This bill is from the 42nd Parliament, 1st session, which ended in September 2019.
Ralph Goodale Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-59s:
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-59, An Act respecting national security matters, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.
Speaker's RulingNational Security Act, 2017Government Orders
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Anthony Rota
There are three motions in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-59.
Motion No. 3 will not be selected by the Chair, since a similar motion was defeated in committee.
All remaining motions have been examined and the Chair is satisfied that they meet the guidelines expressed in the note to Standing Order 76.1(5) regarding the selection of motions in amendments at the report stage.
Motions Nos. 1 and 2 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.
I will now put Motions Nos. 1 and 2 to the House.
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
moved:
Mlotion No. 1
That Bill C-59 be amended by deleting the short title.
Motion No. 2
That Bill C-59, in Clause 49.1, be amended:
(a) by replacing lines 13 to 15 on page 43 with the following:
“3 (1) The Governor in Council must issue written directions to all deputy heads prohibiting”
(b) by deleting line 25 on page 43 to line 2 on page 44.
Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the third motion, which pertained to one of my amendments, was not selected by the Chair, but I will still come back to the important points about it in a few moments. Just because it was not selected does not mean we cannot talk about it.
We are near the end of what has been a very long road with this government on an issue that dates back to even before the Liberals took office. Obviously, we must recognize that Bill C-59 is the result of the Liberals' approach. On one hand, during the last Parliament they supported Stephen Harper's draconian bill, Bill C-51, and on the other, they claimed that there were a lot of problems with the bill. The Liberals told people not to worry, however, because when they took office they would fix all of those problems. That was problematic for obvious reasons. If the bill was so flawed, posed so many problems with regard to national security matters, and violated Canadians' rights and freedoms, the Liberals should not have voted to pass it, and yet that is exactly what was happening with Bill C-51.
Let us fast-forward a little. After the Liberals were elected, they waited two years to introduce the legislation. They said that they had to hold public consultations. I will come back to that.
Meanwhile, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, used the power to disrupt threats bestowed upon it by Bill C-51. CSIS confirmed that in committee.
While we waited those two years for the government to consult, even though the election promise had been to consult on a specific piece of legislation, this was open consultation, or so it would seem. However the problem was, and many experts decried this, the fact that the government's green paper seemed to indicate, through some of the notions that were put forward, that some of these aspects were already a foregone conclusion. There was a definite bent more toward the side of intelligence gathering and law enforcement, and certainly a lack of substantive points being made in favour of the other side of that, which was protecting Canadians' rights and privacy.
Too often the Liberals, in the committee in particular, like to put the word “balance” forward. As we heard from representatives of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, when they presented at committee, balance implies that something is being taken away from one side or the other to achieve said balance. For us, the question of rights and liberties, and certainly the protection of Canadians' privacy, is not something that can almost be a victim of that type of compromise required to achieve said balance.
The other aspect that was not included in the public consultations, but that eventually became a central topic in our committee study, is the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE.
CSE, as members will know, is under the purview of the Minister of National Defence and its mandate is given to it by the National Defence Act. However, despite promises to no longer come forward with omnibus legislation, the Liberals have taken something that is the purview of the Minister of National Defence, something that the national defence committee has the institutional memory to study, all due respect to me and my colleagues on the public safety committee, and put it into this legislation.
That ended up taking up inordinate amounts, and rightly so, of time at the committee. These new powers being given to CSE and the huge change being made to CSE's mandate took up a lot of space and led to the most questions, not just from members but also from some of the experts who were there. Quite frankly, as far as we are concerned, many of those questions still remain without answers.
For example, there is the issue of CSE's cyber defence capabilities, as well as its offensive and active capabilities. The experts asked many questions on that subject. I introduced an amendment in committee to eliminate these powers, but it was not intended to compromise the safety of Canadians or our cybersecurity. We still kept CSE's defensive powers and capabilities in place. However, we had the right to ask questions, as I did with the senior CSE officials, though I did not get satisfactory answers, especially about what all this means for our country's military future.
