective but frankly from a security perspective. If everything is a security threat, effectively nothing is a security threat. I think we really should tighten the definition with respect to information sharing.

On the subject of Air India—and here I'm going just a touch beyond Bill C-59—I must again reiterate my objections to the CSIS human source privilege that was enacted in the Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act. If it is not repealed, at least I would recommend that, as an urgent matter, there be a study of whether CSIS's practice of granting anonymity to witnesses is hindering terrorism prosecutions.

The Privacy Commissioner has made a strong case to you that the standard for receiving agencies under SCISA should be raised to “necessity”. I agree. I would also not be troubled by having that same standard with respect to sending agencies. The Privacy Commissioner raised the issue that sending agencies may not have experience with security, but they also maybe don't have the same incentive that receiving agencies may have to keep, perhaps unnecessarily, the information that they receive.

In this regard, a critical feature of the new review agency is that it will be able to examine the legally privileged material that is the basis on which receiving agencies will make decisions, perhaps wrongly, to retain any information.

Moving to part 6, the committee is well aware of the problems of a no-fly list. The reforms in C-59 strike me as minimal. Four months is a long time to be a wrongfully listed person, even if the default has been changed. Special advocates should have a role in appeals, and Bill C-51's restriction on the information that these security-cleared advocates can see in security certificate cases should also be repealed. More fundamentally, however, perhaps the new committee that has access to classified information should review whether the costs of the no-fly list, both financial and human—in terms of false positives—are actually worth its benefits.

Moving to part 7 of the bill, I note that the CCLA submitted to you that the reference to terrorism offences in the counselling offence is not defined. That's not my reading. I would read the reference to terrorism offences as referring to the definition of terrorism offences contained in section 2 of the Criminal Code, but this is a matter that needs to be clarified.

The changes to the preventive arrest provisions are difficult to evaluate, but I would favour further amendments to clarify limits on questioning of people who may be detained for up to seven days. I would also advocate that there be some response to the Driver case in Manitoba, which held that at least one part of the peace bond provisions relating to treatment programs violated the charter. I would also recommend that we look at something like section 10 of the U.K. Terrorism Act, 2000, which would allow people to challenge listing as terrorist groups without that very act of challenge being the basis for a terrorism offence.

I applaud the government for repealing investigative hearings, a technique that has never been successfully used and, if used, could hinder terrorism prosecutions.

Finally, this is important and complex legislation that was made necessary by Bill C-51. I would propose that given the comprehensive, if not radical, nature of C-51 and the important proactives of this bill, that the review of this bill be commenced within the fourth year of its enactment, not the sixth year as contemplated in part 9. I would also propose that the review be undertaken by a special joint committee of the Commons and the Senate, which could include one to two members of the new National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.

In addition to my previously submitted brief, which I hope you have and has been translated, those are my submissions.

Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.

[Shimon Fogel, Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs]

Thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to present to the members of this committee on behalf of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy agent for the Jewish Federations of Canada.

We are a national, non-partisan, non-profit organization representing more than 150,000 Jewish Canadians affiliated through local federations across the country. We believe in Canada's foundational values of freedom, democracy, and equality, and are committed to working with government, Parliament, and all like-minded groups to ensure that Canada remains a country where we all enjoy equal protections and opportunities.

In March 2015, I appeared as a witness before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security as it studied Bill C-51. Our testimony began with a statement of fact, “Jews are consistently targeted by hate and bias-related crimes in Canada at a rate higher than any other identifiable group.” Those words are, unfortunately, as true today as they were then.

Statistics Canada recently released its report on 2016 hate crimes, and once again Jews were targeted more than any other religious minority, with 221 incidents. We must, however, keep this in perspective. Canada is a very safe place for identifiable groups and one of the greatest places in the world in which to live as a minority. However, we must also remain vigilant. A single hate crime is one too many.

Whether considering the attack on a synagogue in Jerusalem, a gay nightclub in Orlando, an African American church in Charleston, or a mosque in Quebec City, extreme hate continues to precipitate extreme violence. Jews are often primary targets for terrorist attacks throughout the world: Belgium, Argentina, France, India, Bulgaria, Israel, Denmark, the United States. Understandably, Jewish Canadians are not just concerned about what threats might meet them abroad, but what could happen here at home.

Public Safety Canada's “2016 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada” notes that Hezbollah, the listed terrorist entity widely believed to have carried out the bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, has networks operating here in Canada. The notorious 2004 firebombing of a Jewish school in Montreal still looms large in our collective memory.

Our community, therefore, takes a keen interest in the government's approach to counterterrorism. We appreciate the opportunity we were afforded to engage in the consultations on Canada's national security framework, both before this committee and with the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. I hope that our recommendations will prove helpful and constructive for the committee.

We'll speak on the expanded oversight for CSIS, but before going there let me just address a couple of considerations with respect to advocacy or promotion of terrorism offences in general.

In the context of the former Bill C-51, CIJA was supportive of measures to empower security officials to criminalize the advocacy and promotion of terrorism and seize terrorist propaganda. CIJA supported these measures as a means of denying those intent on inspiring, radicalizing, or recruiting Canadians to commit acts of terror the legal leeway to be clever but dangerous with their words.

Bill C-59 seeks to change the law's articulation of this offence from “advocating or promoting” to “counselling” a terrorism offence. This doesn't necessarily undermine the intended function of the provision. Justice Canada's background information on the advocacy and promotion offence states, “The offence is modelled on existing offences of counselling and the relevant jurisprudence. It extended the concept of counselling to cases where no specific terrorism offence is being counselled, but it is evident nonetheless that terrorism offences are being counselled.”

The same intended outcome seems to be achieved in Bill C-59, which adds the caveat that the counselling offence “may be committed...whether or not...the person counsels the commission of a specific terrorism offence.” If, as Minister Goodale indicated in his recent testimony before this committee, this change empowers authorities to enforce the law with greater impact, it would seem a reasonable shift. However, we believe there is an oversight in the proposed new language that could narrow the scope of the provision, weakening it substantially.

The existing offence applies to “Every person who, by communicating statements, knowingly advocates or promotes the commission of terrorism offences in general”. Swapping out the advocacy and promotion language, this should become something like “Every person who counsels the commission of a terrorism offence”, but it doesn't. Instead, Bill C-59 reads, “Every person who counsels another person to commit a terrorism offence”. With this wording, it appears that the offence could apply only to a specific individual counselling another specific individual.

When it comes to the offence of instructing a terrorist activity, the Criminal Code is explicit. The offence is committed whether or not the accused instructs a particular person to carry out the activity or even knows the identity of the person instructed to carry out the activity. The same standard should apply to the counselling offence. The change of “advocacy and promotion” to “counselling” also impacts on the definition of terrorism propaganda.

Bill C-59 would remove “advocacy and promotion of terrorism offences in general” from the definition, consistent with the change proposed for the counselling offence I've just discussed. However, the all-important caveat that a specific terrorism offence need not be counselled, which is included in the new counselling offence, is lacking here. This should be adjusted for the sake of consistency.

I'll turn to expanded oversight for CSIS.

In our testimony on Bill C-51, CIJA supported the expansion of CSIS's role and responsibilities to include disruption of potential terrorist attacks. While we believed the new mandate was justified, we maintained that enhanced oversight was required to prevent abuse. Just as Canadians stand to benefit from a more robust approach to counterterrorism that emphasizes prevention, we argued that a concurrent increase in the review of CSIS's activities would be beneficial.

Measures to enhance SIRC's ability to provide adequate review are long overdue and are all the more imperative with CSIS's expanded mandate. We supported the refinements to CSIS's expanded mandate that Bill C-59 would put in place and the establishment of a national security and intelligence review agency. Both should help to ensure greater balance in protecting the security and civil rights of Canadians.

In the context of Bill C-51, we proposed several concrete reforms to enhance oversight and accountability for CSIS. The new oversight agency will fulfill our first and perhaps most important recommendation's objective of enabling a review of security and intelligence activities across all government agencies and departments. However, we believe the following three recommendations regarding the structure and composition of the new agency would help ensure it is set up to be as impactful as possible.

First, the chair of the new agency should be someone with experience in intelligence and national security, and should occupy the position on a full-time basis to ensure consistent, professional leadership.

Unfortunately, Bill C-59 states, “The Chair and Vice-chair may be designated to hold office on a full-time or part-time basis”. The bill also states, “Every member of the Review Agency who is not designated as the Chair or Vice-chair holds office on a part-time basis”.

We suggest this be changed to provide the option of other members being brought on full time without requiring a legislative amendment. Given that the workload of the new agency is likely to be significantly greater than that of SIRC, this could conceivably require full-time engagement from all members.

Second, we recommend that the chair of the new agency be designated an officer of Parliament required to provide regular reports directly to Parliament. This mirrors the recommendation we made in the context of Bill C-51 with regard to the chair of SIRC.

The requirement enshrined in Bill C-59 that public reports from the new agency be tabled in Parliament is beneficial, but this reporting is still mediated through the Prime Minister and other ministers. Designating the chair of SIRC an officer of Parliament with a mandate for regular reporting directly to Parliament would send a clear signal that the work of the new agency is independent from the government of the day.

Third, we believe Parliament should have a greater voice in the appointment of members of the new agency.

We welcome the consultation provisions included in Bill C-59 but believe the appointments should also be subject to approval by resolution of the Senate and the House of Commons. This small addition, which is already standard practice in the appointment of officers of Parliament, would further enhance the credibility of the appointments process.

Although this may be more appropriate for your colleagues at the finance committee, it's also important to stress that the national security and intelligence review agency will require the allocation of significant resources, both professional and financial, if it is to be given a chance to succeed in fulfilling its important mandate.

CIJA's testimony in 2015 concluded with a plea for committee members to support a private member's bill that sought to extend hate crime penalties beyond houses of worship to schools and community centres. That initiative failed but was revived in this Parliament in Bill C-305, which passed third reading in the Senate in October.

I am pleased to conclude my remarks today, Mr. Chair, with sincere thanks to each of you for coming together in unanimous support for Bill C-305, a clear example of how elected officials can work together and make a practical difference to protect Canadians.

I hope committee members will consider my remarks today in that same constructive spirit, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to join with you.

Thank you.

[Khalid Elgazzar]

I think it would be any provisions that actually establish the redress system. For example, who is going to administer the system? What might it be called? What are the procedures? What are the parameters? Is there an appeal process involved? This is similar to what is currently at section 16 of the Secure Air Travel Act in terms of appeals, which I understand is being beefed up under Bill C-59.

Essentially, I would just like to see the establishment of a redress system, whatever is required to establish it. You may give it a name. I know in the United States they've given it a name: the traveller redress inquiry program. I would have thought at the very least that under section 32 of SATA, the regulations section of the act, the government might have included something that states that the government can make regulations with regard to a redress system. Even that would be just a small indication that this is something that's going to happen.

Frankly, our position is that the government should take this opportunity to catch up to our allies, including the United States, and bring about the entire system. This, again, isn't something where we're asking the government to reinvent the wheel.

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

Now, in an ideal world, if you had a chance—and I'm sure you've been asked by my colleague across the way to provide to the committee any recommendations you have—what changes would you like to see that aren't already included in this Bill C-59 on the whole issue of the no-fly list?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I appreciate the comments that were made earlier, with respect to the concern that you have about all forms of violent extremism. Given the attack that happened in New York, I'm sure your organization has already or will be condemning the actions that occurred in that circumstance.

You indicate that there has been an historical lack of accountability within CSIS. It goes back many years. In 2015, Bill C-51 was brought in to address this and now Bill C-59 takes that review and accountability even further. However, from your testimony today, I'm hearing that there remains a lack of confidence in addressing the concerns within CSIS.

What do you propose is the solution?

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I think the committee would appreciate it—and I think you've alluded to it—if you would get us precise recommendations on the no-fly list in the form of actual language that you would want to see inserted into the bill, and that you provide it to us. I personally am confident that this government is committed and that the parameters are there. Through your advocacy efforts, I think you have the cross-party commitment that the budgetary component of that will be put into place to construct that system.

In the remaining couple minutes, I'd like to delegate some of my time to my colleague, Ms. Young. I would like to ask you about Canadian youth and the vulnerability of Canadian youth.

My colleague Mr. Paul-Hus referred to terrorist financing. The other source of energy for a terrorist organization is recruitment. Canadian youth are vulnerable—and not just Muslim youth but Canadian youth generally—to organizations like al Shabaab, Abu Sayyaf, and ISIS through recruitment.

Bill C-59 brings the Youth Criminal Justice Act into play through section 159, which basically says that, in the context of detention, as a preventative mechanism, young offender considerations have to be taken into account in counterterrorism work. Are there any other components to this bill that you want to raise or highlight with respect to the protection of Canadian youth, and could you comment very briefly on the importance of working with our Canadian youth to prevent radicalization?

You have about a minute or so.

[Zamir Khan]

I would agree that it will take time to build the redress system, that it is complex. I will agree with that. What I don't see is that the framework in Bill C-59 ensures that a redress system will ever be built. I would like to see in the legislation, just as the administrative process is outlined, that a watch-list cannot continue without redress. I don't see that currently.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

When I alluded to the issues of culture change, I think it's important that you hear that you're making us feel at some level, within the limits of our time together here this morning, the stigma that you're exposed to day after day, and I thank you for that.

Bill C-59 is one building block, as departmental officials and the minister have testified recently, in a three-step series to getting us where we would want to be with respect to an equivalent of the U.S. system. It provides the legal basis. There's a budgetary basis, as well, and ultimately, there's the construction of an IT-based system that would operate the redress system. The committee received testimony from the department that this is a complex exercise.

I appreciate your point, Mr. Khan, that there is software available that may well serve in some way in terms of solutions being integrated into the Canadian system ultimately, but there are complexities and there's not just one department involved. This is an exercise that cannot be undertaken and completed tomorrow.

It's also important, because there are youth involved and privacy issues, that data needs to be protected and that this is done in the right way. Would you agree that, if those are the right parameters to getting us to where we want to be, there isn't really, from a government side, an intermediate quick fix that would satisfactorily answer the concerns you bring us today?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Gardee and Professor Bhabha, I think this is what my colleague was getting at concerning what was said with regard to Bill C-51, and we heard this during the national security framework review that this committee undertook.

One of the concerns that were raised with the changes to the Criminal Code, the offences related to the promotion of terrorism.... Some families, for example, in terms of reporting to the proper authorities certain actions in hopes of rehabilitating a member of their family or their community, because those offences were so wide and general and vague, remained silent in order to not implicate a member of their family or their community.

Are the changes proposed to the Criminal Code in Bill C-59 related to that specific issue sufficient as far as you and your organization are concerned?

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

Okay.

I would like to go back to the no-fly list.

I am one of the MPs who signed a letter that has been sent to the Minister asking him for action.

Bill C-59 provides for the possibility of issuing a unique identifier to people, but do you feel that using biometric data could be something to add in order to make it easier to identify people?

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

That answers my question, thank you. As I do not have a lot of time, I would like to continue with my questions to you.

When you testified about Bill C-51, you mentioned that members of the community want to help with deradicalization, but they are afraid of being accused of being extremists.

Do you think that Bill C-59 solves that problem?

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

What the minister has said, though, is that Bill C-59 gives us the legislative framework to build the regulations, and then the funding is required. This is the first step in making sure that this happens.

I have only five seconds left, so thank you.

[Zamir Khan]

—one interesting thing is that if you are a listed person, one of those 2,000 people or more on the list, you have a recourse path that is legislated. It's mandated in the Secure Air Travel Act. That's what we're saying here. For the many thousands more who are false positives, who have nothing to do with this list, that process is not legislated. Even with the amendments of Bill C-59, it's not guaranteed that a redress system would be implemented.

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

As you mentioned, the list was put in place in 2007. One of the challenges was the way the previous government set it up. Instead of going the course that the Americans did, ours was done differently. As a result, officials, when they were here last week, said that it's going to be difficult and likely more costly to try to switch over now. Having said that, I think that in Bill C-59 we have the framework in place to start putting all of this in place.

I'm going to switch over to our other witnesses, though, because you think we should just get rid of it altogether. Is that what you were testifying? You don't think a redress system is something that we should pursue.

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

As you know, I have a constituent whose son's name matches a name on the no-fly list. Just to clarify, it's not just Muslims who are on the no-fly list. They're not. They may be predominantly, I don't know, but certainly it affects many Canadians, regardless of religion.

Some of the concerns that I know are addressed in Bill C-59, and I think you probably share them.... Maybe you can clarify. One was that she had no capacity to find out if, in fact, her son was on the no-fly list. Bill C-59 will give a parent or guardian the ability to find out if that name is on the list. That didn't exist before. I'm not sure if you were aware of that or not.

[Zamir Khan]

Thank you.

Before I start, I want to apologize to the committee that my colleague, Khalid, can't be here. I'm going to be wearing two hats today, one as a parent and one as a makeshift legal adviser.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on Bill C-59. My name is Zamir Khan and I am one of the parent founders of No Fly List Kids. We represent the hundreds of families and thousands of citizens adversely affected by Canada's passenger protect program. The scope of our knowledge, and accordingly our testimony, is limited to the passenger protect program, such as amendments the Secure Air Travel Act.

I am not a legislative expert or a security expert. I am simply a Canadian citizen and a father, here to testify to the harmful impact that can be enabled by gaps in legislation and when intelligence gathered by our own security agencies is applied in a haphazard manner. As you are likely aware, the passenger protect program, also known as Canada's no-fly list, was implemented in 2007 with a design that included, in the words of our current Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, “a fundamental mistake.”

That flaw, which persists today, is that verifying whether passengers are potentially listed persons is delegated to airlines and done solely based on their name, and this is despite both booking information and the Secure Air Travel Act watch-list containing additional identifiers such as date of birth. Any innocent traveller caught in this web is subjected, at a minimum, to extra delays and additional security scrutiny to prove their identity. They are then stuck in a perpetually revolving door to repeat the process every time they fly.

We are often asked how many Canadians are affected by this problem. Statistics about the program and its effectiveness have not been shared since its inception in 2007 when the transport minister disclosed that there were up to 2,000 names on the list. Our group has been contacted by over 100 affected families, representing the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of encumbered travellers are unaware of the source of their difficulties by virtue of the Secure Air Travel Act explicitly prohibiting the disclosing of any information related to a listed person. However, based on the names of the falsely flagged individuals we know of, and the number of Canadians who share those names, we conservatively estimate that over 100,000 Canadians are potential false positives when they fly. The methodology and rationale behind this estimate will be detailed in our upcoming written submission.

I am personally involved in this issue. My three-year-old son, Sebastian, has been treated as a potentially listed person since his birth. That means, for the first two years of his life, Sebastian was young enough, in the eyes of travel regulations, to be considered a “lap-held infant” who didn't require a seat on the flight, but old enough to be flagged as a possible security threat.

For families with flagged infants, the associated delays further complicate an already challenging travel schedule. As these children grow older, they become aware that they are the reason for the ever-present waiting and security scrutiny. That stigmatization has been described by the minister as a traumatizing experience for them and their families. When the children grow into teenagers and young adults, particularly young men, their innocence becomes less obvious. As our group has heard, their delays become longer and the scrutiny more intense. This has meant that some families have missed flights and the kids shy away from air travel for fear of stigmatization. This is not a future I want for my son.

The Secure Air Travel Act permits the minister to enter into agreements with foreign nations to disclose our watch-list to them. For example, a working group was established in 2016 to share our no-fly list with the United States. The prospect of this data being shared internationally is troubling to our families, who have experienced frightening ordeals of being detained and questioned or having passports confiscated while travelling abroad. Indeed, my wife and I are concerned about the treatment that awaits our family should we travel outside of Canada, given what already happens domestically. A watch-list that places undue suspicion on us is being shared internationally by our government, yet the burden to prove our innocence is being placed entirely on our shoulders.

All of this is to illustrate that the impact here runs much deeper than mere inconvenience. It is stigmatizing, inescapable, arguably a violation of charter rights, and as this committee has previously recommended, it is eminently solvable.

No Fly List Kids has been advocating for a fix to this flawed system for two years, and thus far the government has responded in two ways. In January 2016, the minister emphasized to airlines that children under the age of 18 did not require additional screening. However, as was reported by CBC, the result was Air Canada reiterating to their employees that all matches to the list must have their identities verified in person regardless of age.

In June 2016, the government announced the passenger protect inquiries office, or PPIO, designed to assist travellers who have experienced difficulties related to aviation security lists. Our group is not aware of a single family for whom the PPIO has been able to resolve their case. To the average Canadian, a resolution would mean permanently clearing someone who is falsely flagged. The PPIO considers recommending signing up your child for an airline rewards program or applying to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's redress system as a resolution.

For those flagged by the Canadian list like my son, a U.S. redress number does not help. Airline rewards programs are an inconsistent and flawed band-aid that the minister has called a stopgap measure. It's not good enough.

Earlier this year, the committee authored the report entitled “Protecting Canadians and their Rights: A New Road Map for Canada's National Security”. No Fly List Kids agrees with your recommendation 35 that the only solution for Canadians is an expeditious redress system to assist travellers erroneously identified as a person on the specified persons list.

In lieu of our legal adviser Khalid, I will now articulate our views on Bill C-59 and how, while it provides some initial framing, it falls short of ensuring a timely implementation of a redress system.

I will briefly touch on the following points: one, that the pressing need for a redress system has been established; two, that Bill C-59 does not go far enough in the establishment of a redress system; and three, time permitting, that the technology required for a redress system already exists and is being employed by our allies.

Let's start with the good news. Over the past few years, law-abiding Canadians from coast to coast have recounted their personal stories of delay, frustration, humiliation, and frankly, consternation in their encounters with the no-fly list regime. Those stories took on a new urgency when the No Fly List Kids group came together a little less than two years ago to bring to light how the list was affecting their children, including infants.

It appears that the message has gotten through. The group has secured letters from 202 members of Parliament, constituting two-thirds of the House of Commons, all calling for the swift establishment of a redress system. There appears to be all-party support for getting this done, but that brings me to the bad news.

On reading the proposed amendments to the Secure Air Travel Act contained in Bill C-59 it is apparent that, although the bill takes a small step toward the establishment of a redress system, it falls short of actually establishing the system. Bill C-59 includes a section that permits the minister to collect personal information for the purpose of issuing a unique identifier to travellers. It's a small step forward, but it's not where we need to go.

To illustrate by way of example, section 16 of the act currently provides an appeal mechanism for individuals who are denied boarding. There's also a section for administrative recourse.

Contrast that with Bill C-59, which does not come close to setting out the details of a redress system for people who are falsely flagged by the list.

My final point is that we are not asking the government to reinvent the wheel. We need to look no further than our closest neighbour, the United States. We have attached screenshots of booking information for the same passenger travelling from Canada to Halifax and New York, with a Canadian airline, Air Canada. As you can see, the technology is already there for the passenger to input their redress number when travelling to the United States and be cleared at the time of booking.

Thank you to the committee.

[Ihsaan Gardee, Executive Director, National Council of Canadian Muslims]

Good morning, members.

Thank you very much for your attention and time today.

My name is Ihsaan Gardee, as mentioned, and I serve as executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims. I am joined today by my colleague, Professor Faisal Bhabha, NCCM's legal counsel and the chair of our national security policy committee.

The NCCM was founded in 2000 as an independent, non-partisan, and non-profit grassroots organization that for over 17 years has been a leading voice for Muslim civic engagement and the promotion of human rights. The NCCM's mandate is to protect the human rights and civil liberties of Canadian Muslims, advocate for their public interests, build mutual understanding, and challenge discrimination and Islamophobia.

We work to achieve this mission through our work in four primary areas: community education and outreach, media engagement, anti-discrimination action, and public advocacy. The NCCM has a long-standing and robust public record of participating in major public inquiries, intervening in landmark cases before the Supreme Court of Canada, and providing advice to security agencies on engaging communities and promoting public safety.

In terms of our position, the NCCM has always supported the government's responsibility to ensure national security. We commend the current government for fulfilling its election promise to review Bill C-51 as its condition for supporting the bill in the first place, and to consult with Canadians. While we welcome, for instance, that Bill C-59 proposes to create a national security review agency with more oversight and review than we currently have, our general objection remains constant. This law goes too far. It virtually guarantees constitutional breach, and it offers inadequate justification. It strengthens the security establishment when the evidence available gives every indication that the institutions carrying out national security intelligence gathering and enforcement mandates are in disarray, rife with bias and bullying from the top down. Oversight of those agencies is not sufficient. Real reform is necessary.

While we share the concerns of others you have heard from, including Amnesty International and others, for the purposes of our opening statement today I'll be focusing our testimony on two major substantive concerns we have with Bill C-59. Number one is the powers given to CSIS, and number two, the failure to address systemic problems with the no-fly list.

In terms of our reasons, Canadian Muslims are just as concerned about security as other Canadians. We face the same risk of untimely death or injury at the hands of terrorists as any Canadian. In fact, globally the overwhelming majority of victims of political violence, including ideological extremist violence, have been Muslims. Being a population with global connections, Canadian Muslims are threatened and impacted by global terrorism as much, if not more, than other Canadians. We thus have a high interest in Canada developing a strong and sound national security policy with robust oversight, accountability, and redress mechanisms to guard against abuses and mistakes.

At the same time, members of Canadian Muslim communities have been victims of Canadian national security policy. Over the last 15 years we have seen three separate judicial inquiries, numerous court rulings, out-of-court settlements, and apologies that acknowledged the constitutional violations committed against innocent Muslims by national security intelligence and enforcement. Canadian Muslims are not only disproportionately affected by these errors and abuses, but we also bear the brunt of social impact when xenophobic and anti-Muslim sentiment surges.

NCCM agrees with the plurality of experts who state that more power to security agencies does not necessarily mean more security for Canadians. National security mistakes not only put innocent people at risk of suspicion and stigma, but also divert attention away from actual threats and obstruct effective action to promote safety and security. At the same time that Alexandre Bissonnette was dreaming up his murderous plot to attack a Quebec City mosque, the RCMP were “manufacturing crime”, according to the B.C. Superior Court judge in the case against John Nuttall and Amanda Korody. They were Muslim converts and recovering heroin addicts living on social assistance, whose terrorism charges were stayed last year after a court found they had been entrapped by police.

Bill C-59 strengthens the security establishment but does not address the security needs of Canadian Muslims. While the idea of prevention is laudable, any potential benefit from this approach will be negated by the incursions on charter rights that disproportionately affect members of our community, and which will continue to happen under the guise of threat reduction, information sharing, and no-fly listing.

If the government wishes to collaborate with communities on prevention, it needs to build trust and confidence first. For many young Canadian Muslims, the documented and admitted involvement of intelligence and enforcement agencies in rendition and other human rights abuses, and the complete lack of accountability and perceived impunity that have been created as a result, have bred a lack of confidence in the Canadian security establishment.

This past summer, a group of CSIS employees filed a civil claim against the service, alleging discrimination, harassment, bullying, and abuse of authority. They described a workplace environment within the service that is racist, Islamophobic, sexist, and homophobic, where the culture is like an old boys' club and where minority representation in management is abysmally low. The day after the claim was filed, two senior former CSIS employees were quoted in the media saying they were not surprised by the allegations.

In October 2017, CSIS released the report of an independent, third-party investigation into allegations of harassment in the Toronto region office. The findings noted an “old boys' culture”, demeaning treatment, swearing and discriminatory statements, distrust among employees towards management, and a lack of diversity among the staff.

If these kinds of reports are indicative of the overall culture that exists within these organizations toward their own employees, it does little to assuage concerns within Canadian Muslim communities about unfair profiling and error.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission conducted employment equity audits of CSIS in 2011 and 2014, and the findings are shocking for a powerful public institution operating in a 21st-century, multicultural, democratic society.

There were zero per cent visible minorities in senior management positions at a time when visible minorities were about 20% of the Canadian population. We have to infer from that not just a glass ceiling but an actual bar. The CHRC also noted an institutional culture that undervalued minorities and reproduced attitudinal barriers, which resulted in fewer hiring and advancement opportunities for minorities.

The security agency's loss of trust within Canadian Muslim communities has been exacerbated by the lack of accountability for past wrongs committed against innocent Muslims. While the government has concluded significant settlements and made apologies, no one from within those agencies has been held to account.

To the best of our knowledge, there has been no disciplinary action and no public acknowledgements. Instead of accountability, some of those involved in the well-known torture case of Maher Arar have even been promoted within the agencies.

At best, there was individual and institutional incompetence in the security agencies. At worst, it was gross negligence or bad faith. Neither is acceptable and the taxpaying Canadians who fund these agencies deserve better.

The lack of accountability projects a culture of impunity within the Canadian security agencies that reinforces the insecurity Canadian Muslims experience. The problems with CSIS will not be mitigated by Bill C-59. No amount of administrative oversight can cure the systemic ills. These agencies need reform.

We do not see any attention given in this proposed legislation to the real impact that bias in national security has in producing insecurity and harm within our communities. Without a clear statutory mandate and direction from our government, we do not believe that civil society alone can change the culture within CSIS and other security agencies.

We are willing to help, but that burden cannot fall only upon us.

I'll now pass it over to my colleague, Professor Bhabha, to conclude with our recommendations.

Agriculture and Agrifood

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, whether in Saint-André, New Brunswick, or in Calgary, where I met with grain producers, everyone is wondering who in this government is standing up for agriculture.

Farmers were called tax cheats, family transfers were compromised, deferred cash tickets were almost taken away, and the government refused to split Bill C-59 on grain transportation. The list is long.

Worst of all, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food has not been involved in any of the free trade negotiations. Agriculture is the basis of our economy.

Why are the Liberals abandoning farmers?

Public Safety

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-59 was preceded by the most exhaustive public consultation across Canada ever on national security. There was an opportunity by the public safety and national security committee to ensure there was a review of the security framework. That led to the legislation before us today, which would see finally the oversight that was talked about for so many years, including when I was the critic in opposition and pushing for it.

We have waited for over a decade. It is time to move forward with appropriate oversight.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are claiming it is not possible to repeal the Conservative Bill C-51. My colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke is proposing just that with his Bill C-303 to fully protect Canadians' rights.

Under the 138-page Liberal Bill C-59, CSIS still has extensive and invasive powers. The privacy of Canadians is still under threat and oversight of government agencies is insufficient.

Will the government divide Bill C-59 into separate bills so they can be properly studied? Canadians' rights are at stake.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Privacy Commissioner said that Canada was moving from the back of the pack and catching up with the rest of the international community. In fact, he said that Canada was moving to the lead as a result of the legislation, Bill C-59.

The fact is that the legislation is putting us at the vanguard, that we are ensuring two things equally: one, the protection of Canadians; and two, making sure that their rights are protected.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals promised to fix the problems in the Conservatives' anti-terrorism bill, which was an unprecedented attack on Canadians' civil rights.

The Privacy Commissioner sounded the alarm on the Liberals' Bill C-59 yesterday in committee. The thresholds for sharing information about Canadians among departments are still too low and must be more limited.

Will the government finally agree to amend its bill to protect Canadians' civil rights?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

I've been meaning to ask all of you another question.

In your reading of Bill C-59, each of you have made some comments on the number of layers and whether or not new reviews would be placed on CSIS and their capacity to be able to do things. Do you think it's helpful in allowing CSIS to meet its mandate by having these additional layers? Mr. Leuprecht, you had commented with regard to the issues around methodology and how that would be implemented. Could you comment and then we'll come back to the others?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, all, for taking the time to come today.

Mr. Leuprecht, I'd like to ask you one particular question. I guess it's in follow-up to your comment about how Canada no longer lives in an isolated part of the world with respect to these issues around security.

Bill C-59, we've heard from the Department of Justice, will make it more difficult for law enforcement to secure preventative arrests because the threshold is being raised to secure such an order. I was wondering if you could make some comments with respect to that and your perspective on it.

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

Thank you very much.

My next question has to do with the minister's testimony when he was before this committee on Bill C-59. He was talking about the changes from Bill C-51, amending, advocating, and promoting the commission of terrorism offences in general, and replacing the offence to apply only when a person specifically counsels another person to commit a terrorism offence. It provides a clear and more appropriate legal structure surrounding them. When he was questioned, he was asked if this would actually provide law enforcement with better tools to be able to enforce.... Now, you had mentioned that you thought the definition was still too broad. I don't know if you had an opportunity to see what the minister was saying in terms of it actually narrowing the definition to allow law enforcement to enforce....

I'd also welcome comments from both of you on that.

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

I have 30 seconds. I have one more question I want a response to. Sorry.

Bill C-59, as we've heard from the Department of Justice, will make it more difficult for law enforcement to secure preventative arrests. Now, because the threshold to secure such an order is being raised, do you, Mr. Leuprecht, consider this to be problematic?

[Cara Zwibel]

We feel that the scheme laid out in Bill C-59, as we said, is an improvement in terms of clarifying what the contours of threat disruption look like and making clearer to both the public and to the service itself what the acceptable and prohibited bounds are. In particular, the addition of prohibited activities, including detention, was in our view quite an important one.

I want to reference that when we expressed concerns about disruption and why this is not being done by law enforcement, some of that has to do with making sure we can effectively prosecute people once we determine they've done something contrary to the law. The other thing is that we've never been particularly concerned about the kind of disruption you mentioned, such as talking to a parent and saying, “Your child's been getting into some trouble.” We're more concerned with some of the items that are now specifically enumerated in the legislation—things like fabricating or disseminating any information, record, or document; altering or removing websites and communications, and things like that. It's helpful, in our view, to have those in the legislation.

We have suggestions for how the warrant scheme might be improved, and we can elaborate on those in our written submissions.

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

Thank you.

Dr. Leuprecht, the powers in Bill C-51 are not uncommon. You had said in your testimony, again on Bill C-51, “Canadians have a profound misconception of what disruption constitutes. CSIS being able to talk to parents to tell them that their child is up to no good is a disruption power.” I can go on with that, but with the changes proposed in Bill C-59, particularly in securing a warrant to conduct certain disruption activities, do you believe we are heading in the right direction with this legislation on that particular front?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to both groups for being here today.

Mr. Leuprecht, you had said in previous testimony on Bill C-51, “CSIS is the most reviewed intelligence security service in the western world and therefore, I think we can safely say in the world as it is.” In your reading of Bill C-59, are there any new layers of review placed upon CSIS, and do you think those are helpful in helping CSIS fulfill it's mandate?

[Hayley McNorton]

Considering the broad mandates of both NSIRA and NSICOP, there is a potential for overlap, especially in what they review for. They both could technically review issues related to efficacy, compliance, innovation of agencies.

They're geared toward different things. For example, the parliamentarians have a diversity of expertise, so they would be very useful in reviewing legislation. According to Bill C-59, NSIRA is made up of former SIRC members. They have the experience and intelligence accountability to look at things that are more geared to compliance. However, there probably will need to be some kind of delineating of responsibilities to prevent overlap and the minimization of duplication of work.

[Lex Gill]

Absolutely.

The government has failed to demonstrate why this publicly available information exception as worded is necessary or proportionate, or what risks it's meant to mitigate in the first place. The CSE has identified a need to access reports on the global infrastructure as a justification for this provision, yet a more narrowly defined list of information types would easily respond to such a need.

While section 7 specifies that privacy must be considered, the nature of the protection is vague; the regulations setting out the scope of protection are likely to be secret, and the potential for invasive information collection and abuse is high.

The parallel term “publicly available dataset” in the CSIS Act remains undefined but appears to replicate the same types of problems.

Finally, we welcome the new accountability mechanisms in Bill C-59 and strongly support the creation of the new, integrated review body, and the introduction of an intelligence commissioner with the ability to exercise quasi-judicial oversight. However, we are concerned that significant gaps remain. The commissioner only issues reasons when rejecting an authorization. The reasons are kept secret from the public. There is no adversarial input. The authorizations will continue to be issued on a class basis, and there is no framework for appeal or review of decisions except by the minister and the intelligence agencies themselves.

Without amendments that strengthen the role of the commissioner, his or her ability to exercise meaningful oversight and control will be limited in practice.

We welcome questions from the committee about these issues and other aspects of Bill C-59.

[Lex Gill, Advocate, National Security Program, Canadian Civil Liberties Association]

Mr. Chair, another deeply problematic aspect of Bill C-51 that has not been touched are changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that undid important protections for named persons in security certificate proceedings. Bill C-51 limited the requirement for disclosure of relevant information to special advocates and introduced a series of procedural barriers which further disadvantaged the rights of the named person.

In our legal challenge, CCLA has argued that these amendments are an unconstitutional violation of the section 7 guarantee to a hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal. Our Supreme Court has affirmed that the individual named in the security certificate “must be given an opportunity to know the case to meet, and an opportunity to meet the case”, an impossible exercise in the absence of a coherent legal framework for full disclosure.

This committee recognized as much in May 2017 when it recommended amending IRPA in order to give special advocates full access to complete security certificate files. We urge that Bill C-59 be amended to correct this issue.

We move now to the new elements of the new national security landscape that Bill C-59 has introduced. Our written submission will address a much wider range of issues in relation to the CSE Act, but we would like to highlight two parts today.

First, the proposed active and defensive cyber-operations aspects of the CSE's mandate essentially allow the establishment to engage in secret and largely unconstrained state-sponsored hacking and disruption. The limitation of not directing these activities at Canadian infrastructure is clearly inadequate given the inherently interconnected nature of the digital ecosystem. Such activities are also bound to impact the privacy expression and security interests of Canadians and persons in Canada, and may threaten the integrity of communications tools such as encryption and anonymity software that are vital for the protection of human rights in the digital age.

In the case of CSIS's disruption powers, which are in some ways analogous to these new aspects of CSE's mandate, the government has set out a complex framework for prior judicial authorization and a longer list of prohibited activities. While we do not concede the adequacy of that framework, it is notable that, in contrast, CSE's cyber-operations activities involve no meaningful privacy protections, require only secret ministerial authorization, and involve only after-the-fact review.

Second, while the majority of CSE's activities cannot be directed at Canadians or persons in Canada, this is an inadequate safeguard against CSE's overreach in the face of unselected bulk collection. Bill C-59 exacerbates this privacy risk by creating a series of exceptions for the collection of Canadian data, including one which allows its acquisition, use, analysis, retention, and disclosure, so long as it is publicly available.

This definition is so broad that it plausibly includes information in which individuals have a strong privacy interest, and potentially allows for the collection of private data obtained by hacks, leaks, or other illicit means. Furthermore, it may encourage the creation of grey markets for data that would otherwise never have been available to government—a client with deep pockets.

The government has failed to demonstrate why this exception, as worded, is necessary or proportionate, or what risk it is meant to mitigate in the first place.

[Cara Zwibel, Acting General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association]

Yes, my apologies to the committee for coming in late.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association appreciates the opportunity to make submissions with respect to Bill C-59.

CCLA was a vocal critic of the Anti-terrorism Act passed in the last Parliament and initiated a constitutional challenge to a number of aspects of that law, which remains in abeyance pending consideration of Bill C-59. While this new bill has partially addressed some of Bill C-51's constitutional deficits, it has certainly not resolved all of them. The bill also grants our national security agencies a number of extraordinary new powers that have not been adequately justified and that do give rise to very real civil liberties concerns. The government has framed this bill as being about protecting both national security and rights, and CCLA supports both of these goals, and our comments and recommendations are made in that spirit.

We will begin by identifying the positive changes Bill C-59 makes to former Bill C-51, outline the issues that remain unaddressed, and finally, set out the new problems created by Bill C-59.

Since we certainly can't cover everything in 10 minutes, we'll also be filing a more detailed written submission. Beginning with the items that Bill C-59 has improved, we are reassured by the government's amendments to the terrorist speech offences. Without these amendments, the provisions violate sections 2 and 7 of the charter and may also undermine community-based deradicalization efforts. While the amended offence is arguably unnecessary, given the large number of pre-existing terrorism offences in the Criminal Code, counselling offences are a known quantity in the criminal law and follow a clear legal framework. However, the language of “terrorism offence” in the amendment would be better changed to “terrorist activity”, which is a defined term in the code.

On information sharing, Bill C-59 adds new proportionality and reporting requirements, which is a distinct improvement over the largely unaccountable system introduced in Bill C-51. However, the definition of “threats to the security of Canada” that triggers information disclosure remains unduly broad and circular. It is not clear why this definition is so much broader than the one included in the CSIS Act, and we remain concerned that constitutionally protected acts of advocacy, protest, dissent, or artistic expression, particularly by environmental and indigenous activists, will continue to be swept up in the process.

One of the most controversial aspects of Bill C-51 was the threat reduction powers granted to CSIS and the accompanying warrant provisions that appeared to allow for judicially sanctioned charter breaches. We do not doubt that there are times when CSIS may see an opportunity to take action to reduce the threat to the security of Canada. What is unclear is why this goal cannot be achieved through better communication and co-operation between CSIS, the RCMP, and other law enforcement bodies. This is a very significant shift in mandate that appears to ignore the historical reasons for separating law enforcement and intelligence in the first place, and there has been no convincing case made for why this shift is necessary.

Moreover, the legal framework for the exercise of these powers established in Bill C-51 was deeply problematic and clearly unconstitutional in our view. The scheme as modified by Bill C-59 is an improvement. It establishes clearer contours around what actions are permitted and what is prohibited, and the warrant scheme appears to be intended to ensure that the charter rights of individuals are respected. If CSIS is to continue to have these powers there are a number of ways in which we believe the scheme should be improved.

First, the requirement for CSIS to consult with other federal departments or agencies to see if they can reduce the threat should be amended to clarify that if a law enforcement body is better placed to do so, CSIS should not pursue threat reduction. Second, the list of measures set out in proposed section 21.1(1.1) only require a warrant where CSIS determines that they may violate the law or limit a charter right. A warrant should be required in any case where these measures will be pursued by CSIS. It is vital that the determination of whether a law is being violated or a charter right limited not be left solely to CSIS.

Finally, the new national security and intelligence review agency should be required to report on the number of warrants issued under proposed section 21.1, and the number of requests that were refused. SIRC does so now, and reducing reporting requirements is not consistent with Bill C-59's stated goal of enhancing accountability.

Some of the most problematic aspects of Bill C-51 received only cosmetic improvement or none at all. As this committee is aware, the passenger protect program continues to raise serious constitutional problems. The process by which individuals are placed on the list remains opaque, and proposed redress mechanisms are inadequate. Bill C-59 also fails to correct the flawed appeals procedure, which parallels the system in place for security certificates prior to the Supreme Court's Charkaoui decision in 2007.

While the no-fly list is undoubtedly different from being named in a security certificate, both have the ability to substantially interfere with the constitutionally protected rights and liberties of an individual and to seriously impact their lives and families. The current process allows the use of hearsay and secret evidence, without access to a special advocate able to test that evidence or to represent the interests of the listed person.

This committee recognized these profound issues in May when it recommended the use of special advocates in no-fly list proceedings, among other safeguards, and yet Bill C-59 does not address these concerns. It should do so by adopting this committee's initial recommendation. We would note that the terrorist entities list raised similar issues.

[Hayley McNorton, Research Assistant, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair, to enhance intelligence accountability, we have suggested five recommendations.

The first is that Bill C-59 does not describe if and how NSIRA, which is the national security and intelligence review agency, will support the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. In the existing system, the committee of parliamentarians could apply to OCSE, the office of the CSE commissioner, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, or the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, if they needed additional assistance. However, if Bill C-59 is passed, it will only apply to NSIRA or the CRCC. In regard to this recommendation, we consider how much support NSIRA will give the committee of parliamentarians and what kind of support they will give the committee of parliamentarians.

The second suggestion is that the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission should retain its ability to review issues and investigate complaints related to national security. The existing legislation giving NSIRA the ability to review matters related to national security issues goes against the recommendations from the O'Connor commission. Also, in the end, it would give the CRCC undue influence over what NSIRA reviews in regard to national security, because NSIRA will remain the principal point of contact for the complaints and reviews, which it would then refer to NSIRA.

The third recommendation is that NSIRA should have the ability to conduct joint investigations with provincial police and complaint bodies. The CRCC has this power as well. Basically, a lot of the federal intelligence and security agencies work with provincial police bodies, so that is also a consideration.

NSIRA should develop and establish standards for intelligence accountability.

Last, NSIRA should take reasonable steps to co-operate with the committee of parliamentarians to avoid unnecessary duplication of work in relation to the fulfillment of their respective mandates.

[Daniel Therrien]

On balance, Bill C-59 makes important improvements, but the recommendations I am making, particularly on the necessity threshold and legal safeguards for retention or destruction, are necessary to achieve the right balance.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have one final question. You wrote an overview of C-51 in The Globe and Mail shortly after the bill was released. You said, “In a country governed by the rule of law, it should not be left for national security and other government agencies to determine the limits of their own powers.”

On balance, are you satisfied that Bill C-59 has addressed this concern?

[Daniel Therrien]

Sure.

Yes, the application of the Privacy Act would be part of this, as would the lessons learned in the application of the Privacy Act otherwise in government to national security agencies. I think it's important that national security agencies be covered by specific rules, as in Bill C-59, but also by the legal regime of the Privacy Act, because these are emanations of the state, and as with all emanations of the state, they should be covered to the general rules applicable through the Privacy Act.

As an example of how we might add value, about two years ago we reviewed an incident involving the unfortunate but unlawful disclosure of metadata by the CSE to the Five Eyes. We played a very specific role. We did not look at all of the situation, but we looked at sufficient parts of it to examine the importance of metadata to privacy. We were able to look at the deficiencies, make recommendations on how to improve things, and play a public education role to make sure that the public was informed of the importance of metadata for privacy protection. That's something we added.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you for being here today, Mr. Therrien.

I have a question about the connection between speech and privacy. I think you would agree that free speech and the right to it and to privacy enjoy a very intimate and indeed interdependent connection. Bill C-59 would replace one of the most controversial features of Bill C-51, the advocating of terrorism offences in general, with a more traditional offence, that of counselling specific terrorism offences.

We heard just the other day from Professor Stephanie Carvin, who in a piece for The Globe and Mail, wrote:

This better respects freedom of expression while still recognizing that much speech — including terrorist recruitment and instruction — is a reasonable target for criminalization.

Can you comment on this change in Bill C-59 and what you make of it from a privacy perspective?

[Daniel Therrien]

The 90-day period in Bill C-59 applies to the specific situation of the collection of datasets by CSIS. In a model where it's conceivable that more information may be required at the front end, but an exercise is required to funnel this to less information at some point, it's important that this period of analysis not be too long so as to give time to security agencies to do the analysis they need to do.

Ninety days strikes me as a very reasonable period. Should it be 90 days throughout regardless of whether it's CSIS, CSC, or others? We would have to look at it, but 90 days is a good rule of thumb.

[Daniel Therrien]

The best example would be, again, that of travellers. The information about travellers, many of whom are not a risk to national security, may be relevant and may contribute to the mandate of the receiving agency, to use the words of the new section 5, because in the mass of travellers there might be some who are a threat. To have information on a more permissive relevancy or contribution standard may be acceptable at the front end. However, when that information is then received and analyzed by the national security agency and the agency determines that the individual is not a threat, on what basis should the information be used and, moreover, retained by the agency? The retention of information about 99.9% of the travellers who are not a threat is not necessary to its work, to its mandate.

In looking at Bill C-59 as a whole with all of its parts, I'm struck by the fact that parts 3 and 4 have essentially the standards. I understand that relevance and necessity are somewhat esoteric notions, but in parts 3 and 4, the government and you as parliamentarians are seized with a bill that recognizes that there is a need for the higher necessity threshold in some circumstances.

CSIS and the CSE will not be able to use and exploit the personal information of individuals unless it meets a necessity test. If it's good for parts 3 and 4, I'm saying it should be good for part 5.

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

Would you see a change in the mandate of your organization with the passage of Bill C-59? If so, would you require the allocation of more resources to manage those changes?

[Daniel Therrien]

Yes, there is a risk, but I think it is being managed properly, more or less.

The definition could probably be narrower but then national security agencies, such as CSIS, would be deprived of the information they need for their work. However, there is a risk. How can the risk be reduced? The answer is through independent and effective review mechanisms.

The part of Bill C-59 that deals with CSIS has a number of filters exercised by independent members of the executive of the government and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service based on high standards, including necessity. Overall, I think it's a fair balance.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Therrien, I want to thank you and your team for being with us today.

My question has to do with the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA for short.

On the one hand, should the agency have an oversight body? It isn't the only organization that Bill C-59 excludes.

On the other hand, should we broaden the scope of the bill to include those organizations in national security matters?

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

You were actually very critical of Bill C-51 at the time. Now, you are not satisfied with Bill C-59. You consider the collection of information to be acceptable and see it as normal. However, you have concerns about Bill C-59's purpose. That's what you said this morning.

[Daniel Therrien]

I start my analysis with the need to have good, clear, sufficiently high legal standards, including thresholds. That's where the issue of relevance for contributing to the mandate or being necessary comes in, so there are substantive legal safeguards.

The second element of well-balanced national security legislation requires strong, independent, effective review. On the substantive legal safeguards side, I accept that to apply the necessity test may pose problems for disclosing institutions, which is the main point the government made in responding to the ethics committee, and which may have been a contributing factor to your committee when you suggested a dual threshold.

I accept that a threshold lower than necessity helps disclosing institutions do a difficult task while having safeguards. However, receiving institutions—essentially national security agencies—know very well what their mandate is and what they need to do their job. There, the necessity threshold, which is the international norm, should apply fully.

That's the main substantive recommendation I'm making, which is again where this committee was at not long ago.

The second substantive rule is as follows. If there is a difference between the thresholds applicable to disclosing and receiving institutions which would be the result of a dual threshold, it's easier for disclosing institutions to disclose, but the threshold for receivers is higher. Point one is, what do we do about this gap, if the receiving institution has received something that is not necessary?

Point two is, if the receiving institution has received information about a law-abiding citizen—travellers are the best example—to identify in the mass of travellers the extremely few who may pose a threat to national security, there should be legal rules to require the receiving institution to get rid of the information, to destroy the information, to no longer retain the information if there's a gap between the two thresholds, or if, in relation to a given individual, the analysis leads to the conclusion that the person is not a threat and therefore that their information should not sit in the records of CSIS or the CSE or the intelligence apparatus. These are the substantive rules.

In terms of effective review, it is clear that the creation of the new NSIRA is an important improvement. The fact that it will be able to share information with the committee of parliamentarians creates a good step in the right direction, in that you have integrated review applicable to all departments—not only three as at the current time—and you have elected officials and experts who can talk to one another and reach a well-informed decision.

What we think we can bring to the picture—and we're not in the picture, at least not completely—with Bill C-59 is that the lifeblood, la matière première, the main tool that national security agencies have to do their job is information, and that includes personal information. We're the experts in how to deal with personal information in a way that respects privacy rights. We're not saying that NSIRA would be without any knowledge of the relevant issues, but there is an issue of core importance to the work of national security agencies, that of privacy, where we're the experts, and we think we can add value to the rest of the architecture.

[Daniel Therrien, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, I am here this morning with Patricia Kosseim, who is our general counsel, and Lara Ives, who is the director general of audit and review.

Thank you for the invitation to discuss Bill C-59.

As you know, Bill C-59 introduces a wide range of measures intended to strengthen Canada's national security framework in a manner that safeguards the rights and freedoms of Canadians. On the whole, I find it represents a step in the right direction, but as other commentators have noted, its weakest part is the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, or SCISA, which contains provisions related to information sharing and privacy. Professor Forcese, for instance, gave these sections a failing grade. I was therefore glad to hear Minister Goodale last week say that SCISA was probably the part most deserving of scrutiny. I hope your study will result in much-needed improvements to these rules.

In previous parliamentary briefs, I highlighted the need for rigorous legal standards around the collection and sharing of personal information, effective oversight, and minimization of risks to the privacy of ordinary law-abiding Canadians, particularly through privacy-sensitive retention and destruction practices. Specifically, I indicated that the law should prescribe two things essentially, which are useful to bear in mind. First is clear and reasonable standards for the sharing, collection, use and retention of personal information”, so substantive rules. Second is that compliance with these standards should be subject to independent and effective review mechanisms.

It is with this analysis in mind that I offer the following comments and recommendations. While I will focus in my remarks on SCISA, this analysis, looking at two types of issues, is also relevant for other parts of Bill C-59, including parts 3 and 4. The full list of our recommendations is attached to this statement.

Bill C-59 would create a new expert review body, the NSIRA, with broad jurisdiction to examine the activities of all departments and agencies involved in national security. Recently, Parliament also created, through Bill C-22, a new National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. Both of these bodies will be able to share confidential information and generally co-operate so as to produce well-informed and comprehensive reviews that reflect considerations both by experts and by elected officials.

These developments are most welcome, but they are, in my view, clearly insufficient. In my view, effective review of national security activities must include both parliamentary and expert review, and the latter must include both national security and privacy experts. Why privacy experts? Because the work of national security agencies depends in large part on personal information. It is what they call their “lifeblood”. The OPC is the federal centre of expertise in privacy and personal data protection. Canadians are concerned that anti-terrorism efforts in government not unduly impede their privacy rights, and they expect my office to play a role in ensuring that balance.

Bill C-59 is oddly silent on the role of my office. It does not amend the Privacy Act, so my existing authorities appear to be untouched. The only body with explicit authority to play a role in relation to part 5, the renamed SCIDA, or security of canada information disclosure act, is the NSIRA, the national security and intelligence review agency.

The ethics committee, in its study of SCISA, has already noted the ambiguity in the interplay between that act and the Privacy Act. It has called for amendments to clarify that the Privacy Act continues to apply to all personal information disclosed pursuant to SCISA. I have provided to your committee amendments that would confirm the application of the Privacy Act and the OPC's role, which I am told the government wants to maintain.

However, there is no ambiguity on whether my office would be able, with Bill C-59, to share confidential information with the NSIRA and the new committee of parliamentarians. We would not have that authority, and actually we would be prohibited by existing provisions in the Privacy Act from sharing such information.

This means that the comprehensive review process offered in Bill C-59, as a fundamental element to bring balance between security and respect for rights, would stop short of the objective by leaving privacy experts out of integrated review. I am at a loss to understand why. If the fear is of duplication between our work and that of other review bodies, I would gladly explain through the question period how bringing the OPC firmly within the family of review bodies would not only bring required expertise but would actually enhance efficiency and reduce overlap.

When Bill C-51 enacted the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, known as SCISA, I indicated that among my concerns was the fact that the relevance standard for sharing was set too low, and that there was an absence of clear data retention and recordkeeping requirements and a lack of information-sharing agreements and privacy impact assessments.

The relevance test is too permissive because it casts too wide a net and creates undue risks for ordinary citizens who pose no threat to national security. The government seems to recognize that a relevance standard does not sufficiently protect privacy because it is suggesting changes to section 5 of SCISA.

In its response to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, the government said the following:

The key issue regarding the threshold is the need to establish specific decision making parameters for the discloser of information that will protect individual privacy but not cause undue delays in the information sharing process.

I agree with that assessment. The proposed new section 5, particularly paragraph 5(1)(b), incorporates some aspects of a necessity threshold but falls short of adopting what officials refer to as “strict necessity”.

In order to adequately protect privacy rights, under new section 5, this limited progress in increasing the threshold for disclosure would have to be accompanied by more complete changes to the standard applicable to receiving institutions, in other words, the security agencies receiving the information in question.

Information sharing involves two parties and, to protect rights, rules are also required for receiving institutions. If relevance is not adequate for disclosing institutions, it is also inadequate, even more so, for receiving agencies.

And the delay considerations that may apply to disclosure affect receiving departments very differently. These institutions are perfectly capable of applying the classic, internationally established necessity test, and should be required to do so.

We understand that the government intention is for receiving institutions to continue to be governed by the Privacy Act, or their specific enabling legislation where applicable. The current Privacy Act threshold is relevance.

As your committee recommended in its May 2017 report on Canada's national security framework, we also recommend that a dual threshold be adopted for information sharing—that set out in amended section 5 for disclosing institutions, and that of necessity and proportionality for receiving institutions.

Even if one accepts that government sharing of information related to law-abiding citizens may lead to the identification of new threats to national security, once that information is analyzed and leads to the conclusion that someone is not a threat, it should no longer be retained. Otherwise national security agencies will be able to keep a profile on all of us.

This is consistent with the conclusions of our review of the Canada Border Services Agency's scenario-based targeting initiative, summarized in my latest annual report to Parliament, and it is one of the principles upheld by the European Court of Justice in the passenger name and record case, decided in July 2017.

In addition, if the threshold for collecting or receiving information is higher than the standard for disclosure—which is currently the case at least for CSIS and would be the case if you adopt a dual threshold, that is, one for disclosing institutions and one for receiving institutions—then, rules are required to ensure that information is discarded without delay either when the collection test is not met or if the receiving institution is of the view that the disclosure standard was not satisfied.

In conclusion, my complete recommendations, annexed to this statement, include some that I have made in the past and do not have time to explain in the time allotted this morning. I also intend to write a fuller submission prior to the end of your study.

My team and I would be glad to answer any questions you may have.

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

This is my last question. We promised Canadians to improve the accountability of national security agencies. We promised to fix the overreaching and in some cases unconstitutional nature of Bill C-51, and then Bill C-51 overall with Bill C-22 and Bill C-59.

Do you think we've done that?

[Prof. Wesley Wark]

Mr. Motz, I greatly appreciate the opportunity. I'll be very brief on this. I think these are very important issues and of course no piece of legislation, as sweeping as it might be, is going to capture them all, but there's lots of work to be done to truly modernize Canadian intelligence.

I'll give you my short list—there's a longer list—and Professor Carvin referred to these things in a different kind of dimension. I think Canada needs a comprehensive national security strategy. We've only issued such a thing once back in 2004, and we need a commitment to updating it. I think that we need, crucially, because Bill C-59 in terms of new powers is all about collection, an integrated, properly resourced, centralized intelligence assessment function. This is one of the great gaps in the system.

I think—this is a subject for another debate—we need a dedicated foreign intelligence agency distinct from CSIS. We need to move forward, as I said, with the proposed national security transparency charter. We need a revision and an updating of the Security of Information Act, which was part of the old Bill C-51 and is now I think completely out of date. We need modernized access legislation, particularly to resolve issues around access to basic subscriber information. There's more but that's my short list.

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

Thank you very much.

Professor Wark, you had indicated at the close of your opening remarks that you didn't get a chance to explain what you believe isn't in Bill C-59. I'm hesitant to give you the floor to do that but nonetheless I'm curious to know what you think those might be.

[Prof. Wesley Wark]

I would just add very briefly that probably the ideal thing would be to have a balance between legislative direction and regulation in detail. I think one of the things that Bill C-59 does in particular through its accountability provisions is to ensure that if that combination of legislative direction and ministerial regulation isn't working properly, that will appear in the kinds of review reports and reporting to the minister that the body will do.

I would also say that although this remains a work-in-progress on the part of the government, I think it will be very important to roll out as quickly as possible the government's commitments on national security transparency, what has sometimes been referred to as the transparency charter. Transparency is a second dimension to accountability that I think will help ensure that balance between legislative direction and ministerial regulation is effective.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos. I suppose after 1984, Bill C-59 puts us in a brave new world.

Mr. Motz.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Wark, I want to quote a couple of things here.

This is a sentence from an article you wrote in The Globe and Mail shortly after Bill C-51 was introduced. You say, “Strengthened accountability may well be our best bet to ensure that new security powers are balanced against rights protections.”

After Bill C-59 was released, you wrote, “Canada may have restored its place in the world as it pertains to national security review and democratic controls, a place we gave up after 1984.”

This is a general question. I think it shows that Bill C-59 has made an important advance, but I wonder whether you could give us your thoughts on where we were and where we are now as a result of Bill C-59.

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

Thank you.

I would like to go back to Part 1 of Bill C-59, which pertains to the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency.

The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians was created, pursuant to Bill C-22, and Part 1 of Bill C-59 includes this committee.

Our party was in favour of creating this committee, but we expressed reservations about the information being centralized in the Prime Minister's Office, and so we voted against the bill.

I would like to hear your thoughts on that.

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

Will Bill C-59 help solve the problem of false positives? That is mentioned in the bill. In your opinion, will the provisions of the bill be enough to solve this problem?

[Prof. Craig Forcese]

I wasn't party to the drafting of Bill C-51 so I can't comment on the circumstances that drove its manner of drafting. Certainly, Bill C-51 opened the door to the service doing threat reduction of any sort, which before was a disputed issue. We know from what the director has said approximately 30 times now that, I believe, the service is engaged in threat reduction, albeit never crossing the line to threat reduction that might violate a Canadian law or transgress a charter right. Bill C-59 opens the door to a more assertive use of threat reduction where it could violate a Canadian law, which would require a warrant, but sets up a warrant system that I think would survive an inevitable Constitutional challenge. It broadens the ambit of useful powers for the service.

I can give you an example where this may come up. In the course of an investigation, the service is engaged in an intelligence investigation, and it decides for a public safety reason it needs to swap out an explosive materiel in the possession of a target with an inert material so that it no longer poses a security risk as the service continues its security intelligence operation. Now it's possible for the service to get with warrant authorization to do threat reduction to break and enter for the purpose of swapping out that material, and Bill C-59 makes it more likely that confronted with that request the court would think this regime was plausible.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In her remarks, my colleague Ms. Dabrusin drew a comparison between Bill C-51 and Bill C-59. That is important for the committee. It is my understanding that Bill C-51 was enacted in response to an emergency at that time. It was very important for national security. Today, Bill C-59 is simply a refined version of Bill C-51. The latter was useful when it was adopted, but we want to clarify certain things.

Is that also your understanding?

[Prof. Wesley Wark]

Just briefly, I would say something very similar but expressed slightly differently, which is that in my view, Bill C-51 had good elements and bad elements. I think that was also the Liberal Party's position, frankly, when it was the third party in opposition, that there were some elements they could support and some elements that they were committed to overturning, if they ever came into office.

Bill C-59 represents some effort to fix the so-called problematic elements of Bill C-51, but it also provides space to add what I think are important new dimensions that were not addressed in Bill C-51. I would think it would be a time-wasting exercise, frankly, to go back and just repeal and simply eliminate all of Bill C-51 from the law books. Better is the approach that's been taken here.

[Prof. Craig Forcese]

My response would be that, certainly from my perspective, Kent Roach and I did not dispute the policy objectives that Bill C-51 was trying to accomplish, with one exception, and that is the new speech crime. We thought it was unnecessary. If one were to repeal those provisions that Bill C-51 introduced, one would be left still with the policy issues that would have to be addressed. I see Bill C-59 is dealing with those same policy issues but putting each of the powers on a more sustainable footing.

I would agree with what my colleague Professor Carvin said earlier, that not only is this just a question of constitutional niceties. It's also a question of certainty. Many of the powers that were introduced by Bill C-51 were clothed with such vagueness that the services might be disinclined to try to test them for fear they would run afoul of a court or a commission of inquiry subsequently.

Again, the policy objectives were real. The drafting, in my view, was insufficient.

[Professor Wesley Wark, Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, I thank you for this opportunity to testify on Bill C-59, the national security framework legislation.

I'd like to begin with a look backwards. I had the privilege 16 years ago of testifying before a House committee on the original Anti-terrorism Act. I think it might have been, in fact, in this beautiful room. One of the lessons I drew from that experience was that Parliament, if given the chance, could have a significant impact on improving draft legislation and on enabling a strong, if inevitably contentious, public debate. Given the professed openness of the Minister of Public Safety to constructive suggestions, I am optimistic that a similar result will occur from deliberations on Bill C-59.

Bill C-59 represents a very ambitious and sweeping effort to modernize the Canadian national security framework. It should not be seen as just a form of tinkering with the previous government's Bill C-51. There are so many elements in Bill C-59, and as you will have appreciated from testimony by my colleagues, I, like them, am going to focus on only a few elements of this.

The ones I want to focus on are what I call the key forward-looking elements of Bill C-59. By “forward-looking” I mean the genuinely new elements in this legislation, which pose particular challenges for a committee like this in terms of trying to understand their precise potential impact and efficacy. Those three brand new elements, I think, are particularly visible in parts 1 to 3 of the legislation, so that's what I am going to concentrate on, but I'd be happy to take questions on other aspects of the bill.

Part 1 of the act creates a national security and intelligence review agency. I fully support this concept and its rationale, and it is exciting to me to see it embraced by the government. The challenge will be ensuring that the architecture can be made to work. To bring the legislation to light, it will be important to ensure that NSIRA, as I'll call it, has the right fiscal and logistic resources, a high-quality talent pool in its secretariat, excellent working relationships with the security and intelligence agencies, and a viable work plan. It will also be important to ensure that the bodies that are to be reviewed have the resources and proper approach to the enhanced scrutiny they will undergo.

NSIRA part 1 needs, in my view, a few fixes. One has to do with the mandate, in proposed section 8. I believe that the national security and intelligence activities of the RCMP should be specifically listed at proposed paragraph 8(1)(a). It is important to be clear in the legislation that NSIRA will take over some of the current review activities of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP as it is doing for SIRC and for the Office of the CSE Commissioner. This should not be left simply to coordinating amendments buried in the back of the legislation.

The committee will also note that NSIRA enacts only a partial solution to the problem of dealing with national security complaints, at proposed section 16 and following. Its complaints remit is restricted to CSIS, CSE, and complaints regarding the RCMP that have a nexus in national security, and I would urge the committee to hear from the commissioner of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP about how well they think the legislation enables the NSIRA complaints mandate when it comes to the RCMP.

Finally, there's an important issue of membership, as you've already heard, in NSIRA. This is at proposed section 4 of the bill. The procedures proposed are, disappointingly to me, an automatic carry-over from SIRC, but SIRC membership has had a sometimes deeply troubled history. Membership size and profile need, I think, to be rethought. In my view, the SIRC membership should be enlarged to allow for more diverse and expert representation and to reduce the burdens on members hearing complaints.

NSIRA membership should also reflect, in my view, a wider range of expertise in security and intelligence issues, including expertise in security threats, on intelligence practices, on international relations, on governance and decision-making, on civil liberties, on community impacts, and on privacy. Those are seven sets of expertise right there.

The ability of NSIRA to get up and running once legislation is passed will be vitally dependent on the continued strength, capacity, and forward planning of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which will be NSIRA's core. It would be very unfortunate if anything occurred to weaken SIRC in the transition.

Part 2 of the bill is on the intelligence commissioner. Legislation to establish an intelligence commissioner to engage in proactive oversight of aspects of the work of CSE and CSIS is a novel concept that has no counterpart that I'm aware of among our Five Eyes partners. We are being truly innovative here. The concept that's been adopted, I believe, is a made-in-Canada solution to ensuring the legality and charter compliance of some of the most sensitive and important operations conducted by our main intelligence collection agencies, CSE and CSIS.

With regard to the function of the intelligence commissioner, I would like to offer two thoughts and one recommendation.

One thought is that it would be important that the system is and is seen to be a way of ultimately strengthening rather than diluting ministerial accountability, even while it gives some oversight powers to the intelligence commissioner. The second thought is that the ability of the minister to retain traditional powers of accountability while ceding some decision-making authority to the intelligence commissioner is linked in turn to the working of new reporting mechanisms proposed in part 1 of the act.

NSIRA will produce a much stronger stream of reporting to the minister on the activities of the key intelligence agencies, which, if that stream of reporting can be properly digested by the minister and his office, should ensure that the minister can issue authorizations that will pass muster with the intelligence commissioner. In this way part 1 and part 2 of Bill C-59 are intimately linked.

The recommendation I have to offer is that the intelligence commissioner function must not go dark. The Office of the CSE Commissioner, on which the function will partly be based, produced an annual report to the minister that was tabled in Parliament. This has been the practice since the commissioner's office was established in 1996. There is no such requirement at present for the intelligence commissioner. I believe the intelligence commissioner should be required to table an annual report that would review the commissioner's activities and findings.

Then there is part 3, the CSE act. I fully support the importance of creating separate, modernized legislation for CSE, distinct from the National Defence Act. CSE is one of Canada's most important, if not the most important, intelligence collection agency. It provides our principal contribution to the Five Eyes intelligence partnership. Getting the CSE act right is vital to Canada's interests and deserves close attention by the committee.

CSE received its first enabling legislation with the passage of the Anti-terrorism Act back in 2001. It is that legislation that is being modernized with Bill C-59. There were no changes to CSE legislation proposed in the previous Bill C-51.

The CSE act expands the current three-part mandate of CSE by adding two additional powers for what are called active cyber-operations and defensive cyber-operations. Let there be no mistaking that these are major new powers for CSE.

Both kinds of operations require ministerial authorization. Active cyber-operations engaging overseas targets require the consent of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. There have been some concerns raised in Parliament about the need for such consent. I think it is absolutely essential, given the volatile nature of such operations and their potential for blowback against Canadian international interests.

Active cyber-operations are what I call a digital form of covert operations, somewhat akin to classical Cold War covert operations designed to destabilize the capacities of a foreign adversary. In addition to blowback effects, they can also engage an escalatory spiral, as we saw, for example, in the aftermath of the cyber-operation known as Stuxnet, which targeted the Iranian centrifuge cascade that was central to their uranium enrichment program and nuclear weapons development. Active cyber-operations require high degrees of intelligence knowledge and technical skills, but they also require high degrees of political oversight and strong agency command and control.

It is also important to understand that many, if not all, of the operations that CSE might conduct in the future under its active cyber-operations mandate will be mounted within a Five Eyes context. I don’t think we’re going to be going it alone on these ones. This is all the more reason for there to be what has been called “a dual-key approach”. Neither active nor defensive cyber-operations require the consent of the intelligence commissioner, which is something the committee might want to look into, but such operations will be subject to review by the new national security and intelligence review agency.

The CSE act is a very complex piece of legislation. It might be a lawyer's dream, but it would be a layman's nightmare to read. It contains some very important provisions that are sprinkled throughout the bill with little connecting narrative thread. My recommendation with regard to part 3 is that there should be a values principle built into the legislation, perhaps at the proposed mandate section, to draw together some of these different component parts, and I will provide a brief on that.

I was going to add a brief set of remarks about what isn’t in the legislation, but I’m happy to address that in questions.

Thank you.

[Professor Craig Forcese, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Wesley has pointed at me, so I will go first.

I wish to extend my sincere thanks to the committee for inviting me here to speak on Bill C-59. It's always an honour to be asked to share my observations before this committee.

My colleague Kent Roach is appearing before you next week. He and I have divided up Bill C-59. Today I shall be addressing the new Communications Security Establishment act and the amendments to the CSIS Act.

I support most of the changes Bill C-59 makes in these areas. I recognize the policy objectives they seek to address. I believe the statutory language is usually carefully considered and robust, but I do have one serious concern.

I'll begin with the CSE act and make my single recommendation for today. I respectfully submit that this committee should amend proposed subsections 23(3) and 23(4) to indicate CSE may not, without ministerial authorization, contravene the reasonable expectation of privacy of any Canadian or person in Canada. Those two provisions are found on page 62 of the PDF of the bill.

I have provided a brief to this committee describing the rationale for this change, and I should disclose I've been an affiant in the current constitutional lawsuit brought by the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association challenging CSE activities, but today I appear on my own behalf.

To summarize my concern, while engaged in foreign intelligence in cybersecurity activities, CSE incidentally collects information in which Canadians or persons in Canada have a reasonable expectation of privacy. This is done without advance authorization by an independent judicial officer, and thus likely violates section 8 of the charter.

Bill C-59 attempts to cure this constitutional issue through a ministerial authorization process, one that involves vetting for reasonableness by an intelligence commissioner, a retired superior court judge. This is a creative and novel solution. It preserves a considerable swath of ministerial discretion and responsibility. It is not a full warrant system. Still, given the unique nature of CSE activities, I believe it is constitutionally defensible.

The new system will only resolve the constitutional problem if it steers all collection activities implicating constitutionally protected information into the new authorization process. The problem is this. Bill C-59's present drafting only triggers this authorization process where an act of Parliament would otherwise be contravened. This is a constitutionally under-inclusive trigger.

Some collection of information in which a Canadian has a constitutional interest does not violate an act of Parliament, for example, some sorts of metadata. The solution is simple. Expand the trigger to read as follows: “Activities carried out by the Establishment in furtherance of the foreign intelligence” or cybersecurity “aspect of its mandate must not contravene any other act of Parliament or involve the acquisition of information in which a Canadian or person in Canada has a reasonable expectation of privacy”, unless they are authorized under one of these ministerial authorizations that are subject to vetting by the intelligence commissioner.

This may seem a lawyerly tweak, but if we fail to cure the existing problem with CSE's collection authorization process, a court may ultimately determine that CSE has been collecting massive quantities of data in violation of the Constitution. Such a finding would decimate relations with civil society actors, placing CSE squarely in the crosshairs of a renewed controversy, and making it very difficult for private sector enterprises to partner with CSE on cybersecurity without risking reputational fallout themselves. With Bill C-59, we have a chance to minimize this kind of problem.

I turn to the CSIS Act changes. Bill C-59 does three things. First, it permits CSIS new authority to collect and potentially retain so-called datasets. Here the tension lies in balancing the operational need for CSIS to be able to query and exploit information against the privacy imperative. Rather than prescribe hard standards for what may be included in datasets, Bill C-59 opts for a system of in-advance oversight.

The intelligence commissioner is charged with approving the classes of Canadian datasets that the minister has deemed may be initially collected, and the Federal Court authorizes any subsequent retention of actual datasets. While I am wary of the idea of datasets, I cannot dispute the rationale for them and I can find no fault with the system of checks and balances. I have one concern with the retention of information that's queried in exigent circumstances. I don't know that the bill has the same checks and balances there, but I'm happy to address that further in questions.

The second change to the CSIS Act relates to revisions to CSIS's threat-reduction powers introduced in Bill C-51 in 2015. These provisions were rightly controversial. For our part, Kent Roach and I did not dispute the idea of threat reduction, but we worried that CSIS threat reduction done as a continuation of our awkward, siloed police and intelligence operations runs the risk of derailing later criminal investigations and prosecutions. This would be tragic from a security perspective.

From a rights perspective, Bill C-51 lacked nuance. It opened the door to a violation of any charter right subject to an unappealable, secret Federal Court warrant. The regime was radical, and in my view, almost certainly unconstitutional. It was, therefore, unworkable, whatever the strength of the policy objectives that propelled it.

Bill C-59 places the system on a much more credible constitutional foundation. It ratchets tighter the outer limit on CSIS threat reduction powers. By barring detention—a power I sincerely doubt the service ever wished—it eliminates concerns about the many charter violations for which detention is a necessary predicate. By legislating a closed list of activities that could be done where a warrant is authorized, Parliament tells us what charter interests are plausibly in play—essentially, free speech and mobility rights. I believe that if threat reduction is to be retained, this new system reasonably reconciles policy and constitutional issues.

Lastly, Bill C-59's CSIS Act changes create new immunities for CSIS officers and sources engaged in intelligence functions that may violate law during those activities. The breadth of Canada's terrorism offences makes it certain that a confidential source or undercover officer will commit a terrorism offence simply by participating with the terror group that they infiltrate. An immunity is necessary. The issue is whether there are sufficient checks and balances guarding against abuse of this immunity. Again, I think Bill C-59 does a good job of festooning the immunity provisions with such checks.

I will end, though, with a caution. Our conventional manner of siloed police and CSIS parallel investigations lags best practices in other jurisdictions that employ more blended investigations. As the Air India bombing inquiry observed, we struggle with what is known as intelligence to evidence. The government is working on this matter. We should be conscious, however, that what CSIS does in its investigations, whether in terms of immunized criminal conduct in intelligence investigations or authorized threat reduction, could derail prosecutions if not done with a close eye to downstream impacts. This issue might usefully be a topic of inquiry for the new security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians.

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to any questions.

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

Okay.

You spoke in your statements at the front end about the security reports, the documents, the threat analysis, and threat assessments that have been done. Can you give us some pros and cons of the current threat analysis documents and how experts in the community can make use of them differently with C-59?

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

Thanks very much.

Thank you to you both for your testimony.

Ms. Carvin, you mentioned that in the total architecture of review you still had some concerns about efficacy. You mentioned Professor Forcese a few times. In a paper that he and Kent Roach wrote they talk about this three-legged stool and there is a parliamentarian committee on efficacy, there's a super-SIRC for propriety review, and then they talk about an independent monitor of national security law built on the U.K. and Australian model.

When we look at Bill C-59 and Bill C-22 together, do you see that largely meeting the overall review architecture?

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

Thank you.

In your statement, you also spoke a lot about the agencies' various review mechanisms or bodies. All we want in the end is to protect ourselves against various potential threats.

Do you think that once Bill C-59 is passed it will be effective in countering threats?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hello, Ms. Carvin.

In your presentation, you said that Bill C-59 would change the powers of CSIS officers. It is often said that Bill C-51 gave CSIS too many powers. There have been many calls to change that, and I would like to better understand the reason for those requests. Since you worked for that organization, you are familiar with the field. I would like to know more about that.

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

Thank you very much, and thank you for being with us again as well.

Dr. Carvin, I thank you for being here and for your testimony.

You had an article published yesterday in The Globe and Mail, along with our panellists who are appearing in the next hour. You had stated that:

C-59 also builds up the powers of Communications Security Establishment....

Even more critically, it finally tries to draw CSE into the constitutional tent by creating a unique independent approval system for its intelligence activities. We think there are some important amendments to be made in these areas....

I'm just wondering if you could highlight for us what amendments you would like to see in Bill C-59 to improve the oversight mechanisms of CSE?

[Alex Neve]

Thank you very much for the question.

We did welcome the new directions that came after the earlier statement you're noting, which was our reaction to Bill C-59 when it was tabled in June.

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

I would like to welcome you both to our study of Bill C-59 and thank you for being here. I'm going to start with Amnesty International.

I'm just going to quote you. On your website, where you've written about Bill C-59, you say that you'd “also hoped that the government would act to address longstanding concerns about the failure to...reject torture in Canada’s intelligence sharing arrangements with other countries.” You've mentioned that here as well.

Ministerial directions were put in place in September, and those had obviously been a decade old since they had been updated. First of all, the ministerial directions prohibit sharing information if there is a reasonable ground to believe it could lead to torture. How did these improve on the previous directions, which I mentioned were decades old?

[Alex Neve, Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, committee members. Amnesty International certainly welcomes this opportunity to appear before you in the course of your review of Bill C-59. I'd like you to know at the outset that I'm here on behalf of both the English and francophone branch of Amnesty International Canada, and thus on behalf of our 400,000 supporters across the country.

Amnesty International has a long history of frequent appearances before parliamentary committees dealing with national security matters, be that studies of proposed legislation or reviews of existing legislation. That's not because we're national security experts. Our expertise, of course, lies in human rights. Our interest in Bill C-59, therefore, comes directly from our mandate to press governments to uphold their international human rights obligations. Documenting and responding to human rights violations arising in a national security context and pressing governments to amend national security laws, policies, and practices to conform to international human rights obligations have long featured prominently in Amnesty International's research and campaigning around the world, long predating September 11.

National security is often blatantly used as an excuse for human rights violations, clearly intended simply to punish and persecute political opponents or members of religious and ethnic minorities. National security operations have frequently proceeded with total disregard for obvious human rights consequences, leading to such serious human rights violations as torture, disappearances, and unlawful detention. Without adequate safeguards and restrictions, overly broad national security activities harm individuals and communities who pose no security threat at all. In all of these instances, the impact is frequently felt in a disproportionate and discriminatory manner by particular religious, ethnic, and racial communities, adding yet another human rights concern.

These concerns are by no means limited to other parts of the world. Over the past 15 years, Amnesty International has taken up numerous cases involving national security-related human rights violations related to the actions of Canadian law enforcement and national security agencies. These concerns have been so serious as to be the subject of two separate judicial inquiries, numerous Supreme Court and Federal Court rulings, and several significant apologies and financial settlements totalling well over $50 million to a number of Canadian citizens and other individuals whose rights were gravely violated because of the actions of Canadian agencies. I think of Maher Arar, Benamar Benatta, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, Muayyed Nureddin, and Omar Khadr. This is why we bring our human rights analysis to legislation such as Bill C-59—to ensure that provisions provide the greatest possible safeguards against human rights violations of this nature.

In commenting on the bill, I will touch briefly on five areas: first, the need for a stronger human rights anchor in the bill; second, the bill's national security review provisions; third, positive changes in Bill C-59; fourth, concerns that remain; and fifth, issues of concern that have not been addressed in the bill.

The first area is the need for a national security approach anchored in a commitment to human rights. In the review that preceded Bill C-59, we urged the government to use the opportunity of the present reform to adopt a clear human rights basis for Canada's national security framework. That is an approach that is not only of benefit, evidently, for human rights, but truly lays the ground for more inclusive, durable, and sustainable security as well. Currently, other than the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, none of Canada's national security legislation specifically refers to or incorporates Canada's binding international human rights obligations.

We recommended that those laws be amended to include provisions requiring legislation to be interpreted and applied in a manner that complies with international human rights norms. That was not taken up in Bill C-59 except for one very limited reference to the convention against torture. This is important in that it sends a strong message of the centrality of human rights in Canada's approach to national security. It is also of real benefit when it comes to upholding human rights in national security-related court proceedings.

Our first recommendation, therefore, remains to amend Bill C-59 to include a provision requiring all national security-related laws to be interpreted in conformity with Canada's international human rights obligations.

Second, we strongly welcome and support the provisions in part 1 of Bill C-59 creating the national security and intelligence review agency. Amnesty International has been calling for the creation of a comprehensive and integrated review agency of this nature since the time of our submissions to the Arar inquiry in 2005. This has been one of the longest-standing and most serious gaps in Canada's national security architecture. We do have three associated recommendations.

First, in keeping with the earlier recommendation I just made, the mandate of the review agency should be amended to ensure that the activities of security and intelligence agencies will be reviewed specifically to ensure conformity to Canada's international human rights obligations.

Second, the review agency must have personnel and resources commensurate with what will be a significant workload. We endorse the recommendation made by Professor Kent Roach that the provision allowing for a chair and additional commissioners numbering between three and six is inadequate, and would suggest that the number of additional commissioners be raised to between five and eight.

Third, we continue to be concerned about the review specifically of the Canada Border Services Agency. Unlike many of the agencies that will be reviewed by the new agency, the CBSA does not have its own stand-alone independent review body. The new review agency will have the power to review CBSA's national security and intelligence-related activities, but there still is no other independent agency reviewing the entirety of CBSA's activities, despite the growing number of cases where the need for such review is urgently evident, including deaths in immigration custody. This imbalance will inevitably pose awkwardness for the review agency's review of CBSA, and it underscores how crucial it is for the government to move rapidly to institute full, independent review of CBSA.

We'd like to highlight improvements. First, our concerns about the overly broad criminal offence in Bill C-51 of advocating or promoting the commission of terrorism offences in general have been addressed by the proposed revisions to section 83.221 of the Criminal Code, which would instead criminalize the act of counselling another person to commit a terrorism offence, which was already a criminal offence essentially.

Second, the threat reduction powers in Bill C-51, which anticipated action by CSIS that could have violated a range of human rights guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and under international law have been significantly improved. However, we think it needs to go further, and there needs to be specific prohibition of the fact that CSIS will not involve threat reduction of any kind that will violate the charter or violate international human rights obligations. We also welcome the changes made to preventive detention, but have some recommendations as to how that can be improved.

We remain concerned about the Secure Air Travel Act provisions, which we do not think address the many serious challenges that people face with the application of the no-fly list. Much more fundamental reforms are needed, including a commitment to establishing a robust redress system that will eliminate false positives, and significant enhancements to listing and appeal provisions to meet standards of fairness.

Because I know my time is limited, let me end with some provisions that remain unaddressed in the legislation.

One of the most explicit contraventions of international human rights in Canadian national security law, going back over 20 decades now, is the provision in immigration legislation allowing individuals in undefined exceptional circumstances to be deported to a country where they would face a serious risk of torture. It's a direct violation of the UN convention against torture. UN human rights bodies have repeatedly called for this to be addressed. Bill C-59 passed on the opportunity to do so. We would recommend that be taken up.

Finally, Bill C-59 also fails to make needed reforms to the approach taken to national security in immigration proceedings. There were very serious concerns about Bill C-51's deepening unfairness of the immigration security certificate process, for instance, withholding certain categories of evidence from special advocates.

There needs to be a significant rethinking and reconsideration of immigration security certificate proceedings, rolling back those changes that were made in Bill C-51, and addressing still the other areas of concern with respect to the fairness of that process.

Thank you.

[Professor Stephanie Carvin, Assistant Professor, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual]

I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me to speak on Bill C-59, the most comprehensive and far-reaching reform to national security in Canada since 1984. I would like emphasize that I am not a lawyer. However, I do have experience working in national security and intelligence, and I study this area for a living. Indeed, in the interest of transparency, I would like to state that from 2012 to 2015, I worked at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service as a strategic analyst.

My comments are, of course, my own, but they're informed by my research and experience as the national security landscape in Canada has evolved in a relatively short period of time. All of this is to say that today my comments will be focused on the scope of this bill and will address some of the areas that I believe this committee needs to, at the very least, consider as it makes recommendations.

First and foremost, I wish to express my support for this bill. I believe it contains four important steps that are essential for Canadian national security and the functions of our national security agencies.

First, it provides clarity as to the powers of our national security agencies. There's no better example of this than part 3, the CSE act, which gives our national signals intelligence agency statutory standing and spells out its mandate and procedures to a reasonable extent. Given that the first mention of this agency in law was the 2001 Anti-terrorism Act, this bill takes us a long way towards transparency.

Second, Bill C-59 outlines the limits on the power of our national security agencies in a way that will provide certainty to the public and also to our national security agencies. In particular, the bill clarifies one of the most controversial parts of the current legislation formerly known as Bill C-51, that is, CSIS' disruption powers.

While it might be argued that this is taking away CSIS' ability to fight threats to Canada's national security, I disagree. Having found themselves embroiled in scandals in recent years, it is little appreciated how conservative our national security agencies actually are. While they do not want political interference in their activities, they no doubt welcome the clarity that Bill C-59 provides as to these measures.

Let there be no doubt that the ability to disrupt is an important one, particularly given the increasingly fast pace of terror investigations, especially those related to the threat of foreign fighters. In this sense, I believe that Bill C-59 hits the right balance, grounding these measures squarely within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Third, Bill C-59 addresses long-standing problems related to review, and in some cases oversight, in Canadian national security. I will not go over the problems of our current system, which has been described as “stove-piped” by experts and commissions of inquiries. I will, however, state that the proposed national security and intelligence review agency, NSIRA, and intelligence commissioner—in combination with the new National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, NSICOP—create a review architecture that is robust and that I believe Canadians can have confidence in.

Fourth, in its totality, Bill C-59 is a forward-looking bill in at least three respects. First, the issue of datasets is not narrowly defined in law. While this has been a cause of concern for some, I believe this is the right approach to take. It allows flexibility of the term, but at the same time it subjects any interpretation to the oversight of the intelligence commissioner and the minister. It subjects the use of datasets to the internal procedures of the national security agencies themselves—and limits who may have access—and the review of the NSIRA and NSICOP.

Second, it takes steps to enhance Canada's ability to protect and defend its critical infrastructure. Increasingly, we are seeing the abilities of states and state-sponsored actors to create chaos through the attacks on electrical grids, oil and gas facilities, dams, and hospital and health care facilities. Much of this critical infrastructure is in the hands of the private sector. This bill takes steps to ensure that there is a process in place to address these threats in the future.

Third, Bill C-59 puts us on the same footing as our allies by mandating an active cyber-role for our national signals intelligence agency. I appreciate the legal and ethical challenges this raises, especially should CSE be asked to support a DND operation. However, the idea that Canada would not have this capability is, I think, unacceptable to most Canadians, and would be seen as unfortunate in the eyes of our allies, many of whom have been quietly encouraging Canada to enhance its cyber-presence in the wake of cyber-threats from North Korea, China, and Russia.

To reiterate, I believe this is a good bill, but there's room for improvement. I'm aware that some of my legal colleagues, especially Craig Forcese, Kent Roach, and Alex, of course, will be speaking to certain specific legal issues that should be addressed to make the law more operationalizable and compliant with our Constitution.

I encourage the committee to seriously consider their suggestions. However, I'm going to focus on four areas that may be problematic in a broader sense, which I believe the committee should at least be aware of or consider when it makes recommendations.

First, I think it's important to consider the role of the Minister of Public Safety. To be clear, I believe our current minister does a good job in his current position. However, the mandate of the Minister of Public Safety is already very large, and this bill would give him or her more responsibilities in terms of review and, in some cases, oversight. At some future date, the scope of this ministry may be worth considering.

Having said this, I acknowledge a paradox. Requiring the intelligence commissioner's approval for certain operations, as is clear in proposed subsections 28(1) and 28(2) of the proposed CSE Act, and potentially denying the approval of a minister is, in my view, at odds with the principle of ministerial responsibility in our Westminster system of government.

To be sure, I understand why this authority of the intelligence commissioner is there. Section 8 of the charter insists on the right to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure. The intelligence commissioner's role ensures that this standard is met.

Why is this a problem? Canada has an unfortunate history of ministers and prime ministers trying to shirk responsibility for the actions of our security services, which dates back decades. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau used the principle of police independence to state that his government could not possibly engage in review or oversight of the activities of the RCMP even though the national security roles of the RCMP are a ministerial responsibility. There is simply a tension here with our constitutional requirements and with what has been the practice of our system for decades. If this bill is to pass through, it will be up to members of Parliament to hold the minister to account, even if he or she tries to blame the intelligence commissioner for actions not taken.

Second, despite the creation of no less than three major review agencies, there's still no formal mechanism for efficacy review of our security services. We will receive many reports as to whether or not our security services are compliant with the law, but we still will not have any idea of how well they are doing it. I'm not suggesting we need to number-crunch how many terrorism plots are disrupted. Such a crude measure would be counterproductive. However, inquiring as to whether the analysis produced supports government decisions in a timely manner is a worthwhile question to ask. Efficacy review is still a gap in our national security review architecture.

Third, while I praise the transparency of Bill C-59, I'm also concerned about what I'm calling “report fatigue”. I note that between last year's Bill C-22 and now Bill C-59, there will have been at least 10 new reports generated, not including special reports as required. It is my understanding that some of these reports are very technical and can be automatically generated when certain tasks such as, hypothetically, the search of a dataset is done. However, others are going to be more complex. More briefings will also be required. Having spent considerable time working on reports for the government in my former work, I know how difficult and time-consuming this can be.

Finally, and related to this last point, it is my understanding that the security services will not be receiving any extra resources to comply with the reporting and briefing requirements of either Bill C-22 or Bill C-59. This concerns me, because I believe that enhanced communication between our national security services with the government and review bodies is important. As the former's powers expand, this should be well resourced.

In summary, the ability to investigate threats to the national security of Canada is vital. I believe that for the most part, Bill C-59 takes Canada a great step towards meeting that elusive balance between liberty and security. In my view, where Bill C-59 defines powers and process, it should enable our security services to carry out their important work with confidence knowing exactly where they stand. Further, the transparency in the bill will hopefully go some way towards building trust between the Canadian public, Parliament, and our security services.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to your questions.

Opposition Motion—ISIS fighters returning to Canada

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Speaker, first, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Barrie—Innisfil.

I am pleased to rise today to discuss this important national security issue. A report issued by the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness in 2016 estimated that 60 jihadists had already returned to Canada and that 180 others “were abroad and...were suspected of engaging in terrorism-related activities”.

It is estimated that 90 individuals who fought for terrorist groups will try to return to Canada in the coming months, now that ISIS is losing ground in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the government wants to implement a reintegration program. The Prime Minister also said a number of times that he would create the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence to counter radicalization.