CSE is governed by the National Defence Act, but it is a civilian agency, not a military one. However, Bill C-59, and now the federal budget and the legislation that the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness says will be tabled this fall, is opening the door to capability sharing between CSE and Canadian Forces to improve our cyber capabilities in a military context or even in war zones.
I posed questions to the chief of the CSE and other officials who were present throughout different stages of the study. I said that there was some debate in the context of international law as to what sovereignty meant in this digital age. An act of war is when one infringes on someone's sovereignty, but is a server part of one's sovereignty? What is the role that data is playing in this? Certainly, colleagues who work on the trade file had similar concerns that they raised.
I asked these questions in the context of information-sharing capabilities with Canadian Forces. All I was able to get as an answer was that this stuff was already being done and it was better that it be codified in the law with all the protections, oversight, and review. Pardon me for being glib, but that all comes with that. However, it is not enough. If a foreign state actor, as the bill describes, engages in some kind of activity, we are talking about the Minister of National Defence having the capability to interfere with intellectual property and to be engaged in an active way.
In this era, when the federal budget is talking about more and more capability sharing between police and intelligence services, which let us not forget is what CSE is, ultimately, as it is not any kind of offensive entity but rather deals with foreign intelligence, and then to involve the Canadian Armed Forces, we are going down a slippery slope. This is not an issue I raise. It was one that witnesses raised time and again throughout this study.
Part of the reason why I tabled amendments, which were unfortunately voted down by the Liberals at committee, was to remove these elements, not because we disagreed, although they certainly are concerning, but because they required proper study. They should not have been part of omnibus legislation. They had nothing to do with the previous Bill C-51. Nor were they part of the public consultations that both the minister did and the committee did.
That is important. I know the answer I will get is that all the issues relate to national security. That is not enough. We need to be able to examine these issues more thoroughly, and that is certainly not the feeling we got.
Lets continue to look at part three of the bill that has to do with CSE. One of my amendments was unfortunately deemed inadmissible by the Chair, because it was too similar to another amendment I had proposed and that my colleague, the leader of the Green Party, had also proposed. The motion was almost word for word what the experts had suggested. It had to do with publicly available information. We will come back to this concept.
The concept, as it currently exists, is important because it gives CSIS and CSE the power to collect publicly available information. With respect to CSE, we were told over and over again that its mandate does not concern Canadians, since the legislation explicitly prohibits it from targeting Canadians. We must be careful, though, and we have to read part three of the bill, subclause 23 and 24, and the next few subclauses.
Subclause 23 indicates that, despite the ban on targeting Canadians, the centre can collect publicly available information for study and research purposes. In short, it lists a number of things to advance its mandate. Even collecting information inadvertently is allowed. This is very problematic.
We tried to do a few things to fix that. The first was to change the definition of “publicly available information”. That is because when I asked representatives of the CSE if the information that Cambridge Analytica legally but immorally stole from Canadians and others throughout the world through Facebook would be part of publicly available information under the definition provided in this legislation, I got a one-word answer, which is rare in these parts. It was “yes”.
What does my amendment propose to do? The Liberals said not to worry, that they would deal with it. They put in the words “a reasonable expectation of privacy”. That is good. That was part of my amendment as well, as was it part of the amendment brought by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. However, there is a whole slew of information missing from that. Allow me to read it to the House, since unfortunately it was deemed inadmissible and voted down by Liberals at committee.
It states that it would also include, along with information where Canadians have a reasonable expectation of privacy, “information that is published or broadcast only to a selected audience or information that is subscribed to or purchased illegally”, in other words, the prohibition on information purchased illegally. That is the problem with these amendments sometimes when one is reading them without the rest of the text that follows. Why is that important? It is important because despite the assurances that we got, there are a lot of questions about this. These are questions and concerns that some of the foremost experts in the field all have as well.
I also proposed an amendment for a catch-and-release principle, for information acquired incidentally on Canadians by the CSE. If it truly does not need the information captured incidentally, I understand it. That happens sometimes when one is going to study the information infrastructure in Canada. Therefore, we had a reasonable compromise, which was that if it happens, the centre has a responsibility to get rid of it. That was another amendment that was voted down by the Liberals on the committee.