While the government is trying to reintegrate and monitor the Canadians who went to fight with ISIS, Canadians are worried about the impact the return of these fighters will have on national security. The government must address that concern. It has a duty to reassure us.

Anyone who has taken part in the activities of a terrorist group, whether as a fighter, a teacher, or a nurse, is a criminal. Canada has every right to charge such individuals with terrorism offences when they return to the country. We know that so far, about 60 Canadians who were involved with ISIS have returned to Canada. Only two of them have been charged; the others have not been charged with anything whatsoever.

We also know that it is difficult to gather the evidence needed to charge these individuals with participating in the activities of a terrorist group, but that should in no way interfere with the government's work. This is a priority issue. These people can unfortunately pose a risk to the security of our country.

The RCMP does not currently have the resources for round-the-block monitoring of all the fighters who have returned to Canada. The government needs to set priorities, take appropriate measures based on the risk posed by each individual, and create a bulletproof safety net that will make all Canadians feel secure.

Today we are asking the government to send a clear message to all Canadians. What are the repatriation procedures? What is it doing to ensure national security? How will it provide assurances to Canadians about that? How many and what kinds of resources will be invested? How many Canadians are under surveillance?

ISIS is losing ground every day. More and more Canadians who joined ISIS will return to Canada. It is time to establish a clear national policy that covers the psychosocial aspects of the problem and, above all, the security aspects.

Those who have joined a terrorist group and fought against Canada and its allies must be brought to justice. It cannot be denied that those people decided to fight against our own soldiers, Canada's soldiers. We know that those individuals who return to Canada must be arrested and charged upon arrival, or authorities could quite simply lose track of them in our country.

Canadians' desire to feel safe in their own country is a basic and perfectly legitimate issue. The Liberal government must do everything possible to detain and bring to justice the Canadians returning to Canada after collaborating with ISIS, and it must do so quickly.

On November 30, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness testified before the committee about his bill, which will address the alleged gaps in the Anti-terrorism Act. He explained that Bill C-59 would restrict the powers of Canada's secret services to disrupt terrorist plots while they are in the planning stages.

However, we should be working on prevention. Many Canadians get the impression that the government is spending more time protecting the criminals than the victims and Canadians themselves. This is fuelling a deep and understandable concern that the government must address.

The political choice to give priority to respecting the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for criminals instead of doing everything we can to ensure that they are arrested does not fly. The political choice to give priority to respecting the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for criminals instead of doing everything we can to ensure the safety of Canadians does not fly. Those who made the personal choice to fight alongside terrorist groups also made the deliberate choice to fight our own soldiers and our allies.

That is why so many Canadians do not understand anything the Liberal Party is saying right now. This government has to demonstrate that it is listening, respect people's intelligence, and address their concerns about our country's national security.

Our motion today proposes:

That the House:

(a) condemn the horrific acts committed by ISIS;

(b) acknowledge that individuals who joined ISIS fighters are complicit in these horrific acts and pose a danger to Canadians;

(c) call on the government to bring to justice and prosecute any ISIS fighter returning to Canada; and

(d) insist that the government make the security and protection of Canadians its priority, rather than the reintegration of ISIS fighters, or the unnecessary financial payout to a convicted terrorist, like Omar Khadr.

The opposition is very worried about how this Liberal government is handling this national security issue. We, like everyone else, see these incidents and attacks carried out all over the world. We are very worried to know that Canadians made a deliberate choice to go to these countries to fight alongside ISIS soldiers. By fighting alongside them, these individuals also made the choice to fight our own soldiers.

We just marked Remembrance Day, on November 11. We all took part in various commemorative ceremonies. We have seen how hard our soldiers have worked to protect democracy and peace here in Canada and around the world. These individuals did so proudly, and based on directives from our Parliament and our army, which believed in justice everywhere.

Knowing that some Canadians will be able to or have been able to go and fight overseas and then return to this country without facing any justice whatsoever, that worries us. To hear this government hide behind the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms again and again instead of bringing in the measures needed to keep Canadians safe is worrisome.

I look forward to questions from my colleagues across party lines. I hope the members of the House will stand up and send a clear message by voting in favour of our motion before the House.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Madam Speaker, let me begin by saying that I am somewhat frustrated to be involved in this debate today.

The motion on the floor purports to be about the interplay between national security, human rights, and fighting terrorism, to some degree. However, its spirit is to divide Canadians, in my opinion, for political gain by praying on fears. Its effect is to scare Canadians into positions, rather than to engage them in a nuanced debate.

We live in a time in our global history right now of ultra-divisive politics that has seen many issues that were not legitimate policy discussions turn into an exercise in fearmongering designed to secure the support of a political base. Once-healthy democracies across the world have become sick with a virus of anti-intellectualism that is spreading rapidly across our planet.

In the age of social media, the phenomenon is even worse, as individuals prone to one idea or another on various points of the political spectrum more easily find validation in the echo chambers of the Internet. However, we cannot let Canada fall victim to this deeply worrying trend. People need to step away from the computer, find a human being, and talk to each other. They should not get sucked into the kind of nonsense that so many politicians around the world would have them engage in, without informing themselves, without facts.

I cannot let another motion like this, which I believe is designed to spread fear amongst Canadians, go unchallenged. I believe that, at the end of the day, I am responsible as a parliamentarian not only for my own actions and decisions but also for the opportunity, when I have the chance, to confront an injustice and not choose to stand idly by instead.

I will not be supporting the motion on the floor of the House of Commons.

Over the course of my remarks, I hope to cover a few themes. First is the importance of protecting the rule of law, then the issue of extremist travellers returning to Canada, then a brief conversation about the settlement involving Omar Khadr, and I will conclude with the need to combat the politics of fear and division.

The rule of law, in my opinion, is a fundamental pillar of our democracy. It separates our country from dictators and despots, and ensures that our government is subject to the law and that our citizens are protected by it, not the other way around. It prevents the possibility of a given leader or government eroding protections enshrined in our legal system for political advantage, and prevents them from operating without scrutiny or accountability.

The rule of law is the linchpin to our democracy. Our entire system depends on this. Without it protecting our rights, our society would break down. At times, protecting the rights of Canadians can be extremely difficult. It is very easy to give away the rights of other people, but we need to stand up for the rights of our neighbours, not only when it is convenient but when it is difficult. In fact, that is when it is most important.

It can be very hard to defend the rights of another person when seeking to balance those rights with such heavy concepts as security or such immense threats as terrorism. Those words have extraordinary power.

When we fear for our safety, the easy thing to do is to give away the rights of our neighbour. However, my friends, our neighbours' rights are our collective rights. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, any society that would give up a little freedom to gain a little security deserves neither and will lose both.

The erosion of our freedoms and our security will not come at the hands of tyrants and terrorists half a world away. The threat is far nearer. It is going to come by the decisions and actions of some future government, a generation from now, empowered by an erosion of our rights today, and it is going to happen in our own communities, right here at home, if we do not take a stand to protect our rights.

The fact is that we can protect our rights and our security at the same time. There is immense interplay between these two concepts, but they are not mutually exclusive. There are, in fact, very serious issues of national security that any government needs to address in the 21st century. Our government is addressing those matters. Given the changing nature of the global order and the rise of well-organized, well-financed sub-state terror entities like Daesh, we need to adapt our traditional model of national security to address the changing nature of the threats we face, and the world faces.

With respect to the first aspect of the motion on the floor today, I anticipate every member of Parliament joining me in condemning the horrific acts of violence committed by Daesh against innocent people around the world. I readily acknowledge, without equivocation, that we must work as part of the global community to eradicate these acts of senseless violence from our planet altogether.

Notwithstanding my agreement with the first part of the motion on the floor of the House, I take sincere exception to the other parts, which seek to stoke fear of extremist travellers returning to Canada. We have to formulate policy on issues of national security from a place of reason. The Conservatives have not taken a rational approach to this issue and are seeking to form policy from a place of fear, which in my opinion is very dangerous and creates an unreasonable apprehension of risk, not just amongst their caucus members but amongst Canadians as well.

We need the tools to address these kinds of threats, and in fact, we are in the midst of ensuring that we have those tools. I note the efforts that have been raised today to pass Bill C-59, which would eliminate many of the superfluous measures that were contained in the prior iteration under Bill C-51, to which I had great objection.

I note that leading experts Kent Roach and Craig Forcese have referred to some of those measures as overkill and have since said that the revisions made under Bill C-59 are the real deal and pose no credible threat to security.

The motion today no doubt arises as a result of our public safety minister sharing in question period the fact that approximately 60 extremist travellers have returned to Canada. The opposition members have seemingly implied in the House and previously that they have returned under the Liberal government's watch, when in fact this same number had returned to Canada prior to the last election when they were still in power.

We cannot forget that, under both Canadian and international law, citizens have the right to return to their country of citizenship. My own view is that I would rather have a dangerous person who is a Canadian citizen detained or being monitored within our own country than being part of an international terror organization abroad where they could more easily escape scrutiny and pose a greater danger to innocent people around the world and in our country.

In fact, the heavy irony of the opposition's calls for enhanced prosecution of returning ISIS fighters is a difficult one to swallow when we consider that, under its government, precisely zero prosecutions actually took place. Moreover, in its last term in office alone, the Harper government cut over $1 billion from the budgets of the very agencies that seek to protect us against the kind of harm that they now raise in the House.

Since the Conservatives were ousted from power by Canadians, prosecutions of extremist travellers have actually taken place and a conviction has been obtained not too long ago. The fact is that groups such as Daesh are to be treated seriously, and I know every member of the House shares that opinion.

However, Canadians need not live in fear, as the Conservatives would have us do, because these matters have the fullest possible attention of our world-class security agencies. We know that safety and security of our citizens is a top priority for any government of any party. To suggest otherwise is a distasteful display of fearmongering that seeks to take advantage of Canadians, who need not be afraid.

To any Canadians who may be listening, do not fall into this trap. They do not need to fear that terrorists are running rampant through our communities, unchecked. CSIS, CBSA, and the RCMP work with global partners to monitor security threats through surveillance, intelligence gathering, and many tools that are available under the Criminal Code, including prosecutions where there is evidence that a crime has actually been committed.

In fact, we are significantly more likely to be killed while walking, riding a bike, or experiencing a heat wave than we are to die in a terrorist attack in our country. I am not going to let groups like Daesh hold the power of fear over me from the other side of the world as other members of the House would. Let us provide our security agencies with the tools that they need to protect us, while upholding the values enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and let us move on with living our lives free of fear.

The motion on the floor today also makes passing reference to what the opposition has called the “unnecessary financial payout” to Omar Khadr. This position is a choice by the Conservatives to ignore the world around them when the facts are readily available to demonstrate the Government of Canada's inevitable liability in the litigation that was before the courts.

The opposition seeks to undermine the rule of law and erode our Charter of Rights and Freedoms to once again divide Canadians on the basis of fear, not facts or evidence. It has gone to incredible lengths to demonstrate Mr. Khadr is evil in order to justify gross miscarriages of justice and to excuse unconscionable conduct that demonstrates a moral and legal failing by the Government of Canada.

I do not know Mr. Khadr, nor do I need to in order to understand what was going on in this piece of litigation. The settlement in this case has nothing to do with his quality as a person or his actions in Afghanistan. Instead, it addresses the sole question of the Government of Canada's conduct and responsibility to make amends for its breach of legal duties it owed to one of its citizens.

Many Canadians were upset upon learning the details of the settlement with Mr. Khadr. I have been watching this file unfold for years. I have been deeply disturbed by it for quite some time. The fact that our country would demonstrate such a disregard for one of its citizens is the real shame in this matter, and we all need to wear that as Canadians.

To conclude, there are reasoned debates to be had about the interplay between human rights and national security. Our national interest compels it. However, our citizens are more intelligent than this motion gives them credit for. They deserve a nuanced debate. However, the quality of our politics cannot possibly be so low that a party's political fortunes depend on the fear or ignorance of the electorate.

I have now watched the opposition use politics of fear and division repeatedly without shame, not just in this motion but when it came to the niqab ban and the immigrant snitch line. I received promotional materials in a prior election that promised to deny dental benefits to refugees.

I am sick of the fearmongering that is invading Canadian politics. Liberals do not like it. New Democrats do not like it. Progressive Conservatives in my riding do not like it, and they do not deserve to be painted with that brush. The failed—

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

Madam Speaker, not surprisingly, that member's characterization is completely false. We did not cut money. I should not be surprised, because this is the same party that said it would only run a $10-billion deficit. It has a lot of problems with math and the facts.

Here is the fact, and we took a lot of heat for this. The Conservative government is the one that made sure terrorists would not be able to organize in Canada. It enacted laws against terrorism being promoted on the Internet, which are being rescinded, by the way, if we look at what is happening with Bill C-59. We were criticized for the work we did because we were working so hard to invest money to keep Canadians safe.

The Liberals' approach to this is what is causing the problem. They are not taking this issue seriously.

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

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time this afternoon with the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London.

Women and girls held captive, used, and sold as sex slaves; gay men pelted with stones, thrown from the rooftop because they are homosexual; children taken from their families and turned into suicide bombers; tens of thousands of innocent humans placed in mass graves: these are just a sample of the awful, horrible, and repugnant stories we have heard time and time again from territory controlled by ISIS and its fighters.

However, these awful tragic events are happening literally on the other side of the world, so we actually have nothing to worry about, right? I guess that is what some would think. We, on this side of the House, are being called fearmongers, because we are actually suggesting that what is happening in ISIS-controlled territories on the other side of the world actually does affect Canada and could have an even more lasting effect on Canada. We are being told we are wrong and that we are fearmongers.

In our present day, with our modern technology, terrorism and terrorist groups are not geographically limited. They recruit, they inspire, and they fundraise right around the globe, including here in Canada. Do not take my word for it. Let us look at what the experts say.

In its most recent annual report to Parliament, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said:

The principal terrorist threat to Canada remains that posed by violent extremists who could be inspired to carry out an attack in Canada. Violent extremist ideologies espoused by terrorist groups like Daesh...continue to appeal to certain individuals in Canada.

This is a concern to us. Let us talk not just about those individuals here in Canada who may espouse these values but about those who have taken that additional step to go to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS and fight with them and have then returned to Canada. With that in mind, let us think about potential dangers these ISIS fighters pose to Canada.

Sadly, shockingly even, this does not seem to trouble our Prime Minister. In fact, when our Conservative leader pressed the Prime Minister last week, right here in the House of Commons, on the troubling pattern of Canadians fighting for ISIS and then returning to Canada, we did not get an answer. What did we get? We got an angry, attacking Prime Minister who tried his very best to slap a racist label on those important questions.

Islamophobia is what the Prime Minister called our concerns and the concerns of Canadians. Invoking that label is wrong, and it is cheap politics. It ought to be beneath the Prime Minister. These are concerns Canadians have. These are letters, emails, and social media that are full of the concerns Canadians have. These are legitimate questions that should not be dismissed with name calling, including fearmongering or Islamophobia. That is wrong.

ISIS does not represent Islam, nor does it represent the overwhelming majority of the almost two billion peaceful and peace-loving Muslims on this earth. What ISIS does do is represent a narrow-minded, extremist, and radical ideology, rooted in violence, seeking a religious cloak.

Sadly, we know that some Canadians have fallen prey to these extreme ideologies and recruitment approaches. Some have even travelled to the Middle East in aid of ISIS. Some of these fighters have come back to Canada, and that is what we are talking about today.

Although it does not seem to be a major concern for the Prime Minister, it is a concern for our professionals in the security and intelligence field.

Retired CSIS director Michel Coulombe, said:

Daesh, in particular, has developed a robust social media presence, allowing it to successfully recruit thousands of individuals, including Canadians, to travel to Syria and Iraq.

These extremists also pose a potential threat if they return to Canada.

Those are not our words. Those are the words of CSIS director Michel Coulombe. Let me continue his words:

For instance, they may radicalize others, help with logistics and financing for those who may want to travel abroad, or engage in attack planning here in Canada.

Terrorism is a global threat and we are not immune from its reach.

It is a global threat from which Canada is not immune. That principle has been recognized by successive governments in their approach to fighting terrorism.

Jean Chrétien's Liberal government, following the 9/11 terrorist attack, brought in the Anti-terrorism Act and the Public Safety Act, 2002, to establish a legislative framework to address terrorist crimes. Paul Martin's Liberal government authorized the deployment of Canada's troops to Kandahar to support our allies in Afghanistan.

Stephen Harper's Conservative government, in which I had the honour to serve, had a very long track record of fighting terrorism. We extended the mission in Afghanistan, brought in stronger anti-terrorism laws, and made it an offence to travel abroad to engage in or facilitate terrorist activities. It is against the law. When they come back to Canada, they could be prosecuted for that. That is the law we brought in, but this government refuses to actually enforce it. Conservatives also created a process for removing Canadian citizenship from convicted terrorists who were dual citizens. Under Stephen Harper, Canada joined a global coalition to fight ISIS.

Then these Liberals took office, and everything changed. The Liberals withdrew Canada from the global anti-ISIS coalition. These Liberals passed legislation allowing convicted terrorists to retain Canadian citizenship and enjoy their Canadian passports. These Liberals introduced Bill C-59 to unwind and roll back the tools our police and intelligence agencies have to fight terrorism. These Liberals are welcoming ISIS fighters back to Canada with a reintegration program, thinking they can de-emphasize violent terrorist instincts. These Liberals cut a $10.5 million cheque to a convicted terrorist, Omar Khadr. That is the shameful record of these Liberals.

Canadians expect their government to protect them and to keep them safe. Knowing that terrorist fighters are in Canada is worrying enough. Our government welcomes these fighters, arranging group meetings and supportive meetings and asking them to please stop being involved with those bad people and running around with bad gangs. The Liberals think that will be sufficient.

No wonder Canadians are upset. No wonder we are hearing from our constituents. Right across the country, people are concerned. When we label those concerns and call them names, it does not stop the concerns. It actually makes them even worse.

What the federal government, and the Prime Minister, really ought to be doing is making sure that we can, and do, bring these fighters to justice. ISIS fighters and other terrorists should be made to face the full legal consequences for their actions. They should be charged, they should be prosecuted, and they should be in jail. The federal government ought to make sure that the RCMP and its provincial and municipal partners have the tools, the legal authority, and the resources needed to bring charges and secure convictions against these returning terrorists.

We need to keep strong relations with our allies in fighting terrorism to ensure that we have the information, the intelligence, and the evidence necessary to prosecute terrorists and to protect our citizens. However, that is not what we have been seeing from the other side of the House. Instead of focusing on what can be done to keep Canadians safe, we see a government obsessed, for reasons we just do not understand, with avoiding any appearance of being tough on terrorists here in Canada. As Professor Randall Hansen, the interim director of the Monk Centre, said last year, “there's nothing admirable in letting other countries do the fighting while you hide behind liberal pieties”.

Canada's contribution of fighter jets to the anti-ISIS coalition was pulled, abandoning our allies. We have deprogramming coffee circles set up for ISIS fighters who come back to Canada.

When Omar Khadr, a convicted terrorist, sued the federal government, what did the Liberals do? They gave in. Let us not be fooled that this was somehow a charter issue. No court ruled that Omar Khadr should receive $10.5 million. The Liberals hiding behind that is a fraud. Repatriation was the settlement. Repatriation is what happened. The Liberals could have fought the lawsuit. They could have said that the Supreme Court's ruling was enough, but they decided to make this terrorist, a videotaped bomb-maker and convicted killer, into a multi-millionaire.

Let me just finish with this. Canadians are concerned, but in less than two years, these Liberals are going to have to take their record to the country, and they will answer. The year 2019 cannot come soon enough.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and to the Minister of Health]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to rise and join in this important debate, in part because of its timeliness, given the apparent winding down of combat activity against Daesh and the ongoing evolution of terrorist threats in this country. It is also because the myths and misperceptions that have been allowed to persist in this House over the last few weeks have misinformed Canadians. Not surprisingly, those misperceptions are now echoed at family dinner tables right across the country.

If the quality of recent debate is to be believed, Canadians would think that we are combatting returning terrorists with poetry. However, Canadians expect to know exactly what their government does to protect their safety without the distraction of irresponsible sound bites. Therefore, I will dispel some of these myths.

First of all, how are returning extremists treated? The idea persists that they are somehow akin to prisoners at the end of their sentence, being reintegrated into the community, which is certainly not the case. Canada's law enforcement, security, and intelligence departments and agencies actively assess and monitor the threat each individual poses. They may be charged with a criminal offence where the evidence warrants. Based on available information, they may have passports revoked. They may be denied travel or placed on Canada's no-fly list. They are monitored closely in every case, and their return is tightly controlled and managed. In some cases, they may be found suitable for programs designed to help disengage from violent extremism, but by no means does that replace, prevent, or exclude investigation and close monitoring.

Second, the myth persists that somehow we can and should paint each returning extremist with the same brush through immediate action. However, we cannot, and we should not. Threat assessment is made to measure. Their places of travel, experience, and motivations may be entirely different. Criminal investigations are unique from case to case, and these, I can say from experience, can take time. They take a herculean effort on the part of many agencies in collaboration with international allies.

Third, there is a myth that our security agencies cannot possibly keep tabs on each and every returning extremist, which is also untrue. There are approximately 60 who have returned to Canada, and that is over the past decade. This has not changed significantly over the years. The full range of counterterrorism tools are in use, including surveillance, monitoring, and ongoing investigations. Once they return, agencies are well aware of them and aware of appropriately managing the threat they present to our citizens.

Fourth, there is a perception that these returnees pose Canada's largest security threat. This is also an unfortunate mischaracterization. Let us remember that the Strathroy and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu attacks in Canada were made by homegrown terrorists. They never left the country. They were radicalized right here in Canada. The same goes for attacks in Berlin and Nice. Those terrorists had not been trained in Syria or Iraq, but fought from their home countries, inspired by groups like Daesh. The risks that homegrown terrorists pose can be just as great as those posed by returning extremists.

There is no neat and simple solution to the complex problem that terrorism poses in a rapidly changing world, but we have in place effective and world-class professionals. Canada's full range of counterterrorism tools are in use, and these include ongoing investigations, surveillance and monitoring, intelligence gathering and sharing, the collection of criminal evidence, criminal charges, and prosecution where the evidence exists. Other Criminal Code tools, like peace bonds, public listings, expert threat assessments, no-fly lists, the revocation of passports, and legally authorized threat destruction measures, are all in use. The government and Canada's top-notch security agencies continue to use all the tools at their disposal to address the threat of Canadians joining or returning from terrorist activities.

The National Security Joint Operations Centre helps to coordinate an effective and timely operational response to high-risk travellers. G7 interior ministers recently redoubled their commitment to sharing information and working closely together to deal with returning extremists, and the process has worked.

We must now focus our attention on what lies ahead. Daesh, for one, continues to aggressively target the Internet to push an evil ideology and to recruit new adherents. Those who were on the battlefield may now be attempting to move perhaps to Africa, Asia, or Europe, and even to Canada. Yet, as the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness has said, the terror threat is now morphing into other forms, and we must not be complacent.

As I have noted, homegrown terrorism is one of our most urgent threats. It can come in many forms, from right- and left-wing extremism to religious motivations.

In Bill C-59, the overhaul of national security legislation currently at committee, we intend to provide the framework through which we can act on these threats, moving forward. We need to play the long game. International experts recognize that a key part of that means getting to the roots of the problems on our own turf, and that is why the government recently launched a new centre to coordinate, bolster, and help fund and share the counter-radicalization programming that exists across the country. It is called the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence. It is based on the fact that early intervention in dangerous situations to prevent radicalization to violence can and does work. The centre takes a broad approach to this issue, recognizing that the process of radicalization to violence occurs differently for different people.

It provides national leadership to support local efforts, and a key part of that work is through the community resilience fund. This fund was created to enhance those partnerships and to promote innovation in research on countering radicalization to violence, and domestic programming. We have recently announced a renewed call for proposals under this fund, with $1.4 million available to approved projects starting in 2018 and $7 million annually for the balance of the program. The centre is ensuring that resources are in place to facilitate disengagement from violent ideologies. In particular, children are served who return from combat zones and require tailored support to recover from their traumatic experiences.

From every angle, the Government of Canada continues to carefully monitor trends in extremist travel, and our national security agencies work extremely well together to ensure our response reflects the current threat environment. Canadians can be assured that our agencies are carefully monitoring returning extremists and that our law enforcement agencies are doing the difficult work of collecting the evidence required for convictions in Canadian courts. This remains a priority for our government and for all of our national security agencies. We must work together, alert at all times to the threats posed by terrorism at all levels, buoyed by solid facts and a shared commitment to act.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, at the outset, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Scarborough Southwest.

Today, I am rising to speak against the motion brought forward by the Conservative opposition, and my reasons for doing so are straightforward.

Contrary to what this motion suggests, our government has already unequivocally condemned Daesh for committing acts of terrorism and genocide, as they should be. In addition, the Canadian Forces, law enforcement, and intelligent communities are fully engaged in combatting and preventing terrorism in all its forms, both abroad and at home. This is work of which we should all be proud.

Finally, Canadians can be confident that we have enacted a robust set of criminal laws, offences and preventative tools for law enforcement, to address terrorism, which are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, wherever and whenever appropriate.

In a moment, I will expand on how these measures are collectively working to keep Canadians safe, but first I need to express how regrettable it is to hear the opposition politicize national security time and again.

Far too often, we see the Conservatives wagging their fingers, lecturing Canadians, and pandering fear on this subject. However, one need only look at their record to see it is heavy on rhetoric and light on substance.

I hear hon. members heckling from the other side, and that will not change the facts. Let me tell everyone what some of those facts are.

During their 10 years in government, the Conservatives imposed dramatic cuts to national security. Indeed, in their last four years in power, they slashed close to $1 billion in resources to the RCMP, CBSA, CSIS, CATSA, and CSE. The opposition would do well to remember these figures, as I know Canadians will in sizing up the validity of this motion and the credibility of the Conservatives on the whole of national security.

Let me now say a few words about a number of the terrorism provisions within the Criminal Code that specifically apply to terrorist travel.

I would like to begin by acknowledging that thousands from around the world have indeed travelled to join terrorist groups and that this is indeed an important issue, which our government is grappling with domestically, internationally, and abroad with all our partners in the combat against terrorism.

Within the law as it exists in Canada, there are four specific offences of leaving Canada, or attempting to leave Canada, for the purpose of committing specific terrorism offences. In this way, the criminal law addresses the terrorist traveller phenomenon by having the substantive offence crystallize before the person leaves Canada and by applying the same maximum punishment to attempting to leave Canada, as well as leaving Canada, to commit these offences.

Over and above these targeted offences, the Criminal Code includes terrorism provisions designed to prevent the carrying out of terrorist activity and have a preventive focus. They are in large part designed to permit law enforcement to intervene and charge someone with a terrorism offence before a terrorist attack can take place. Such offences include knowingly facilitating terrorist activity and knowingly instructing someone to carry out a terrorist activity.

A particular example of this can be found in the participation offence, which is under section 83.18 of the Criminal Code. Terrorist travellers could be, and have in fact been, prosecuted under the offence of knowingly participating in any activity of a terrorist group for the purpose of enhancing the ability of any terrorist group to carry out a terrorist activity.

I will pause for a moment to say that in my former career as a federal prosecutor, I have first-hand experience dealing with these provisions. Again, I would draw the attention to Canadians that they can take great satisfaction and confidence in knowing we have a rigorous criminal law enforcement provision. I was honoured to serve with many prosecutors and members of the RCMP and CSIS, who continue to do a good job today in keeping our country safe.

As well, it is notable, in the current threat environment, individuals are often radicalized to violence and encouraged through online interactions and messaging. In Bill C-59, the national security act, 2017, the government proposes to revise the offence of advocating or promoting the commission of terrorism offences in general to be one of counselling the commission of a terrorism offence, whether a terrorism offence is committed and whether a specific terrorism offence is counselled. The advocacy or promotion offence has been much criticized since its enactment in 2015 for being vague or overbroad. Bill C-59 proposes to revise this offence to use well-known criminal law concepts and facilitate its prosecution.

The bill continues to support the view that the active encouragement of others to commit terrorism offences, even without being specific as to which terrorism offence is being encouraged, should be an offence in the same way as it is an offence to counsel a specific terrorism offence.

Some of these criminal offence provisions have already been successfully used in court. To date, there have been 26 terrorism convictions in Canada and three trials are currently in progress.

I will now speak about preventive enforcement tools.

Certainly one of the most fundamental tools police and prosecutors have to keep Canadians safe from individuals who may have associated with terrorism groups abroad is the terrorism peace bond. This is a powerful preventive tool that can help to protect Canadians from terrorism offences.

In situations where police may not have enough evidence to justify charging a person with a terrorism offence, the terrorism peace bond is available to bring the individual before a judge rather than wait until it is too late. In such cases, the court has the power to impose “any reasonable conditions” to counter the threat posed by the individual concerned.

The Criminal Code also sets out that the provincial court judge shall consider whether it is desirable, to prevent a terrorist activity from being committed, to include in the recognizance a condition that the defendant deposit, in the specified manner, any passport or other travel document issued in their name that is in their possession or control. If the judge decides that it is desirable, the judge shall add the condition to the recognizance and specify the period during which it applies.

Furthermore, the provincial court judge shall consider whether it is desirable, to prevent a terrorist activity from being committed, to include in the recognizance a condition that the defendant remain within a specified geographic area unless written permission to leave that area is obtained from the judge or any individual designated by the judge. If the judge decides that it is desirable, the judge shall add the condition to the recognizance and specify the period during which it applies. Furthermore, If the provincial court judge does not add a condition, the judge shall include in the record a statement of the reasons for not adding it.

With respect to the recognizance to keep the peace related to terrorism, this tool has been used by law enforcement agencies and by Crown prosecutors. The use of this tool has been on the rise since 2015. Specifically, there have been 19 applications for this recognizance in the past two years, compared to six between 2001 and 2014.

I would note that during the 2016 national security consultation, some called into question the threshold for a terrorism peace bond that was enacted in 2015 by former Bill C-51. That act lowered the threshold of the terrorism peace bond from “will commit” to “may commit”. After careful consideration, the government has determined that the lowered threshold is a balanced approach between the constitutional rights of Canadians and the need to protect the security of Canadians. This threshold has also been upheld as constitutional in the recent Manitoba case of Regina v. Driver in 2016.

Another preventive tool is the recognizance with conditions, which is available for law enforcement in the appropriate case to disrupt nascent terrorist activity.

The Canadian Passport Order contemplates that passports can be denied or revoked in certain instances of criminality and where necessary to prevent the commission of a terrorism offence or for the national security of Canada or a foreign country or state.

As can be seen, Canada already has a broad range of offences and tools to assist in the fight against terrorism. As the hon. Minister of Public Safety has said, we need them all and we use them all.

Opposition members have spent the last week criticizing national security, national defence, and deriding effective counter-radicalization measures that go a long way toward both combatting and preventing terrorism. Instead of that kind of partisanship we need a thoughtful debate that will strike the right balance between protecting Canadians as well as their charter rights.

I encourage all hon. members in the House to reject the opposition motion and to support the important measures this government is taking on this file.

Opposition Motion—ISIS Fighters Returning to Canada

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, any worthy debate is one with thorough facts. The member has been serving quite honourably on the committee studying Bill C-59 and has served the country as a police officer for most of his adult life. The Conservatives have concerns regarding the lack of information, how many fighters from Syria and Iraq have come back to Canada, and the fact that the information we have been given is about two years old. Does he find it concerning that the government is not forthcoming with that information and that the government is also not letting us know whether ISIS fighters are being supervised?

I am particularly concerned because many of these individuals may have participated in genocide, human trafficking, all sorts of heinous crimes, including attacking our allies, perhaps even firing at Canadian Armed Forces abroad. Could the member please comment on these issues?

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

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are not deceived by the platitudes of any government or the rhetoric of any government, to be honest. It is important to recognize that when it comes to public safety and national security, when there is a threat to our country and our citizens, it would behoove all of us in this place to put partisanship behind us, not point fingers, and all work together.

I have said repeatedly in the national security committee that we are committed to working on Bill C-59 and getting it right. There is a reason the government has sent the bill to committee before second reading, and that is because there are some things we have to get right that are not quite right yet. The Liberals acknowledge that, which is great. I am encouraged we can work together to improve the gaps in our national security and the things that would give confidence to the public on protecting them and our future as a country.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my questions to the parliamentary secretary, it goes without saying that we condemn the terrorist and violent acts committed by ISIS as well as by neo-Nazi groups, for example; we are disgusted by them.

Not only should all forms of terrorism be condemned, but we also find that our measures provide sufficient evidence to lay criminal charges. The parties all agree on that.

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the fantastic interpreters here in the House, it is worth repeating in both official languages that we find any violence committed by any terrorist group, whether it is ISIS or neo-Nazis, to be abhorrent and something we denounce. Insofar as we have the evidence required to go ahead with criminal proceedings and press charges, it should absolutely be done. That is not something up for debate, no matter which party is in power. On that, I certainly agree with the parliamentary secretary.

The sad part about trying to politicize a situation that is obviously very worrisome for all Canadians, as it pertains to their safety and security, is that when it comes to radicalization we have to ask ourselves what is the best way to address it. I heard the Conservatives say that this is not about people who are in the process of being radicalized, but about those who already were and have now returned.

With that in mind, it is very important to remember that the problem does not lie with our legislation or political will; in fact, we are talking about the justice system and not a political decision. It is about adapting to the standards of proof.

The way evidence is admitted in court is extremely important when we look at this particular issue of foreign fighters returning to Canada, in particular in what way intelligence gathered can be admissible as evidence in court. Even experts have had a hard time grappling with how we can lay charges with that evidence. That is something we acknowledge the government needs to look at and work on. It is certainly something that could help law enforcement press charges when they may be required.

When we are looking at pressing charges, it is not just what evidence is admissible. It is also the question of even laying terrorism charges, which is something we did not see in the previous Parliament under the previous government and that we have now seen twice under the current government. It is complicated, because as experts have said, often terrorism charges do not relate to the violence in and of itself, which usually falls under another part of the Criminal Code. Terrorism charges usually relate to the planning of said violence, which makes it very difficult, especially when we fall into the trap, as with this motion, of targeting specific groups.

I will explain why. Members will recall the horrible massacre in Moncton. By all accounts, this man committed a terrorist act. In fact, he confirmed that he wanted to attack the RCMP because it supported a government he thought was corrupt. I do not think this can be described as anything other than a terrorist act, and yet no one calls it that.

The attack at the Métropolis against a newly elected Quebec premier could also be considered a terrorist act.

However, in both of these cases, no terrorism-related criminal charges were laid. Criminal charges were obviously laid, but these charges fell under other parts of the Criminal Code.

This is a very important point, because it shows how difficult it is to judge motives and to define terrorism. This is unfortunately extremely complicated, and we need to work on that.

I also think it is important to trust the men and women who work for our national security agencies and police forces—in the case, the RCMP. It goes without saying that if they collect enough evidence, we can, and should, be confident that they will file criminal charges. The problem is how to obtain this evidence and whether the evidence is admissible. There is no point laying criminal charges if the person ends up being released because of a lack of evidence. This may be annoying, but this is the reality of our legal system, and we must respect that. This is exactly what terrorists want to attack. If we cannot respect this pillar of our democracy, we are doomed. This is very important here.

The other point is the question of resources, which is extremely important and which we raised over the course of the debate on what was Bill C-51 in the previous Parliament.

We can change the law. We can make the strictest laws possible. We can say we are going to throw everyone in jail and throw away the key, but if the men and women in uniform do not have the human and financial resources to do the work, the law is useless. That is a key issue here.

The commissioner of the RCMP has said that the focus on radical Islam has taken away from other investigations at a time when we are seeing a rise in hate crimes, a rise in anti-Semitism, which are also forms of radical violence and are, in some cases, forms of radical terrorism.

It is important to keep in mind that it is not always a legal issue. It is sometimes the political will to provide the appropriate resources to the national security agencies and police bodies, something that, unfortunately, certainly was not done in the last Parliament, and there is more work to be done in the current Parliament. That is important to keep in mind if we actually want the RCMP, among others, to have the resources to do the work they need to do to keep Canadians safe.

Getting back to the subject of radicalization, which is at the heart of today's motion, I asked the sponsor why the Conservatives have been so intent on disparaging anti-radicalization efforts. I was told that this is not about being for or against radicalization, but right after his speech, his colleague spent at least five minutes sneering at anti-radicalization efforts. That makes absolutely no sense.

During the last Parliament, nothing of substance was done to fight radicalization. Although I frequently disagree with the public safety minister's stance on issues, I am pleased to see that something is finally being done at the community level to fight radicalization through a centre set up to fund local projects. The Conservatives scoffed at those projects in their motion, as did their critics in their speeches on the subject. That is a shame.

If we really want to keep our communities safe, we have to fight radicalization and make sure people do not leave in the first place. Extremist groups such as Islamic State and far-right groups such as neo-Nazis often exploit young people with mental health problems. We need to help those young people not because they should be treated as victims but to ensure public safety, which requires a concerted, community-wide approach.

I asked the parliamentary secretary a question about what is being done in prisons.

I overheard a comments from a Conservative that we are saying to not put them in jail, because they are going to be radicalized there. That is not what we are saying. We are saying that we cannot do one without the other. The experts all say that one of the worst places for being radicalized is in prison. If there are criminal charges brought and people are found guilty, certainly no one is debating whether they should be in prison. The issue is that when they are in prison, we need to make sure that the programs are there to get to the root of that radicalization that is taking hold and leading them to be a threat to national security and public safety. That is what is at stake here. If we just want to incarcerate and forget about it, to see no evil and hear no evil, those people, if they ever get out, will have slipped through the cracks and will not only be people society has not come in aid of but will be people who will pose a threat to public safety. If the objective here is to protect public safety, then let us make sure we are cutting the evil that is radicalization off at the root, and that means providing the proper programs.

As I said, I recognize the efforts the government has made to begin working with and funding best practices in some of those efforts, but more needs to be done. Again, prisons are one example. I appreciate the openness the parliamentary secretary has shown to recognizing that this is an issue and to working on it, but more needs to be done.

Let us move on to the matter of counter-radicalization, which is something else that is of great concern to me. What are we talking about? Some people go abroad and are labelled as “fighters”. In some cases, they do not commit any acts of violence, which is why it is so important to have evidence. In fact, sometimes these people are victims. Some of them are taken over there by their families. They are vulnerable people who quickly realize after arriving that they have made a mistake, and who then come back to Canada without committing any acts of violence.

Will some of these individuals be criminally prosecuted? Of course, but evidence is needed. Rather than heckling and shouting “yes”, we must understand the nuances of the situation. We have to understand that our system is a system of law. I am not talking about rights and freedoms. I am talking about a system of law, the rule of law. It is important to understand that simply making a list of people and sending them all to prison is not an effective approach to public safety. We have to have evidence, and we have to understand the challenges associated with that evidence, challenges that experts have told us about.

The Conservative member is heckling me by shouting “yes, we have to do it”. If we move forward with these criminal charges, we need to make sure that they will result in prison sentences. Rather than blaming the government and engaging in a senseless dialogue by claiming that some people in the House are seeking to jeopardize the safety of Canadians, we need to understand that there is work to do to ensure that the national security agencies and police forces that have the evidence they need to successfully prosecute will do so. Everyone would be pleased if that happened, because it would help keep Canadians safe.

Let us engage in a positive dialogue. That is the approach that we are advocating today. It is no secret that I disagree with the approach of the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, but one thing is certain and leaves no room for debate: we want keep to Canadians safe and ensure public safety.

In that context, when we are looking at such an important issue as this one, to engage in dog-whistle politics and use expressions like “welcomed with open arms” and to throw things out about reading poetry, to denigrate counter-radicalization efforts, does a disservice to the men and women doing the serious work of making sure Canadians are safe, does a disservice to this House where we all believe in the importance of ensuring Canadians' safety, and does a disservice to the real efforts and debate that need to happen over the proper way of dealing with the situation.

As part of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security's review of Canada's national security framework, we travelled for one week, stopping in five cities in five days. We stopped in Montreal, where we had the opportunity to visit the Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence. This centre is one of a kind in North America. It is so unique that it receives calls from families in New York who are worried about the possible radicalization of a friend, a family member, or even a child in some cases.

We sat down with the team at the centre and had a nuanced discussion. It was clear that these people fully understood that in many cases, the RCMP and our national security agencies have a role to play and a job to do if they are to catch those who pose a threat to public safety and security.

The collaboration between our police forces and national security agencies has been outstanding. They have also made an effort to reach out to the community and to concerned families and individuals. This work did not focus on any community more than another. An attack like the one committed at the Islamic cultural centre in Quebec City is just as troubling as an attack like the one that took place in Edmonton. Both are equally troubling, and the centre acknowledges that.

The people who fight against radicalization fully understand what we are saying today in the House. Yes, we need to consider prosecution. Yes, we need to make sure that anyone we can press charges against is actually prosecuted. However, we must also recognize that simply acknowledging one facet of an extremely complicated and important issue does not diminish the need to hold this debate and offer concrete solutions. Not only would concrete solutions help us ensure public safety, but they would also keep youth from falling through the cracks and possibly save them from the scourge of radicalization.

In closing I want to say, as I have said several times in my speech, that the minister and I certainly have our differences, and it is no secret in this place, but there is one thing to which we will always commit, and that is working together to ensure the safety of Canadians, no matter what the partisan issue is.

To do that, there is a lot that needs to be done. I have mentioned some of it: getting terrorism charges right, getting the peace bond process right, getting the evidentiary process right with regard to intelligence gathering. These are all challenges that we have in getting the counter-radicalization efforts right.

The government has taken some good steps. We think we can do more, including doing it in federal prisons, and making sure that, in some instances where there are best practices, there is more robust federal leadership despite the importance of supporting those grassroots efforts.

Those are all things on which we are ready to work with the government. It is part of the reason why it is so disappointing to hear the kind of hyperbole we hear today. When it comes to ensuring public safety, there are important measures that need to be taken. It is not about stoking and fanning the flames of fear, but rather about standing in this place and having the courage to take on these important challenges that we face, and that all experts agree are challenging but are at the core of the mandate we have as parliamentarians.

I am very happy to say that the NDP is committed to working with the government on all the points that I mentioned.

No proposal, whether Bill C-51, introduced during the last Parliament, or Bill C-59, should ever implement more draconian public safety legislation at the expense of rights and freedoms. However, that does not preclude concrete efforts from being made, for instance, providing more resources to the RCMP and other national security agencies and strengthening our counter-radicalization efforts. We have to do what we can to truly put an end to this scourge instead of simply focusing on one aspect of the issue and moving on.

There is still a lot of work to be done. Let us set aside this kind of rhetoric and ensure that we are doing our job properly because that is what Canadians expect from us.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my question, there is not a person in the House who does not unequivocally condemn terrorism. There is not one person in this place who would not, at the first opportunity if evidence presented itself, pursue to the fullest extent of the law somebody who committed an act of terror. To make the outrageous assertion that a member of any party in the House of Commons feels otherwise is unbecoming of this place and it is disgraceful that anyone would stand and make such a statement. We all unequivocally condemn the horrific acts of Daesh. Although we may disagree about the policies and the mechanisms that we use to go after terrorists, each and every one of us wants to hunt down and find those that would do others harm.

The member opposite made a few points that are concerning and I have unfortunately heard others in his party making the same points. He said he was not disparaging anti-radicalization efforts and yet in his speech he talked about poetry readings and how people are soft on individuals who would do us harm. The poetry reading he is talking about is in fact being conducted by a university aimed at young people who committed no crime, young people who might be starting down a dark path. God forbid we should use the arts to try to reach somebody who might be heading down a bad path. Is that the assertion Conservative members are making?

The entire focus of Conservative members on attacking our efforts on anti-radicalization shows the fundamental problem with the 10 years that they occupied office and their complete unwillingness to look at the need and imperative nature of prevention in all of its forms, whether or not it is health, crime, or terrorism. Terrorist acts have already been committed and I have already said we must pursue the individuals who committed those acts with every ounce of our force.

There are all sorts of terrorism that have not happened yet, people who have not yet been victimized, people who have not yet been attacked. Is it not our job every day in every single possible way to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that those who would seek to do us harm are pulled from that pack? Is it not our job to stop acts from happening before they are ever committed?

For some reason members of the opposition cannot get their heads around the idea that there are two separate but equally important priorities. The first is going after those who have committed wrongs and have already broken the law and who, with our international partners, we must pursue. The second are those who have not yet done harm, who are misled, who are beginning to head down a dark path, but who could be pulled away from that direction. There is nothing at odds about pursuing those two objectives at the same time.

The other problem that I have with the rhetoric that we are hearing from members on the other side is that it does not match their record. The Conservatives are now talking about the importance of protecting our communities, and I agree with them, but over the 10 years that they were in power they cut $1 billion from the very agencies designed to protect us. Let us go over those: $430 million cut from the RCMP; $390 million cut from the CBSA; $69 million cut from CSIS; $42 million cut from the Canadian security agency; and, $171 million cut from CATSA. Not only did they not keep up with inflation during that period for this ultimate priority that we all share, they slashed funding during that period of time.

The Conservatives talk about how Liberals will not pursue those who have come back to Canada. Two matters are actively being pursued to convict individuals where we have evidence and a decade under the Conservatives that number is zero, not a single one. It is a little rich for them to stand up and say there has been a sea change and suddenly now we are not doing anything.

It is the cloak that is put around it, as if they and they alone walk the streets concerned with protecting Canadians from terror. It is unbecoming of this place, and I wish that we could spend more time in this place having the kinds of intelligent debates that, frankly, we saw with all members including Conservative members around the security and intelligence framework, the kinds of conversations we are having around Bill C-59 right now to create the best and most leading-edge policy framework and oversight mechanisms and resources for our police. That is the debate that is worthy of this place, not this motion that we are going to spend a day talking about. It is unfortunate to try to angle for whatever particular partisan gain. Of course, in this place every day we try to advance what our party does well and they do poorly, but when it is framed this way it is so cynical.

With that, I want to point out one last thing as just a rebuke to what we heard earlier around the notion of extremism and to point out that not only do we hear the Conservatives belittling it in their text, but that in the 10 years they were there, the work to stop people walking the path of violent extremism simply was not done. According to Dr. Lorne Dawson of the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society, “all the G20 nations...are convinced of the need to move into prevention program...” but “the previous conservative government had little or no interest in following up on this”. According to former CSIS analyst, Phil Gurski, the“previous government had an abysmal record when it came to countering violent extremism and early detection. The Conservative government didn't care.”

I do not know that the Conservatives did not care, I would not make that characterization, but I think their priorities were in the wrong place. I think that while they went after, rightfully, those who had committed acts, they did not do a fraction enough to go after those who were beginning to walk that dark path, and their lack of regard for it in their debate and their discussion on the motion is heavy evidence of it.

We recognize and condemn the depravity of groups like Daesh. That is why Canada has renewed our military commitment to the Global Coalition against Daesh until March 2019. In addition to training, advising, and assisting Iraqi security forces, we have expanded our intelligence capabilities, we are conducting aerial surveillance and recognizance to air-to-air refuelling, we are leading the coalition medical facility, and as the situation continues to evolve we will re-evaluate how the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces could be most effective and ensure that we equip them with the resources they need to get the job done.

On the home front, when people have given support to Daesh and other terrorist groups and they return to Canada, whether they were active in combat, fundraising, propaganda, or in some other way, they are confronted with the full weight of Canadian intelligence and law enforcement agencies controlling and managing their return. Canadians can be assured that our world-class security and intelligence law enforcement agencies actively track and assess all potential threats. To this end, they work 365 days a year with domestic and international partners, including Five Eyes, the G7, the European Union, Interpol, and many others. These are professional, non-partisan agencies whose skills and expertise are sought all over the world. They work for us. They worked for a Conservative government. They would work for an NDP government. They would work constantly, vigilantly, ceaselessly for any government of any stripe. It is what they did, it is what they do.

They monitor returning extremists closely and gather and share intelligence in accordance with the law. They conduct investigations, collect criminal evidence, and lay criminal charges wherever possible. They use Criminal Code tools like peace bonds and terrorist listings as well as no-fly lists, passport revocations, and other authorized threat disruption measures wherever appropriate. Whichever tool they use, their work is apolitical, based on expert assessments and threats to public safety and national security.

At a recent gathering in Italy, G7 interior ministers, including our Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, committed to working together to address this very issue. This will involve multi-agency co-operation, risk assessment, and possible interventions, as our allies continue to deal with this shared threat.

To give a sense of the situation on a global scale, I would direct hon. members to the most recent public report on the terrorist threat to Canada. It shows, for example, that over 6,600 extreme travellers from western countries went to Syria since the start of that conflict in 2011. The number of Canadians involved is relatively small, about 250, with a nexus to Canada have gone abroad to participate in terrorist activity of some kind. Some went to Syria and Iraq, and many others went to countries in conflict zones. Around 60 of them have returned to Canada. These were the numbers at the end of 2015.

CSIS confirmed in its annual public report released this past February that the numbers stayed largely stable, and that remains the case.

We should neither underestimate nor overestimate that threat. We should not understate it, because there are people who have felt, and may continue to feel, so strong an affinity for the vile ideology and conduct of groups like Daesh that they travelled halfway around the world to get involved. Some of them may have been active participants in brutal violence. Certainly, as the motion before us states, people who team up with terrorists are complicit in atrocities, must be found, must be convicted, and must be put in jail.

When these individuals return to Canada, they merit and receive the full attention of our security intelligence law enforcement agencies. At the same time, that is exactly why we should not overstate the threat. Our expert, highly-skilled, highly-trained security services are on the job. They lay charges when there is evidence to support charges. Even when there is not enough evidence for criminal prosecution, they keep a close tab on these individuals to ensure Canadians are kept safe. They evaluate the extent to which each returnee remains bent on radical violence and they take appropriate measures to keep us safe.

As for the 100 to 190 Canadians who remain abroad, experts do not necessarily expect a great influx back to Canada. For one thing, many of them may be dead. Of those who are still alive, it may not be easy to leave whatever country they are in, and some of them may not want to. For those who do come back and face the same full force of our security and intelligence, it will be exactly the same treatment as those who arrived here already.

That is how we deal with people who have been radicalized. It is, of course, far preferable to prevent radicalization from happening in the first place, which is why I spent so much of my initial conversation in my speech talking to this point.

That is why we have established the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence. Setting up this new centre was a commitment we made during the last election. We set aside funding for it in our very first budget, and it has been up and running since June. Canada has certain local initiatives, such as the Centre de prévention de la radicalisation menant à la violence, Montréal and the ReDirect program run by the Calgary Police Service. These programs and others like them engage in direct intervention with people at risk of being radicalized.

Our new federal centre is not meant to supplement. Rather, it is a coordinating body that helps local initiatives work to prevent violent extremism of all kinds. It includes Islamic extremism, white supremacy, and others.

The centre also facilitates the best practices and supports research to develop an evidence base about what approaches work best to combat radicalization in the Canadian context. This is important, and prevention is really the most effective way of reducing the threat posed by radicalization in the long run, not instead of a robust security and enforcement response, but in addition to it.

Therefore, I hope we are hearing, from the comments opposite, an approach that is misled. There is a need to ensure we approach both sides of the equation with equal vigour.

I would also like to address the motion's reference to the case of Omar Khadr.

Canadians obviously hold deeply divergent views about how he ended up on a battlefield in Afghanistan in 2002, and about what happened there. It was undoubtedly a tragic situation, particularly for the family and friends of Sergeant Christopher Speer, who was killed, and for Sergeant Layne Morris, who was injured.

There is conflicting evidence and commentary about what occurred on that day, 15 years ago. There is, however, no ambiguity about the fact that the Government of Canada violated Mr. Khadr's rights when he was in custody. The Supreme Court has been very clear on that point, on not one occasion but two.

Court proceedings have already cost upward of $7 million and prolonging them would have cost millions more, not to mention the cost of settlement itself, all to fight a case that was virtually unwinnable for reasons that were purely political. The settlement was the only sensible course of action. It saved taxpayers an enormous amount of money. It reminds us of the fundamental point that Canadian governments must apply the Constitution, follow the law, and respect the rights of citizens no matter how controversial they might be.

I am proud to be part of a government that upholds Canadian rights and I am proud to be part of a government that prioritizes the security of Canadians. We know that when there is a difficult case, when there is to be an arbiter of whether a Canadian citizen's rights were violated, it is not this place but the courts that make that determination. It is the courts that tell us whether our charter has or has not been upheld. When we violate fundamental rights, there has to be a consequence. Our charter is a document that protects each and every one of us. That is what can be so dangerous in this debate.

Each and every one of us has an incredible zeal to protect our fellow citizen. Probably all members here, if they were to list the top two or three things they wanted when the came to this place, was to make their communities safer, to make their families safer, to make their friends and neighbours safer. It is a prime motivator, I believe, for almost any person who runs in an election. However, when we get here, in our zeal to do so, we have to ensure we do it right. Yes, we go after those who perpetrate violence and create victims and ensure they are incarcerated and face justice. Similarly, we have to ensure those same actions do not transcend into violations of the rights of innocent people.

We can look at the O'Connor and Iacobucci inquiries and the recommendations that came out of them. Serious failures in our intelligence and security led to innocent people facing dire circumstances. Freedom is delicate. It must be carefully guarded. Those who would attack us or commit terrorism hope we will suspend freedom, live in terror, and lead our lives differently. However, when we get the opportunity to be in a free country, we have to hold that responsibility close. That balance of prevention, enforcement, protection, and the guaranteeing of rights is one that we must debate with the utmost caution, weight, consideration, and lack of partisanship. I hate to say it, but this motion fails on that account.

Public Safety

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, never before have Canadians been so engaged on the issue of national security. In fact, the broadest consultations in Canadian history happened on Bill C-59.

I want to thank the member opposite and the committee as well for their months of work in the study of the national security intelligence framework. The minister was able to point directly to the work of the committee and how it influenced the creation of that bill. This is an excellent example of not only profound and deep national consultation, but the committee working excellently together. Because the bill has been moved at first reading, I look forward to working with the member in a very open way to make sure we—

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

Mr. Speaker, this would have been a lot less complicated if we had adopted the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley's motion for a real appointment process for officers.

On another topic, yesterday, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security met with the Minister of Public Safety only for one hour on a 138-page omnibus bill, Bill C-59.

We cannot fast-track issues relating to our national security, rights and freedoms, and the privacy of Canadians. Spending one hour with the minister and two hours with heads of agencies is simply not enough.

Can the minister commit to come before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, and once again answer members' questions on this omnibus bill?

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

Thank you for that. You're right. We do need men in positions...who are sending those messages out to young boys and younger men.

On gender-based analysis plus, all of my youth council did the course and surprised me by coming back with their certificate. I got really good feedback from them. It's extending beyond government, where hopefully those young people will take that gender lens and apply it, regardless of where they go in life.

I have a question about how it's being applied. It was interesting. Peter and I just left the public safety meeting. Where it actually came up was a gender lens applied to Bill C-59, the new national security framework, and we were told that it was applied. We're not sure if it's something that can be shared with us as a committee or whether it was confidential.

I'm wondering if you can provide the committee with some further information on how GBA+ is being used, both legislatively and non-legislatively, within the government.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

For the RCMP officers, the minister has already identified the situation I spoke of. Would changes in Bill C-59 have allowed intervention in that whole process with the RCMP and the local police agency dealing with an outside agency?

[David Vigneault]

The way it changes the approach, as I was mentioning earlier, is that, if some of these measures were to limit the freedom of the individual, then the service needs to apply for a warrant to the Federal Court. There is a list in the bill that prescribes the types of activities we can do.

This can be done fairly quickly. The court is responsive to the urgency of threats to national security, but we have not had to use that provision yet. Bill C-59 clarifies the way it would be done, and that would be a tool.

One of the things that I would like to add is, when we use these tools, we must consult with partners, and specifically, with regard to threats of terrorism, we would consult with the RCMP. The law makes it an obligation on our part.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Would it be correct to say that Bill C-59 does not change with respect to some people being allowed to use disruptive practices with suspected terrorists?

[David Vigneault]

Specifically in terms of the non-warranted threat reduction measures, the new bill does not impose any new measures. The service has used threat reduction measures about 30 or so times.

In your specific example, if we were aware of an individual who wanted to travel abroad for the purpose of joining a terrorist organization, we would not need a warrant to intervene with a parent or with people in close proximity to this individual to inform them of what we know in order for them maybe to have an influence on that. Bill C-59 does not make any changes to that provision.

As I've said, we've used this measure about 30 or so times.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the panel for being here.

I'm pleased that we're updating the existing Bill C-51, and I think there are some updates in here. I'm sure we all agree that in three or five years from now we'll be looking for more updates.

One of the things that has always been of interest to me and I think to Canadians is that, if we can disrupt and prevent things, it's always better to do that than it is to deal with the fallout afterwards. I wonder if Bill C-59 has changed the scope of the non-warrant disruption activities that could be designed to reduce threats and if so, how and why?

Does Bill C-59 require a CSIS officer to obtain a warrant to go to speak to a suspected person's parents about their child's radicalization or terrorist intent? I recognize that, when you go to a judge to get a warrant, there's a lot of work, a lot of time involved, and sometimes time is of essence. Would this then enter into that whole process?

[David Vigneault]

I will provide some comments, if the committee is comfortable with that.

First and foremost, it's important to say that all CSIS activities must comply with the charter. The minister explained the way the previous bill—Bill C-51, which became law—was constructed. There may have been an issue with the way it was constructed.

Bill C-59 essentially confirms that the law cannot create an opportunity to deviate from the charter. What it does in terms of threat reduction is to ensure that if ever we were to contemplate a threat reduction measure that would limit the freedom of someone protected by the charter, we would have to go to the Federal Court to apply for such an authorization. The Federal Court would then determine if the limit on that freedom is reasonable and proportionate, which the charter itself allows for. That is how the proposed Bill C-59 addresses the charter issue for the threat reduction mandate.

Also, the law will specify the types of activities that are contemplated, so that will be transparent in the law. I would then be able to interpret that, as the director of CSIS, to determine.... If it limits people's freedom, I have to go to the Federal Court for a test. If it's something that does not limit people's freedom, it's an activity I can do. The committee supervises our activities. The new agency would be informed and able to review the activity to make sure we have complied with the act.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Rigby, the importance of cybersecurity with respect to our infrastructure is your purview, and it's very important to protect against cyber-attacks. We know that the electrical grid is one source of exposure.

It's my understanding that all the provinces—and the United States for that matter—have a framework in place to protect their grids, with the exception of Ontario. Is there some federal provision or something that Parliament could do, even with Bill C-59, requiring all the provinces and territories to ensure that protection is in place, because we're all connected?

[Douglas Breithaupt]

It's important to realize that the counselling offence, as proposed in Bill C-59, is an offence that would be subject to prosecution. The “terrorist propaganda” definition applies to a system within the Criminal Code.

Former Bill C-51 created two new warrants in the Criminal Code, one allowing for the seizure and forfeiture of terrorist propaganda in a tangible form, according to the definition, and the other allowing a peace officer to come before a judge to seek a warrant for the deletion of terrorist propaganda from a website that's available to the public through a Canadian Internet service provider. The terrorist propaganda definition applies to these warrants, as well as under the Customs Act, because it allows terrorist propaganda or prohibited goods under the Customs Act.

[Douglas Breithaupt]

Indeed there is a link to the counselling offence that's proposed in Bill C-59. The “terrorist propaganda” definition is proposed to be amended to mean “any writing, sign, visible representation or audio recording that counsels the commission of a terrorism offence”. It's very closely linked to the new counselling offence.

There were concerns with the current wording of the terrorist propaganda definition, which is “advocates or promotes the commission of terrorism offences in general”, suggesting that this wasn't so easy to apply. That has been deleted, fulfilling a commitment the government made to narrow overly broad definitions, including “terrorist propaganda”.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay. The approval is required for the second part.

For Mr. Rigby, what is the justification for Bill C-59 changing the definition of “terrorist propaganda” in the Criminal Code? It raises the evidentiary standard beyond what is the factual reality of current practices in radicalization, recruitment, and facilitation, and actually duplicates what is already the crime of counselling a criminal offence in section 22 of the Criminal Code.

In light of this, will the government consider removing the proposed amendment in Bill C-59 relating to terrorist propaganda?

[David Vigneault]

Thank you for your question, Mr. Dubé.

My answer comes in two parts.

First, as I briefly mentioned just now, a number of measures already allow us to collect, use and keep information. It starts with the Minister, who will determine the category of information we can use. That category is reviewed by the commissioner. So a quasi-judicial review is conducted by the Intelligence Commissioner. If the information affects Canadians, the Federal Court will decide whether it is absolutely necessary for CSIS to keep and use the information. The Federal Court will apply the privacy test to determine whether to let us use the information. The system to be put in place by Bill C-59 includes criteria that allow us to use the information.

Second, I understand that people are very interested in our use of the information, but, for an intelligence organization like CSIS, it is absolutely critical to have information. Let me give you a specific example. Having a bigger dataset allows us to characterize threats and to say with whom such and such an individual is in contact, and whether or not that constitutes a threat. Often, it allows us to establish that there is no threat. Having that dataset means that CSIS does not investigate innocent people.

[Douglas Breithaupt, Director and General Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice]

Thank you very much for the question.

Yes, Bill C-59 would propose to revert one of the thresholds to what it was before former Bill C-51. There are two thresholds: that the peace officer have, first, reasonable grounds to believe that a terrorist activity may be carried out, and second, reasonable grounds to suspect that the imposition of a recognizance with conditions or the arrest of the person is, as it currently reads, “likely to prevent the carrying out of the terrorist activity”.

This bill proposes to change that phrasing to “be necessary to prevent the carrying out of the terrorist activity”. This would restore that particular branch of the test to what it was originally, with the Anti-terrorism Act of 2001, and that's attached to the branch of the test that's “reasonable grounds” to suspect. It would require the police to present evidence of a greater link between the conditions to be imposed on the person or the arrest of the person and the prevention of terrorist activity.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I may ask you to venture outside the box here, but would you have a rough estimate of how long it would take to build the IT parameters you've described, once we have budgetary approval and Bill C-59 is enacted?

[Monik Beauregard, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, National and Cyber Security Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

The only thing I'd add is that instituting a redress program is quite complex. It requires legislative amendments, regulatory work, consultations with airlines, and some fairly significant IT fixes. I think in Bill C-59 you have the essential first steps to lead us down the path of a centralized program.

We have the proposed amendments here that will enable public safety to gather the information into establishing a program. These are really the first steps that we need down the path to a redress program.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

On one hand, I wanted to ask about rights, but on the other hand, I also want to ask about security, specifically, a question about cybersecurity.

We could have a situation, as a result of even one attack, where our banking and electricity systems are undermined. I've given you maybe one minute to answer this, but in what ways does Bill C-59 provide a more robust framework to prevent against such attacks and protect Canadians?

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

The most prominent issue that emerged from Bill C-51 was the original wording of what became section 12.1 of the CSIS Act, which implied, by the way the section was structured, that CSIS could go to a court and get the authority of the court to violate the charter. Every legal scholar I've ever heard opine on this topic has said that is a legal nullity. An ordinary piece of legislation such as the CSIS Act cannot override the charter. The charter is paramount. However, the language in the way section 12.1 was structured left the impression that you could go to the court and get authority to violate the charter.

In the language change that we have put into Bill C-59, first of all, we have specified a list of disruption activities that CSIS may undertake with the proper court authorization, but when they go to the court to ask for authority, the ruling they're asking for from the court is not that it violate the charter, but that it fits within the charter, that in fact it is consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including clause 1 of the charter.

That's the difference between the structure of the old section and how we've tried to make it clear that the charter prevails.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you, Minister and officials, for being here today.

Minister, at the outset you said that the Charter of Rights is paramount here. I wonder if you could speak to the place of the charter in all of this, in Bill C-59 and where the charter factors in.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Minister, you say the number is 60, when in reality we don't have a finite figure. In fact, with the mass migration of people seeking asylum across the U.S.-Canadian border, those are the people who wanted to be caught. The border enforcement agencies have been overwhelmed with those. What about the people who crossed into Canada who didn't want to be seen? We don't know that there are only 60 people who were fighting with ISIL.

In light of the recent terrorist attack domestically that Mr. MacKenzie referred to, there are terrorist attacks in the U.K. and the EU in addition to Canada that included the acquisition and use of objects available to citizens, such as vehicles, chemicals, and so on. Has the government reviewed the provisions of Bill C-59 to ensure that it permits appropriate emergency disruptive activities, including without warrant, where required?

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

It's a very serious issue, Mr. Spengemann. You really have touched on the two elements we're working on. Through the collection of new provisions that are here in Bill C-59 we will give CSIS and the RCMP and our other agencies the ability and the tools to be as well informed as humanly possible about these activities and to be able to function with clarity within the law and within the Constitution to do what they need to do to counter those threats. Specifically where offences arise in relation to young people, the Youth Criminal Justice Act applies, so that is the process by which young offenders will be managed under this law.

The other side of it is prevention, and all of the countries in the G20, and probably many others around the world, are turning their attention more and more to this question. It has been discussed among the Five Eyes allies. It's been discussed among the G7 countries as well as the G20.

How can we find the ways and share our expertise internationally with all countries that share this concern? How can we find the ways to identify vulnerable people early enough to have a decent opportunity to intervene effectively in that downward spiral of terrorist influence to get them out of that pattern?

Obviously intervention and counter-radicalization techniques will not work in every circumstance. That's why we need a broad range of tools to deal with terrorist threats, but where prevention is possible, we need to develop the expertise to actually do it. That is the reason we created the new Canada centre for community engagement and prevention of violence, so we would have a national office that could coordinate the activities that are going along at the local and municipal and academic levels across the country, put some more resources behind those, and make sure we are sharing the very best ideas and information so that if we can prevent a tragedy, we actually have the tools to do it.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'd like to welcome Minister Goodale to the committee with his team and extend my congratulations to Mr. Rigby and welcome him in his new role.

I'd like to also echo Mr. Motz's appreciation for bringing this bill to us before second reading.

Minister Goodale, my question falls squarely into the overarching framework that we need both good security and to protect our charter rights. It's about Canadian youth and their vulnerability to terrorism. In particular, we have terrorist networks around the world like Abu Sayyaf, in the Philippines; al Shabaab in Somalia; ISIS in Syria, and the Levant; and future terrorist networks, potentially or likely, that will prey on youth in various countries. These are children, really, according to my reading, who range between the ages of 14 and 19 or who are into their early twenties.

Clause 159 of the bill brings the Youth Criminal Justice Act into connection with Bill C-59, applies it to Bill C-59, including the principle that detention is not a substitute for social measures and also that preventative detention, as provided for in section 83.3 of the Criminal Code, falls into that same framework. It's not a substitute.

I wonder if you could comment on your vision of how the bill relates to young offenders, vulnerable youth, essentially the pre-commission of any terrorist offences or recruitment by networks, and then also your broader vision about how we can do better in terms of preventing terrorism in the first place by making sure these networks do not prey on Canadian youth and children.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to the panel for being here.

With all due respect, Minister, Bill C-51 was passed a few years ago, and I think that it received widespread support in the House. I believe you voted in favour of it. I think that it did make some changes that at the time were appropriate. Now in review three years later, we're looking at essentially a review. This is not a total rewrite, I think you would agree, of the original bill, but it does add some ingredients that are probably important.

When you mention the law expressly prohibiting protest and advocacy and so on, will the changes in the new bill result in charges that were not allowed for in Bill C-51? Have we enhanced the probabilities of prosecution in Bill C-59 over Bill C-51?

[David Vigneault]

All information that the service gathers must be absolutely linked to our mandate, which is to monitor threats to the security of Canada. From the outset, the information we collect must be related to a threat to the security of Canada.

Bill C-59 sets out categories of information that are determined by the Minister. He tells me, as director, which categories of information we have the right to use. The men and women of the service will go and gather that information in an organized fashion. If the information is part of a Canadian dataset, the Intelligence Commissioner will have to assess the minister's decision.

With Canadian information, the Federal Court will have to determine whether we can use it and keep it. The way in which we use that information will be reviewed by the new National Security and Intelligence Review Agency and the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.

The way in which the categories are determined by the Minister, the way in which we will use Canadian information, the role that the Federal Court and the Intelligence Commissioner will play, and the fact that any subsequent use of the information will be reviewed by oversight committees, all this will allow us to use information that is absolutely essential in confronting 21st century threats. Having been written 30 years ago, the law was showing its age, as Justice Noël said.

These measures will allow us, in 2017, to confront the threats appropriately, while being accountable for the protection of information on third parties, as you mentioned.

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

Justice Noël's judgment is very interesting. Obviously he was concerned about certain procedures and practices and he laid out his instruction as to how those practices were to be adjusted. Bill C-59 captures Justice Noël's advice and judgment for a procedure going forward dealing with the management of data and datasets. That is all articulated in a very elaborate set of rules that will apply.

However, Justice Noël also said this. I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but he said to bear in mind that the CSIS Act was written in 1984. Think back to 1984. If you had a cellphone, it was as big as a breadbox. The fax machine was cutting-edge technology. A lot has changed, and as you mentioned, Monsieur Picard, he said explicitly that maybe all of this needs to be revisited in light of all the technological change that has taken place since 1984.

There have been recommendations from the Security Intelligence Review Committee. There have been judgements of the courts. There have been findings by judicial inquiries into a whole variety of circumstances in terms of the collection, the analysis, and the utilization of certain datasets, and what should be permitted and what shouldn't be permitted. We've taken all of that on board and it is now embodied in the rules laid out in Bill C-59.

There was another dimension of Justice Noël's judgment where he suggested in some pretty blunt language that there needed to be greater communication and candour between the agency and the court.

David Vigneault is the director of CSIS. I would just ask him to comment on that issue with respect to candour.

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

You indicated that Bill C-59 was an attempt to clear up some ambiguity in language. In some of our preliminary conversations as a committee, we've already identified some ambiguity and how the language might have been used. We definitely want to make sure we're consistent in that, and we may be proposing some adjustments to, for example, “sharing” as opposed to “disclosing”, “reasonable and probable grounds” as opposed to “is likely to”, and those sorts of things. We want to be consistent with how we apply it.

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

We'll see. I remain optimistic.

One of the things that did strike comments from many people who study this was the appreciation that the protection of national security and the whole idea of national security is a non-partisan team sport and that we all need to be on the same page with how that plays out.

What's also unique about Bill C-59 is that it's more prescriptive than what our allies have. We have a lot of the regulations that could be regulations inside this bill.

You mentioned before, sir, that one of the things you want to see is the ability to ensure national security is kept nimble and able to keep pace with changing threats. If everything is prescribed in a bill and we only have a five-year review cycle, we all know that sometimes bills take a long time to change. I wonder if we would be in a better spot to take some of the good things we see in Bill C-59 and move them into the regulation scheme, so if we have to change things and be nimble to changing threats, we can make those adjustments in a more efficient fashion.

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

Yes.

Insofar as CBSA deals with national security and intelligence matters, it is covered by Bill C-59, just as is CSIS or CSE or the RCMP, or any other security intelligence or police organization at the federal level. Their activities in relation to national security and intelligence are covered by Bill C-59 and the new national security and intelligence review agency.

What's still missing with respect to CBSA is an individual complaints mechanism for officer conduct unrelated to national security. We will be bringing forward a proposal to deal with that. That is one gap that remains in the architecture, and it will be subject to separate legislation.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I only have one minute, so perhaps this becomes a very short answer.

Another issue is CBSA oversight, which is a question that comes up in my community. People ask about it.

There isn't any independent oversight under our current regime. Under the Bill C-59 regime, is there CBSA oversight?

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

It's because they do come together as a comprehensive, coherent package. Again, that is a product of the consultation. Never before has a government gone out to Canadians to say, “Have your say about national security. Tell us what works. Tell us what doesn't work. Raise the issues you want to raise.” We had a discussion paper to stimulate the conversation, but there was nothing off limits for Canadians to raise. The issues they raised, some more strenuously than others, and some in a larger volume than others, are the issues that are included in Bill C-59. They are all interconnected.

To give you one example, some people have asked about the CSE provisions here and about whether it's directly relevant. Well, CSE was one of our campaign commitments. CSE is a topic that was raised during the consultation. One of the new innovations that we're bringing in the legislation is the creation of the intelligence commissioner. The intelligence commissioner deals with CSE issues, with CSIS issues, and with other issues, so it makes sense to do them all together as a package.

A great many cross-cutting issues like that lead one to conclude that you need to debate this package as a comprehensive package rather than in bits and pieces, where the continuity would not be obvious.

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

Yes. I can certainly get the list from our platform. They include making sure that civil protest was no in any way compromised; making sure that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was paramount, particularly with respect to the threat reduction measures; making sure that there would be a review of the legislation after a certain period of time, with the legislation providing for a five-year review when all the security framework of Canada will be re-examined; and clarifying a number of definitions, like the one about terrorist propaganda that I referred to. There are also the no-fly corrections that we undertook.

We also said that we would create the committee of parliamentarians. That's done. We said that we would create the office for dealing with counter-radicalization. That's done. With the passage of Bill C-59, all of the specific elements that we referred to in the platform will be accomplished.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

I will, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much to the members of the committee for their work as they are about to begin clause-by-clause study of Bill C-59, the national security act.

I am pleased today to be accompanied by a range of distinguished officials in the field of public safety and national security. David Vigneault, as you know, is the director of CSIS. Greta Bossenmaier, to my right, is the chief of the Communications Security Establishment, and the CSE is involved in Bill C-59 in a very major way.

To my left is Vincent Rigby, associate deputy minister at Public Safety. I think this is his first committee hearing in his new role as associate deputy minister. Kevin Brosseau is deputy commissioner of the RCMP, and Doug Breithaupt is from the Department of Justice.

Everything that our government does in terms of national security has two inseparable objectives: to protect Canadians and to defend our rights and freedoms. To do so, we have already taken a number of major steps, such as the new parliamentary committee established by Bill C-22 and the new ministerial direction on avoiding complicity in mistreatment. That said, Bill C-59 is certainly central to our efforts.

As I said last week in the House, this bill has three core themes: enhancing accountability and transparency, correcting certain problematic elements in the former Bill C-51, and ensuring that our national security and intelligence agencies can keep pace with the evolving nature of security threats.

Bill C-59 is the product of the most inclusive and extensive consultations Canada has ever undertaken on the subject of national security. We received more than 75,000 submissions from a variety of stakeholders and experts as well as the general public, and of course this committee also made a very significant contribution, which I hope members will see reflected in the content of Bill C-59.

All of that input guided our work and led to the legislation that's before us today, and we're only getting started. When it comes to matters as fundamental as our safety and our rights, the process must be as open and thorough as it can possibly be. That is why we chose to have this committee study the bill not after second reading but before second reading. As you know, once a bill has passed second reading in the House, its scope is locked in. With our reversal of the usual order, you will have the chance to analyze Bill C-59 in detail at an earlier stage in the process, which is beginning now, and to propose amendments that might otherwise be deemed to be beyond the scope of the legislation.

We have, however, already had several hours of debate, and I'd like to use the remainder of my time to address some of the points that were raised during that debate. To begin with, there were concerns raised about CSIS's threat reduction powers. I know there are some who would like to see these authorities eliminated entirely and others who think they should be limitless. We have taken the approach, for those measures that require a judicial warrant, of enumerating what they are in a specific list.

CSIS needs clear authorities, and Canadians need CSIS to have clear authorities without ambiguity so that they can do their job of keeping us safe. This legislation provides that clarity. Greater clarity benefits CSIS officers, because it enables them to go about their difficult work with the full confidence that they are operating within the parameters of the law and the Constitution.

Importantly, this bill will ensure that any measure CSIS takes is consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Bill C-51 implied the contrary, but CSIS has been very clear that they have not used that particular option in Bill C-51, and Bill C-59 will end any ambiguity.

Mr. Paul-Hus, during his remarks in the debate in the House, discussed the changes we're proposing to the definition of “terrorist propaganda” and the criminal offence of promoting terrorism. Now, there can be absolutely no doubt of our conviction—I think this crosses all party lines—that spreading the odious ideologies of terrorist organizations is behaviour that cannot be tolerated. We know that terrorist groups use the Internet and social media to reach and radicalize people and to further their vile and murderous ends. We must do everything we can to stop that.

The problem with the way the law is written at the moment, as per Bill C-51 is that it is so broad and so vague that it is virtually unuseable, and it hasn't been used. Bill C-59 proposes terminology that is clear and familiar in Canadian law. It would prohibit counselling another person to commit a terrorism offence. This does not require that a particular person be counselled to commit a particular offence. Simply encouraging others to engage in non-specific acts of terrorism will qualify and will trigger that section of the Criminal Code.

Because the law will be more clearly drafted, it will be easier to enforce. Perhaps we will actually see a prosecution under this new provision. There has been no prosecution of this particular offence as currently drafted.

There were also questions raised during debate about whether the new accountability mechanisms will constitute too many hoops for security and intelligence agencies to jump through as they go about their work. The answer, in my view, is clearly, no. When the bill was introduced, two of the country's leading national security experts, Craig Forcese and Kent Roach, said the bill represents “solid gains—measured both from a rule of law and civil liberties perspective—and come at no credible cost to security.”

Accountability mechanisms for Canadian security and intelligence agencies have been insufficient for quite some time. Bill C-22 took one major step to remedy that weakness by creating the new National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. Bill C-59 will now add the new comprehensive national security and intelligence review agency, which some people, for shorthand, refer to as a super-SIRC, as well as the position of intelligence commissioner, which is another innovation in Bill C-59.

These steps have been broadly applauded. Some of the scrutiny that we are providing for in the new law will be after the fact, and where there is oversight in real time we've included provisions to deal with exigent circumstances when expedience and speed are necessary.

It is important to underscore that accountability is, of course, about ensuring that the rights and freedoms of Canadians are protected, but it is also about ensuring that our agencies are operating as effectively as they possibly can to keep Canadians safe. Both of these vital goals must be achieved simultaneously—safety and rights together, not one or the other.

Debate also included issues raised by the New Democratic Party about what is currently known as SCISA, the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act. There was a suggestion made that the act should be repealed entirely, but, with respect, that would jeopardize the security of Canadians. If one government agency or department has genuine information about a security threat, they have to be able to disclose it to the appropriate partner agencies within government in order to deal with that threat, and you may recall that this has been the subject of a number of judicial enquiries in the history of our country over the last number of years.

That disclosure must be governed by clear rules, which is why Bill C-59 establishes the following three requirements. First, the information being disclosed must contribute to the recipient organization's national security responsibilities. Second, the disclosure must not affect any person's privacy more than is reasonably necessary. Third, a statement must be provided to the recipient attesting to the information's accuracy. Furthermore, we make it clear that no new information collection powers are being created or implied, and records must be kept of what information is actually being shared.

Mr. Chair, I see you're giving me a rude gesture, which could be misinterpreted in another context.

Prevention of Radicalization through Foreign Funding Act

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

Madam Speaker, I have some thoughts I would like to share with members, and I will start with one of the criticisms from across the way, which is that this government is not concerned about a very important issue to Canadians. We have not only talked about the issue of safety, but very tangible actions have been taken, whether it is budgetary or legislative measures.

My colleague made reference to the Magnitsky legislation that was passed by the House. It received all-party support. There were many strong advocates within the Liberal caucus for that legislation. In fact, Irwin Cotler, the former member for Mount Royal in Montreal, is a very strong human rights advocate. He is very well known and respected in the world. In fact, he is one of the most able-minded individuals dealing with that. He contributed immensely in the House with respect to that act, which was discussed not only over the last couple of years but for a few years. Even under Stephen Harper, there was discussion about the Magnitsky Act.

Many of the comments we are hearing, even this evening, have been dealt with in part through the Magnitsky legislation. I have had the opportunity, not only in Ottawa but in other places, particularly in Winnipeg, to talk about the importance of the issue.

This was one piece of legislation that passed with the support of all members of the House.

However, we also introduced government legislation. Members will recall Bill C-51 and the impact that legislation had in the chamber. When the member across the way is critical of the government and says that it is not doing enough, I remind the member that two substantial pieces of legislation have been brought forward to the House.

Bill C-22 dealt with the establishment of the parliamentary oversight committee. This might even be an issue the oversight committee could discuss, once it is up and running, but I suspect it will have a fairly busy agenda. That was put in place to ensure rights and freedoms were being addressed, which is very important.

When we talk about the safety of Canadians and the radicalization of individuals who call Canada their home, we take it very seriously. At the same time, we also want to ensure that the rights and freedoms of Canadians are being protected. Therefore, that legislation was put in place.

Today, we are having a great deal of discussion about Bill C-59. Many measures within that legislation deal with safety. I do not know how many times I have heard the Prime Minister talk about the importance of ensuring that Canadians feel safe. Aside from governance, it is most important to ensure there is an element of safety. Many measures have been put in place by this government. The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, the minister responsible for global affairs, and members as a whole recognize what is being talked about and the concerns that Canadians have.

This is the reason I asked the questions of the sponsor of the motion. What is the motivation behind this legislation? We all want to ensure we have safe communities and there is proper legislation in place to prevent radicalization whenever we can do that. There is already a litany of measures in the Criminal Code.

I emphasize that we have proactive law enforcement agencies, security agencies, and even the Canada Border Services Agency for border control. There are many different departments in place today to protect Canadians.

One of my colleagues across the way made reference to education. We have invested, through budgets, millions of dollars for education or outreach. In fact, we launched the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence to support local initiatives. To cite a few examples, we looked at pushing back against violent extremism, addressing online terrorist propaganda and recruitment, intervening early to turn young Canadians away from the path of extremism, and supporting families and communities affected by radicalization.

I was involved with the youth justice committee for many years, and we had a wonderful RCMP officer who participated in it. I know first-hand the commitment of our women and men in the RCMP. It is about making connections and connecting the dots to promote more harmony and tolerance in our communities.

I did not like the debate that took place here regarding Islamophobia. I believe it did more damage than good inside this chamber. I still do not quite understand why we have some people in the House who do not recognize Islamophobia as something that is real.

We have to go out of our way to ensure that there is more communication among the many different groups out there. We even have a group in our caucus that meets on occasion with two different faith groups to try to bring faith communities together. This is something I believe is really important.

When I think of radicalization, one of the areas of concern I have is not necessarily what takes place in communities as much as what takes place on the Internet. The Internet is one of those areas we could spend time evaluating. Some of the problems being generated in society are because of the Internet, and we should consider ways we can address that issue.

We have seen radicalization that has stemmed from the Internet. I am concerned about the attraction it has. It is universal. It does not apply to one group of people or one faith group. Youth look at it far too often as something that might be an attractive thing to do. At times, it even crosses gender.

Many of my colleagues reach out to the community on this issue. At the end of the day, I believe we should be promoting education. It think education is the best way to combat radicalization. Whatever we can do to support that—

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Madam Speaker, I reiterate my appreciation to the hon. member across for his work on the bill. This is an area the government is very concerned with, and we appreciate his attention to the issue.

Most of my comments today will centre on the question I asked concerning redundancy, namely the mechanisms that are already in place and whether this bill is filling a gap or overlapping the existing mechanisms, and what the consequences would be. I will run through these, if I could.

The proposals to create a mechanism to stem funding from foreign bodies known to promote radicalization and extremism in Canada are at the centre of this bill. It would also authorize the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in consultation with the Minister of Public Safety, to recommend the listing of states that have engaged in religious persecution, torture, and the promotion of radicalization. Canadian religious, cultural, or educational institutions would then be prohibited from accepting money or other valuables from sources affiliated with those listed states. As I have stated, these measures are totally in line with the objectives of the government.

The bill also attempts to respond to recommendation 15 of the 2015 interim report of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. That reference proposes that the government develop measures to prevent foreign funds from entering Canada, where such funds, donors, or recipients have been linked to radicalization.

My concern is that the stated aim of the bill seems, in some instances, to be inconsistent with its provisions. Only one of the three reasons to list a state has to do with promotion of radicalization. The other two do not. They have to do with subjecting individuals to human rights violations, either through religious persecution or torture and cruel punishments. Those violations are already covered under the new Magnitsky act, which allows Canada to impose broad asset freezes and financial prohibitions on individuals responsible for, or complicit in, gross violations of international human rights.

With respect to preventing funds from being used to support terrorist activities, we can say that the Government of Canada is committed to a strong and comprehensive regime. The Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act,, or the PCMLTFA, is a primary piece of legislation that establishes this framework. The act requires approximately 31,000 financial institutions and intermediaries to identify their clients, keep records, and have internal compliance programs in place. It creates a mandatory reporting system for suspicious financial transactions, large cross-border currency transfers, and certain proscribed transactions.

The legislation also established the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or FINTRAC, which I was referring to earlier, Canada's main agency for monitoring money laundering and terrorist financing. FINTRAC is authorized by the existing legislation to collect and analyze financial transaction reports and disclose pertinent information to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. With the millions of financial transaction reports received every year, FINTRAC helps to establish links between individuals and groups in Canada and abroad suspected of financing and supporting terrorist activities. This intelligence assists police and national security agencies in their investigations of terrorist financing and threats to the security of Canada. It is also information that is used in assessing the level of risk posed by organizations that apply to be registered as charities.

There are a number of rules that govern how charities should operate, whether in Canada or abroad. The Canada Revenue Agency, as the federal regulator of charities, protects the charitable organization registration system from being abused by individuals or groups with links to terrorists. The charities directorate formally established the review and analysis division in 2003 to audit registered charities based on the potential risk of terrorist financing abuse. It works to prevent organizations with links to terrorism from being registered and to revoke the registration of those that are.

The Criminal Code's terrorist listing regime is another important tool in the fight against terrorism. The listing of entities counters terrorist financing and criminalizes certain support for listed entities. It is based on a principle similar to what we see in the bill before us today. When an entity is placed on the list, banks and financial institutions freeze its assets. The code makes it a criminal offence for Canadians at home and abroad to knowingly deal with the assets of a listed entity. Listings aim to help obstruct financial support for terrorist groups and supporters of terrorism. For example, Canadian charitable organizations that are maintaining connections to organizations already listed under the Criminal Code can be and are listed.

Furthermore, the list of entities helps to prevent registered charities in Canada from serving as a support network for terrorist organizations operating abroad. An organization can be denied charitable status or have its registration revoked when its resources provide any means of support for, or benefit to, an organization listed under the Criminal Code.

A further result of listing may be to deny its members, recruiters and facilitators entry to Canada.

The assessment process to identify potential entities to consider for listing is continuous and action can be taken when and if necessary. Under the code, Canada has the ability to apply appropriate criminal measures to deter terrorist activity in Canada. Once listed, an entity becomes defined as a terrorist group under the Criminal Code, which means various terrorism-related offences could potentially then be applied to the entity's supporters in Canada. These include offences related to terrorist financing, terrorist related-travel, recruitment and training.

When it comes to the prosecution of terrorism-related offences, however, it should be noted that the Criminal Code's definition of a "terrorist group" is not restricted to listed entities. Charges and prosecutions can even proceed if the group involved is not on the list. That is only one of several mechanisms we already use effectively.

When it comes to countering terrorism, the government understands that stemming the flow of dubious funding is only one part of the equation. That is why we have taken a recent major step further, through the effort to prevent radicalization to violence rather than only deal with it after the fact. That involves getting at the root causes and factors that contribute to terrorism by actively engaging with individuals and communities.

We know that our success in doing so relies on the support and participation from all levels of government and society, especially local communities and individual Canadians. The newly created Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, or the Canada Centre, is a source of advice, research and funding in that respect.

Thanks in no small part to $35 million in funding over five years provided through budget 2016, the centre is already making a real difference. It is working with youth, communities, academia, and stakeholders to help prevent radicalization to violence in Canada. It is based on the understanding that there is no single ideology or cause of radicalization to violence and that prevention must be an essential component of Canada's efforts to counter terrorism.

All of this goes hand in hand with new security legislation, or Bill C-59, which is heading to committee now. It is designed to update our national security framework to reflect current realities, while putting the rights and freedoms of Canadians at the core.

The Canadian government already takes all appropriate action to counter terrorist threats to our country, to our people, to our way of life, and to our global interests. The Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, the efforts of FINTRAC and our security agencies, the Criminal Code listings, and the new Canada Centre, in concert with our proposed overhaul of Canada's national security framework, are all parts of a well-functioning system. Every day, they are informing our work to combat terrorism and to keep Canadians safe.

As I mentioned at the top of my speech, Bill C-371 is a well-intentioned legislation. The concern I would have, and I raised it in my question for the member, is where it will fill in any gaps that might have been missed in the various mechanisms I have just articulated.

One of the things I would ask members to do is to consider the implications of that duplication and ensure the legislation is moving that forward.

I look forward to further conversations with the member. I very much appreciate him bringing forward the legislation and for his ongoing work and concern, which I very much share.

National Security Act, 2017

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

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that I have only five minutes left to contribute, because the government essentially brought in closure. Instead of submitting a problematic bill to the House of Commons for debate and improvement, the government decided to resort to a form of closure that would prevent us from exploring every aspect of this bill.

The NDP is against referring Bill C-59 to committee in part because it does not achieve what the Liberals promised to Canadians. During the last campaign, the Liberals said that they were wrong to vote in favour of the former Harper government's Bill C-51, which encroached on Canadians' civil rights, including the right to privacy. The Liberals said they would right that wrong when they were in power.

What they did was introduce Bill C-59, which also raises some serious concerns around privacy protection and does nothing to fix the Bill C-51's mistakes. The Liberals introduced a bill that does not fix any of the Harper government's flaws or mistakes on this issue. They are continuing along the same path, and as such, Bill C-59 will not address the gaps in Bill C-51. That is why we, the NDP, oppose this bill.

However, what the Liberals have done is put in place a procedural trick, and it is a procedural trick that is a type of closure. What this does is twofold.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, when we look at rules for the House of Commons around omnibus legislation, Standing Order 69.1 would give you the power to divide this legislation, because it is omnibus legislation with negative impacts on Canadians. However, because of this procedural trick from the Liberal government, you, Mr. Speaker, are not permitted, under the very strict framework of Standing Order 69.1, to divide this legislation. Therefore, we are forced to vote on a motion of the government that does not allow each and every one of us as parliamentarians to actually vote on the rare but still occurring positive aspects of the bill, and vote against the negative aspects of the bill. It is the heart and soul of parliamentary democracy to know why we are voting and to vote in the interests of our constituents, to stand up in this House and vote. The Standing Order 69.1 provisions were put into place so that we do not have this bulldozing of parliamentary democracy by the government, because the Speaker has the power to divide the bill. That is, except in the case of this particular procedural motion that the government has put into place, which stops your ability, Mr. Speaker, to divide this, so that, as parliamentarians, we can vote in the interests of our citizens, the constituents.

The current government has done even worse than the former Harper government. When we look at the number of times proportional to the number of non-appropriation bills passed, the new Liberal government is 25% worse than the old Harper government in its invoking of closure. I am not even including this procedural trick. What we have is a Liberal government that made many promises back in 2015, and one of the Liberals' promises was to respect parliamentary democracy. What the government is doing today is symbolic of what it has done over the last two years. It is 25% worse than the Harper government on closure, and now it is putting this procedural trick into place so that Canadians cannot have members of Parliament voting on each aspect of this omnibus legislation. It is for that reason that we say no to the motion and no to the bill.

Business of the House

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, we will continue the debate begun this morning on the Conservative Party's opposition motion.

Tomorrow, we will have the second and last day of debate at third reading stage of Bill C-45 on cannabis.

Monday, we will resume debate on Bill C-59 concerning national security. We will then move on to the report stage of Bill C-63 on the budget.

We will continue with debate of Bill C-63 on Tuesday.

On Wednesday and Thursday, we shall take up debate on the Senate amendments relating to Bill S-3, the Indian Act, unless we can get it done sooner.