I could speak at length about the CSE aspects, but I have only 20 minutes for my speech. It just goes to show how complex and worrisome the new concepts are and how we are far from having enough time to address them today. I would even say that we had very little time in committee as well. I have been in Parliament for seven years, and for the first time since becoming an MP, even though I can be quite verbose, my mike was constantly cut off and not through any fault of the chair, but because we simply did not have enough time to get into the details. I am not blaming the committee chair, who does excellent work on this study. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time for this conversation.
I want to come back to something more specific that affects more than just CSIS. I am talking about one of my amendments that were deemed admissible. Amendments that go beyond the scope of a bill can be proposed when that bill is referred to committee before second reading, as this one was, and the Liberals took advantage of that.
The Liberals used that opportunity to essentially present a new bill into the legislation dealing with the question of information obtained under use of torture, which bafflingly the Conservatives voted against. However, we do not have time to get into that today.
I voted in favour of it, for two reasons, but it does not go far enough, and we are going to get to that. The first reason is because the fact that it was even on the table was an acknowledgement that the status quo is not good enough, that the ministerial directives right now are not good enough, and that having these concepts more explicitly enshrined in law is always a good thing. Even though some of these symbolic statements in legislation sometimes seem to be only that, symbolic, they guide the decisions made and the advice given when these agencies seek legal opinions and so forth. On that front, it is a good thing. The other reason I supported it was because it is better than nothing. However, the language that remains is that the Governor in Council “may” issue directives to deputy heads. At the end of the day, we remain in the same situation we were in before. These were all recorded votes, so Canadians can check them.
Let me say for the record that I offered more explicit amendments to nearly every section of the bill that dealt with one of these agencies, putting in an explicit prohibition on using information that may have been obtained under the use of torture. Every single Liberal and Conservative on the committee voted against them. That is absolutely shameful.
Here is the motion that is before us today: that “The Governor in Council must issue written directions to all deputy heads...” At the very least, even though we are still dealing with ministerial directives, that obliges the government of the day to issue the directions, even though we already know that the directives themselves have loopholes. Even if the current directives, I will acknowledge, are stronger than the ones in the previous government, there are still holes in them, and those holes need to be addressed.
It is sad to see that my amendments, which would have at least done something to prohibit the use of that type of information, were defeated through the committee process.
Speaking of my amendments, I want to mention one thing I forgot at the beginning of my speech, since I think the Canadians watching us will find it interesting. The government said that it was open to suggestions from the opposition. I suggested 120 amendments, and just four of them were accepted by the Liberals. Three were accepted on the condition that I use the Liberals' wording, and the other was accepted because it was just a preamble. Not a single one of the Conservatives' 25 or 29 amendments was accepted. Not a single one of the Green Party's 55 amendments was accepted either.
The Liberals proposed amendments. Anyone can look at them, they are public. The Liberals put forward one amendment and decided to withdraw the others because they had an inferior one to replace them. I therefore proposed the Liberals' amendments myself, and they voted against their own amendments. That speaks volumes about the process.
I have just three minutes left, and I have only spoken about one part of the bill. I just spent 20 minutes giving a speech on the flaws of a single part of a bill that has 10 parts. That tells you everything you need to know about the flaws in this bill, not to mention the fact that CSIS retains its power to disrupt and to detain without any right to counsel, as was the case with the former Bill C-51.
Without mentioning that apart from changing the word “sharing” to “disclosure”, even though the word “disclosure” was there, what was qualified by groups like the B.C. Liberties Association, among others, as a cosmetic change at best to the information sharing regime remains in place. It was one of the biggest criticisms we had, and a reason for voting against Bill C-51 in the previous Parliament.
We will get to that through a future point of order, but hopefully we can vote on different elements of the bill. There are two parts that are good, review and oversight. Despite the fact that we tried to make changes to the review body to make it more accountable to Parliament and less to the executive, it was rejected. With the real-time oversight of the intelligence commissioner, we tried to make that a full-time position. I was not able to propose those changes, as they would require royal prerogative, which I, as an opposition member, do not have. Perhaps I can enter a final plea, although at report stage it is probably too late for that.