I should also note that we will have the LGBTQ2 apology next Tuesday, November 28, immediately following question period.

Bill C-45—Time Allocation Motion

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

Madam Speaker, the fact is this has become a government that is engaged in serial closure. This is the 25th time in this Parliament that the government has sought to ram through legislation without having proper debate, and it is particularly egregious.

Yesterday, on Bill C-59, an immensely controversial piece of legislation, the government imposed a procedural trick to shut down debate after only a few hours. Today, we are dealing with deeply flawed legislation with holes in it that need to be fixed, and the government is saying that it is going to shut down debate in the House of Commons and ram things through. The number of witnesses the minister cites does not matter. The fact is that amendments have been rejected time and time again and now the Liberals are trying to shut down debate. Why do they not fix the bill? New Democrats are willing to work with them.

National Security Act, 2017

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry I have a shortened time today. I know my friend from Winnipeg North in particular was looking forward to hearing the fulness of my remarks, but he will have to wait.

This is an important bill and an important time to be discussing it. The issue of security and terrorism is very much on the minds of Canadians, in particular in the context where we know that people from Canada have gone to fight for organizations whose values and objectives are totally at odds with those of Canadians. Now some of them may be coming back.

We heard very weak answers from the government to real and legitimate security concerns put forward by the opposition. We in the official opposition take the view that the first job of any government is to keep its citizens safe. In the Canadian context, Canadians expect the government to have their safety and security top of mind, yet we have not heard a response at all to legitimate and serious questions we have presented on that subject.

Bill C-59 seeks to repeal and change portions of the previous Bill C-51. The government's response to the bill in the previous Parliament was anything but clear or consistent. We in the Conservative caucus, then in government, now in the official opposition, took a principled approach to give our security agencies reasonable powers, subject to oversight, in order to keep Canadians safe and to disrupt and stop terrorist activity. That was the Conservative position.

The New Democrats took a different position. They opposed the bill. They were consistent in that. We were consistent in our position.

The Liberals though were trying, as they often do, to see which way the wind was blowing on this. At first, they said they were going to fully support the legislation. Then, as the public debate progressed, they continued to say they supported the legislation, but kept modifying the context of that support. Eventually, their justification for supporting it was that they did not want people accusing them of not supporting the bill. Then they said not to worry, they would repeal the problematic aspects of it from their perspective. However, they still voted for the previous legislation and were anything but clear about what they would change.

Now we are a couple of years into the Liberals' mandate as they try to figure out what they actually had a problem with. They wanted to be in between on the issue but could not figure out where they were going. That was the reality of the government's position. Now, finally, they have brought us legislation that makes some changes. Now they want to have it proceed to committee for study before it is even voted on in the House at second reading. It is interesting they have put forward a bill but are already putting it in a direction that allows them to make very substantial amendments to it.

We see this continuing lack of direction and general indecisiveness on security matters from the Liberal government. The Liberals, it seems, still do not really know where they actually stand and where they want to go when it comes to the particular provisions of the bill. The Prime Minister and the minister who moved the bill both voted in favour of the original Bill C-51.

As we look at the bill, which makes changes in a variety of different areas, we are concerned about some of the provisions because it shows the government does not properly take the need to defend the security of Canadians and the need to have provisions in place enabling the protection of that security at the level with which it should be dealt.

A number of provisions jump out at me. For instance, in part 5 with respect to information sharing, we see them undoing the information provisions that allowed the different departments within government to work together, risking us moving back to a silo mentality, where government departments are not working effectively together.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

Earlier my colleague from Beloeil—Chambly suggested splitting up Bill C-59, so that we could study each act and vote on each of them separately. We do support some of the provisions of the bill, but there are others that we oppose because they are no different than the provisions of Bill C-51.

I hope this comes back to the House so that we can debate it again, split the bill up, and study each bill separately to voice an opinion. I also hope we have a viable bill, because in its current form, Bill C-59 does not at all meet our expectations. On top of that, it is no different than Bill C-51.

As one of my colleagues said earlier in his speech, this appears to be improvised, and a lot of information seems to be missing.

To answer my colleague's question, it would be great if we could split the bill up, debate it, and have separate votes.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear colleague, the member for Jonquière, for her speech.

I know the NDP members have quite a different vision from that of the Conservatives. I would like to know what she thinks of the fact that, under Bill C-59, a CSIS agent on a secret mission in the field will be barred from intervening even if he or she thinks someone may be considering or preparing to commit an attack.

How can my colleague explain that?

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to say that the NDP opposes the motion to refer Bill C-59 to committee before second reading.

Bill C-59 makes a lot of changes, but it does not chart a bold new course for Canada and make civil liberties and human rights central to Canadian security laws. The Liberals waited almost two years to hold a public consultation, promising to correct Bill C-51. They heard countless testimonies and received briefs from experts, and yet they failed to deliver.

Sadly, Bill C-59 does not seek to correct Bill C-51. The NDP opposed Bill C-51 from the outset back in 2015. Now we are faced with legislation that violates civil liberties and privacy rights, and Bill C-59 follows the dangerous path trodden by the Harper government.

The new, limited review and oversight mechanism set out in this bill does not make up for the disclosure of information and the almost limitless power given to our security agencies. The document that came out of the consultations, entitled “Our Security, Our Rights: National Security Green Paper, 2016”, was criticized by civil liberties advocates for being biased. It placed an inordinate amount of weight on safety and security at the expense of protecting Canadians' constitutional values.

The scenarios presented in this document seemed to favour the implementation of the most controversial provisions of Bill C-51. Although the green paper did not provide a balanced view that would allow Canadians to properly assess the potential negative impacts that giving the government too much power could have on individual rights and freedoms, the results of the consultations showed that Canadians still wanted Bill C-51 to be completely repealed and that they would not be satisfied with half measures.

The NDP has consistently called on the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to repeal and replace the 2010 ministerial directive on torture to make sure Canada abides by the total ban on torture, and more specifically to forbid the use, under any circumstances, of information that other countries may have obtained through torture and the sharing of information that could lead to torture.

Canada must not forget the shameful part it played in the torture of Canadian citizens like Maher Arar. Even though the directive was not part of Bill C-51, it is a deplorable component of our national security framework and should have been addressed during the Liberals' study of the framework. Unfortunately, the new directive issued in October 2017 does not forbid the RCMP, CSIS, or CBSA from using information that may have been obtained through torture in other countries.

The new instructions are nothing more than semantic changes, since they authorize the use of information obtained by torture in certain cases, with a very low accountability threshold. This does nothing for public safety and security, since information obtained through torture is not reliable. The new directive, just like the old one, tarnishes Canada's reputation and goes against Canadian values.

Furthermore, if the bill passes, Canada will remain a police state, and Bill C-59 will even make things worse in some specific circumstances.

It will allow the Communications Security Establishment to launch cyberattacks against foreign targets.

The agents involved will thus become terrorists in the eyes of those countries. Ordinary citizens of those countries will have no other means than their own of protecting themselves from potential injustices caused by Canadian secret agents.

This new bill has very few measures that will reduce the broader powers granted to security agencies involved in information sharing under Bill C-51. The fact remains that the definition of national security is still too broad. The legislation still allows departments to share far too much information in their quest to achieve rather questionable security objectives. However, despite the fact that a government has taken steps to create more solid frameworks for the Canada Information Sharing Act and the Secure Air Travel Act, the no-fly list, the concerns raised by the introduction of C-51 remain unaddressed.

The government has not yet demonstrated why this intrusive bill is necessary. I am also concerned about the fact that Bill C-59 seems to create a legal framework that allows CSIS to keep data about citizens that used to be off limits and that there is no reasonable justification for expanding these powers. It also allows CSIS to keep its controversial disruption powers.

I will now turn to other elements of the bill that I have a problem with. Bill C-59 amends the definition of “activity that undermines the security of Canada” to include any activity that threatens the lives or the security of people in Canada or of any individual who has a connection to Canada and who is outside Canada. The definition includes activities that cause “significant or widespread interference with critical infrastructure”. We are concerned that this could be used against peaceful demonstrators protesting things like pipelines.

CSIS will maintain its threat-reduction powers. Bill C-59 just adds torture, detention, and serious damage to property that endangers the life of an individual to the list of things CSIS cannot do when disrupting a terrorist plot. CSIS must also check with other departments and organizations to see if they have other ways to reduce threats.

CSIS can prevent a person from travelling but cannot detain anyone. There is no clear distinction between the two, which creates dangerous legal uncertainty. The bill does not prevent CSIS from collecting related data from Canadians who are not considered a threat.

Finally, the bill fails to address two worrisome aspects of Canadian national security laws, namely security certificates and the ministerial directives on torture, which must be done away with.

In summary, the Liberals were elected on a promise to repeal the problematic provisions of Bill C-51, and they made us wait two years. Their current proposal does not even come close to solving the problems created by the former government's Bill C-51 regarding the violation of Canadians' privacy and the criminalization of dissent. What is more, the Liberal government is using this omnibus bill to create a legal framework that would allow CSIS to store sensitive metadata on completely innocent Canadians, a practice that the Federal Court deemed to be illegal last fall.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. Bill C-59 is full of flaws. As the Liberals stated earlier today in one of their statements, it the result of an election promise by them. I do not think there is any room or place in Canada's security to be worrying about an election promise versus the security of Canadians. I believe the bill should have gone back for a lot more debate. The bill should never have been presented in the format it has been. It is wrong in many cases, and it is hurting a very good bill, Bill C-51, which may have had possible flaws, but not very many, and things could be reviewed and corrected.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague and I do not agree on Bill C-59, not on the very essence of the bill, nor on Bill C-51. Bill C-59 was supposed to correct Bill C-51. As my colleague knows, I voted against Bill C-51.

Despite the fact that the Liberals have been working on this for two years now, they have introduced a bill that is full of flaws. Everyone realized that immediately. It must be sent to committee right away, because we cannot even debate this bill at second reading.

With all that being said, would my colleague not agree that this reeks of improvisation on the Liberal's part once again, and that if they were not ready to introduce Bill C-59, they should withdraw it and work on it with the opposition for once, so that we can come up with a more balanced and better prepared solution?

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-59, an act respecting national security matters. This is a very large bill that seeks to make some major changes to our national security. It affects Bill C-51 that was brought in by our previous government. It replaces the Security Intelligence Review Committee and the commissioner of the Communications Security Establishment with a new national security and intelligence review agency. It creates the position of an intelligence commissioner to provide day-to-day oversight of national security activities. It limits the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's ability to reduce terrorist threats. It limits the ability of government departments to share data among themselves to protect national security. It removes the offence of advocating and promoting terrorist offences in general. It raises the threshold for obtaining a terrorism peace bond and recognizance with conditions.

Obviously, there is a lot in this bill, and I will not have time to speak to all of it. Therefore, I will focus on a few key areas that I have concerns with.

As most people know, extremist travellers are those who have left Canada or other countries to join terrorist groups abroad. As ISIS continues to lose ground in Syria and Iraq, supporters of this militant group and other terrorist organizations have returned to their home countries, Canada included, with almost 60 of them now returned.

According to a recent report that was released in October from the Soufan Center, a U.S.-based non-profit organization, 33 countries have reported the arrival of at least 5,600 extremist travellers. That is 5,600 of them now returning home. The report states that those returns represent, “a huge challenge for security and law enforcement entities.”

Now is not the time to relax the laws that protect our national security. Canadians are at risk. Canada is not immune to the threats of terrorism. We have seen an attack on Parliament Hill, the terrorist attack that killed Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, and the recent attack of a police officer and members of the public in the city of Edmonton, just next to my riding. We need strong legislation in place to protect our national security and our citizens. This is why our Conservative government introduced Bill C-51, which has been used to disrupt terrorist activities nearly two dozen times that we know of. This includes when law enforcement and intelligence officers intervened last year to stop ISIS supporter Aaron Driver, who had planned to commit a terror attack in Canada. These attacks, and attempted attacks, demonstrate that Canada needs strong security and intelligence legislation that enables public safety agencies to do their job.

Prior to our previous Conservative government's Bill C-51, the mandate of CSIS prevented it from engaging in any disruption activities. It could not approach the parents of a radicalized youth and encourage them to dissuade their child from travelling to a war zone or conducting attacks here in Canada. After Bill C-51, CSIS was able to engage in threat disruption. Warrants were not required for activities that were not contrary to Canadian law, such as approaching the parents of a radicalized youth. This was very reasonable, in my opinion. However, Bill C-59 will now limit the threat disruption activities of CSIS to very specific actions. It will require a warrant for simple and necessary activities, such as impersonating a local citizen to give a suspect the wrong directions in order to disrupt a threat. This bill unnecessarily limits and restricts the ability of CSIS to disrupt threats to national security. Bill C-59 also makes it more difficult to obtain a peace bond for terrorism cases. We should be going forward. We should be strengthening the laws in Canada, not reducing them in favour of terrorism.

Under Bill C-51, a peace bond can be issued if there are reasonable grounds to fear that a person may commit a terrorism offence and a peace bond is likely to prevent terrorism activities. That is the same as a peace bond under the Criminal Code of Canada, which I applied for on a number of occasions over the years as a police officer. When I knew someone might pose a threat to an individual, I went to a judge and had a peace warrant issued to protect the possible victim.

Bill C-59 would increase the threshold from “is likely” to “is necessary” to prevent a terrorist activity. If we have evidence that someone is planning an attack and we cannot act on good sound information, it is going to be a sad day for this country. This means that the amount of evidence that would go into proving the peace bond is necessary is nearly the same as the evidence one would need to lay a criminal charge. If we look at those set of circumstances, why would one go for a peace bond? One might as well lay the criminal charge. It is a little late.

The point of peace bonds is that there is not enough evidence to arrest and charge that suspect, but there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person is involved in terrorist activities. That is reasonable. It is reasonable under the Criminal Code to believe that if somebody threatens numerous times to kill a person, that maybe a peace bond should be issued for that person to stay away from the possible victim.

If the government raises the threshold to obtain a peace bond, people who are a risk to national security will slip through the cracks. We now have 60 of them in this country. How are our police forces supposed to keep us safe if they cannot request that special safety conditions be put on someone who is likely to engage in an attack?

I also find this legislation problematic in addressing the issue of advocating and recruiting for terrorist groups. General and broad threats against Canada or all infidels is not a crime under the Criminal Code. Hate speech and threats need to be directed at an identifiable group. Bill C-51's definition of advocating or promoting terrorism enabled law officers to more effectively pursue those distributing radicalizing propaganda and advocating violence, and it should. However, the bill before us today would delete this offence. Without the ability to target the advocacy and/or promotion of terrorism, law enforcement will be handicapped from effectively addressing the various ways that individuals are radicalized. This includes removing terrorist propaganda from the Internet.

Another concerning change is in part 8 of the bill, which would amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act. If we afford more protections to young offenders who are guilty of terrorism offences, youth will become a target for radical recruiters. Instead of cracking down on radicalization, the Liberals are creating loopholes that those who seek to radicalize youth can exploit.

One last problematic area that I want to highlight is in part 5 of the bill. This section would amend the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, which was established by Bill C-51. The changes proposed in today's bill would make it more difficult for government departments to share information with each other. As a former police officer, I know how necessary it is to be able to share intelligence when conducting a large investigation. It can make or break a case. We have problems when it is easier for our own agencies to share information internationally than with each other. While our Five Eyes allies are all taking measures to strengthen national security, this legislation would remove the ability of our intelligence services to reduce terrorist threats.

In the last year, horrendous attacks in the United States, Europe, and our own country, have shown that no country is immune from the risks associated with terrorism and radicalization. The Anti-terrorism Act, brought forward by our previous government, struck a careful balance between protecting the civil liberties of Canadians while adequately providing law enforcement with the necessary tools to keep Canadians safe. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that all of Canada's security and intelligence services have the tools they need to do their jobs.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for sharing some very practical points about why we are opposing Bill C-59 as it is proposed today.

One of the things I want to talk about is this issue, which was also discussed by our colleague, about civic engagement, people who are active in their communities giving messages to government, to people like us who are in office. This overly broad definition of activity that undermines the security of Canada was flagged by the Privacy Commissioner. It makes good sense to me that we repeal this entirely and start from scratch, taking the important points that have merit and fleshing out legislation on that.

Could the member talk a little more about our concerns with the Privacy Commissioner and in exercising civil liberties?

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the important point with respect to the debate is whether Bill C-59 will actually contribute anything to the ISIS question and the number of people coming back into Canada. I really do not think it will. Bill C-51 and now Bill C-59 potentially create concerns for everyday Canadians about the security of information around them and how it gets used.

The government needs to figure out what to do with returning ISIS individuals and deal with them appropriately to ensure our safety. However, I do not think that is relevant to this bill. Bill C-59 would do nothing to help that situation one way or the other.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my NDP colleague and his comments regarding Bill C-59. During question period today, we heard the government, under pressure, admit that over 60 former ISIS terrorists were in Canada and that they had returned from the conflict. Considering Bill C-59, is the member in favour of the approach of the government or what is that approach?

It has been acknowledged that there is a degree of risk that is presented by former ISIS terrorists now coming back into Canada. Sunny ways treatment, which is the Liberal way, will not solve the problem. What does his party think is the appropriate level of assessment and risk of abatement to deal with these high-risk individuals who return from ISIS?

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, going back to 2015, it really was one of the most contentious issues that came forward during the election. People in my riding were concerned about too much unnecessary information being collected, and that the information and the act would be used to stop legal demonstrations. There was a great deal of concern about Bill C-51, which led to protests in a number of communities, not only in my riding but across Canada.

Constituents would like to see Bill C-51 completely withdrawn, not necessarily amended through Bill C-59 but repealed and, certainly, if not repealed entirely, then at least specific sections repealed that Canadians found to be most repugnant.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, thinking back to the 2015 general federal election, there were certainly few issues as contentious as Bill C-51, the so-called Anti-Terrorism Act. In my riding of Kootenay—Columbia, citizens came out en mass to protest in many communities, including Invermere, Revelstoke, Nelson, and in my home town of Cranbrook. I attended some of those rallies and found that the opposition cut across partisan and generational lines.

As I said at the time, the more people knew about Bill C-51, the more they disliked it. Letting Canadians know the details of the bill was not part of the former government's playbook. I remember my predecessor inviting the Attorney General to the riding. He was one of the co-authors of the bill, but rather than invite members of the public to ask questions or provide input, they held some private meetings and then left. Not even the local media were allowed to speak to the Attorney General at the time.

This is the kind of anti-democratic behaviour that helped Canadians decide to retire the Conservative government and elect a new one. Why did Canadians and the people in my riding of Kootenay—Columbia hate and fear the Anti-Terrorism Act so much? It was because it potentially criminalized activities like peaceful protests and picket lines, by giving police broad powers to breach Canadians' privacy. Many of my constituents believed it was clearly aimed not at terrorists, but at stopping democratic resistance to the Conservatives' priority projects such as pipelines. It helped to end 21 years of Conservative MPs in my riding in the corner of British Columbia.

The Liberal Party, which fully supported Bill C-51 when it was being debated and voted on, promised during the election to do better. The Liberals said they would repeal the worst parts of the bill. Here we are two years after the election and the government is just now getting around to addressing that terrible piece of legislation. Its response is insufficient.

The new legislation, Bill C-59, still allows the widespread sharing of Canadians' personal information on a national security list. It maintains a very broad definition of activities that the government claims will undermine the security of Canada, an issue that the Privacy Commissioner has flagged, and it does not ensure real-time oversight of the bulk collection of Canadians' private data.

What is worse is that the government is dealing with this legislation in an entirely undemocratic fashion, forcing the bill to committee, without second reading debate.

Despite their support for Bill C-51, the Liberals were elected on a promise to fix this terrible legislation. So far, they have fallen far short of doing so.

This goes on the lengthening list of broken promises. Let us look at the bill in detail.

In November 2016, the Federal Court issued a ruling on CSIS bulk data collection. CSIS illegally kept potentially revealing electronic data about people over a 10-year period. In a hard-hitting ruling, Justice Simon Noel said that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service breached its duty to inform the court of its data collection program, since the information was gathered using judicial warrants. CSIS should not have retained the information since it was not directly related to threats to the security of Canada.

Bill C-59 responds to the Federal Court ruling in the most concerning way for our privacy, enshrining bulk collection by CSIS of metadata containing private information of Canadians not relevant to investigations. That is right: rather than ordering CSIS to obey the law and stop storing Canadians' data illegally, the bill makes it legal for it to do so. The new bill does relatively little to roll back the extensive information-sharing powers Bill C-51 gave security agencies. The fact remains there is still too broad a definition as to what constitutes national security. The newly renamed security of Canada information disclosure act still permits departments to disclose far too much information in their pursuit of questionable security objectives.

Bill C-51 gave CSIS broad powers to reduce threats through conduct that threatens freedom of expression, public safety, and freedom of association, and it was ripe for abuse. The new legislation still provides CSIS with those powers, but limits them from including torture, detention, and serious destruction of property that would endanger a life.

It is good that the government would no longer have the right to torture its citizens, but the power CSIS maintains would be more appropriate to a totalitarian police state than to Canada. Bill C-59, like Bill C-51 before it, would make Canada a comfortable place for Big Brother.

The government will tell us that none of this is likely and that no powers would ever be abused, yet we already have examples where over-zealousness in the name of anti-terrorism has harmed Canadians. We have seen just this month taxpayers having to pay out settlements worth tens of millions of dollars to Canadians who were tortured overseas due to the complicit actions of the Canadian security services. We see hundreds of young children whose names are on the no-fly list, unable to accompany their families from one city to another because they have been banned, and the government has been unable to find a mechanism to review and correct the list. Apparently, the government is considering a new computer system to manage the no-fly list. Let us hope it works better than the Phoenix payroll system has.

Bill C-59 will not undo the damage that Bill C-51 created. It is a Band-Aid for a gaping wound. With my NDP colleagues, I will be opposing the motion to ram Bill C-59 through the democratic process, and I will join the chorus of Canadians calling for Bill C-51 to be repealed, not just tinkered with. Let me close with a quotation from Daniel Therrien, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, when he spoke before the access to information, privacy and ethics committee a year ago, November 22, 2016. He said:

Do we want a country where the security service has a lot of information about most citizens with a view to detecting national security threats? Is that the country we want to live in?

We have seen real cases in which CSIS had in its bank of information the information about many people who did not represent a threat. Is that the country we want?

The answer from Canadians clearly is no. That is most certainly not a country we want, and we cannot and will not support Bill C-59.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. There are two parts in Bill C-59 that are rather problematic. I am talking about Part 4 and Part 7 that can effectively cause serious problems. It seems that the Liberal government is making it more difficult for law enforcement to prevent attacks on Canadian soil.

When there is knowledge of a possible attack, terrorist organizations are not going to do everything they can to get arrested. They are doing to do everything they can to stay under the radar, to make it difficult to be detected. At first blush, unfortunately it seems that Bill C-59 as currently worded will make things easier for terrorist organizations and make it more difficult for law enforcement to prevent this type of attack.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, when the Conservative government brought in Bill C-51, it was designed to assist law enforcement and security agencies to prevent attacks on Canada's soil.

Does the hon. member feel that Bill C-59 would distract from that?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree in part with what my colleague said, especially regarding Bill C-51. I would remind members that the Liberals were the second opposition party at the time. They supported Bill C-51. Today, they are trying to come up with a new version of Bill C-51, because they made promises in order to try to win votes. However, they are coming to the realization that Bill C-51 was not that bad after all. That is what is happening. That is why they are referring Bill C-59 to committee and trying all sorts of tricks to perhaps revert to Bill C-51, which was quite a good bill that guaranteed one thing that we all agree on: the security of Canadians against this wave of terrorists attacks around the world.

The Liberals supported Bill C-51 at the time. Today, they realize that they cannot do better. They are trying all kinds of tricks to revert to Bill C-51 without making it seem that way.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, there are coasts everywhere. The government held endless consultations and created a website where people could find out what kind of voters, what kind of citizens they are. That website became something of a laughingstock across the country. Obviously the government proceeded without a real plan on that file.

In short, with regard to electoral reform, the government stood firm until, one day, the Prime Minister decided that everyone's opinions had been heard and that he was going to forget about electoral reform because the findings showed that it would not benefit the Liberals. That was all it took for the Liberals to decide not to move forward with electoral reform.

Let us now look at tax reform. In the middle of the summer, this government announced major changes in a notice that was sent to all Canadian taxpayers. In it, the Liberals announced changes to the tax rules. They figured that, if everything went well, those changes would be implemented in the fall without anyone even realizing it. However, Canadians saw what the Liberals were doing. Farmers and small business owners saw that the proposed changes were major ones that could have a significant impact on their finances and the survival of their companies, and so, of course, they protested. Given the public outcry, the government finally decided to back down. It decided to make small changes and to do away with the most damaging aspects of the reform.

If entrepreneurs, farmers, and producers had not spoken out, the bill would not have changed. The worst part was that the government was proud to announce that it would not hurt them, while the Liberals were the only ones who said it would hurt them. This just shows once again that they are improvising. This government is incapable of introducing legislation that is sound from the start, incapable of consulting Canadians properly, and incapable of listening to the members of the House to come up with a good bill or good regulations.

That is to say nothing of all the government's attempts over the past two years to change how the House operates. Everyone has heard about the Leader of the Government's famous discussion paper that proposed a new way of doing things here in the House.

Again, the government comes out with a paper. We all remember the infamous document from the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons who proposed a new way of doing things here in the House. That paper led to a discussion, but under a specific time frame and very specific rules. If we did not fall in line, the discussion would end. That is what the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons discussion paper plan looked like. Again, there was an outcry.

Everyone realized that the paper was worthless. The government had to back down again. Finally, minor changes were made to what the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons had proposed and as a result, this huge omnibus bill might be split into several parts depending on the Speaker's ruling. This illustrates once again that this government is incapable of taking a file, introducing it, and having it passed in accordance with the proper rules, which is the government's role.

As I said earlier, Bill C-59 is an omnibus bill. It is 140 pages long and has nine parts. It is a very large bill. Now, we get another surprise: the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness tells us that this bill will not be read at second reading because the Liberals are not too sure about what they are introducing. They are not sure that what they introduced is good. They want to send it to committee right away. This way, people can find the errors before we adopt the principle of a bill that someone might disagree with or that everyone might like. Since the government is not sure, it wants to do things differently and seek input one more time.

Perhaps there may not yet have been consultations on Bill C-59, but the government did hold consultations on the national security framework. This consultation touched on many elements in Bill C-59. It heard from 138 witnesses and 39 submissions were made. It was another coast-to-coast-to coast consultation. Today, the government is telling us that it has not consulted enough, that it is introducing a less-than-perfect bill, and that it wants to refer it to a committee before passing the bill in principle in the House. Where is the logic in that?

The Liberals were elected to form government. Unfortunately, after two years, the Liberals are incapable of acting as a government. They are incapable of governing. They are unable to govern when it counts, and when Canadians, farmers, small businesses, and even the functioning of the House are affected, and they are unable to serve as a government and to make the right decisions for all Canadians.

I am puzzled about how the government is proceeding on Bill C-59. What is the government's problem? By overdoing consultations and wanting to please everyone, the government is pleasing no one and cannot put together a viable bill.

Before I conclude, I want to come back to Bill C-59. This is a major bill. The previous government passed Bill C-51 to address the threat of terrorism. I have in my hands a list of every terrorist attack that has occurred worldwide since 2010. The information comes from Wikipedia, an occasionally reliable source. I compiled a list of the attacks. In 2017 alone, there have been 105 terrorist attacks worldwide. I calculated that in 2017 alone, terrorist attacks have claimed 2,236 lives. Attacks in 2017 account for just three pages of this massive compilation of terrorist attacks worldwide.

I do not want to list off all of these attacks. It makes for rather sombre reading, but what it clearly shows is that year after year, the number of attacks is not going down. It is going up. It is absolutely essential that the government take all necessary steps to protect Canadians from this wave of terrorist attacks, which affects not only Canada, but every country in the world. Unfortunately, this wave shows no signs of subsiding.

We are going to study Bill C-59. We are going to see how the Speaker rules on whether the bill should be divided into several versions for voting. We reserve comment on whether we will support the bill or not.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my turn to speak to Bill C-59, which deals with matters of national security. As we have heard in the speeches from the start, this is a rather imposing bill of 140 pages and nine chapters. It was introduced in June, and we recently learned from the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness that the government was going to do something somewhat unusual, namely to refer the bill to committee before second reading stage.

We have been treated to a host of reasons as to why. We are told that this would allow hon. members more flexibility to amend the bill. Before we get into the essence of the bill, let us just talk about the Liberal government's approach to amending legislation that has an impact on people's daily lives. I know that my colleagues across the way will be very interested to hear this. Since this bill has to do with national security, we can expect that everyone here agrees that it has an impact on the daily lives of all Canadians and that it is very important for them.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I would never suggest anyone in the House wants to do anything less than keep Canadians absolutely safe. We are all here to represent our constituents and our country, and we all certainly want what is best for our country. However, the government seems to be having some problems with the process and with governance. We have seen evidence of that in several cases, such as the electoral reform file, on which the government held coast-to-coast-to-coast consultations.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have to ask what the repercussions of all these breaches are.

Our men and women who are serving Canada so well in our intelligence agency and our law enforcement agencies need specific, clear rules, which cannot be reinterpreted, to do their jobs with such sensitive casework and files. I am concerned that Bill C-59 would not provide that framework and could undermine, quite frankly, what is necessary, which is confidence for them to be able to do their jobs, integrity with regard to privacy, and repercussions if there is a problem.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Windsor West for his speech.

I share many of his worries and concerns. For instance, in November 2016, the Federal Court issued a rather scathing decision on the fact that for 10 years, CSIS had been storing thousands of pieces of personal information on average, ordinary Canadians who were not even likely to be investigated and who posed no threat. The Liberal government decided not to appeal the Federal Court ruling. However, in Bill C-59, the Liberals are making legal what was ruled illegal by the Federal Court, namely storing personal information for very long periods of time on people who are not being investigated and who pose no threat to national security.

What are my colleague's thoughts on that?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank and commend the hon. member for Windsor West for his thoughtful speech. I certainly thank the New Democratic Party caucus for joining me in the 41st Parliament in opposing Bill C-51.

I think there have been substantial improvements made in Bill C-59. I think we would all agree with that, but I remain very concerned that the powers are overreaching for CSIS agents to seek a court order from a single judge that would allow a warrant for a constitutional breach. I have raised this in briefings we have had with officials. Officials claim that the language in Bill C-59 would mean that they could not get a warrant that violated the Constitution and the charter, but the language in the bill itself appears to negative that proposition. It appears that it would still allow CSIS agents to receive a warrant that would allow them to violate our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I know that I am diving into the details of the bill, but it would take a lot of study. Many sections are very much improved, and the government deserves commendation for those sections, but these are the ones that chill me to the bone in terms of how our democracy functions and whether we allow security agents to obtain a warrant to violate our Constitution.

I wonder if my friend for Windsor West has any comments.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one cannot help but look to the past to see how we got here today with this bill, Bill C-59, because it really comes from the framework of Bill C-51. It is one of the reasons New Democrats will be opposing this bill, just as we opposed Bill C-51. At least we had an honest debate with the Conservatives about our position on Bill C-51, whereas the Liberals said they had concerns but then voted for Bill C-51, then later ran on a platform to get rid of Bill C-51.

Now we are stuck with Bill C-59. Their objective is clearly to muddy the waters so much that nobody will be able to follow this outside of the House of Commons, aside from experts in security intelligence. People are having to follow House of Commons debates on a regular basis, which is very difficult to do when there are so many things happening.

There still is interest out there. The bottom line is whether the privacy of Canadians will become unhinged by national security issues that undermine our civil liberties. When I look at some of the perspectives of Conservative members on civil liberties, I am, quite frankly, surprised that in this case, with Bill C-59, they do not have more backbone to raise issues about that balance, especially given the fact that one of their members, who very much has a strong civil libertarian background, nearly became leader of their party.

I can say this much about Bill C-51. Civil liberties and privacy are essential for a modern and functioning democracy. One of the continuing concerns with Bill C-59 is the assembly and distribution of personal data. It is real. There are people, such as Maher Arar and others, whose lives have been turned upside down because their personal information was used in a way that exposed them, their families, their business and personal contacts, and the people in their lives. It was an organized decision by our government agencies, the RCMP and CSIS, to exchange information with foreign powers related to that personal, private information. As Bill C-59 goes to committee, the Privacy Commissioner has expressed those concerns.

There are several cases in Canadian history where this has been germane to the concern people have about their privacy. I would argue that it has become even more difficult for individuals because of the use of electronic information for everything from taxes, to banking, to social exchanges, to employment. It is not as if this information is captured and stored in a vault somewhere that has very little exposure to third parties. The reality is that there are breaches. Other governments are actively attempting to break through Canadian databases on a regular basis, even countries we supposedly have decent relationships with in terms of trade, commerce, and discourse. There are attempts to abuse Canadian privacy.

Numerous mistakes have been made, over decades, when Canadians' personal information has been released by accident. I point to one of the more interesting cases we have been successful in. It showed the malaise in government. It was when the Paul Martin administration of the Liberals outsourced data collection for our census to Lockheed Martin through a public-private partnership. Basically, the Canadian census data collection component was outsourced to an arms manufacturer, which was compiling our data at public expense, because we were paying for it. When we did the investigation, we found that the information was going to be compiled in the United States. That would have made that information susceptible to the USA Patriot Act, back in 2004 or 2006. That would have exposed all our Canadian data, if it was going to be leaving the country.

Thankfully, a lot of Canadians spoke out against that. First, they had personal issues related to an arms manufacturing company collecting their personal information, especially when that company was producing the Hellfire missile and landmine munitions, when Canada had signed international agreements on restricting the distribution of those things. They also felt that the privacy component became a practical element with it moving out of the country. Thankfully, that stopped, and we amended it at that time.

The Government of Canada had to pay more money to assemble that data and information in Canada, so it cost us more. What the Liberals were trying to do was export the jobs, ironically, outside the country. The vulnerability of the Canadian data we were paying for was out of the country, then we had to pay a premium to bring it back and keep it in the country. That practice has ceased. We recently had the innovation committee confirm that, when the census committee came before us.

With Bill C-59, I still have grave concerns about the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act. It appears that most of the changes are going to be cosmetic. The Privacy Commissioner has alluded to that as well. When CSIS and other government agencies have that information, when is it scrubbed when it is provided? When is it no longer used? When is it no longer stored? When can it potentially be exposed by accident or for a reason?

Bill C-59 would put several laws in place. I want to note that there was extensive public consultation on it. The reality is that Bill C-51 was criticized by civil liberty advocates in “Our Security, Our Rights: National Security Green Paper, 2016”. The public feedback we had from that review was related to people's personal privacy and how it would be used.

I want to make sure we are clear that this is not a mythological issue. It has actually been noted. On November 26, the Federal Court issued a ruling on CSIS bulk data collection. The electronic data of people over a 10-year period was clearly something that concerned Canadians.

Unfortunately, we have not come to the realization that Bill C-51 was a flawed bill from the get-go. It was not a bill New Democrats could support, and Bill C-59 would just put a mask over that bill.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the legislation before us, Bill C-59, is a huge piece of legislation. It goes far beyond the Liberal campaign promise to unwisely roll back a number of elements of Bill C-51, a bill that the Liberals supported when they were the third party in the House. I will say more about that in a moment. Bill C-59 is a multi-faceted attempt at the largest, broadest, and deepest redrawing, remodelling, overhauling, and consolidation—call it what they may—of Canada's national security laws in three and a half decades. It is, by any definition and any measure, an omnibus bill. Bill C-59 would create three new acts and would make significant changes to five existing acts. As my colleague from Barrie—Innisfil noted, the official opposition reserves the right to comment after the Speaker's decision on the NDP motion to separate.

In its complexity, Bill C-59 can only be described as an imperfect bill. There are good elements, which we in the official opposition support, but other elements that we strongly oppose. Similarly, Bill C-59 has been characterized by experts, at least by lawyers, academics, and others who have long studied and opined on national security issues, in a variety of ways, that it would resolve some problems and would ignore others. It would create some entirely new ones. Its elements are a combination of roses and thorns, and a firmly held criticism by the official opposition that two sections would actually weaken Canada's national security agencies and their ability to keep Canadians safe. The current Liberal government would make it more difficult for law enforcement and security agencies to prevent terrorist attacks on Canadian soil. Instead of combatting radicalization and cracking down on those who promote terrorism, Bill C-59 would create loopholes that advocates of terrorism could easily exploit.

With regard to the details, part one of Bill C-59 would create what is described as the centrepiece of the legislation, what others more colloquially describe as a super intelligence agency. It would be called the national security and intelligence review agency. Under its acronym, NSIRA, it would be assigned to review and report on the lawfulness of all national security and intelligence agencies across government. It would investigate complaints against the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, known by its acronym CSIS, complaints against the Communications Security Establishment, CSE, and complaints against the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. NSIRA would be intended, the Liberals tell us, to work with the new committee of Parliament, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. The new agency, like the parliamentary committee, would report annually to the Prime Minister. This last point, for me, is another point of concern. On this side of the House, we would have preferred to have had these reports made directly to the Houses of Parliament rather than being filtered through the Prime Minister's Office.

Part 2 of Bill C-59 would establish what is described as an independent, quasi-judicial intelligence commissioner, who would assess and review ministerial decisions regarding intelligence gathering and cybersecurity activities. Our concerns here flow from the procrastination and delays by the Liberals, more directly by the Prime Minister's Office, to fill vacancies across a range of close to a dozen existing commissioner positions, the last time I looked. These are delays that have more to do with the PMO's misguided intent to socially engineer with partisan overtones these arm's-length positions rather than to appoint by talent and qualifications.

Moving on, parts 3 and 4 of the bill are said to respond to concerns about charter consistency of the mandates and the powers of CSE and CSIS. However, part 4 would strip an important element of Bill C-51, passed by our previous Conservative government in 2015, an element that gave CSIS new authority to disrupt terrorist threats. The Liberals supported Bill C-51 in 2015, though they vaguely committed to roll back what they called problematic parts. They certainly have, caving in now in Bill C-59, to seriously restricting the ability of CSIS to conduct disruption actions to certain specific actions, and only unless and until officers and operatives follow a burdensome process to obtain a judicial warrant ahead of time.

This list would include many of the routine elements of undercover intelligence work, such as impersonating a criminal; fabricating documents, for example, to support such a character impersonation; or misdirecting an identified threat individual to a meeting with co-conspirators. Forcing judicial warrant conditions into suspect terror or intelligence investigations imposes serious new burdens on law enforcement and could very well compromise time-critical efforts to thwart terrorist attacks.

Part 5 of the proposed act is an important part that commits to clarifying disclosure and accountability provisions in the newly renamed security of Canada information disclosure act. This should see the end of departmental and agency intelligence silos, and a more effective sharing of information that is critical to threats to national security. We will see.

Part 6 attempts to bring greater coherence to the no-fly list, where children and adults get red-flagged as false positives because of names shared with threat-identified individuals. However, these improvements are very slight and imperfect. Thousands of Canadian families are still stuck in limbo because their names appear, or the name of a family member appears, on the no-fly list.

Part 7 is another section which we firmly believe seriously weakens public safety by minimizing certain terrorist activities. It removes the advocacy and promotion of terror as a criminal offence. It replaces it with what is characterized as a more targeted general counselling offence for terrorism offences, whether or not a specific terrorism offence is committed or a specific terrorism offence is counselled. As well, part 7 would make it harder for police to pre-emptively detain people without a criminal charge.

The power of making preventive arrests, a sometimes life-and-death tool for officers and operatives, is now limited to situations where such an arrest would be necessary to prevent terrorist activity. Under our previous Bill C-51, the threshold was that such an arrest would be likely to prevent terrorist activity.

The Conservative Party has always taken very seriously the safety of Canadians, as threats to this country's security have evolved and deepened in this age of international terror. We recognize the importance of updating our national security infrastructure and practices. We support the preamble of Bill C-59 as a worthy rationale to reducing the ability of courts to strike down convictions on improperly applied charter grounds.

We also strongly oppose, and I cannot say this too often, parts 4 and 7 as an unacceptable weakening of public safety, and the watering down of provisions in Bill C-51 that helped law enforcement officers and agencies to keep Canadians safe.

In conclusion, Bill C-59 is a complex bill, and it is certainly, by any measure, an omnibus bill. It would create three new acts, and it would make changes to five other existing acts.

As I said earlier, we in the official opposition reserve comment on your ruling, Mr. Speaker, in the fullness of time, and we hope it is a relatively short period of time, to make a decision on the NDP motion to separate.

[Pam Goldsmith-Jones, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to be reminded of the reason why many of us put our names forward in the last election, and that was to stand up for Canadians. Certainly, Bill C-51 was a big part of that. I did not vote for that. It is a priority for our government. I am very much in support of Bill C-59.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-59 seeks to address some of the errors that were put in the previous legislation around the no-fly list, especially when it comes to children in our communities. Could my hon. member speak to some of the changes that we propose to make and how it will help families right across Canada to ensure they are able to travel with their children, knowing they will not have delays.

[Pam Goldsmith-Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak in support of sending Bill C-59, legislation that would bring Canada's national security framework into the 21st century, to committee before second reading. The bill is the result of extensive consultation, and it is in this spirit that it continues through the legislative process.

I would like to thank the numerous agencies and individuals who have offered their expertise and advice in order to ensure that Bill C-59 balances the security of Canadians with the privacy and rights of Canadians, and particularly for their participation through an open and transparent process.

Bill C-59 takes significant steps in three key areas: first, it repeals problematic elements of the former Bill C-51; second, it updates and improves national security law commensurate with and in order to keep pace with evolving threats; and third, it enhances accountability and transparency. Taken together, the proposed measures in Bill C-59 represent comprehensive and much-needed improvements to Canada's national security framework. These improvements would make Canada more secure, our agencies more accountable, and our laws more transparent and up to date.

It is important to understand, and perhaps self-evident, that much of Canada's national security law was written in the 1980s and well before the standard of information technology today, which has transformed the national security and intelligence landscape. Today, smartphones and wireless connectivity is a natural extension of our lives and maybe even ourselves. Therefore, it should be obvious and deeply concerning that technology today in the hands of criminals and terrorists can be used to plan and carry out horrific terror attacks against innocent people. It can also be used to influence and recruit individuals.

Cyber-threats, espionage, and foreign interference are complex and active threats, and yet rapidly-evolving technology is not the only national security challenge we face. The emergence of non-traditional threat actors, outdated legal authorities, and resource shortfalls reveal further gaps in our national security framework, compounded by an unstable international political environment marked by violence and repression, civil war, and failed and failing states throughout the world. It is a very different world from the one that existed in 1984, which is when the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act came into force.

Canada's national security law has not kept pace with the transformative changes of the past few decades. According to Justice Noël of the Federal Court in a judgment last fall, he said that the CSIS Act was showing its age with regard to new technology and developments over the past quarter century.

The safety and security of Canada and Canadians depend on having laws in place that accurately reflect today's realities. The proposed legislation before the House is the right way forward in that regard. It modernizes the CSIS Act in a responsible, accountable, and transparent way. If passed, Bill C-59 will allow our security and intelligence agencies to keep us safe by staying ahead of new and emerging threats and technologies in full respect of our rights.

First and foremost, a modernized CSIS Act would serve to address the agency's outdated legal authorities. It would also update and improve the transparency and accountability regime under which CSIS would operate, a consideration that was noted time and time again during last year's consultation process.

Bill C-59 proposes to bolster the authorities underpinning the technical capabilities of CSIS in order to modernize the collection of digital intelligence. The legislation also proposes to establish a list of distinct measures that can be authorized under warrant to reduce threats in the current environment. It would also clarify that a warrant would be required for any threat reduction measure that would limit a right or freedom protected by the charter, and that a warrant could only be issued if a judge would be satisfied that the measure would be consistent with the charter.

A strong framework would also be created within the act for data analytics that would involve data sets and that would put the rights of Canadians first. For example, once the bill is passed, CSIS will require authorization from the intelligence commissioner to acquire any Canadian data sets and Federal Court approval to retain them. This will ensure that the personal information of Canadians is subject to strict safeguards.

Under Bill C-59, foreign data sets containing information on non-Canadians would also require authorization from the commissioner.

These are only a few of the important new measures being proposed under Bill C-59 and were shaped by the tens of thousands of views that the government heard in its extensive public consultations on national security.

I am very proud to stand with the government in supporting Bill C-59. I look forward to its consideration by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security before second reading, so the committee will have greater latitude in how it conducts its study.

Standing Order 69.1—Omnibus Bills

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask that you consider Standing Order 69.1 and divide certain parts of Bill C-59 before us today into separate pieces. As mentioned during today's debate, I believe that Bill C-59 is an omnibus bill as described in that standing order.

Standing Order 69.1 now says, in part:

(1) In the case where a government bill seeks to repeal, amend or enact more than one act, and where there is not a common element connecting the various provisions or where unrelated matters are linked, the Speaker shall have the power to divide the questions, for the purposes of voting.

I submit that Bill C-59 fits that description.

We are thinking of this analysis at this time, because in your ruling of November 7 on Standing Order 69.1, you said:

Where members believe that the Standing Order should apply, I would encourage them to raise their arguments as early as possible in the process, especially given that the length of debate at a particular stage can be unpredictable.

That is what we believe we are doing today.

Here is how I see the various parts of the bill and why, I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, we believe they should be divided into different parts to be voted on separately.

Let us take a look at part 1 and part 2. Part 1 enacts the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency Act, and part 2 enacts the Intelligence Commissioner Act. These two parts enact two new acts and amend up to 12 existing acts.

These parts obviously create watchdogs to oversee the national security agencies.

The activities of the new agencies created under this bill would affect up to 14 federal departments. Since these parts create new agencies and enact two brand-new acts with a very specific mandate, we believe they should be voted on separately.