It is all too clear that, on the one hand, the Liberals did not want the Conservatives to criticize them for standing up for the rights and freedoms of Canadians and, on the other hand, they wanted to try to protect their progressive image in light of our legitimate criticisms that they have failed in their duty to protect the rights and freedoms of Canadians. Despite all the time we were able to dedicate to the study, despite the public consultations, questions from experts, criticisms from members, and a grandiose announcement that the Liberals were going to do things differently in committee, still, all of our amendments were rejected. The same system will remain in place and not enough improvements are being made in terms of what the Conservatives proposed.
In conclusion, it is true that we are entering a brave new world. We certainly know that in this digital age. I acknowledge that the threats are evolving and we need to address them. There is no doubt about that. However, one thing is for sure: right now, the ability of these agencies to act is outpacing the protections that Canadians have for their rights and freedoms, and their privacy.
That, for me and my party, is completely unacceptable, because at the end of the day, if we truly want to defeat these threats and what they stand for, if we truly want to stand on the other side of that terror and on the right side of history, it means standing up for Canadians' rights and freedoms. This bill just would not do that, and we will continue to oppose it. It is absolutely unfortunate, because we heard that better is always possible, but it does not seem to be with this legislation.
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his work on this file and on others that are important related to privacy and to industry. One of the most important things is a consistent set of understandable rules, and that is what the member's amendments were.
Canadians have been getting a series of emails from different Internet-usage organizations or companies warning about their privacy changes. That is because Canada is often a laggard when it comes to being progressive on this. Many companies are going to follow the European model to protect privacy. That is why people will get them from PlayStation, different service providers for music, and other types of organizations that are using international models.
I ask that the member expand upon some of the amendments he had at committee, which were very reasonable and in line with some of our competitors in terms of industry access and standards that we should have been moving forward on.
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that when it comes to the rapidly evolving information infrastructure in this country and throughout the world, these are the issues that come up. It was quite timely during our study that these things were in the news, such as Cambridge Analytica and all these types of things.
I will acknowledge that on the one hand, they bring to light the fact that we need to be prepared to deal with interventions from foreign state actors and parties operating in bad faith, and even companies, and do these kinds of updates and ask more of the private sector, as my colleague said. The other side of that coin, and another part of what this legislation deals with, is this. Those who know Alan Moore's graphic novel from the 1980s, Watchmen, will remember the question the book poses, which is “Who watches the watchmen?” That is the question we have before us.
Ultimately, CSE will say its duty is to protect Canadians and protect our information structure. No one is calling that into question, but at the end of the day, it is not a blank cheque to operate with impunity and without accountability. While the government may say that its new review mechanisms provide that accountability, it just is not enough when we look at these concepts in law that are not clear and when we look at these concepts brought before committee, before us as parliamentarians, and that were never part of the public consultations undertaken by both the government and our committee. We tried to make amendments to fix this. None of these amendments would have undermined CSE's ability to do its work. They would have protected Canadians' rights and freedoms, and that is the opportunity the government missed.
Motions in AmendmentNational Security Act, 2017Government Orders
Regina—Wascana Saskatchewan
Liberal
Ralph Goodale LiberalMinister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the arguments that have been put forward by the hon. member this afternoon. I would ask a question about specifically the member's second amendment, where he wants to insert in the operative sentence instead of the word “may”, the word “must”. Therefore, the sentence would read, “The Governor in Council must issue written directions”.
In the bill as it is now written, there is one section, subclause 3(1), that would create the general authority to issue directions. It says, “The Governor in Council may, on the recommendation of the appropriate Minister, issue written directions”. The very next section, subclause 3(2), goes further to say, in language that is quite similar to this amendment, “The Governor in Council must issue written directions in respect of the matters referred to in” the preceding paragraph.
Therefore, the point the hon. gentleman is making, that the requirement to issue these directions should be mandatory, not permissive, is, in fact, covered in the legislation as it is presently written, when we read subclause 3(1) together with subclause 3(2). I think that accomplishes the objective the hon. gentleman is seeking.