We believe that part 3 should be separated because it makes a significant change. It too would enact a new act, the Communications Security Establishment Act, yet another act that will amend existing acts.

That proposed act would also amend the National Defence Act. We know that the minister responsible for CSE is the Minister of National Defence. Again, we feel that puts certain optics around this debate, given that the Minister of Public Safety is tabling this bill, and the purpose for changing that particular piece.

Still on part 3, I do want to mention that many of these components are being painted as dealing with specific aspects of national security, more specifically terrorism, but if we look the part dealing with CSE, we see that a large part of the mandate goes beyond just terrorism. It could be individuals and, to use the colloquial term, hackers or even states that would be engaging in certain forms of cyber-activity. The proposed act would give CSE the ability to interfere and even counter certain things that might be done, which is very separate from reforming elements of the previous Bill C-51.

Parts 4 and 5 deal with metadata collection and the threat disruption powers being given to CSIS. In the case of the metadata collection, that of course is something new. In the case of threat disruption, we are obviously looking at what the specific intent of the bill was, which is to repeal and amend, in this case to amend certain things brought in under Bill C-51 in the previous Parliament.

We are also looking at changes to SCISA, the information-sharing regime brought in by former Bill C-51. That again leads us to argue that parts 4 and 5, given their nature and the connection they have with previous legislation that is being changed, should be looked at together.

Part 6 has to do with the Secure Air Travel Act and the no-fly list. We definitely think this needs to be separated. There are a number of important elements to consider, not to mention the issue of funding and the different work that will be done by the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Transport in co-operation with airlines.

Part 7 deals with specific changes to the Criminal Code, certain offences that were brought in under Bill C-51, and other aspects that needed to be cleaned up based on the reforms the government wishes to propose to the Criminal Code, specifically to what the previous government did in that respect. We are looking here specifically at how terrorism charges are laid and prosecuted in Canada, which is fair to argue is very distinct from dealing with cybersecurity threats or even the no-fly list. We are looking here at the way the justice system is treating these matters.

Part 8 is in the same vein because it proposes changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It looks at those offences, but from the perspective of young offenders and, more specifically, at how to deal with those particular cases.

Parts 9 and 10 are the more procedural elements, dealing with statutory review and coming into force provisions. We believe that we can group together parts 7, 8, 9, and 10.

As you obviously know, the Standing Order currently gives you the power to divide a bill, but is limited to “the motion for second reading and reference to a committee and the motion for third reading and passage of the bill.” I am sure that could be read to mean that you do not have the power to divide the bill for a vote on a motion like the one before us to immediately refer a bill to a committee forthwith.

The government, by presenting this motion in a way that, on the surface, is well intentioned and indicates its wish to significantly amend the bill and hear experts at committee, I submit is actually attempting to circumvent Standing Order 69.1, knowing full well that this is omnibus legislation. It is trying to do so by sending this bill to committee before second reading, and therefore preventing us from going forward with the way the Standing Order is now drafted, which would mean second reading and then referral to committee. That is not how the process would take place given the motion that is before the House today.

This bill has so many components and, as the government has said, is perhaps one of the most significant changes to the various components of national security, whether oversight, CSE, or CSIS. It includes some significant changes to how national security cases are charged and prosecuted in the judicial system. It is telling that the government seems to recognize the omnibus nature of the bill in debate here today. It seems the only procedural way to hide the omnibus nature of the bill is for the government to present the motion today to provide it with a legislative pathway that would allow it to circumvent its own new rules in the Standing Orders on omnibus provisions.

We are concerned that the Liberal government is hiding the omnibus nature of this bill from the public. From a communications point of view, we know it sounds nice to only talk about the oversight elements when experts have agreed there are very significant concerns over how cyber-weapons, as described in part 3 of the bill, would operate. We have even heard experts say it is not possible for them to fully analyze all of the elements or the entire scope of the bill, even with their own expertise. To me, that is very telling of the omnibus nature of the bill and the difficulties of undertaking a legislative process in the way proposed by the government.

While wanting to give the benefit of the doubt to the government and its good intentions to have a robust study, the feeling we get from our reading of the Standing Order seems to be that this is an attempt to do through the back door what it is forbidden from doing through the front door, thereby preventing you and the powers conferred on you in this place to separate the different aspects of the bill.

I assert that under Standing Order 69.1, the role of the Speaker is to apply the rules of the House to deal with different concepts and themes in a bill with a different vote, which is obviously what I am raising today, so that MPs can represent their constituents' views differently on each part of a bill if they believe they should and are able to vote appropriately based on the different complexities and nature of different points. As my colleague from Victoria just pointed out in his speech, the fact that we might agree with the government on going forward with certain elements of oversight is distinct from a debate on cybersecurity or one on the no-fly list, which are very different matters. Pardon my choice of words, but I believe comparing oversight to cybersecurity, the Criminal Code, and the no-fly list seems a little ludicrous, and makes it very challenging as members of Parliament to properly vote and express ourselves.

By having the bill go through before second reading, the government is arguing that it should be treated as one whole question. It is all about security. However, anything can essentially be qualified as national security. That is obviously not enough of a common element.

When we look at what these different parts would do, the new acts that would be created and the acts that would be amended, forcing MPs to vote on the creation of two new acts and the amendments of dozens of other acts, such significant acts as the National Defence Act, the CSIS Act, and others, it certainly causes problems for members of Parliament who wish to vote on these different distinct components. I also submit that it circumvents these very same omnibus rules that have been put in place by a government that said this would no longer be a practice, as we saw under the previous government.

Mr. Speaker, you stated in your November 8 ruling about the uses of Standing Order 69.1, “In my view, the spirit of the Standing Order was to provide for a separate vote when new or unrelated matters were introduced in the budget implementation bill.” I agree with the logic you expressed at the time and believe that in this case, the same logic could apply. We are, of course, dealing with new and unrelated matters that were not part of the debate leading up to the tabling of the legislation and the arguments the government made for the need to reform certain elements of legislation tabled in the previous Parliament. I hope you will agree with our assessment and arrive at the same finding here today.

Finally, I submit that Standing Order 69.1 should apply at all stages of the process, including sending the bill to committee before second reading. Again, the motion is before us today. This way, a bill that contains very different ideas would be divided in such a way at every stage that members could continue to express their views, the views of their constituents and the views of Canadians more broadly in dealing with these very distinct and complicated matters when it comes to these important reforms and not simply having to say yes or no to these sweeping reforms and then be accused of being on one side or the other when clearly there are some very distinct components.

I thank my colleagues for their indulgence. New Democrats fundamentally believe that these important and unique changes to such cornerstones of our democracy as national security and the protection of Canadians' rights and freedoms and privacy deserve to be separated in order for members to express Canadians' concerns and views through a vote. That is why I thought it was extremely important to bring all of this to the attention of the House.

National Security Act, 2017

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the motion that proposes to send Bill C-59 to committee before second reading, something that has not been done thus far in this Parliament. Debate, of course, is crucial when we are discussing something as significant to Canadians as their safety insofar as national security is concerned, as well as their rights as citizens in this country. I want to use my time to ask my colleagues and Canadians who may be watching, with respect to national security, what kind of country do we want to be? How can we strike the appropriate balance, giving our national security agencies the powers they need to do the job to protect us and at the same time protecting Canadian values? The first question is a little broad for a 10-minute speech, but my answer to the second one is very simple. We have to approach this task with great caution and open debate.

Bill C-51 was brought in by the Harper Conservatives, the former government. It was nothing short of disastrous. Bill C-51 provoked the largest demonstrations in my riding of Victoria in recent history. There were town halls with people spilling out into the streets, and anxiety on behalf of people from all walks of life in our community. The consensus was clear that the legislation was open to abuse and was far too wide. The language was vague and permissive. People were unsure where they stood as Canadians and what their rights would mean under that new legislation. The Liberals did nothing, except to say that they liked part of it, they did not like other parts. They refused to go along with the NDP's request that the bill be repealed in its entirety, and promised to repeal the problematic elements. Therefore, what we have before us is a 138-page statute with nine parts, which is a comprehensive attempt, after two years of consultation, to get it right. The question is on whether they have.

It is our contention that this poorly conceived bill should not be supported in the first place and needs to be repealed. That is not a new position. My colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke introduced Bill C-303, which simply asked that Bill C-51 be repealed. That continues to be our view on what should occur in this situation. We think that the bill is not in the interests of Canadians and should be rejected outright.

Since the Liberals voted in favour of Bill C-51, instead of scrapping it and beginning anew, they created Bill C-59, which was supposed to correct the numerous deficiencies of the former legislation. They brought in a green paper and consulted for two years. That green paper was criticized for its lack of neutrality and for favouring the national security side as a preoccupation over civil liberties concerns and the right for peaceful protest, freedom of speech, lawful assembly, and dissent. The Liberals assured Canadians that the most problematic areas would be repealed. I am afraid that the resulting bill has not done that, and several problematic elements remain.

However, there is much in the bill that I wish to say is right. For example, the creation of the super SIRC, the expanded oversight committee, is an excellent step. There are many other things, however, that are deeply problematic, and which, if time permits, I would like to talk about.

There are some elements, in particular involving the Communications Security Establishment, the shadowy agency that Canadians know from U.S. TV to be our counterpart to the National Security Agency in that country, the NSA. There are problems, for example, with its new cyber-ability to modify, disrupt, and delete “anything on or through the global...structure”, which sounds a little Orwellian. It would seem that the mandate blurs the line between intelligence gathering and active cyber-activities, as has been pointed out by Professors Forcese and Roach as well. It is under the national defence department, as it has been for many years, and the bill would deal with national defence matters such as CSE, and other areas as well.

The bill would do nothing to address the ministerial directive on torture. The directive needs to be acknowledged. It is not part of the bill, it is merely a directive. A new directive was introduced only last year, and it failed to forbid the RCMP, CBSA, or CSIS from using information that was largely extracted through overseas torture. The new instruction amounts to only semantic changes and would not do anything to ensure our public safety, because it is notorious that information obtained through torture is unreliable. The government did nothing to address that in a meaningful way in this legislation. It could have, and chose not to. This legislation does not go far enough in addressing the glaring omissions and problems of Bill C-51.

Michael Vonn, who is with the BC Civil Liberties Association, has also spoken about the misguided process of amending this flawed legislation. She said, “The bill does several things to try to reign in the unprecedented surveillance powers created by [the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act]...”. That is one of the parts of this new legislation. She went on to say that as there was “no credible justification for [that act] that was ever made, it would have been much better to repeal it and introduce any clarifying amendments required in the federal Privacy Act.” Again, that was another opportunity lost. Her comments highlight that measures and policies were brought into effect without any demonstrated justification that they were needed to keep Canadians safe.

We are in the strange position of rushing through the appropriate steps of amending practices that may not be necessary in the first place. After Canadians have waited two years for badly needed action on national security, why has the government not used its time appropriately to ensure that we had legislation that, in the words of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, “gets it right”. I implore my colleagues in government to think differently than the government before it. If there is truly a commitment for openness, transparency, and accountability, let us debate the bill at second reading and work together to fix the half measures that are in it.

A procedural issue is before us as a result of this unusual move by the government to move the bill to committee before second reading. As I understand it, the motion before us would send the bill to committee before the usual debate at second reading. Therefore, the Standing Orders will not necessarily apply to enable the Speaker to break out the nine parts of this lengthy legislation so we could vote in favour of some and oppose others. Surely, the Liberals are better than this.

Rather than resorting to the Stephen Harper trick of saying we voted against this omnibus legislation to keep Canadians safe, which generally was done in all the other Conservative omnibus bills, why would the government not allow this to be broken out the way that the Speaker has the authority to do? There are some parts of the bill that are worthy of support. However, the Liberals' trick, following in the footsteps of Mr. Harper, would require those of us who are opposed to some of the very contentious issues to vote against it all. That is a trick that is unworthy of the minister and his government. Measures that compromise our charter rights and our privacy rights do our country harm, and those are the reasons we called for the repeal of Bill C-51 more than two years ago.

In speaking about privacy, in the fall of 2016, a Federal Court ruling took CSIS to task for storing sensitive metadata on Canadians who were not suspected of anything. The court found that for 10 years, CSIS had been illegally storing information derived from some of its wiretaps. The data involved metadata such as source information, emails, phone numbers, and the like. This legislation would not change that. It would allow it to continue.

By way of conclusion, we have to ask ourselves whether we want a country where our security services have a lot of information about many citizens, with a view to detecting national security threats, but for which there is no demonstrable harm caused by any of those citizens. The powers with respect to the charter are extremely complicated. I would invite people to look at clause 98 and figure out whether or not the courts would be able to limit our charter rights in a warrant. It is very problematic. We must do it better, and we need to have that opportunity as quickly as possible.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the government's intent to send Bill C-59, a national security act to amend the oversight and powers of our security agencies, directly to committee.

As I have said in this place before, the top priority of this House must be to protect all Canadians. The protection of our people should be placed ahead of political manoeuvring and should be of top concern for all members, regardless of political party. I would hope that the recent request by the Minister of Public Safety to move Bill C-59 directly to committee before second reading is in support of this ideal that the safety of Canadians comes ahead of political goals. However, I am left to wonder if this is just a disguised time allocation move or a ploy to avoid multiple votes at second reading on this omnibus bill, as per the Liberals' recent changes to Standing Order 69, or both.

Whether the government acknowledges that there are areas of this bill that might be improved is to be determined. However, my hope is that an open, thorough, and complete study of this bill will not be met with time limitations or political deadlines ahead of the goal of protecting Canadians. To do this, we need to allocate adequate time to ensure that we hear all points of view, from those who think this bill goes too far to those who feel it does not go far enough.

From my 35-year career in policing, I know full well that the playing field is not level. Our national security and policing agencies operate within the rules and are confined generally to national borders. They act in the best interests of Canadians to protect us and to ensure that the measures they undertake are reasonable and in the public interest. Those who would seek to do us harm, both foreign and domestic, are not concerned about rules or where they are from but about what they intend to do.

Empowering and supporting our security agencies is about defending the best interests of Canadians. This is why unreasonable limitations on our national security agencies will have a negative impact on protecting Canadians. Let us be clear. When we identify a specific list of activities our security and intelligence agencies can do, and then create a set of rules around using those tools, we are creating a playbook, for those seeking to do us harm, on how to avoid detection and operate outside the reach of those agencies that are set up to protect us.

Unreasonable limitations on police, judges, and national security agencies in monitoring known threats would be a mistake. Checks and balances are needed. However, we need enhanced and more effective communications and information-sharing and powers to determine threats in advance, not a limiting of those powers.

Unprecedented attacks have been witnessed repeatedly across Europe, such as the killing of innocent people for no reason other than for being members of an open, welcoming, and pluralist society. The recent events in Edmonton are a Canadian example. Officer Mike Chernyk was stabbed, yet heroically fought off an extremist attacker after being struck by a car. The suspect then went after innocent people using his vehicle.

Canadians were sickened by this attack. Such things stand in direct contrast to our Canadian values: freedom to worship, freedom of speech, and freedom from fear of random and cowardly attacks, all things that fundamentalists like ISIS are against. What concerned many Canadians was that the information about this individual being a threat was there, but nothing was done to prevent it. We knew this man was a threat, because Canadians came forward and reported him as a potential radical and suggested he could carry out an attack. The police interviewed him but could not take any further action. The same man came to Canada as a refugee after being ordered deported from the United States as a failed refugee claimant. It would be inflammatory to suggest that all illegal border-crossers are like this one, but it would also be naive to think that others like him will not attempt to abuse our flawed system. The information was there but was not used in a way that could help Canadians, and the police lacked the ability to take further action.

We owe it to those who are protecting us to give them the powers they need to act. Reducing or limiting the use of monitoring or recognizance orders does little to protect Canadians. Given that these orders come from a judge for monitoring Canadians, it seems questionable at best that monitoring suspected or known threats should be limited.

We owe it to all those who work for the cause of protecting Canada from threats, both foreign and domestic, to ensure that the risk and execution of such attacks are mitigated. We owe it to everyday Canadians, people who are living good, honourable lives and are seeking nothing other than to live free and to support their communities.

It would be difficult to look into the eyes of Canadians or to explain to Edmonton officer Mike Chernyk, or to victims of abuse and violence at the hands of extremists, that we do not want to empower our security agencies to defend us, that we do not respect their integrity enough to give them the tools to do their jobs, and that we cannot trust them to act honestly and respectfully.

I am reminded of what our former prime minister said in his speech in the wake of the attack on Parliament Hill and the death of Nathan Cirillo:

We are also reminded that attacks on our security personnel and on our institutions of governance are by their very nature attacks on our country, on our values, on our society, on us Canadians, as a free and democratic people who embrace human dignity for all.

But let there be no misunderstanding. We will not be intimidated. Canada will never be intimidated. In fact this will lead us to strengthen our resolve and redouble our efforts, and those of our national security agencies, to take all necessary steps to identify and counter threats, and keep Canada safe here at home. Just as it will lead us to strengthen our resolve and redouble our efforts to work with our allies around the world, and fight against the terrorist organizations who brutalize those in other countries with the hope of bringing their savagery to our shores. They will have no safe haven....

...I have every confidence that Canadians will pull together, with the kind of firm solidarity that has seen our country through many challenges. Together we will remain vigilant against those at home or abroad who wish to harm us.

There must be an appropriate balance between empowering our front-line security and police agencies to do their jobs while respecting the rights of Canadians. I would like to believe that all members of this House share that sentiment.

With our tax system, we compel everyone to provide an honest and accurate accounting of their finances and to file it with the CRA. We then entrust a select group of people to review those filings to identify any potential issues. Those thought to be in violation of the CRA rules are audited, and if guilty, are sanctioned. Throughout that process, there are checks and balances. With a responsibility far more critical than tax collection, that being the protection of Canadian values, the protection of Canadian lives, the integrity of our economy, and the protection of our very way of life, why would we expect a less rigorous national security program than that for our tax system? Why would we say that we are subject to scrutiny for potentially leaving something out of our taxes but not if we are planning to attack our national security and public safety?

I welcome the opportunity that a thorough and complete review of this legislation represents: a chance to ensure that our police and national security agencies have the appropriate powers to do their jobs to protect us.

As a Christian, I am taught and believe in forgiveness, but nowhere does my faith say that we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to becoming victims of those who would do us harm.

Let us all work towards the balance in this legislation that would provide tools for our security agencies, respect our rule of law, and provide oversight and direction to our intelligence and security agencies. Most of all, let us put the protection of Canadians first and foremost.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will do more than share my own thoughts. I will convey the thoughts of the Canadians we talked to in our consultations. They were clear on their concerns about their safety and security. No one is oblivious to the events of the past few years. The Canadians we consulted were clear on the extraordinary value of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canadians themselves are divided on where the balance lies between maximizing our safety and preserving our rights and freedoms. This was a key concern to the Canadians we consulted, and it is taken into account in the proposed Bill C-59.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech. I can sense his conviction in defending Bill C-59.

I would like to ask the same question that I asked the member for Drummond. It had to do with the concerns we have about the definition of national security, which includes interference with critical infrastructure.

We think that this could be used to spy on or hinder peaceful protestors, for example, environmentalists, concerned citizens, or indigenous groups who want to oppose the construction of a pipeline.

What type of guarantee can my colleague give that this will not happen and that the bill contains the necessary provisions in that regard?

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as someone who worked for a year as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and sits on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, I am eager to talk about a bill as important as Bill C-59. This bill is especially important to me because Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, one of the unfortunate victims of the attack in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, lived in Sainte-Julie.

In my opinion, Bill C-59 is the greatest reform to Canada's national security framework since the creation of CSIS in 1984. It is therefore completely appropriate to refer the bill to committee prior to second reading. The main upside of that option is that it will allow us to work on the bill before it is passed in principle, giving us more flexibility in crafting the legislation. It will also give the opposition parties a chance to propose amendments that reflect their values and their vision of national security in Canada.

I have great esteem for my fellow members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. By discussing the bill in committee before it is passed in principle, we will be able to have an in-depth debate. I believe that my colleagues and I will discuss it fully, provided that they want to participate in the discussion, of course. Everyone wins in a process like this.

Last year, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security undertook a study on Canada's national security framework. The committee members began the study in September 2016 and concluded it in April 2017. The committee heard from 138 witnesses and received 39 submissions. It also travelled to five major Canadian cities to hear concerns from Canadians across the country.

This study is part of a larger process. The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness launched a parallel national public consultation with the release of a green paper. We received more than 75,000 responses online or by email to this consultation. That is a historic number of people consulted on a government bill. On a personal note, I had the opportunity to lead more than a dozen of these consultations in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada. We heard all kinds of different responses, but it is important for Canadians to be involved, and they showed interest throughout the consultations. We took responses into account and considered them during the drafting of Bill C-59.

When this exhaustive process was completed, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security published the report entitled “Protecting Canadians and their Rights: A New Road Map for Canada's National Security”. Public Safety Canada also published a report entitled “What We Learned”. This led to Bill C-59, which the minister tabled in the House in June 2017.

After spending the summer discussing the bill and familiarizing ourselves with it, it is now time to debate it. I would like to quote the Canadian Bar Association:

Promising public safety as an exchange for sacrificing individual liberties and democratic safeguards is not, in our view, justifiable or realistic. Both are essential and complementary in a free and democratic society.

As mentioned by the member for Oakville North—Burlington, this quote is found at the very beginning of the introduction to the report “Protecting Canadians and their Rights”. In my opinion, the members of the committee sought to strike a balance between these considerations in this report.

I want to emphasize that striking a balance between security and rights and freedoms is vital to establishing a new national security framework. The National Security and Intelligence Committee for Parliamentarians will soon begin its work and Canada will no longer be the only Five Eyes country that does not have parliamentary oversight of intelligence activities.

With Bill C-59 that is before us, we will address other gaps, primarily by creating the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, which will review all 17 federal agencies with a national security mandate.

This enables Canada to fill a significant gap with respect to our partners. The government will create an intelligence commissioner, who will oversee the legality of the authorizations given to CSIS and the CSE. Furthermore, Bill C-59 will amend the Communications Security Establishment Act to give the CSE its own legislative framework and modernize our approach to cybercrimes.

In addition to these advances, the bill addresses CSIS's disruption powers and will provide a data collection framework for CSIS. The Secure Air Travel Act will be amended to address problems with false positives. The Security of Canada Information Sharing Act will be amended to specify the nature of information transmitted among government agencies.

Lastly, the government will address several calls to amend the Criminal Code to re-examine terrorist-related offences and recognizance with conditions. I will share with the House the fact that I myself was once a privileged member of the intelligence community. A number of things spring to my mind. The very nature of information and information sharing is paramount, especially in times like these, in 2017, when security is increasingly precarious. We live in one of the most beautiful countries that is committed to defending rights and freedoms, and we cannot compromise one at the expense of the other.

It is important to redefine the role of CSIS. Let us talk about metadata. As my colleague from Drummond said, the law was very clear. The court's ruling was very clear. My colleague said earlier that it is not the men and women of CSIS who somehow handicapped the procedures that landed them in court and got them an unfavourable ruling. It was the law. It is quite clear that the reality of information sharing and the nature of the levels of information that have to be managed in today's society call for a modernization of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act. That is precisely what Bill C-59 is trying to address.

It is crucial to act in an informed manner and to have concrete operations with full knowledge of the facts. This full knowledge is based on better information and better information sharing, according to the rule of law and the regulations. There are 17 different agencies. The organization that will oversee those 17 agencies will not only guarantee Canadians that the rules surrounding information and privacy are being followed, but it will also bring us up to par and put us on the cutting edge of technology like our partners, to ensure that the latest security requirements are met.

Let us talk about screening for passengers on the no-fly list. There are no children on the no-fly list. Is that clear? There are no children under the age of 18 on the no-fly list. Opposition members need to stop fearmongering. We understand that sometimes more than one person can have the same name, but it is a question of properly identifying individuals to ensure that the right person is prohibited from flying.

Past problems have been addressed. Past problems have been shared with the department and measures have been taken. As the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness announced this morning, measures have been put in place to deal with this sort of problem, from both an operational and a technological perspective. I think that, rather than coming to a complete standstill, starting from scratch, and finding ourselves back in medieval times, we need to modernize our situation. Bill C-59 is the answer.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleague to comment briefly on the fact that Bill C-59 contains not a single measure or provision to fix the ludicrous no fly list situation that results in people whose names are similar to those of alleged terrorists being barred from flying. That includes little six-, seven-, and eight-year-old boys and girls.

How is it that the authorities cannot tell the difference between a kid in elementary school and an alleged terrorist?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Drummond for his speech.

Bill C-59 is supposed to correct Bill C-51, which was condemned by pretty much everyone in Canada at the time. However, Bill C-59 does not make all the necessary changes. It misses the mark and is incomplete. For example, the definition of national security still contains some aspects of the Conservative definition. The Liberals did not change it. National security still encompasses interference with infrastructure deemed critical or important.

Does that mean that the secret service could use its resources to stop peaceful protestors, for example, environmentalists or indigenous groups that seek to oppose the building of a new pipeline?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her very relevant question.

The answer is certainly not in Bill C-59. Why? The colleague who just asked me the question said herself that this bill does not work. She said herself that that the bill must be sent directly to committee to be amended because there are a lot of problems with it. If my colleague cannot defend this bill as it now stands, she should withdraw it and work with the opposition to come up with solutions that will respect civil rights and will not allow for the use of information obtained under torture. That is unacceptable.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is not always a pleasure, but it is definitely an honour for me to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-59, an act respecting national security matters .

This is a strange second reading debate. To provide some context for the people listening at home, we are supposed to be at second reading. We would normally debate the bill at second reading and eventually vote to refer it to committee if we agreed with the general principles of the bill. What is happening here, which is highly unusual, is that we are not at second reading; rather we are debating whether to refer it to committee before second reading. What this means, essentially, is that the Liberals brought forward a bill but have since realized that they are not satisfied with their own bill. They want to send it to committee so it can be fixed up a bit before sending it back to the House for second reading. I have never seen this before. It is highly unusual to proceed in this manner, and it is inappropriate. This government appears to be improvising and making things up as it goes along.

If the bill is no good, the government should scrap it and come back with a better bill. What is happening here today is ridiculous. We are talking about sending a bill directly to committee rather than debating it at second reading. This is absolutely unbelievable.

Where did this Bill C-59 come from? Members will recall that its predecessor was the Conservatives' infamous Bill C-51. This is a despicable bill that utterly fails to protect human rights. I will spend the next few minutes examining the bill in greater detail.

First of all, during the election campaign, the Liberals said they would repeal Bill C-51, which, as I said, was Mr. Harper's atrocious security bill. The government made us wait two years before coming up with something, and what it finally came up with does not even come close to solving the problem. In fact, this bill will allow the government to continue violating Canadians' privacy and will criminalize dissent, just as the Harper government's Bill C-51 did. This is an important issue I would like to take a closer look at.

There are some serious problems in the bill with respect to protecting privacy, especially in terms of sharing out-of-control information. The amendments to the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act are mostly superficial. In no way does this fulfill the promise we expected the Liberals to keep.

This is an omnibus bill that seeks to provide a legal framework allowing the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, to store sensitive metadata on totally innocent Canadians, a practice that the Federal Court ruled to be illegal. This bill does not really solve any problems. It creates new ones. There is currently a crisis of confidence in our national security agencies, especially CSIS, not because of the agencies, but because of the existing legislation. These agencies push the boundaries of the the law and they are not transparent about it, unfortunately. As far as security and intelligence are concerned, Canadians have to be sure that every Government of Canada department and agency is working effectively to ensure Canadians' safety, but also to preserve our rights and freedoms. That is the problem with Bill C-51. The government wanted to make Canadians safer, but there was nothing in that bill that provided greater safety or security.

However, a lot of the bill's provisions took away some of the rights enjoyed by Canadians. They actively undermined the privacy of Canadians and could potentially result in the criminalization of vulnerable groups, for example, environmentalists or advocates of other causes. I will explain later why I am mentioning this.

First, Bill C-51, known as the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, was passed with little debate. It was not really necessary. That is why we stated several times that this law weakened our security and diminished our right to the protection of privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of association.

This clearly shows that Bill C-51 was ill-conceived. For that reason, we did not support it. We believe that Bill C-51 must be repealed in full and that we must start over; it was Stephen Harper's bill, it did not work, and we have to scrap it right quick.

I would remind the House that, in 2016, the Federal Court ruled on the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's mass data collection. It found that CSIS illegally kept sensitive, personal electronic information for over 10 years. In this landmark ruling, Justice Simon Noël said that the CSIS had failed in its duty to inform the court of its data collection program and ruled that what it had done was illegal. What did the Liberals do in response? They decided that since such activity was illegal, they would draft a bill to make it legal.

Come on. The Federal Court said that what CSIS was doing did not make any sense, that it was illegal, and that it violated privacy rights, and so the Liberal government decided to make those illegal activities legal. That does not make any sense. I can see why the Liberals would want to send this to committee to make amendments and gut this bill. That is shameful.

The other problem that is not mentioned in this bill but that is important to talk about is all of the ministerial directives related to torture. That is very serious. It is something that I care a lot about, and I am convinced that everyone in the greater Drummond area sent me here to talk about this. It is extremely important.

We are calling on the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to repeal and replace the 2010 ministerial directive on torture to ensure that Canada stands for an absolute prohibition on torture. Specifically, we want to ensure that in no circumstances will Canada use information from foreign countries that could have been obtained using torture or share information that is likely to result in torture.

Canada says that it will not torture, but other countries will torture for us. The government would then take this information and impose sanctions.

This makes no sense. Torture must be denounced everywhere. We must never use information obtained under torture. Everyone knows that people will say anything when they are being tortured. Torture does not work and is immoral.

I hope that this government will wake up, because this goes back a long time. The Liberals have been in power for two years and they still have not improved the situation. We must show integrity, we must be strong, and we must say no to torture everywhere in the world. We must not use information obtained through torture or that may lead to torture.

In closing, since the government itself does not think that this is a good bill and wants to send it directly to committee, without going through second reading, I propose that, instead, the government withdraw the bill and introduce new, common sense legislation with the help of the other parties.

Public Safety

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, that process is under way. The hon. gentleman will know that debate has begun in the House on Bill C-59. Bill C-59 gives us the legal authority to do exactly what he has suggested in his question. We will need to adjust regulations. We will also need to rebuild the computer system in order to accommodate a fully interactive government-controlled system, instead of the flawed system his government introduced a number of years ago.

National Security Act, 2017

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague pointed out the fact that over the previous week, many of us in this chamber had the opportunity to participate in remembrance services across our ridings to thank our men and women in uniform for standing up for the freedoms we enjoy today. He also pointed out that Bill C-59 makes it more difficult for our security and police officers to intercept emerging threats.

However, one of the most disturbing comments I heard this past weekend is what appears to be an attempt to rebrand these terrorists who are returning to Canada as simply “returning foreign terrorist travellers”. Does my colleague have any comments to make on this attempt to rebrand a group of people we should be doing everything we can to keep out of our country?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise at this stage of our study of Bill C-59.

Nine days ago, on Remembrance Day, November 11, all Canadians, including MPs, were united in our thoughts. Hundreds of commemorative events took place on that day. Personally, in my riding, I commemorated Remembrance Day in the indigenous community of Wendake with my 94-year-old father, a World War II veteran.

I am mentioning this because Remembrance Day unites all Canadians, and especially because it reminds us that Canada has always been on the right side of history. Canada has always fought the enemies of freedom and defended the values that it holds dear and that unite us. In World War I and World War II, the enemy was a nation, a country. It had a uniform and a flag. It displayed its colours. Today, the enemy is everywhere and nowhere all at once. The enemy is terrorism.

That is why we must fight this enemy with all our energy and necessary tools. That is why I wanted to draw a parallel between the hundreds of thousands of Canadians and soldiers around the world who made the ultimate sacrifice by laying down their young lives to fight the enemies of freedom and those who, today, in the 21st century, fight the enemies of our core principles, the terrorists.

The world changed on September 11, 2001. When terrorism reared its ugly head and attacked our neighbour and ally, the United States, the world took drastic action to combat terrorism. Since terrorism is cowardly and hypocritical, and since the enemy has no pride or honour and does not follow rules, terrorists are always everywhere, insidious, masked, hiding in the shadows and waiting in ambush, because they have no honour or even the courage to defend their beliefs honourably. We must therefore fight the enemy with information and, here in Canada, with CSIS.

The enemy has struck south of the border, and it has struck here as well. Thirty-seven months ago, almost to the day, the enemy came right up to the door of the House of Commons in Ottawa, and we lived through a tragic and horrible act of terrorism. That is why the Conservative government at the time, with the help of several individuals, took the necessary measures to combat terrorism in Canada by introducing Bill C-51, which was sponsored by the hon. member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, then minister of public safety, and by the hon. Peter MacKay, then minister of justice.

Some were in agreement with the bill, while others opposed it. I would like once again to point out the cohesiveness of the NDP, as the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie was saying. We do not agree, but they, like us, are consistent. Curiously, the people who now make up the government voted in favour of the bill. We were happy, but a few months later, during the election campaign, those same people got all worked up about Bill C-51, saying that it made no sense. They said that, if they were elected, they would properly restore order and discipline. It took them 18 months to come up with Bill C-59, which they introduced at the very end of the session last June. If I remember correctly, it was June 17, just before we returned to our ridings to work with our constituents.

This bill is nothing short of massive. It proposes to amend nine acts over as many chapters, for a total of some 140 pages. It is what we might call a mammoth bill or an omnibus bill, but let us set political rhetoric aside and get to the meat of the matter.

Why, in our opinion, should this bill be studied?

On this side of the House, we believe that CSIS agents should be given all the tools they need to detect and eradicate terrorism. It is the best course of action.

If I spoke of Remembrance Day at the top of my speech, that was to remind the House that, today, our enemy hides in the shadows. The enemy is a hypocrite, a coward. It knows no religion or law. It has no flag. It is everywhere and nowhere all at once. We must therefore allocate the resources needed to root it out. We must provide all necessary tools to law enforcement working to eradicate terrorism should it ever rear its ugly head in Canada.

We believe that the bill will make the work of CSIS agents more difficult, because they will have to work harder to convince judges to give them the authority they need to take action. This is true for several measures, whether for “altering, removing, replacing, destroying, disrupting or degrading a [terrorist] communication or means of communication”, or for “altering, removing, replacing, destroying, degrading or providing—or interfering with the use or delivery of—any thing or part of a thing, including records, documents, goods, components and equipment”. Wars hinge on such things.

If we want to eradicate terrorism, we must allow our police officers to address terrorist activity directly, by intercepting the transmission of communications and documents.

The same applies when it comes to “fabricating or disseminating any information, record or document”.

The same also applies when it comes to “making or attempting to make, directly or indirectly, any financial transaction that involves or purports to involve currency or a monetary instrument”.

These people are not living hand to mouth. They are extremely well paid, in fact. We must locate the source of their funding.

It is the same when it comes to “interrupting or redirecting, directly or indirectly, any financial transaction...interfering with the movement of any person; and personating a person, other than a police officer, in order to take a measure referred to in [the previous act]”.

What that means is that, with Bill C-59 and its proposed new measures, the current government is making the work of police officers who risk their lives every time they try to flush out terrorists. That is our concern.

It is the same thing with cyber-attacks. Bill C-59 sets out the government's plan to protect Canadians from the terrorist enemy's attacks via Internet, or what are known as cyber-attacks. The government needs to take measures that can directly thwart the enemy and cause it to back down when it comes to cyber-attacks.

Oddly enough, the government is giving the Minister of Foreign Affairs veto power in this regard. Why? Why give veto power to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and not the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Justice, or the Minister of Transport?

If, God forbid, the enemy wanted to undermine our air travel security, for example, why would the foreign affairs minister have veto over whether we launch a cyber-attack against the terrorists? We do not understand the reasoning behind this measure.

That is why we have serious concerns about this bill, which will also affect our foreign relations with our main partners, friends, and allies in the battle all democracies are waging against terrorism. Three weeks ago, the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles talked about a sad reality, and that is the fact that 60 members of the Taliban who fought against our troops in Afghanistan have come back to Canada. That is like Canada welcoming 60 members of the SS immediately following the Second World War. That would have been unspeakable. For all of those reasons, we have reservations regarding this bill.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, those are great questions.

I would like to start by highlighting some of the changes that are being proposed. Part 8 of Bill C-59 would amend certain provisions of the YCJA to ensure that youth protection applies in relation to recognizance orders, including recognizance with conditions and peace bond proceedings.

First, we are bringing in protection and making sure that protection is recognized when it is needed. Second, these amendments clarify that the youth justice court has exclusive jurisdiction to impose these orders on youth, and eliminates any uncertainty about the applicability of certain provisions to a youth for whom a recognizance order is being sought. Third, in addition, there is currently no access period. What this bill is proposing as an amendment to YCJA is to make sure we have six months after the expiry date of the order, limiting the time that the youth record can be ordered.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to speak in support of the national security act, 2017, Bill C-59. Two years ago, our government came to Ottawa with the promise that it would address the numerous problematic elements of Bill C-51, which was enacted by the previous government. Canadians agreed that in attempting to safeguard the security of Canada, Bill C-51 failed to strike a balance between security and freedom.

Today I am proud to be able to rise in this House and say that we have wholeheartedly delivered our commitment to addressing those problem areas. Our government began its commitment to achieving this goal by first reaching out to Canadians in an unprecedented consultation process, where all agreed that accountability, transparency, and effectiveness are needed from their security agencies.

Secondly, Bill C-22 was passed earlier this year, which created the multi-party National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. It is tasked with reviewing national security and intelligence activities through unprecedented access, with the goal of promoting government-wide accountability. On November 6, our Prime Minister followed through on this commitment by announcing the members of the committee. Today we are debating the national security act, 2017, Bill C-59, the last step in achieving our commitment to improving those problematic elements of Bill C-51. This package consists of three acts, five sets of amendments, and a comprehensive review process.

In creating the national security and intelligence review agency, the office of the intelligence commissioner, and the Communications Security Establishment, we have created the robust and effective national security establishment that Canadians have asked for. In addition, we are amending the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, and the Secure Air Travel Act to strengthen the role of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, limit the collection of personal information, safeguard Canadian rights to peaceful assembly, and fix problems with the no-fly list.

Finally, our amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act would ensure young persons would be provided with all appropriate child protection, mental health, and other social measures needed when faced with a terrorism-related offence. Through my work on the mental health caucus, I know how important it is for all Canadians, especially those of marginalized groups, to have access to all available safeguards, services, and measures when navigating the criminal justice system. Therefore, I am pleased to speak today specifically about these proposed amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act included in part 8 of the national security act, 2017.

My riding of Richmond Hill is an incredibly diverse and vibrant riding, where over half of my constituents are Canadians from an immigrant background. Of these, the majority are youths and young families under the age of 30. For this reason, I am proud to say that through this set of amendments, our government is taking action to ensure that all youth involved in the criminal justice system are afforded the enhanced protections provided by Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act, while also holding them accountable for their actions.

The Youth Criminal Justice Act, or YCJA, is the federal law that governs Canada's youth aged 12 to 17 who commit criminal offences, including terrorism offences. The YCJA recognizes that the youth justice system should be separate from the adult system, and based on the principle of diminished moral blameworthiness of youth. It emphasizes rehabilitation and reintegration, just and proportionate responses to offending, and enhanced procedural protections for youth. The act also recognizes the importance of involving families, victims, and communities in the youth criminal justice system. The YCJA contains a number of significant legal safeguards to ensure that young people are treated fairly and that their rights are fully protected, for example, the identity publication ban, and significant restrictions on access to youth records.

Young people also have enhanced right to counsel, including state-provided counsel, and the right to have parents or other guardians present throughout key stages of the investigation and judicial processes. If a young person is charged, all proceedings take place in youth court. In addition, the YCJA would establish clear restrictions on access to youth records, setting out who may access youth records, the purpose for which youth records may be used, and the time periods during which access to records is permitted. Generally speaking, although the offences set out in the Criminal Code apply to youth, the sentences do not. Instead, the YCJA sets out specific youth sentencing principles, options, and durations. There is a broad range of community-based youth sentencing options, and clear restrictions on the use of custodial sentences.

Turning now to Bill C-59, it is important to recognize that there have been very few cases in Canada in which a young person has been involved in the youth criminal justice system due to terrorism offences. In total, we have had six young people charged since 2002. Two were found guilty, three were put under a peace bond, and one had the charges dropped. Nonetheless, it is important to ensure that when this occurs, the young people are held to account, but also that they are afforded all of the enhanced protection under the YCJA. It is perhaps even more important in terrorism-related offences that we do everything in our power to reform young offenders so that future harm is prevented.

Part 8 of Bill C-59 would amend the provision of the YCJA to ensure that youth protections apply in relation to anti-terrorism and other recognizance orders. It also provides for access to youth records for the purpose of administering the Canadian Passport Order, subject to the special privacy protections set out in the YCJA. The bill would also make important clarifications with respect to recognizance orders. Although the YCJA already provides youth justice courts with the authority to impose these orders, several sections of the YCJA would be amended to state more clearly that youth justice courts have exclusive jurisdiction to impose recognizance on youth. This would eliminate any uncertainty about the applicability of certain rights of protection, including the youths' right to counsel. In addition, there is currently no access period identified for records relating to recognizance. Therefore, the YCJA would be amended to provide that the access period for these records would be six months after the order expires.

With respect to the Canadian Passport Order, Bill C-59 would amend the YCJA to specifically permit access to youth records for the purpose of administering Canada's passport program. The Canadian Passport Order contemplates that passports can be denied or revoked as a result of certain criminal acts, or in relation to national security concerns. For example, section 10.1 of the Canadian Passport Order stipulates that the minister of public safety may decide to deny or revoke a passport if there are reasonable grounds, including that revocation is necessary to prevent the commission of a terrorism offence, or for the national security of Canada or a foreign country or state.

The current YCJA provisions governing access to youth records do not speak to access for passport matters. As noted, Bill C-59 would allow access in appropriate circumstances. However, it is important to note that the sharing of youth information on this provision would still be subject to the special privacy protection of the YCJA. Canadians can be assured that our government is addressing the national security threat while continuing to protect democratic values, rights, and freedoms for Canadians. Those two goals must be pursued with equal dedication.

I encourage all my colleagues to vote in support of the bill.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

My answer will be brief. Unfortunately, I do not have much hope, since, despite the government’s promises to co-operate, collaborate, and be more open and democratic, that is not what we have been seeing in the past two years with the constant use of its parliamentary majority to crush the opposition. Let us hope that, because of the scope of the issue, this time it will be different.

I would like to draw my colleague’s attention, and the attention of everyone listening, to the fact that the text of Bill C-59 concerning the definition of “activity that undermines the security of Canada” includes “significant or widespread interference with critical infrastructure”.

The NDP is concerned that interference with critical infrastructure might result in authorizing secret services to spy on people who intend to protest the construction of new pipelines. With a government that has just given its support to Kinder Morgan and Keystone XL, we are concerned that Bill C-59 could be targeting peaceful, ecologically minded, or indigenous protesters.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, of course Canadians want to feel safe, but they also want to feel free and not as if they are being spied on all the time. Having a good watchdog to oversee the police who are watching us is crucial, but that is lacking in the bill right now. We will see if Liberals are open to accepting some important amendments.

I would also like to mention the fact that there is something missing in Bill C-59. It does not mention the new directive introduced in October 2017. This is a government directive on public safety and emergency preparedness that says that Canada does not condone torture and that it does not practise torture. We agree that this is a very good thing. However, what is missing and what is not amended in Bill C-59 is that we will not under any circumstances use information that other countries might have obtained through torture.

This is like saying that we are against torture, but that we reserve the right to use information that was obtained through torture in other countries. Generally speaking, information obtained through torture is worthless, since people being tortured will say anything. This also destroys our principled stand on the serious issue of torture based on our values as Canadians.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to talk about this important bill.

Earlier today, the Minister of Public Safety said that a government has no greater responsibility than keeping its people safe. These people live in our ridings. They are our colleagues, our neighbours, family friends, even our own children. The public safety minister is absolutely right. All governments around the world are responsible for keeping their people safe. That is a weighty and fundamental responsibility that must be taken seriously.

However, the minister was unable to add that the government's responsibility to protect people's freedoms is just as important. It has been obvious from the get-go that the government's approach is skewed toward security and policing and that it is much less interested in talking about the importance of protecting our freedoms.

As citizens who are privileged to live in a democratic society where we can vote and say what we want and enjoy freedom of expression and freedom of association, we must never forget what a long, hard road it has been to get here. We must resist any attempt to undo our progress by taking away any of our rights and freedoms. Bill C-59 is shocking in several ways, considering it comes from the party that authored the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This worries us, as progressive New Democrats and as democrats.

Bill C-59 continues the Liberal Party's two-faced tradition of saying one thing and doing the opposite. The Liberals can advocate one thing and then make decisions that oppose it. The member for Winnipeg North has just demonstrated this perfectly by reminding us that Bill C-51 was strongly opposed by civil society organizations, experts, and defenders of civil liberties, and yet the Liberal Party, with an eye on the upcoming election, voted in favour of Bill C-51 because it would help the party on the campaign trail. It is hard to follow the Liberals' logic at any given point in time. They are not consistent.

It is too bad that we are dealing with a government that plays politics, waffles, contradicts itself, and is sometimes incredibly hypocritical. We can blame the previous Conservative government for a lot of things, but a lack of consistency is not one of them, even though we were often strongly opposed to its decisions.

The Liberals' habit of talking out of both sides of their mouths is not just affecting our security intelligence agencies and police forces. It is as though we have been listening to a broken record for the past two years. The Liberals have been saying that Canada is back on the world stage and that they are going to take tougher action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, we can see that this is all a sham. The Liberals have adopted the same plan as the Harper Conservatives and are approving pipelines left and right, which is obviously going to increase our greenhouse gas emissions. The Liberals are saying one thing and doing another.

The Liberals talk about an open and transparent government, but the changes they are making to the Access to Information Act will make it more difficult and complicated to follow that approach. The Liberals are saying that they want to restore people's confidence in public institutions, but then ministers are hosting cash-for-access fundraisers at $1,500 a ticket.

What is happening today is therefore just another example of the Liberals playing politics at the expense of Canadians' safety and security. They are merely tinkering with Bill C-51, when the NDP and others believe it should be repealed. We need to start from square one and draft a good bill that makes Canadians safer, since that is absolutely essential.

We want to do everything we can to prevent terrorists and other ill-intentioned people from coming here and plotting or preparing attacks or violence against Canadians. We also want to give our democratic institutions and watchdogs the tools needed to watch the watchers. If this is not done properly, we could see a shift towards a police state that infringes on our privacy and digs through our personal lives to gather a bunch of information, even when there is no reason to suspect someone of wanting or attempting to do anything wrong.

We believe that Bill C-51 jeopardized our privacy, our freedom of expression, and our freedom of association. Unfortunately, Bill C-59 does not do what it takes to correct that. The Liberals have missed the mark. A few of these measures might be worthwhile, but overall, the Liberals are continuing the dangerous trend we saw under the previous Conservative government.

The new oversight and review mechanisms are limited and do not offset the exchange and sharing of information and almost unlimited powers within our security agencies. This is a major concern.

There is something rather ironic about what I am going to say, but it must be said as it is of great concern to us. In November 2016, or last year, the Federal Court handed down a ruling with respect to the massive collection of data by CSIS. It had illegally kept personal electronic data for more than 10 years. In its rather scathing and very clear ruling, Justice Simon Noël stated that CSIS breached its duty to inform the court of this data collection since the information was gathered using judicial warrants.

CSIS should not have retained the information since it was not directly related to threats to the security of Canada. That is important. That is a very real example that highlights all the concerns of people who wonder what type of information will be collected about them, who will have access to this information, and to whom this information will be communicated and transferred. In November 2016, the Federal Court pointed out that there can be exaggerations. This is not a figment of the imagination. It happened here.

The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness quickly reacted and said that the government took note of this and would not appeal this decision. Oh, okay. That is a good sign. Perhaps it is a step in the right direction. Oh, wait. Surprise! In Bill C-59, the Liberal government responds to the Federal Court decision in a strange way when it comes to our privacy protections. The new law will allow CSIS to collect huge amounts of metadata containing confidential information about Canadians that is not relevant to its investigations.

The November 2016 Federal Court ruling stated that CSIS did not have the right to do so, and that it was illegal. Bill C-59 makes it legal. People need to understand that if Bill C-59 is passed, CSIS will be able to collect huge amounts of metadata containing confidential information about Canadians that is not relevant to its investigations. These are the kinds of things that make it impossible for us to fall in line with the Liberal government. Yes, we are happy that we can study Bill C-59 more closely, but we are sounding a warning bell.

We are telling Quebecers and Canadians in general to be careful, because there are elements in this bill that will increase police surveillance. We are going to be spied on more, and we do not know who is going to end up with the information.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I have full confidence in the intelligence-gathering processes in Bill C-51, which we passed in a previous Parliament, in 2015. That piece of legislation allowed for information-sharing between CBSA, the RCMP, CSIS, CSE, and the Department of Foreign Affairs. I think most Canadians just assumed this had already been taking place. With government, everything always operates in silence. When we can level things off and allow information-sharing to percolate through all departments, we do a much better job of protecting Canadians, whether it is at the border, at the ports, or on our own turf.

I have a concern about returning ISIS fighters and the whole policy of reintegration rather than incarceration for these people. I think all of us are concerned about that. That is why Bill C-59 has to be studied in great detail, with expertise, so amendments can be made to the bill so that this legislation does not actually become reality.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have read in detail Bill C-59. As the last speaker mentioned, there are over 140 pages in the bill. There are some good parts in this legislation, but there are parts I have a lot of concern about. One is the limits the bill would place on the ability of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to reduce terrorist threats in Canada. It bothers me that we would start pulling some of its authority and some of its ability to effectively make Canada safer for the public. The bill would limit the ability of government departments to share data among themselves to protect Canada's national security.

The hon. member talked about ISIS fighters coming back to Canada and the fact that we have a government that is not going to take a strong stand on this. It should be taking a strong stand.

I wonder if my colleague could comment on the ability of our government agencies to share information about the people coming back. Do we just want them to filter into our communities?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to rise to address Bill C-59, an act respecting national security matters.

This is an omnibus bill that is making some significant changes to the way national security is going to be dealt with in this country. It is a huge bill. It is over 140 pages long. It has a great deal of information, some that is quite concerning to us as the official opposition.

I have taken the time to read through the bill, and I am quite concerned about some of the things in here. As I just mentioned to the Minister of National Defence, one of the concerns is around CSE, which has traditionally been an organization that is under the National Defence Act. It has worked alongside our Canadian Armed Forces to ensure that our guys who are deployed are safe. That, in itself, is something that has to be paramount in what CSE continues to do.

The Communications Security Establishment is a great organization and one we support wholeheartedly. It has always respected the laws of Canada. It has worked very closely with our Five Eyes partners—the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand—in collecting intelligence and sharing that where possible. At the same time, it respects Canadians' privacy rights and charter rights to ensure that they are not being unjustly spied on, unless, of course, they are acting in a manner that concerns national security and may be committing some sort of criminal act.

This bill, overall, would weaken our national security in this country. It would change the way CSIS and CSE operate, as well as the RCMP and other police agencies. It proves again that the Liberals are not serious when it comes to public safety. They prefer to water things down rather than do what is right.

It is interesting to watch. We have members on the other side who, when the Liberals were the third party, voted in favour of Bill C-51. Today they are watering down that very act. I have real concerns about how our allies, particularly our Five Eyes partners, are going to feel about the trustworthiness and interoperability of CSIS, the RCMP, and CSE and their security intelligence-gathering mechanisms.

To highlight this and show that the Liberals are not serious about protecting Canadians and how we deal with terrorism, just this past week, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness said, when talking about Canadians who joined ISIS and became ISIS terrorists and ISIS fighters, that he wants to reintegrate them back into Canada, not charge them under the Criminal Code as terrorists and not charge them under the Criminal Code for committing treason because they are fighting against Canada and our allies in Iraq and Syria. He wants to reintegrate them. That is disgusting.

I have heard over and over again this past week in the riding that Canadians are concerned that the Liberals are putting their lives at risk, because they are going to allow these ISIS fighters to return to Canada. These terrorists who have been radicalized will come back here, and rather than being incarcerated, will have the opportunity to return to their communities and radicalize their families, their friends, and the people they interact with. That is completely unacceptable. That just proves the fact that the Minister of Public Safety and the Liberal government are not taking security seriously.

We can compare that to what the U.S. government is doing, what the government of France is doing, and what the government of the United Kingdom is doing. They have put out kill orders for all their fighters fighting in Syria and Iraq right now. They have been told to shoot to kill anyone who came from Great Britain, the United States, or France who was radicalized and joined ISIS and is in Syria and Iraq fighting their forces. This is to ensure that their public safety is respected.

That is not happening here in Canada. We are going to reintegrate them. We should at least incarcerate them, but no, we are going to reintegrate them.

In the time I have left, I will speak about the Communications Security Establishment. This is an organization that has done yeoman's service over many decades ensuring that our troops stay safe and ensuring that Canada stays safe. Whenever the commissioner for the Communications Security Establishment has looked at ministerial authorizations that have been given, the rights of Canadians have been respected, whether it has been in collecting metadata, in intelligence-sharing, or when there has been a need to issue warrants for the monitoring of Canadians who are directly or indirectly involved in fundraising for, or the activity of, terrorism or other attacks on Canadians on our soil or that of our allies. They have been able to do that and respect our charter rights, respect the Privacy Act, and ensure that Canadians' rights have been respected on a legal level. I think that is clear.

In the new section on the proposed Communications Security Establishment act in Bill C-59, I applaud the government for bringing forward some clear definitions on cyber-defence and cyber-offence. Times have changed. We need to have the ability not only to defend against cyber-attacks but to take out those cyber-attacks and be pre-emptive, if necessary. If they collect the proper intelligence, we would have the ability to go out and destroy that potential threat. It could be an attack on our infrastructure, an attack on the Government of Canada, an attack on our troops serving overseas, or an attack that would wipe out our financial sector. That capability has to be there, because our cyber-infrastructure, such as power, financial institutions, and government institutions, is critical to the everyday lives of Canadians. We have to be able to pre-emptively remove a threat.

The amazing part of everything we are doing is that under this new cyberwarfare process, under “Cyber Operations Authorizations”, in the proposed Communications Security Establishment act, subclause 30(2) would give a veto to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Always the CSE and CSIS have operated in close collaboration with the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of National Defence, and to some degree, the Minister of Justice. Now the Minister of Foreign Affairs would have a veto over whether we spy on individuals or organizations. The minister would have a veto over whether we launch a cyber-attack or defend ourselves from a cyber-attack by individuals and organizations, whether they were criminal organizations, terrorist organizations, drug cartels, or just hackers. This is something we just do not understand.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs does not have the same intelligence mechanisms within the department that the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of National Defence have access to. Why we would give an authorization to the Minister of Foreign Affairs is beyond me. All we have to do is look at the former minister of foreign affairs, Stéphane Dion, who was acting in a role of appeasing Russia, which is definitely the greatest threat to Canada and the Five Eyes allies. If members look at our partners in the Five Eyes, we are always making sure that we have robust cybersecurity and cyber-intelligence-gathering on the Russian Federation, especially those kleptocrats in the Kremlin and those who want to do harm to our alliance through NATO.

We know that Russia is spying on us. We know that China is spying on us, yet when Stéphane Dion was still the minister of foreign affairs, he had the idea that we would appease the Russians, and he would not authorize those types of spying activities. That cannot be allowed to happen.

The current government is trying to do a trade deal with China. Would the government authorize spying and cyber-defence activities against the Government of China? Is the government so caught up in the idea that it wants to do trade with China, despite China's terrible environmental record and the atrocities it is committing against its own citizens, such as the Falun Gong? I am sure the government would appease China.

We need to make sure we get this right. That is why the bill has to get to committee right away. We have to make these changes so the bill is actually in the best interest of Canada and is not about playing political games, through the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to try to appease some of the greatest threats to our national security. It is to put our safety first, rather than the government's political aspirations.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Madam Speaker, as Minister of National Defence, it gives me great pleasure to rise to speak in support of Bill C-59, an act respecting national security matters.

As my colleague from public security indicated in his earlier speech, Bill C-59 proposes a number of timely and greatly-needed measures to enhance Canada's national security framework, while respecting the constitutional principles enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This commitment to security and the highest standards of democratic accountability is clearly apparent in part 3 of Bill C-59, which would provide the Communications Security Establishment, known as CSE, with the modern tools and authorities it requires to better protect Canadians from foreign threats.

CSE is one of Canada's critical security and intelligence organizations within the National Defence portfolio. However, it is not a household name. Nevertheless, CSE has a long and proud history. Indeed, over the course of the year, CSE has been celebrating its 70th anniversary, reflecting on its proud service to Canadians since the end of World War II.

I want to highlight the key contribution that CSE makes to our safety and security. Its contribution to the protection of Canada's important cyber-infrastructure cannot be underestimated, and its role in protecting Canadians from terrorism is greatly appreciated.

Currently, CSE's important mission is derived from its authorities within its three-part mandate in the National Defence Act.

First, it is Canada's national signals intelligence agency. It serves the national interest by providing foreign signals intelligence in accordance with the government's intelligence priorities.

I want to emphasize that what CSE does is foreign intelligence. By law, it cannot direct its activities at Canadians or anyone in Canada. CSE's intelligence helps prevent terrorist attacks, radicalizing, and training individuals to carry out attacks in Canada and around the world. It protects Canada's deployed military forces. CSE's foreign intelligence informs Canada's government decision-making in the fields of national security, defence, and international affairs. It provides key insights that help guide Canada and its allies on important issues.

The second part of CSE's mandate is cyber defence and protection. CSE provides advice, guidance, and services to help ensure the protection of electronic information and information infrastructures of importance to the Government of Canada. Its sophisticated cyber and technical expertise helps identify, prepare for, and respond to the most severe cyber-threats and attacks against computer networks and systems, as well as the important information they contain. It helps protect Government of Canada systems from foreign states, hackers, terrorists, and criminals. It tracks cyber-threats from around the world, and works with government departments to defend and strengthen systems against compromise. Finally, CSE helps protect sensitive information held by the government from theft, including the personal information of Canadians.

The third part of CSE's mandate is to provide technical and operational assistance to federal law enforcement and security agencies in the performance of their lawful duties. Under the assistance mandate, those capabilities may be used to assist a Canadian law enforcement or security agency under the requesting agency's legal authority. Security and intelligence agencies require modern capabilities and powers to maintain the security of our country.

In today's dynamic security environment, CSE's efforts to protect Canada and Canadians against threats are more critical than ever.

Under the bill before us, CSE would be given modern cyber authorities and tools to respond to serious foreign threats. As it works to protect Canadians against threats, CSE knows it has a responsibility to protect privacy, and it takes that responsibility very seriously. Indeed, these principles of lawfulness and privacy are critical to the work of CSE. Protecting Canadian privacy is not an afterthought. It is a fundamental part of the organizational culture and is embedded within CSE's operational structures, policies, and processes.

Across our country, and indeed around the world, governments and citizens are relying on evolving technology to communicate, work, and to live.

We expect to be able to interact with our governments in the digital world, and we want to access our government services online.

In recognition of the cyber-revolution, CSE has focused on improving the government's cyber-defences by building specialized cyber-tools and developing resilience within our systems. We are better positioned to resist and protect ourselves against cyber-threats than ever before. However, as new and sophisticated communications technologies emerge, we need to be prepared to protect ourselves from new threats.

This is the world in which CSE works diligently every day to protect our governments, businesses, and our citizens. Because of our sophisticated understanding of the cyberworld, CSE was asked by the Minister of Democratic Institutions to assess the cyber-threats that faced Canada's democratic processes. Also, it was asked for advice about best cyber practices to all political parties in the House.

Trust in our democratic processes is essential for our democracy to work. We have all seen how our democratic processes have been attractive targets for nation states and non-state actors seeking to influence our country. CSE has, throughout its 70-year history, served our country proudly, while adapting to enormous changes in technology and how people use it in the international security environment and in the threat landscape. Today, cyber is clearly a part of that threatened landscape. In responding to this threat, CSE has proven itself to be an innovative leader and a trusted partner.

In the past year, CSE has also taken several unprecedented steps to be more open and transparent about its work for the country, telling Canadians more about the work it does to protect their security, their personal information, their privacy, and their rights and freedoms. It has increased its public outreach through a number of media interviews, participating as speakers in various symposia and conferences, and assisting in other outreach efforts to discuss CSE's mandate and topical issues around security and defence.

I should also like to add that officials from CSE have appeared many times as invited expert witnesses before committees in both Houses.

Many of my hon. colleagues know these officials as dedicated and knowledgeable public servants who are keen to help us understand the complex work that they undertake. No doubt CSE is embracing an open approach to communicating with Canadians about the important work it does.

There can be no greater obligation than to protect the security of Canadians at home and abroad. Bill C-59 would provide CSE with the authorities and tools to maintain the highest standards in security protection while adhering to the high standards of accountability and transparency.

This is s timely and necessary bill. It would serve both Canada's national security interests and adheres to the Canadian principles of accountable government. It would permit our government to take the necessary and appropriate steps to protect Canadians. This is a bill that would enable our government to do so in an open and transparent way. It is a good bill and we will work hard to implement the measures of the proposed legislation.

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

Madam Speaker, today, we begin debating Bill C-59. In fact, we are debating a motion to send the bill to committee before second reading. I will come back to that.

Bill C-59 is the result of a process that began more than two years ago, even before the current government was elected. We know that we can trace this bill to Bill C-51, which was introduced by the Conservatives and then passed by the Conservative majority, with the support of the Liberals, of course, including the current Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and the Prime Minister.

When I think about the Liberals' approach to national security in the last parliament, an certain expression comes to mind.

They want to have their cake and eat it too.

That is the problem. It is extremely worrying to see that someone can be so cavalier about an issue as fundamental as the rights of Canadians, their freedom, and their right to privacy. This is what was jeopardized, on several fronts, by the system introduced by the previous Bill C-51. Unfortunately, 10 minutes is not enough for me to review all the problematic elements, so I will instead focus on the Liberal government's effort, which is unfortunately a failure.

Of course, there are some elements that we could support in the current bill. The creation of what some are calling this new body of super SIRC is something we could support. The changes that are being brought forward are long overdue for the no-fly list, although much more needs to be done.

I would be remiss to not mention the importance of the fight we have been waging with groups like the no-fly list kids, fighting the false positives, and making sure the proper funding is there for a proper redress system, which is not something specifically addressed in the bill. It is an element that, at the very least, things have started to move, although not quickly enough for the needs of these families who pay the price in dignity and travel logistics every time they attempt to travel.

There are several elements that we are extremely worried about. There is the part about the information sharing system's name change, as the minister even admitted. This change was brought about with the previous Bill C-51. A new name was given and there was a cosmetic change, but the concerns remain the same. That is what we are hearing from groups like the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association. This group explained to us that, despite the good intentions, keeping a system that should have never existed in the first place is problematic. This is why the NDP is asking that the provisions brought about by Bill C-51 be outright repealed. That is what my colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke proposed with his Bill C-303, which was put on the Order Paper and was introduced. It proposes to eliminate all these problematic elements.

That is why New Democrats have always called for the full repeal of all elements that were brought in by former Bill C-51. These cosmetic changes that are being proposed by the Liberals are not enough. The concerns still exist about sharing information between government departments. The minister can use the word “disclosure” and say it is already existing information, but the fact of the matter is, if we are considering, for example, a Canadian detained abroad and some of the horrific and tragic situations that have led to many of these national inquiries, which have led to some of the recommendations the government is attempting to act on, part of the problem has always been information sharing. For example, we can look at consular services and foreign affairs, that might be obtaining information about a Canadian detained abroad in a country with a horrible human rights record. That information is being shared with CSIS, that then might share it with the Five Eyes allies, like the U.S., that in the past has not been up to snuff on some cases of the way Canadians have been treated in some of these situations, where they have been stuck in countries with horrible human rights records. None of that would actually be fixed by what is being proposed in the bill.

We have other serious concerns about the bill. One has to do with the changes regarding cybersecurity and, in particular, the idea of creating cyber-weapons. Experts and civil society are very concerned, because the Liberals have not properly explained how these weapons will be protected. We are not talking about traditional weapons that can be stockpiled in a particular location to protect a physical place. We are talking about creating situations in which weapons can easily be moved around the digital world. This point was raised and it is worrisome.

I want to get back to the motion before us. The government is acting as though sending the motion to committee before second reading is a good thing. It claims that the process will allow us to have a more in-depth study. On the surface, it is hard to blame them. We would be happy to have an in-depth discussion on this in committee. It is extremely important.

Consider this. This motion would put us in a position, and the Liberals have attempted to find this loophole, where we can no longer fall back on a standing order specifically to prevent this kind of omnibus legislation from being put forward, once again something the government promised not to do. This is omnibus legislation, the creation of something like three new acts, and many acts being substantially changed. The National Defence Act would change. Different elements of acts under the purview of the public safety minister would change. These disparate elements require separate votes.

The fact is that at 150 pages long, with so many elements being tackled, it is of grave concern that we would have to go through it in such an expedited process. It deserves to be properly separated and considered. That is particularly concerning because that is exactly the approach that the government said it would not take. That was part of the problem with Bill C-51. It changed so many elements of how we would deal with national security and protecting Canadians' rights in this country that it became almost impossible for the committee to give it proper study, despite the valiant attempts that were certainly made by the New Democrat opposition and with little help from the Liberals at the time.

I unfortunately have just 10 minutes, so I want to take this opportunity to say that we will be raising a point of order to try to convince the Chair that we must separate the different elements of this bill. We want to show our support for some of these elements, but we want to call the government to order by opposing the elements that were meant to repair the damage caused by the former Bill C-51. These elements make up the bulk of the bill, but they do not repair that damage.

Let me go back to some of the other problematic elements in this bill that were supposed to be fixed from Bill C-51. Let us look at the threat-reduction powers that were given to CSIS. The very existence of CSIS was specifically to separate the powers of intelligence gathering and law enforcement. Too many times, history pointed to occasions where the RCMP failed to juggle the dual responsibilities of intelligence gathering and law enforcement. Different recommendations led to the creation of CSIS.

The minister is obviously fully aware of this because, as he mentioned in his comments, the CSIS Act was adopted over 30 years ago, with very little overhaul, until Bill C-51 and this legislation being proposed. We have to understand that CSIS does not have threat reduction powers. That responsibility belongs to law enforcement, as well as the information-sharing regime brought in by Bill C-51. Once again, the changes being proposed by New Democrats are certainly an improvement, but when the bar is as low as it was with Bill C-51, it does not go far enough. These are the types of elements of the previous legislation under the previous government that need to be fully repealed. Unfortunately, CSIS was given this responsibility, which is not part of its mandate and should never have been, to begin with. It is exactly the opposite of why CSIS was created.

I see that my time is unfortunately running out. Since we are debating a motion, we have just 10 minutes to debate a 150-page bill. This is obviously one of the reasons why the elements should have been separated.

We are opposed to this motion. The only solution is to repeal all of the elements in the former Bill C-51.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech. It is apparent that he is very knowledgeable about the current situation in Canada with respect to all these potential terrorist attacks and the changes occurring all over the world.

Does my colleague really believe that Bill C-59 will improve the protection of honest Canadian citizens? Does it not rather water down the legislation currently in effect in Canada?

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. That is precisely what I would like to know, and that is the point of asking questions.

To our understanding, the proposed changes in Bill C-59 will diminish what CSIS agents can do on the ground. Is there something else that it is trying to say? I would love to know. At the end of the day, if I misunderstood, if my team misunderstood, then so be it, but as far as we can tell the agent will have to get a warrant from a judge before taking direct action to address a situation. That is where we take issue with this bill.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-59 and to express my concerns about this bill being passed in its current form. I have read through the bill carefully and tried to understand the intentions of the Liberals, who seem to want to accommodate terrorists.

In the Liberals' speeches, they try to convince us that they are looking out for Canadians and working to keep them safe. However, if we look at their actions, such as the ones proposed in Bill C-59, it is obvious that either the Liberals are getting bad advice, or they are more concerned about the rights of criminals than those of law-abiding Canadians.

Let me explain. The most significant and most contentious change that Bill C-59 would make to the Criminal Code is the amendment of the offence set out in section 83.221, which applies to “Every person who...knowingly advocates or promotes the commission of terrorism offences in general”. Bill C-59 would introduce a much more stringent test by changing the wording to “Every person who counsels another person to commit a terrorism offence”.

The same goes for the definition of “terrorist propaganda” in subsection 83.222(8), which will significantly reduce the ability of law enforcement officials to use the tool for dismantling terrorist propaganda with judicial authorization as set out in Bill C-51. One could argue that using the expression “another person” means that the offence must target someone specifically rather than the broader target of domestic terrorism and the offence that Bill C-51 is supposed to prevent.

Madam Speaker, I know you understand the importance of what I just said. If Bill C-59 passes in its current form, terrorists will be free to spread all kinds of propaganda using social media, without any fear of being arrested or prosecuted.

The vast majority of terrorist activities are generated from propaganda that is spread in a general way, rather than directed at a specific person. Imagine how this measure will affect the work of our police officers and how we combat terrorism. This proposal is absurd, because it protects criminals and those who want to engage in violence in our country. The government has some explaining to do, and I mean today.

Bill C-59 limits what the Canadian Security Intelligence Service can do to help us protect ourselves. When Bill C-51 was tabled by our government, it gave CSIS the power to engage in threat disruption activities. This meant CSIS could contact the parents of a radicalized youth and urge them to prevent their child from travelling to a war zone or committing an attack here in Canada.

However, if the Liberals' Bill C-59 passes, CSIS will lose that power and will not be able to do anything on the spot to protect us. All of its activities will require a warrant, which is not exactly convenient when the goal is to stop someone from committing an act of terror. Currently, a CSIS agent can pretend to be a local resident to influence someone who is preparing to commit a terrorist act. Bill C-59 will put a stop to that. Agents will just have to watch the threat develop and will have to get a warrant from a judge before they can take action. By the time the warrant is issued, it could be too late. Why are the Liberals putting so many obstacles in the way of law enforcement, who are just trying to protect us Canadians?

The Conservative Party has always taken Canadians' safety seriously, as demonstrated by the introduction and passage of Bill C-51. We must not forget that this bill was passed by the Conservative government with the support of the Liberals, who were then the second opposition party. A couple of years ago, in 2015, the Liberals were in agreement. There was a slight change during the election campaign and now they have introduced Bill C-59, but let us not forget that Bill C-51 was approved by the Liberals.

Now it seems that the Liberals are trying to make things more difficult for the officers tasked with fighting these criminals. In 2015, during the campaign, our Liberal colleagues clearly stated that, if they were elected, they would amend this legislation. It is important to highlight that the bill was only introduced in Parliament at the end of June of this year. It took them 18 months.

The Liberals took their sweet time in keeping their election promise. Perhaps they realized that the original legislation was not as flawed as they thought. They now want to make amendments to show that they are keeping another promise.

The Conservative Party knows how important it is to have measures regarding national security institutions and the responsibility that comes with that. For us, there is no question that the safety of Canadians comes before the comfort of terrorists and criminals. Canadians who love their country come before those who are seeking to destroy it. Unlike the Liberals, we are committed to protecting Canadians. That is not just an idea that we came up with during the election campaign. We have always been committed to that goal because the threat still exists and has not diminished. The threat posed by these criminals is becoming increasingly sophisticated.

We have also heard that these thugs are wandering the streets of our communities after fighting with ISIS. They fought against our own soldiers. We know that they fought alongside ISIS and that many of them came back to Canada. The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness is now saying that he is looking for evidence to arrest them. That is all well and good, but in the meantime, Canadians need clearer information about the situation.

Where is the transparency that the Liberals promised Canadians? Why is the Minister of Public Safety not saying anything about these criminals? Why is he being so silent on this?

As it now stands, Bill C-59 will greatly hinder the efforts of our peace officers and compromise the safety of Canadians, while facilitating the work of terrorists.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

moved that Bill C-59, An Act respecting national security matters, be referred forthwith to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Madam Speaker, the Government of Canada has no greater responsibility than keeping Canadians safe. We must fulfill that essential and solemn obligation while at the same time safeguarding Canadian rights and freedoms.

This double objective of protecting Canadians while defending their rights and freedoms was the basis of our commitments regarding national security during the last election, and it informed everything we have done in the area since we have been in government.

We have, for example, created a committee of parliamentarians with unprecedented access to classified information to scrutinize the activities of all national security and intelligence agencies. We have launched the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence to help Canada become a world leader in counter-radicalization.

We have issued new ministerial directions that more clearly prohibit conduct that would result in a substantial risk of torture. Our starting point was the most extensive and inclusive consultations about national security ever undertaken by the Government of Canada. Beginning in the spring of 2016, that effort involved individual stakeholders, round tables, town halls, various renowned experts, studies by parliamentary committees, and a broad solicitation of views online. More than 75,000 submissions were received.

All of this fresh input was supplemented by earlier judicial inquires by Iacobucci, O'Connor, and Major, as well as several parliamentary proposals, certain court judgments, and reports from existing national security review bodies. It all helped to shape the legislation before us today, Bill C-59, the national security act of 2017.

The measures in this bill cover three core themes, enhancing accountability and transparency, correcting problematic elements from the former Bill C-51, and updating our national security laws to ensure that our agencies can keep pace with evolving threats.

One of the major advances in this legislation is the creation of the national security and intelligence review agency. This new body, which has been dubbed by some as a "super SIRC", will be mandated to review any activity carried out by any government department that relates to national security and intelligence, as well as any matters referred to it by the government. It will be able to investigate public complaints. It will specifically replace the existing review bodies for CSIS and the Communications Security Establishment, but it will also be authorized to examine security and intelligence activities throughout the government, including the Canada Border Services Agency.

In this day and age, security operations regularly involve multiple departments and agencies. Therefore, effective accountability must not be limited to the silo of one particular institution. Rather, it must follow the trail wherever it leads. It must provide for comprehensive analysis and integrated findings and recommendations. That is exactly what Canadians will get from this new review agency.

Bill C-59 also creates the brand new position of the intelligence commissioner, whose role will be to oversee and approve, or not approve, certain intelligence activities by CSIS and the CSE in advance. The intelligence commissioner will be a retired or supernumerary superior court judge whose decisions will be binding. In other words, if he or she says that a particular proposed operation is unreasonable or inappropriate, it will simply not proceed.

Taken together, the new comprehensive review agency, the intelligence commissioner, and the new committee of parliamentarians will give Canada accountability mechanisms of unprecedented scope and depth. This is something that Canadians have been calling for, and those calls intensified when the former Bill C-51 was introduced. We heard them loud and clear during our consultations, and we are now putting these accountability measures into place.

BillC-59 also brings clarity and rigour to internal government information sharing under the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, or SCISA. This is the law that allows government institutions to share information with each other in respect of activities that undermine the security of Canada. Among other things, Bill C-59 would change the name of the law, in English, to the security of Canada information disclosure act, to be clear that we are talking only about the disclosure of existing information, not the collection of anything new. Government institutions will now be required to keep specific records of all disclosures made under the act, and to provide these records to the new review agency.

Importantly, Bill C-59 clarifies the definition of activities “that undermine the security of Canada”. For example, it is explicit in stating that advocacy, protest, dissent, and artistic expression are not included. The new legislation would also provide more precision in the definition of “terrorist propaganda”, in line with the well-known criminal offence of counselling.

The paramountcy of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is an overriding principle in Bill C-59. That is perhaps most evident in the updates that we are proposing to the CSIS Act. This is the law that created CSIS back in 1984, and it has not been modernized in any meaningful way since then.

The former Bill C-51 empowered CSIS to engage in measures to reduce threats to the security of Canada without clearly defining what those measures could and could not include. We are now creating a specific closed list of measures that CSIS will have the authority to take to deal with threats. If any such activity might limit a charter right, CSIS will have to go before a judge. The activity can only be allowed if the judge is satisfied that it is compliant with the charter.

Another concern we heard during the consultations and more generally has been about the no-fly list, especially the problem of false positives, which affects people whose names are similar to listed individuals. This is due to long-standing design flaws in the way that the no-fly list was first created many years ago. Those flaws require legislative, regulatory, and technological changes to fix them.

Bill C-59 includes the necessary legislative changes and paves the way for the others that will be necessary. In essence, Canada's no-fly list currently piggybacks onto the airlines' computer systems, which means that the government does not control the fields to be included nor the way that the whole system works. This bill would give us the authority we need to allow the government, instead of airlines, to screen passenger information against the no-fly list. The people who have been affected by this, especially those with children, feel frustrated and stigmatized by their no-fly problems. That is entirely understandable, and that is why we are working so hard to get this fixed. Passing Bill C-59 is a necessary step toward that end.

There is much more in Bill C-59 than I could possibly deal with in these 10 minutes, but in keeping with the open and inclusive approach that we have taken with this legislation since before it was even drafted, we are sending it to committee before second reading to ensure that the examination of the bill is as thorough as possible.

Professor Craig Forcese, a respected expert in national security law from the University of Ottawa, said Bill C-59 “appears to be more carefully crafted than anything we've seen in this area in a long time..”. I appreciate that, but there is still more work to be done.

I certainly hope to hear ideas and advice from colleagues in the House. We are open to constructive suggestions as we work together to ensure that Canada's national security framework is as strong and effective as it can possibly be.

(Bill C–59. On the Order: Government Orders:)

June 20, 2017—the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness—Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security of Bill C-59, An Act respecting national security matters.

Business of the House

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, as a small footnote in history, I used to have the honour of serving as the government House leader. After an absence of 807 weeks, it is my privilege to answer this question once again on behalf of my colleague the current government House leader. Again as a historical reference, members might be interested to know that 807 weeks ago, what we were discussing in the Thursday question was reproductive technologies, public safety, competition legislation, species at risk, and pest control. In some ways, things never change. However, to get to the answer, this afternoon we will continue with the report stage debate on Bill C-45, which is the proposed cannabis legislation.

First, let me associate myself, and I am sure all members of the House, with the comments that the opposition House leader made about the respect we all have, and must have, for our veterans and members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

After we return from this constituency week, we will commence debate on Bill C-59, which deals with national security. I would inform the House that, in the interests of transparency, we will be referring this bill to committee before second reading, which will allow for a broader scope of discussion and consideration and possible amendment of the bill in the committee when that deliberation begins.

Following that, we hope to be back to the debate on Bill C-24, which would amend the Salaries Act. Our focus for the rest of the week after we return will be disposing of Bill C-45 at report stage and third reading.

Finally, Thursday of that week will be an allotted day.

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

I will, and let me first of all, Monsieur Picard, congratulate Parliament and this committee specifically—there were a few different players before—which did the heavy lifting on Bill C-22. We now have the new committee of parliamentarians, which has passed through all stages in Parliament, and Monday the announcement was made regarding the formation of the committee and the members of Parliament and Senate who will be participating in the committee, a brand new aspect of Canada's national security and intelligence infrastructure in place for the first time.

In addition to that, we now have Bill C-59, which you referred to, Monsieur Picard, which again enhances our national security and intelligence architecture. It clarifies a number of the powers and authorities of various agencies, including CSIS. There had been reports from the Federal Court, from commissions of inquiry, from the Security Intelligence Review Committee, and from others saying that there were doubts or ambiguities in the authorities of our various agencies, which needed to be clarified. In a field like national security, you don't want a lot of grey areas, so the law, the new proposal in Bill C-59, brings that clarity in a number of areas with respect to what our agencies can and cannot do. It also establishes new review and oversight mechanisms, including two things in particular. It's an elaborate—

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

We'll likely have a chance to talk about it again.

With the time that's left, I want to go back to another topic we've had a chance to debate in the House recently, which is the no-fly list. Of course we can debate the legislation and the changes that are a part of Bill C-59, but I just want once again, on behalf of the families who were here in Ottawa on Monday, to ask you when we will see the money for that redress system. Beyond the legislative changes—which have merit, I will agree with you on that—the funds are required in order to put the system in place. That would be my first question. When will we see that money?

The second question is where the dollar amount that's been floated out there comes from—it's escaping me—the $78 million or whatnot that was brought out at one point? What do you see as the costs associated with putting that system in place?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

My understanding about the national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians is that they're reviewing CSIS and CSE as to their operations and functions, not so much looking at doing studies. They're going to call in the experts definitely to talk about threat levels and our capabilities. They're going to have a lot more tools at their disposal than we have.

Again, we do have Bill C-59 that's coming before the House. That has a CSE component. This study would dovetail off that as public safety deals with it. Then how does CSE function? How does cybersecurity...? Bill C-59 actually has an enabler there for first-time legislation on cyberwarfare, both on defensive and offensive means. I think once Bill C-59 gets through the House, it will provide us an opportunity to look at that in greater detail and how those changes may impact national defence.

Public Safety

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, the problem is that the no-fly list that was designed 10 years ago contains an inherent design flaw that needs to be fixed. To fix it takes legislation and regulation and a new computer system built from the bottom up.

The first step is to pass Bill C-59 to give us the legal authority to do these things. I urge the NDP to support Bill C-59.

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

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-59, as those parents said today at their press conference, does nothing to fix the problem that they face every single time they try to travel. I would ask the minister if he wants to go in front of those families to tell them, “Do not worry, your child is not on the list.” These are the false positives that are being lived by thousands of Canadians.

Children, business people, and even veterans are finding travelling difficult. They are being humiliated, profiled, and are living in fear of ending up on the no-fly list.

Again I ask the minister: will she fully fund an actual redress system, yes or no?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, we fully appreciate the frustration of law-abiding travellers who can be stigmatized and delayed as a result of false positives on the no-fly list.

However, to be clear, there are no children on the no-fly list, but there is confusion among similar names. That takes new legislation to fix that problem, new regulations, and a new computer system.

The first of those steps is being taken in Bill C-59. I urge the NDP to vote for it.

[Wesley Wark]

Ms. Damoff, I actually thought about that. It's very much up to members of Parliament to decide on that.

I suppose my personal view, for what it's worth, is that Parliament has a lot of onerous duties around reviewing bills on a schedule. If there had to be a trade-off to building in a scheduled review of this act as opposed to Bill C-59, for example, I would rather see it in something more significant, like Bill C-59, than this one.

It's a fairly limited bill in some respects, and if there is that parliamentary reporting requirement, I think that would go a long way to meeting any concerns and would not necessitate a review. If the public reporting suggested there were major problems with the initiative, then presumably Parliament could take some action.

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

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Professor Wark.

I understand that Statistics Canada already publishes entry information for people coming into Canada, as well as their country of origin, so in terms of annual reporting, would it make sense to just have StatsCan add the exit information to their annual report, as opposed to producing a brand new report? If so, do you think it would make sense to make the amendment here, or in Bill C-59?

[Wesley Wark]

Yes. It would be a crosscutting provision. It's really a timing matter, in a way. I think legitimately it should be in Bill C-59 and then referenced back to Bill C-21 in terms of coming-into-force provisions. Probably you folks around the table are more expert than I would be on how to manage that process. It should be in legislation somewhere. There could be a reference in Bill C-21 to that, cross-referencing another piece of legislation, I would think.

[Wesley Wark]

I think I would just reference the fact that the government has been working on a complaints mechanism for CBSA. From my personal perspective, for what it's worth, I would give them time to work that out. They have consulted with outside experts and so on about how that might work. Hopefully, it won't be too long before we see what they're proposing. Then Parliament will have its say on that.

On the independent review of CBSA, my concern is just to kind of leave it vague, as part of a potential responsibility that might fall to the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency under Bill C-59, without CBSA being specifically referenced. Given the important role that CBSA is now playing, I would prefer to see it listed in the legislation somewhere that it will be subject to an independent review by somebody.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

Talking about the complaints procedures, one of the things we've also raised in prior evidence is if there are errors with the information collected, how that gets reported back. You've referred to what the recourse procedures are as well, what's a review. They're slightly different. In fact, how do you say this information that's been collected is an error? Also, what if somebody wanted to contest how long information had been held, saying they felt it had been held too long or it shouldn't have been held? First of all, would you see that built into this legislation? You've been referring to Bill C-59 a fair bit. Do you see it built into another piece of legislation, and what would that look like?

[Wesley Wark]

Absolutely. We're seeing this come forward, and I again refer to Bill C-59, which isn't yet before the committee, and some other aspects around CSIS data analytics and so on. I think this is crucial for public confidence. It's crucial for the organization of CBSA itself. I think when vast amounts of data like this come into the holdings of an organization like CBSA the default is to keep it forever, just in case. I think that's a bad default kind of response. I think there should be a very strict retention schedule built into the legislation that would distinguish between the vast bulk of innocent information, which should be disposed of quite quickly, and information that might be concerning, that could be retained for a longer period of time. I think that should be part of the legislation, not left to vague regulation that we might not see.

[Wesley Wark]

That's correct, although national security, as you'll know, Mr. Dubé, is not defined anywhere in the law, so the definition could be stretched or compacted, depending on the need.

Bill C-59 doesn't specifically indicate that CBSA, as one of the principal security and intelligence agencies, would necessarily fall under the systematic review of the new National Security and Intelligence Review Agency. The only agencies that are listed in part 1 of Bill C-59 are CSIS and CSE, and the rest is left to a broad mandate where CBSA and others might be reviewed, but not necessarily.

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

The committee of parliamentarians and what's being proposed in Bill C-59 is the first time we're seeing any kind of review for CBSA. In that context, if I'm not mistaken—I just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly what's being proposed—that would only be for issues related to national security. Is that correct?

[Wesley Wark]

The short answer to that is absolutely. It seems to me it would fit nicely under the current government's transparency commitments. As you know, in Bill C-59 there are a variety of statutory requirements for agencies to provide public reports, and in some cases unprecedented public reports to Parliament and the public, for example from CSE. I think this would be very appropriate to build into Bill C-21.

[Wesley Wark]

No, Mr. Dubé. It would clarify it in two particular ways. It would clarify that the minister would be responsible for any sharing arrangements that were undertaken using this data coming in to CBSA with other federal government departments. That would obviously intersect a bit with SCIDA provisions of Bill C-59, which will come up before this committee.

The more important part in my view is to allow the information collected through this initiative to be shared under written agreements that would be composed by the minister to be shared with select foreign partners. Those are the section 12 provisions of SATA.

[Wesley Wark]

Let me just turn to SATA very quickly, if I could. There are short sections.

Section 11 of the SATA indicates:

the Minister may disclose information obtained in the exercise or performance of the Minister's powers, duties or functions under this Act for the purposes of transportation security or the prevention of the travel referred to

Basically, that's indicating that this is a ministerial responsibility. It doesn't specify how exactly the minister may create regulation around domestic intelligence sharing or information sharing under C-21, but at least it puts the spotlight on the ministerial responsibility there, specifically with regard to domestic federal government information sharing. Given that there's a lot of concern around this and that it will likely resurface when C-59 comes into discussion again, some clarity in that regard would be important.

More importantly, from my view, the notion that we are going to create an entry-exit initiative for air travel and not share it with any of our close partners or any foreign state strikes me as a nonsense and something that is likely to be abused because it is a nonsense. I would prefer to see something like SATA section 12, which says:

The Minister may enter into a written arrangement relating to the disclosure of information referred to in section 11 with the government of a foreign state, an institution of such a government or an international organization

It's setting down rules around how the minister can interact with foreign partners in the sharing of entry-exit data, which is the sensible way to go, rather than having a blanket restriction that will ultimately face pressure and potential abuse.

[Wesley Wark, Visiting Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I thank you for the invitation to appear and testify on Bill C-21, an act to amend the Customs Act. I'm going to read my remarks, in a desperate academic attempt to stay within your 10-minute time frame.

Bill C-21 provides statutory powers for the final phase of the entry-exit initiative. As the committee will be aware from previous testimony, the entry-exit scheme dates back to promises made under the Beyond the Border action plan agreed to in 2011 between Canada and the United States. Its provisions are, for now, Canada-U.S.-centric. The Beyond the Border action plan is the latest iteration of agreed schemes for post-9/11 border security, dating back to the safe border accord of December 2001. The Liberal government affirmed its commitment to the entry-exit information plan during a summit meeting between Prime Minister Trudeau and then U.S. President Obama in March 2016.

The entry-exit scheme has had a staged rollout since its first phase, which lasted from September 2012 to June 2013. It served to test the data exchange between Canada and the U.S. at select land border ports of entry. The second phase began in June 2013 for fuller land border crossing information exchange for third country nationals, permanent residents of Canada, and lawful permanent residents of the United States. The final stage of entry-exit, requiring statutory force in Bill C-21, would see the biographical exchange of information on all travellers, including Canadian citizens, at the land border, and the collection of biographical exit data on all air travellers, again including Canadian citizens, leaving Canada.

Biographical data acquired under Bill C-21 would consist, as you've heard, of the page 2 information from Canadian passports presented to Customs and Border Protection officials at U.S. ports of entry when crossing the land border. This information includes, as you'll know, name, nationality, date of birth, sex, and place of birth.

For the air mode, it would involve what is referred to as API/PNR, or advance passenger information/passenger name record, data provided by air carriers and air reservation systems for exit records for air travel. API data includes page 2 biographical passport data plus flight information. PNR derives from airline departure control and reservation systems, and varies depending on the collector. It can include type of ticket, date of travel, number of bags, and seat information.

The information flow that Bill C-21 augments is meant to be automatic. It would involve the passage of electronic data from U.S. CBP at land entry—U.S. entry data becoming Canadian exit data—in near real time. For air travel, it would involve the transmission of electronic passenger manifests from air carriers. All of this information would go to the Canada Border Services Agency for processing.

The backgrounder published by the government when the legislation was first introduced in June 2016 indicates that the entry-exit initiative is meant to serve a large number of objectives. It is not specifically a national security tool, but could, in my view, enhance investigations into the movements of suspected terrorists, foreign espionage actors, and WMD proliferators, among other actors of concerns, and it could provide a useful investigative supplement to other powers available to security and intelligence agencies.

It is worth noting that Mr. Bolduc of CBSA testified before this committee on October 3, making the point that one additional benefit that Bill C-21 powers would provide was “it will bring Canada on par with the rest of the world and our Five Eyes partners. There's a huge, huge benefit for Canada.” This was a direct quotation from Mr. Bolduc. I am not quite sure how to read this enthusiasm, except to say that Bill C-21 measures are, in keeping with a long tradition in Canadian national security, meant to demonstrate our ally worthiness.

In this same vein, it is also important to note the restrictions that the government has said it will put in place in terms of information sharing from the vast pool of data that will be collected under Bill C-21. Land border exit information will inevitably be shared with the United States government, because the information is collected by U.S. CBP agents. We are assured that exit information from the air mode would not be shared with the United States or any other foreign government. Whether this blanket restriction makes sense is questionable, in my view. The committee may wish to consider an amendment to the legislation in this regard, which would bring it more into line with the Secure Air Travel Act, of which I'll speak a little later.

Minister Goodale has testified before this committee that “exchange of information both within Canada and with the U.S. will be subject to formal agreements that will include information management safeguards, privacy protection clauses, and mechanisms to address any potential problems.” These are important promises that presumably will be fulfilled through regulation. Notably absent, however, is any commitment to transparency around the entry-exit initiative. There is no requirement, for example, for any annual report to Parliament and the public on its application and efficacy.

This lack of a transparency commitment is compounded by the current absence of meaningful independent review of CBSA, the core actor that will operationalize Bill C-21.

While government officials have testified that the information flows provided for through Bill C-21 will be seamless and automatic, the real issues, it seems to me, involve analysis of the data by CBSA, retention and security of the data, and information sharing. Bill C-21 legislation is a black box in these regards, leaving much to regulation. There is a question in my mind as to whether the legislation needs to be more forthcoming in three particular areas: data retention schedules, information sharing protocols, and transparency requirements.

Before I come to some modest proposals to improve Bill C-21, a note on a parallel and existing legislative power might be in order. There exists already a limited form of entry-exit controls for air travel, which have been in place since 2007 but which were amended with Bill C-51 in 2015 under the title of the Secure Air Travel Act or SATA. SATA, often referred to as the passenger protect program, creates a list of persons that the Minister of Public Safety “has reasonable grounds to suspect will (a) engage or attempt to engage in an act that would threaten transportation security; or (b) travel by air for the purpose of committing” a terrorism offence. I'm slightly paraphrasing the sections of SATA here.

SATA contains some provisions that are not held in common with Bill C-21, including specific powers and information disclosure, both domestically and through written agreements with foreign states and entities. These are under sections 11 and 12 of the Secure Air Travel Act. These sections, incidentally, are not proposed to be amended in Bill C-59 as that bill comes forward, presumably, to this committee.

There is also an important statutory reference to retention of data received from air carriers or air reservation systems in the SATA legislation, and this requires:

The Minister of Transport must destroy any information received from an air carrier or an operator of an [air] reservation system within seven days after the act on which it is received, unless it is reasonably required for the purposes of this Act.

That's section 18 of SATA. In other words, the minister is empowered to retain records of air travel for the listed persons but not for the general public.

To bring Bill C-21 into closer alignment with SATA on data retention and information sharing protocols and to enhance transparency and ensure independent review of its powers, I would suggest the following responses to Bill C-21, which the committee might want to take under consideration:

First, Bill C-21 should adopt the explicit SATA references in sections 11 and 12 for information sharing domestically and internationally. I think this would be an improvement on doing this by regulation.

Second, Bill C-21 should adopt a reasonable retention schedule for entry-exit data based on expert government advice on the minimum period necessary for the retention to meet the many different objectives of the entry-exit initiative as listed in the backgrounder document published with the bill in 2016. A seven-day retention cycle as provided for in SATA would be self-defeating, but so would overly lengthy retention periods. CBSA must not become a data swamp.

Third, Bill C-21 should contain a mandatory requirement for annual reporting to Parliament on its provisions by CBSA.

Fourth, the committee should encourage the government to be explicit about its plans for the conduct of regulatory review of CBSA national security activities, either through an independent body or captured by the paragraph 8(1)(b) mandate for the proposed national security and intelligence review agency, NSIRA, under Bill C-59. This may require future clarifying amendments to Bill C-59.

Fifth, the committee should encourage the government to finalize its plans for an independent complaints mechanism for CBSA. There have been discussions under way about this for some considerable time now.

Sixth, and finally, I would encourage the committee to hold early hearings on CBSA and its rapidly expanding mandate. Doing so might serve as a foundational exercise for the new national security and intelligence review agency when it is created.

Thank you for your time and attention.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for coming.

I'm going to also start with No Fly List Kids. A lot of the questions have been answered, and I also agree with Mr. Boulerice's comments. But I am somewhat glad you're here in the sense that if funding is an issue, then it's important for this committee to know as part of our pre-budget deliberations, because if we don't know and we don't hear it, frankly, then we can't actually make a recommendation. So I am glad you're here, despite the fact that it sounds like an awful situation to be in, and I am sorry that has happened.

In response to my colleague Mr. Fergus's question about Bill C-59, my understanding is that if the request to come off the list is made and the minister doesn't respond, then they can default off. I think, Mr. Ahmed, you said something to the effect that the name would be on the list and you are just told that it is not on the list. I'm sorry if I misheard, but could you explain why you think that the change in Bill C-59 in terms of the minister's non-response would be a default removal and why that wouldn't actually change anything?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I would like to ask a second question.

A provision of Bill C-59 indicates that if the minister does not respond to a request to delist a name, the name will be removed from the list by default. Do you think the provision is acceptable? I know we can do better, but is this provision significant?

[Khadija Cajee]

Okay. As far as our understanding goes, the office exists basically in name only. I don't know if it's even staffed, to be honest with you. We have applied. They have some sort of application process online that we have applied to, but the response is always basically the same as the response from before the office was announced. It hasn't changed anything in terms of our experience or the fact that the children are still on the list or any of that. That all still remains the same. There is still no mechanism to get the children off the list.

The only thing that's changed with the incoming Bill C-59 is that now the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness is actually sort of legally allowed to say that, yes, your child is on the list, whereas, previously, he wasn't allowed to say that.

That's our understanding, but nothing substantial has changed.

[Sulemaan Ahmed]

We were advised that we would be told if our child was on the list or not through Bill C-59, but it does not mean that they will be removed. Therefore, it does not tell us anything that we don't know already.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you for that.

My understanding is that with Bill C-59, there is a system for recourse. I just want to make sure that if an application is made, the minister can then respond to that application when a person is placed on a no-fly list, specifically children.

[Sulemaan Ahmed, No Fly List Kids]

We thank you for the opportunity to be here today, Mr. Sorbara. I would like to thank a few members of the committee including the Honourable Wayne Easter, Kamal Khera, yourself, and others who have already written letters of support. As of today, we have 168 MPs in the House of Commons from all political parties—the Greens, the NDP, the Conservatives, the Bloc Québécois, and the Liberals—who have supported this in writing

Our view is that Bill C-59 is legislation. What we require is funding immediately, and we require it for a technical solution. The United States has had the solution for a decade. As a nation, we do not need to wait another two years for funding or legislation to pass in the House, then another two years for a budget, and yet another two years, because as David Herle, the senior adviser to Minister Goodale has told us, once the funding is provided, it will require two years at least to make a build. That's six years, sir.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for all your presentations today. This is the last panel of the two weeks of travel we've been doing.

I need to get right down to it with No Fly List Kids.

Sulemaan, we've had a number of conversations over the last few months. I appreciate you folks coming here, and I really wish you didn't have to come here. I usually like to meet my stakeholders, and I'm happy to see them, but I think that in this instance it's disappointing to have folks having to come to the finance committee to let us know what's going on, especially with regard to your eight-year-old son, Adam.

I do know from conversations that there are many of us in support of fixing the system. I also know that in Bill C-59, our national security legislation, there have been steps put in place to get us on that journey. This is a system that was created and has been a long time coming. It has created some issues.

How disruptive has this been to your family? I want you to know that there are many MPs and other people working to help fix the situation. I do believe that Bill C-59 is one step towards that.

Transport, Infrastructure and Communities

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his interesting question. It reminds me of what we saw with the Conservative government's Bill C-51 and what we are still seeing with Bill C-59. Bill C-59 is supposedly going to repair the damage caused by Bill C-51, which jeopardizes the right of activists to protest for the environment.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is currently in court because the CSIS watchdog refuses to release documents that would show whether these people were spied on. This is sowing division and keeping people from speaking out and making sure the country and the government are on the right track with regard to the environment and sustainable development. We find that unacceptable.

Public Safety

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, in fact, the details of Bill C-59 have been examined by the most eminent experts in the field. Every single one of them has said that this represents a major step forward in terms of transparency, scrutiny, and accountability, including real-time oversight and the creation, for the first time, of the office of the intelligence commissioner that will examine the activities of security agencies before those activities are undertaken, as well as having them reviewed afterward.

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

Mr. Speaker, Canadians' overall distrust of our security agencies is a direct consequence of the fact that we have no mechanism to provide real-time oversight and accountability.

The government is currently in court with environmental groups it has accused of spying. Even the watchdog tasked with monitoring CSIS operations failed in its duty by dismissing their complaint and throwing a cloak of total secrecy over the whole case.

Bill C-59 does nothing to fix these problems, but pays lip service to them. When will the minister truly take steps to make real-time oversight, fix these problems, limit the excessive powers of CSIS, and truly protect the rights of Canadians to peaceful protests?

[Niall Cronin]

I'm sorry. It was Bill C-59...?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Okay. That would be interesting to know, because the minister did say that, to date, the safe third country agreement hasn't been brought up, and we're wondering why.

I'm just wondering if in either of your departments there has been any analysis on the potential effects of Bill C-59, in terms of the availability of either of your departments to share information with CBSA or IRCC or even the IRB, with regard to people who have sought asylum protection or have received it, and to identify them as potential public safety risks.

[Brenda McPhail]

Yes. I think that is the case. It's possible that the revisions under Bill C-59 will ever so slightly limit some of those concerns in relation to stricter proportionality requirements around sharing.

Still, once information is shared under that agreement, we don't know how far it can go, and again that brings up the concerns about whether the uses of that information will be limited to what it was collected for.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

My question is then subsequently related to the information-sharing agreements and processes related to that process and other processes between hearing asylum claims and ensuring the safety of Canada.

The current law stipulates that institutions can share information if it's “relevant to the recipient institution's jurisdiction or responsibilities under an Act of Parliament or another lawful authority in respect of activities that undermine the security of Canada, including in respect of their detection, identification, analysis, prevention, investigation or disruption”.

My understanding is that if Bill C-59 comes into force, Government of Canada institutions will be permitted to share only information that contributes to the recipient institution's carrying out of its responsibilities.

Has an analysis been done on how Bill C-59 will affect the minister's ability to carry out the responsibilities outlined in ENF 28?

[Brenda McPhail]

Yes. My understanding is that under the terms of Bill C-59 it is the national security functions of CBSA that will be brought under the aegis of the new integrated review committee. It's not clear to me whether or not the more specifically customs-related activities of CBSA are covered under that. It's actually a bit unclear the extent to which all the activities of CBSA are covered, because the legislation specifies that it will be their national security activities that are subject to review by that committee.

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

I should also mention that we can set our time frame and discuss with the Americans, but obviously we have no control over what they decide to do. If they have determined 75 years, we can have those conversations but we obviously can't make any requirements towards the U.S. to shorten that time frame.

Ms. McPhail, you were talking about oversight of CBSA. I would just mention, though, that it is included in Bill C-59. While it doesn't exist right now, it is something that is included in the legislation that is before the House. We anticipate and hope to see that legislation at this committee, and then of course go through the Senate. That is something that will be taking place once that legislation becomes finalized, and we'll fill the gap that currently exists. I recognize this came here first, but we are looking at doing that. You were aware of that, I'm assuming.

[Brenda McPhail, Director, Privacy, Technology and Surveillance Project, Canadian Civil Liberties Association]

Thank you to the committee for allowing the Canadian Civil Liberties Association the opportunity to appear before you today and speak on Bill C-21.

I'm going to focus on three topics: first, the need to for appropriate frameworks including explicit privacy protection for information sharing that happens between the CBP and the CBSA; second, the need to ensure that critical details about how the collection of this information will take place receives public attention and parliamentary debate rather than relying excessively on regulations; and third, the need to increase CBSA accountability commensurately with this significant increase in their powers.

The information that Canada will collect and share with the United States after Bill C-21 is passed includes biographical information as well as the date, time, and place of entry or exit for every traveller crossing the Canadian border, including Canadian citizens.

This is information on literally millions of Canadians. StatsCan suggests that in January 2017 alone Canadians made 3.6 million trips to the U.S. It also allows for information about every person who boards a plane, train, bus, or ship—if those conveyances are prescribed, because that prescription is left to regulation—in Canada to be collected and shared.

When the beyond the border agreement was signed, CCLA along with the ACLU in the United States and Privacy International in the U.K. developed and released a series of core legal principles for sharing the U.S.-Canada security perimeter. In respect of information sharing, we recommended that it should be restricted to the particular purpose—not used, disseminated, or stored for secondary uses. It needs to be subject to rules limiting the duration of retention to reasonable periods, and it should be subject to independent oversight review and accountability procedures. In particular, when the laws of the two countries differ, the highest standard that grants the best protections to individuals should prevail.

As an example of the problems introduced by different privacy standards, we're concerned that at the time this bill was originally discussed in 2014 one source suggested that Canada had decided to limit the time they could retain personally identifiable information to 15 years. The U.S. has said they reserve the right to retain it for 75 years or longer. Even 15 years is a long time, and it's worth considering whether or not that's the right time frame. It is highly questionable that Canada could maintain control over the uses of information through a memorandum of agreement with the U.S. for as long as a lifetime .

We believe the responsibility for taking such principles seriously should be explicit in the legislation. In addition to the current amendments to Bill C-21, we would suggest including an amendment to add a preamble similar to that found in the recent national security legislation, Bill C-59, and similar to that found in section 3 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which is another act that CBSA administers. Both of these pieces of legislation explicitly identify the responsibility of customs enforcement officers to carry out their responsibilities in a manner that safeguards the rights and freedoms of Canadians and that respects the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. One might argue that it's incumbent on them to do so whether or not that clause is inserted in the legislation, but we would argue that there is both practical and symbolic value in including it in the Customs Act at this time.

On a pragmatic level, one way to ensure that privacy protections are in place is to conduct privacy impact assessments. Clearly, for a project of this scope, which is going to collect information on millions of Canadians, these assessments should be undertaken before information is collected under this legislation and ideally in time to inform the regulations. The assessments should be reviewed by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and an executive summary should be publicly reported.

We realize that Bill C-21 is enabling legislation and will continue a process that has already begun. In fact, there were privacy impact assessments for the pilot stages of this project before Canadian information was collected, but these assessments need to be updated in light of the expanded collection.

CBSA also committed to conducting an analysis on all uses of personal information by all parties involved in the sharing of biographic entry data, and while that analysis to my knowledge is not publicly available, I would suggest that, as an important precautionary step before expanding the scope, the committee might wish to see if that analysis actually took place, and figure out how it's working now before we expand it.

I'd also just like to flag that in 2015, in his spring report, the Auditor General expressed concerns that the CBSA's project management framework was not conducting risk assessments at appropriate times. That would be another area where the committee might want to make sure the technological infrastructures as well as the policy infrastructures around this information are appropriately secure.

In relation to regulations, clause 2 of Bill C-21 amends the act so that proposed subsection 92(1) will allow the CBSA to collect information from prescribed sources in the prescribed circumstances, within the prescribed time, and in the prescribed manner, and then allow the Governor in Council to make regulations to fill in those blanks. The problem is that leaving so much to be prescribed means a process that is less public, less transparent, and less accountable.

In simpler terms, who we are going to collect the information from, why, when, and how is not clearly specified anywhere in the legislation, but these aren't inconsequential details. Knowing them would allow us to evaluate the nature of the collection process, weigh the potential risks to privacy, and better understand the potential costs of a leak or breach. Knowing the source of information allows us to judge its integrity. Knowing why and how it can be collected allows us to assess the proportionality of the collection in relation to its purpose. Clichés sometimes ring true: the devil is in the details.

While we appreciate the need to keep the legislation technologically neutral and flexible, flexible should not mean completely open-ended, particularly because regulations can be changed quietly, largely out of public view, with a much less democratic process than the one we're engaging in today. What current drafters intend to include in the regulations may not be what subsequent governments would choose.

We are, at this time, witness to a dramatic change in policy direction in one of our neighbours. We should take that lesson to heart. When we're talking about practices that engage charter-protected rights to privacy and mobility, safeguards should be enshrined in law. To this end we recommend the committee consider what aspects of the collection process could and should reasonably be included in the legislation.

Lastly, this bill expands CBSA powers but does not increase accountability. CBSA is still the only federal agency with security and law enforcement powers that doesn't have comprehensive, independent oversight or review of its actions. We argue that it's unwise to continue expanding their powers without increasing that accountability framework.

CBSA will now be allowed to share information for the purposes of enforcing the Employment Insurance Act and the Old Age Security Act. If mistakes are made, that could have highly detrimental effects on individuals. There should be a possibility for individuals to appeal the accuracy of the information to an independent body.

CBSA's role in controlling the exit of goods and people from Canada is expanding. The bill creates a new requirement for people exiting Canada now to answer the questions of a CBSA officer truthfully. Answering falsely is an offence. This is a broad power. There is no question that people should have to respond truthfully to a CBSA officer, but I'm sure we've all seen recent stories about agents on both sides of the border asking questions that people are alleging relate to racial background, religious beliefs, and political opinions. Potentially allowing some form of this intrusive and problematic questioning on exit as well as entry doubles the opportunity for potential abuses of power.

While creating an independent review body for the CBSA is clearly beyond the scope of this bill, allowing a potential escalation of a non-problem while simultaneously failing to provide a recourse to an independent civilian body to receive complaints, review policies or officer conduct, or investigate potential misconduct is simply wrong. Every time the CBSA's powers are increased, the lack of an independent review body to provide additional and necessary safeguards becomes more problematic.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide these comments. I look forward to your questions.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I'm just curious as well. There's a bill in front of the House of Commons, Bill C-59. Has your department done any sort of analysis on that bill in terms of how it would impact the information that's shared from the RCMP should they find evidence of criminality or any sort of threat to the public with either the IRB or your department? Is there any change that the bill would present in terms of information sharing?

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

There are several safeguards, including, number one, the nature of the information. It is very basic data, and it's data that people already share. If you're crossing into the United States, you show your passport. What this will add is the provision that this information will then automatically come back to the CBSA too. You've already told the Americans, so CBSA will have the data that would say this individual left Canada at this time at this border crossing. That's safeguard number one, the nature of the information.

Safeguard number two is the relationship we've developed with the Privacy Commissioner. In all of these measures, whether it's for this or Bill C-23 or Bill C-59, we have an ongoing dialogue with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. He comments on areas where we could improve, where he sees problems, where he would like to see things changed, and all of that advice is taken very seriously in crafting both the law and the regulations.

There are privacy impact assessments that are required to be done. The ones that have been done so far on this initiative are already on the website. Once the legislation is passed and we actually have the legal framework, we will produce a new privacy impact assessment that will be made public to satisfy the requirements of the Privacy Commissioner. There will also be written agreements between the relevant Canadian departments and between Canada and the U.S., which will detail the way the information will be managed and safeguarded, what the privacy protection clauses need to be, and the mechanisms for addressing any potential problems. That will all be laid out in agreements governing—

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

Minister, that's fair, but the question is this. So as amended under Bill C-59—that's fine—this information will be shareable across government agencies, based on that regime of information sharing.

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

In due course, as it will be amended by Bill C-59, the rules would apply, Monsieur Dubé, but again, the critical point for the purposes of Bill C-21 is the nature of the information. It is nothing more or nothing less than what is on page 2 of your passport.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, let me echo what you said about the events in Edmonton and Las Vegas.

Welcome back to the committee. I'm going to apologize in advance if I have to cut you off, as I do have several questions.

The first one is about the information-sharing regime put in place under what was Bill C-51 and that is maintained mostly in its integrity under Bill C-59. Would this information be shared among the government agencies covered by what is now referred to as SCISA?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, good morning.

I'm sure you would all like to join me this morning in expressing our deep concern with respect to the two very serious incidents that occurred this past weekend, one in Edmonton and the other in Las Vegas. These circumstances are horrendous in our free and open and democratic society. It's at times like these that we all pull together to support each other and to applaud our first responders on both sides of the border, who have done extraordinary work. We extend our thoughts and prayers to the victims and the families and the loved ones, and we hope for the speedy and full recovery of those who have been injured. We make the emphatic point that events like this will not divide us, nor will they intimidate us. Police investigations are obviously ongoing; they're at a very early stage. A lot more information will be forthcoming in due course, but we I'm sure stand in solidarity with one another within our country and across the border when these kinds of sorry events occur.

Mr. Chairman, with respect to this meeting and this topic, this is my first opportunity to be before the committee since the return of Parliament, so welcome to you as the new chair. I notice some other new faces on all sides of the table, and some old-timers too. To all of you, welcome, and thank you for the invitation to be here today. I look forward to a very good relationship with the committee.

We begin, of course, with BillC-21. I'm joined today by Martin Bolduc, who is vice-president of the Canada Border Services Agency; Sébastien Aubertin-Giguère, who is director general of the traveller program directorate within CBSA; and Andrew Lawrence, who is the acting executive director of the traveller program directorate.

The bill that we're here to discuss will at long last enable Canada to keep track of not only who enters our country but also who leaves it. If that sounds pretty fundamental, actually it is. But there has been a gap in our border system for a great many years that we are now proposing to close with Bill C-21. I would point out that many other countries, including all of our Five Eyes allies, already collect this information that is commonly known as “exit” data. Canada, with Bill C-21, will catch up to those other countries and fill the gap.

The information that we're talking about is simply the basic identification information that is found on page 2 of everyone's passport, along with the time and the place of departure. It's the same simple identification information that all travellers willingly hand over when they cross the border. When you cross into the United States, you show your passport and the border officers take note of the information on page 2. It's that information that we're talking about here: name, date, place of birth, nationality, gender, and the issuing authority of the travel document.

The way this information will be collected is really quite straightforward, and travellers should notice no difference at all in the process. For people leaving Canada by air, the air carrier will collect that information, as it already does from passenger manifests, and it will give it to the Canada Border Services Agency before departure. For people crossing by land into the United States, American officials collecting this information, as they already do in the form of entry data, will then send it back to CBSA where it will serve as exit data. This will work in the same way in reverse for travellers crossing into Canada from the United States. The experience from the point of the view of the traveller will be absolutely unchanged.

With this information in hand, Canadian officials will be better able to deal with cross-border crime, including child abductions and human trafficking. It will strengthen our ability to prevent radicalized individuals from travelling to join terrorist groups overseas. It will help ensure the integrity of benefit programs where residency requirements are part of the eligibility criteria. It will also ensure that immigration officials have complete and accurate information when they do their jobs. They won't waste a lot of time dealing with people who have already left the country.

Finally, the legislation also addresses a concern raised in the Auditor General's report in the fall of 2015 about the need for stronger measures to combat the unlawful export of controlled or dangerous goods. Bill C-21 will amend the Customs Act to prohibit smuggling controlled goods out of Canada. Currently, and this may be a surprise to some people, only smuggling “into” Canada is prohibited. The new legislation will give border officers the authorities regarding outbound goods similar to the ones they already have for inbound goods.

Mr. Chair, I followed closely the second reading debate in the House about Bill C-21. There were not a lot of specific issues raised, but there was one mentioned by Mr. Dubé that I would like to respond to. It had to do with this issue of the sharing of information with the United States. I was concerned that there seemed to be a view that any exchange of information with the U.S. was inherently a bad thing.

I think we should keep in mind that the process of Canadian and U.S. authorities working together and exchanging information, pursuant to laws and agreements and subject to oversight, is essential for our mutual security. For example, when Canadian authorities were able to take action in Strathroy, Ontario, last summer to prevent a planned terrorist attack, that was due to an exchange of information with the United States. Because of that, the RCMP and local police authorities were able to prevent a much larger tragedy. Working in concert with our American partners, and exchanging information with them according to the rules, is very important to our national interests. It supports having the longest, most open, successful international boundary in the history of the world.

The key questions are these: what kind of information is to be shared, with what safeguards, and for what purposes? Bill C-21 provides very clear answers. What kind of information? As I said, it's the basic identification data, on page 2 of our passports, that we all offer up whenever we cross a border. It's worth pointing out that if Canada is sharing this information with the United States, that is only because the person in question has just come into Canada from the United States, to whom they necessarily gave the same information upon entry. It's not new or expanded information beyond the fact that they have left. That's the sum and substance of the data that is involved.

What safeguards are in place? To begin with, the government has engaged proactively throughout this whole process with the Privacy Commissioner. That engagement continues. You can find the privacy impact assessments of the current and previous phases of entry/exit implementation on the CBSA website. A new assessment will be updated once the new legislation is actually in effect.

In addition, exchange of information both within Canada and with the U.S. will be subject to formal agreements that will include information management safeguards, privacy protection clauses, and mechanisms to address any potential problems.

All of this will be happening in the context of the most robust national security accountability structure that Canada has ever had. We've already passed Bill C-22, which creates the new National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. Add to that Bill C-59, introduced in the spring, which will create a new national security and intelligence review agency. And as you know, we have proactively, in the last number of days, released new ministerial directives about information sharing that have been broadly applauded as significant advancements.

Finally, what purpose does the exchange of information serve? As I've outlined, it will help Canadian authorities do everything from combatting cross-border crime to preventing terrorist travel to improving the management of social benefits and immigration programs. But to give you a concrete example, if it's discovered one evening that a child is missing, police can do a check of the exit records to see if the child left the country earlier that day, where, at what time, and in whose company. That is obviously immensely helpful to investigators working collaboratively on both sides of the border in their efforts to recover the child and catch the kidnapper. For that reason alone, I hope the committee will see fit to report this bill back to the House with all deliberate speed.

I thank you for your attention, Mr. Chair, and look forward to questions.

[Yavar Hameed]

I have a couple of recommendations. One is, I'm not speaking to the national strategy but certainly taking that information and bringing it back to policies that exist. I would flag Bill C-59, things that were not touched under Bill C-51, so using that information to inform existing state policy.

Number two is to create a repository of complaints. If complaint mechanisms already exist within departments, I think perhaps there should be an overarching way to collect that information, to gather that information, so we have a sense of the kinds of discrimination that Muslims are facing across the board, so coalescing that in some way.

The last one I would say is to improve oversight. There's a lot of discussion. We can get into this as well. Oversight we know post-Arar is deficient. We need to enhance those methods, but the only way we can do that is to understand the problem.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, again I would remind the hon. member that because of the nature of the investigation presently under way, questions of that nature cannot be answered in detail at this time. The police will pursue the evidence wherever it leads, and they will lay charges as appropriate.

With respect to information sharing among departments, I would advise her to examine the details of Bill C-59.

[Dr. Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thanks very much. Good afternoon.

My name is Michael Geist. I am a law professor at the University of Ottawa, where I hold the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law. I have appeared many times before this committee on privacy issues, although not always in such a nice room. As always, I appear in a personal capacity representing only my own views.

I'm grateful to the committee for its commitment to privacy and its efforts to highlight the privacy issues associated with our airports and border crossings. The media has regularly covered these issues, as you know. There are fears of device searches at borders, stories of information sharing that goes beyond most reasonable expectations, and mounting concerns about the approach of U.S. law and border officials with respect to the privacy rights of non-citizens and non-permanent residents.

These stories hit home, as we saw just a few minutes ago with Mr. Long in the last panel. Everyone seems to have their own story. Recent incidents include one involving a Quebec resident who didn't want to provide his cellphone password. It was searched at the Canadian border in Halifax. He was ultimately arrested for not giving a passcode when asked. The argument was that he was hindering an investigation. In another incident, a Canadian man was denied entry into the U.S. after customs and border patrol officers demanded that he open his phone and provide access to his apps. There was yet another incident involving a Canadian photojournalist who was inspected on his way to Standing Rock. Officials photocopied pages of his personal journal and asked for three mobile phone passwords, which he said he could not disclose because of his ethical obligation to protect his sources. The phones were taken and returned hours later with tamper tape covering the SIM cards, suggesting the cards had been removed and copied.

The privacy associated with border crossings now seemingly captures everyone's attention. I think it's worth asking why. I think there are at least three sources of concern that help point to potential policy solutions.

First, there is the feeling amongst many that border crossings represent no-privacy zones in which it feels as if officials are entitled to demand whatever information they wish and can use whatever means to acquire it. I know of technical experts who regularly wipe their phones or establish border crossing social media accounts in order to counter fears of invasive searches, both physical and digital, when crossing the border.

Second, as these stories suggest, the search itself—and we've heard about this now from a number of people—has changed dramatically in recent years with the legal safeguards failing to keep pace. It's one thing to know that your belongings may be searched. Yet today, we all know that our devices and the information on them can tell a far more personal story, our social graph, our location history, our reading habits, our contacts, and our purchasing history. In searching this information, officials may literally be accessing just about everything about us. Doing so, potentially without appropriate safeguards, understandably leaves many feeling vulnerable. The data indicates, as we heard on the last panel, that at least in the United States, these forms of searches are increasing rapidly. In fact, in the United States, there have been some policies that have posited that such searches can occur with or without reasonable suspicion.

Third, it may not be comfortable to say, but part of the concern stems from the fact that the U.S. border is by order of magnitude the most significant one for Canadians. This is not solely a comment about the current U.S. administration. Rather, it reflects long-standing concerns about the U.S. approach to privacy and fears that U.S. privacy protections may be weaker than those found in Canada. For example, the enactment of the USA Patriot Act after 9/11 opened the door to extensive access to personal information without traditional safeguards. Over 10 years later, the Snowden revelations reinforced the massive data gathering efforts of signals intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Most recently, the Trump administration's executive order aimed at reversing efforts to establish privacy protections for non-U.S. citizens and residents again placed the issue in the spotlight.

What is there to do about it? I thought the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, who raised issues such as information sharing across borders, the U.S. executive order, and CBSA searches provided excellent context and advice.

I'd like to briefly provide additional comments on four issues.

First, I think this committee and several of these committees have done excellent work on Privacy Act reform. As you know, it has been an issue that has regularly come up before this committee. There are few areas within Canadian privacy that are more overdue for updating. Indeed, there have been consistent and persistent calls for reforms for decades.

One of the methods of addressing some of the airport privacy concerns in Canada may be through the Privacy Act. Your proposed reforms to provide the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada with greater powers would empower that office to examine border issues in a more comprehensive manner and open the door to more careful reviews of cross-border sharing arrangements. You recommended the reforms; now we need action.

Second, information sharing within government—we just heard about it from Mr. Fraser—remains a source of concern. Indeed, some of the most notable anecdotal stories involving abuses or questionable conduct at the border arise due to information sharing between governments or government departments. The Privacy Act and the OPC are supposed to create safeguards against misuse of personal information, or the use of information for purposes for which it was not collected. However, we have witnessed mounting pressure in recent years for more information sharing between governments and government departments.

Bill C-51, which we all know garnered widespread criticism, featured a significant expansion of government sharing of information, undermining, I would argue, the effectiveness of the Privacy Act. Unfortunately, the information-sharing provisions as they were amended in that bill were only modestly changed. Information sharing was considered a feature, not a bug, and I should note that included the Liberal Party when it was in opposition.

Bill C-59, which seeks to amend Bill C-51, leaves many of the information-sharing provisions intact. There are two needs here that must be reconciled. One, I think we all recognize that government needs to be able to use the information it collects in a reasonable and efficient manner. Two, the public needs confidence that its information will not be misused. That confidence comes from legislative safeguards and effective oversight. There is reason to believe we do not yet have the right balance.

Third, as the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has discussed, Canadian law must apply on Canadian soil when it comes to these issues, particularly the charter. Reducing so-called friction at the border is a laudable goal. No traveller wants long lines or lengthy delays, and that of course applies in a commercial context as well. However, expediency has a price, and sacrificing the Canadian Charter of Rights on Canadian soil is, in my view, a bad bargain. The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld unauthorized searches of devices, and those principles should apply on Canadian soil in a like manner at the border.

Fourth, with the NAFTA negotiations ongoing this week in Ottawa, I think it is important to link those trade talks with this issue. While there is no airport privacy chapter in the agreement, at least that I'm aware of, NAFTA touches on many of these related issues. There will be pressure—we know there is pressure—to speed up border crossings in the name of increased trade. Further, the digital trade chapter, formerly the e-commerce chapter, is likely to include provisions on data localization, prohibiting some of the data localization, and restrictions on data transfers. NAFTA, of course, is not a privacy deal, but the reverberations from the agreement will be felt in the privacy world.

The European Union has regularly linked privacy and data protection with trade. We ought to do the same, recognizing that these issues are linked and that the policy recommendations that come out of this committee on this issue need to make their way into the negotiations. In fact, I'd go even further by noting that the U.S. now seeks to accord the Europeans with privacy protections under the privacy shield. Other countries, such as Australia during the TPP negotiations, sought to ensure that Australians enjoyed the same level of protection. Surely, Canada can use the NAFTA discussions to ensure that the same kind of protection afforded to citizens of other countries outside the United States is afforded, as well, to Canadians.

I look forward to your questions.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, the design flaws in the no-fly program stretch back many years. It was designed in a way which required people who were inadvertently red-flagged to present themselves at the counter to be cleared manually. That is a very bad system. We are determined to fix it. I would point out for the hon. gentleman that in Bill C-59 he will find the beginning of the legislative changes that are necessary to fix it.

Preclearance Act, 2016

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise again to speak to Bill C-23. I had an opportunity to illuminate many of the great benefits the bill would bring to Canadians in my speech at second reading.

I want to begin my comments by thanking all the members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security for their work. It is evidenced by the fact that our government adopted all of the committee's amendments, including the NDP amendment for a five year review. There is an excellent relationship between the committee and our ministry in making sure we have the most effective bill possible. It has been a pleasure to work with the committee members, and I want to take the opportunity now at third reading stage to thank them.

It is appropriate that we are speaking to Bill C-23 on the eve of summer. Many Canadians are getting ready for their travel plans, visiting family, or taking a vacation. One of the things they do not want to deal with on vacation is long lines, hassles, and problems getting to where they want to go.

Pre-clearance would help us facilitate the movement of goods, services, and people, making sure people are avoiding long lines, and that they can expand the number of destinations they can go to. In fact, some 12 million passengers each and every year in the airline sector alone already use pre-clearance. Some people may use pre-clearance, and not even realize they do. People flying out of Pearson have the opportunity to go through customs before landing on U.S. soil, which not only accelerates the opportunity for them to get to work, see family, or start their vacation, it also means they get to have that process happen on Canadian soil. I will get back to that in just a moment.

On the range of airports, it means there are a vast number of airports that suddenly open up to airline passengers as if they are domestic travellers. If people want to go to Nashville, for example, in the absence of pre-clearance, they will be in for a lot of transfers. With pre-clearance, they get to go there directly, roughly doubling the number of cities they can travel to as Canadian citizens. That is certainly a big benefit as a traveller.

The other point, which is incredibly important, is that often in this debate, we have a discussion in abstraction about whether or not there will be issues with moving pre-clearance on this side. Aside from the fact that it has already been happening for six decades, there is the point that someone who is already travelling to the United States gets to have that process happen on Canadian soil. The great benefit of that is that individuals have the opportunity to have the full protection of the Canadian charter, the Canadian Bill of Rights, and Canadian law, generally, so that if something were to happen that they did not agree with, there is the opportunity in the process to have that protection on Canadian soil.

It is important to look at this in conjunction with the work we are doing on oversight, more generally, to ensure as we look at our oversight mechanisms more broadly, when someone does have problems, CBSA has independent oversight. Members can see what is proposed with oversight more generally with Bill C-59, which was tabled just yesterday. It was the largest update of our security intelligence framework since the creation of CSIS. It would put in place rigorous and effective oversight, both in the form of a security and intelligence review body, but also in the form of a committee of parliamentarians. I was very pleased to see the Senate adopt BillC-22 without amendment yesterday. It will allow us to bring forward that committee of Parliament.

Therefore, it can be seen that we are looking at oversight, and making sure that the laws and powers that are extended have rigorous oversight. Of course, one of the great advantages of having pre-clearance happen on Canadian soil is the leverage. If something were to go wrong, there is the opportunity to have discussions bilaterally with our U.S. neighbours to ameliorate that.

There have been some questions about different elements of the bill. For example, if people walk into a detention area, they have to explain why they are there. Some people have taken issue with that, saying there should not be unnecessary delays. Of course, that is exactly the language of the bill. One should only be detained for a limited period of time, and it should only be to ascertain necessary information. Some people have asked, why? Very importantly, we could imagine that if somebody walked into a detention area, was just looking around, casing out a pre-clearance zone, and then made a decision to leave, we want to know why they were there, why they showed up. Asking questions in that regard is extremely important.

I spoke to many of these matters when we were at second reading. I want to come to the testimony we heard at committee. The committee had an excellent opportunity to hear from a very wide array of witnesses as to the economic and other benefits that would come as a result of Bill C-23.

We are all aware of the aspirations of the Jean Lesage and Billy Bishop airports. It is important to enumerate and talk about some of the other witnesses we heard from in terms of the benefits of this bill. In conjunction with that, technical briefings were provided to parliamentarians by Public Safety Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency that expanded upon some of the concerns, and I hope answered them.

I would like to go to the individuals from a variety of sectors such as tourism, Canada-U.S. trade, airports, and others. They told the public safety committee how pre-clearance would benefit their businesses. On that basis, I am going to begin with the tourism industry.

Rocky Mountaineer, one of the sites included in pre-clearance expansion, spoke to committee about how the current customs process works at their station in Vancouver, B.C. With routes that run between Vancouver and Seattle, Rocky Mountaineer currently uses post-clearance customs and immigration processes.

For example, on a southbound journey, U.S. customs and border protection officers conduct customs proceedings on arrival in Seattle. It can take 30 to 45 minutes to clear an entire train upon arrival. With pre-clearance, passengers would be cleared as they arrive to the train station, similar to the experience they go through at one of the eight Canadian airports with pre-clearance operations, some of which I was referring to earlier. Instead of a large group of people arriving simultaneously to be cleared, passengers could be managed as they arrive, and check in for their trip. It would be a more comfortable and manageable experience for passengers, and much more efficient for customs and immigration officers. That is the primary goal of Bill C-23 more broadly, to make the traveller experience more efficient, while maintaining security standards at the border.

As the Business Council of Canada pointed out during its testimony to committee, travellers seek out the path of greatest convenience and least resistance in air travel. It is not just the convenience factor, but there is a major economic benefit to the changes being talked about today. As Canadians or others are contemplating what kind of travelling they may want to do this summer, or any point in the year, they are going to choose the options where they are least inhibited, and are going to be dealing with the least number of headaches. Helping facilitate that is only in our best interest, particularly when we are thinking of foreign visitors who may be attempting to travel in and around North America.

Pre-clearance would give Canada a competitive advantage. It would increase the number of destinations Canadians could travel to directly. I gave examples earlier, and Reagan airport in Washington is another great example. Without pre-clearance facilities, a traveller from Ottawa would not be able to fly directly to Reagan because it does not have customs and immigration facilities. I gave the other example earlier of Nashville.

Once travellers would be pre-cleared in a Canadian airport, they would arrive in the United States just like any other domestic travellers in the U.S. It would let them step off the plane immediately, make a connection, head to a meeting, or begin their vacation, all because they were able to pre-clear at the start of their travels in Canada.

The Business Council of Canada further stated that our country has a great desire for increased trade investment in tourism, and expanding pre-clearance would give a tremendous competitive advantage. It is worth noting that, in an age when there is so much competition for trade and commerce, anything we can do to eliminate obstacles and red tape, and move people, goods, and services in a better fashion is only to our advantage. Where we do not put it in place, we have a competitive disadvantage that is incredibly inhibiting. What we heard in testimony is how important it is to have pre-clearance go through to make sure we continue to have a strong competitive advantage.

Billy Bishop Airport also spoke specifically to this advantage. It has worked extensively to bring pre-clearance to the Toronto Island Airport over the last several years, and would work to implement pre-clearance facilities at its airport with the passage of Bill C-23.

I have had the opportunity to meet with the folks who are responsible for Billy Bishop, and they are ready to go. They foresee enormous economic benefits, not only for that airport, but for the entire greater Toronto region, and of course for the Canadian economy.

Billy Bishop welcomed 2.7 million passengers in 2016 alone, generating $2.1 billion as an economic impact per year. It is a huge amount, and that is before it has pre-clearance. It is the sixth-largest departing airport for U.S.-bound passengers, and the ninth-largest airport in Canada. Expanding pre-clearance to Billy Bishop will promote speed, access to increased destinations, and efficiencies, all without compromising security or safety of the border. In fact, from my earlier comment earlier, it would enhance them. It would make sure that Canadians are getting their pre-clearance done on Canadian soil under the full protection of Canadian law.

Toronto Pearson International Airport is the original example of the benefits of pre-clearance, as the original airport to be granted pre-clearance. As the Greater Toronto Airport Authority testified before committee, each new link or flight route is an opportunity for trade and jobs, something I do not think anybody in this House wants to stand between.

Toronto Pearson has become the fourth-largest air entry point into the United States. It pre-cleared six million passengers last year alone. It has had a 30% increase in pre-clearance traveller growth in the past five years. Quite simply, these numbers demonstrate the undeniable need for expansion and pre-clearance. If we see the benefit and impact of pre-clearance at Pearson, and we imagine Billy Bishop and all the other locations that are contemplating pre-clearance, and we magnify that increase in travel and that increase in commerce, it is not hard to get to a very significant number and the billions of dollars in increased activity for our economy.

The Tourism Industry Association of Canada spoke to these benefits as well. It noticed last year that $91.6 billion was generated from tourism revenues in Canada alone. Over 627,000 Canadians are employed in the tourism industry. It is a massive number of people who are counting on us to have a regime that works for them, and facilitates movement of people, goods, and services.

As Canada's tourism industry grows, we must ensure that we are doing all we can to modernize, and expedite the flow of people and products across our border with the United States. Not only does pre-clearance attract tourists, but it can attract the air service, and allow airports to offer enhanced connectivity in an incredibly competitive global industry. It is a huge boon for both travellers and airports.

Canadian airports connect and manage over 133 million passengers each and every year. Of those, 9.8 million are tourists to Canada. In 2015, 12 million travellers were pre-cleared in Canadian airports to travel to the United States. The expansion of pre-clearance to additional airports, and other modes of travel, such as rail, will build on the success of pre-clearance operations. The economic and traveller benefits cannot be overstated. As we heard from many in the tourism, airport, rail, and Canada-U.S. trade industries, these changes are absolutely vital. Bill C-23 would ensure that more Canadians have access to pre-clearance, while making border travel and trade easier, more profitable, and more secure.

Perhaps in the closing time that I have, I can go over some of the concerns that have been raised, and how we think those concerns can be fully addressed. One of the concerns that was raised, both during the committee proceedings and outside of them, was the ability for officers to conduct strip searches of travellers in Canada.

The rules governing searches by U.S. pre-clearance officers will be almost the same under Bill C-23 as they are right now. A U.S. officer will still have to ask a Canadian officer to conduct a search involving the removal of clothing. The only difference is that in a rare circumstance that a Canadian officer is unavailable, the U.S. officer would be able to conduct the search. Any search by an officer of either country would be subject to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is important to note just how rare a circumstance that would be, that a Canadian officer would not be present, but also how important, that if there were not a Canadian officer, that search could still take place.

Sometimes individuals have something on their person that could represent an immediate risk and danger to officers, and if officers are unable to conduct that search, it could put them at great risk, so it is something that cannot be deferred or simply held back.

Some people have asked what protections would exist for a transgender traveller being strip-searched by a U.S. officer. I can say that CBSA has policies in place allowing exceptions to the rule that strip searches must be conducted by an officer of the same sex as the traveller. For instance, in the case of a transgender person, searches of this nature by U.S. preclearance officers in Canada would be conducted in accordance with CBSA procedures and Canadian human rights jurisprudence. U.S. officers would be provided training to ensure that their conduct met these standards. This is yet another benefit of undergoing U.S. border procedures on Canadian soil.

I think I have explained why people have to identify their purpose when they arrive in a preclearance zone, so I will not talk about that any further.

Some people have questioned the term “unreasonable delay”. They have suggested that “unreasonable delay” of someone in a preclearance area is overly vague. Liberals would disagree. The concept of reasonableness is used widely in legislation and case law and usually means that other people in the same situation would reach the same conclusion or behave in the same way.

With respect to officer authorities, it has been used to refer to generally accepted standards. In fact, when the existing preclearance law was being debated in 1999, the NDP at that point argued in favour of adding the word “reasonable” to the section on the use of force as a way of limiting officer authorities. Certainly the NDP, in 1999, agreed that the term was specific enough to provide the protection and coverage required.

Others have questioned whether Bill C-23 would entitle U.S. officers to carry guns in Canadian airport terminals. The answer is no. Let me be very clear on this point. American officers would carry the same weapons as Canadian border officers in the same environment, without exception. Canadian border officers carry firearms at land, rail, and marine ports of entry, so U.S. preclearance officers would do the same. However, Canadian border officers do not carry firearms in airport terminals, so neither would Americans.

The same principle of reciprocity would apply to Canadian officers conducting preclearance in the U.S. One of the important tenets of the agreement reached with the Americans is the element of reciprocity. We would never see U.S.border officers with guns or comporting themselves in ways that would not be applied in the U.S. under similar circumstances.

It is worth mentioning that our hope and aspiration in passing this bill is that not only would preclearance be vastly expanded to include more locations across Canada but that we would see the same economic benefits and the benefits of the rapidity of travel we saw at YYZ . However, we hope, and have every reasonable expectation to believe, that the Americans will themselves also engage in preclearance in the opposite direction, which would have tremendous economic benefits and is something we would open by adopting Bill C-23.

The last question put to us was the question of permanent residents of Canada being denied entry by Canadian preclearance officers in the U.S. That is not a concern. In almost all cases, permanent residents would be treated exactly the same way in preclearance areas as they would be at any other entry point in Canada. The rare exception would be where there was a major issue of inadmissibility, such as serious criminality. Such individuals would still come to Canada, subject to the usual admissibility rules, at an ordinary point of entry. They just would not have the benefit of preclearance.

I hope I was able to outline for the House the tremendous benefits we have before us with Bill C-23. We need to get moving on this so we can help our tourism industry, trade, and Canada more generally.

Public Safety

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

Mr. Speaker, the committee of parliamentarians does not have full access; the consultation took nearly two years, while CSIS continued to use these new abusive powers that it has. The promise was to fix a bill as a way to hide from the fact that they endorsed the Conservatives' draconian agenda. The Federal Court ruled a few months ago that it was illegal for CSIS to retain bulk metadata. What we see in Bill C-59 is simply formalizing and legalizing what the court deemed illegal.

Could the minister explain where in the consultations he was told by experts and Canadians that it was the right thing to do?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, in the election we laid out a very detailed program for how we would deal with Bill C-51, and today we have implemented exactly that. It is contained in Bill C-59, before the House, which is in addition to the committee of parliamentarians, which is in addition to the funding for counter-radicalization, which is in addition to the most extensive consultations in Canadian history. We have listened carefully to Canadians and we have implemented their advice.

National Security

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-59, An Act respecting national security matters.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to table at this time, in both official languages, a charter statement with respect to Bill C-59, an act respecting national security matters.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)