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
Mr. Speaker, this is the hard thing about amendments. Canadians listening to us will hear the amendment, and then a sentence is added in to a much larger text. What does that larger text say that the minister just quoted? It says that the Governor in Council “may” issue directives related to information obtained, and it then enumerates torture, abuse, all the bad things that happen in countries with less than stellar human rights records. It is the very type of information that we do not want CSIS or any other agency to be using. Therefore, they “may” issue directives related to that.
The next section that the minister talks about, where it says they “must”, is that in the event they choose to, because they “may” do it, they “must” issue it to the following deputy heads. Therefore, it is basically the list of who would get the directive if the minister chose to issue it. That is the problem here. My amendment would get rid of that grocery list of deputy heads. It says flat out that when it comes torture, the Governor in Council must issue a directive, and that is it.
Let us not get lost in this debate on this specific amendment. Let us ask Canadians to go back and read the transcript of the committee hearings. I read time and again into the record amendments that explicitly prohibited any of these agencies from using information, even if we suspected it was obtained through the use of torture. Listen to the recorded votes, as Liberal after Liberal and Conservative after Conservative voted against them. That is what they stood for. That is what they are standing for. There is no other way about it. When it comes to torture and standing up for human rights, directive are just not good enough.
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his thoughts. Indeed, he is one of the hardest-working members on the committee. He offered many thoughtful amendments and has delved into this bill. He is to be commended for his hard work on the committee. However, this is a bill that we will never get entirely right. There is always the challenge between the human rights concerns and security concerns. It is eternally evolving.
I appreciate the hon. member's concerns, many of which I personally think to be quite legitimate. However, on the other hand, they are not set off against the security concerns. The people who have been writing about this bill seem to think that the government has struck the right balance.
I would be interested in the member's comments about Craig Forcese, from the University of Ottawa, who said that it is the “biggest reform of Canadian national security law since 1984....” He said that on accountability and review, we seem to have caught up to the 2006 Arar Commission, with real cleanup of CSIS threat reduction powers.
Craig Forcese and Kent Roach wrote that “solid gains—measured both from a rule of law and civil liberties perspective...at no credible cost to security...rolls back much of the unnecessary overkill of...Bill C-51.”
It seems to me that those people seem to think that balance is being obtained. While I think the hon. member's interventions are quite legitimate and thoughtful, I wonder whether he thinks that the comments by those professors reflect the appropriate balance in the bill.
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his depth of sharing throughout the process of studying this bill. As I alluded to in my speech, it is not an easy task, considering the depth that we want to go into on these issues. However, there is that word again, “balance”. I do not want to mischaracterize what any of those esteemed professors have said, but they also said that when it came to threat reduction powers, basically the Liberals took something that was flagrantly unconstitutional under the Conservatives and made it more likely constitutional. As far as I am concerned, as a parliamentarian, that is not the kind of threshold I want to be striving for. I think we can do more than that.
On the security question, that element is important. New Democrats obviously take the security of Canadians seriously. We know that there are things like the police recruitment fund that was cut under the previous government. We support the continued efforts by the current government, and more can be done to counter radicalization. We understand that there is a challenge when it comes to prosecuting foreign fighters. That is an issue in the news, and it is obviously of great concern to folks. There are a lot of challenges that need to be taken on . However, as we said when we debated Bill C-51, there are changes that can be made without huge overhauls and overly broad powers to national security agencies that can accomplish just that. It is about having the political will to do it, to stand up and say that when it comes to being on the side of history, let us be on the right side and stand up for Canadians' rights and freedoms.
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-59, An Act respecting national security matters, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Mr. Speaker, perhaps I misheard and referred to Bill C-69 and not Bill C-59 when I rose to speak earlier.
I am pleased to rise again to support Bill C-59, the government's proposed legislation to update and modernize the country's national security framework. This landmark bill covers a number of measures that were informed by the views and opinions of a broad range of Canadians during public consultations in 2016.
It was in that same spirit of openness, engagement, and transparency that Bill C-59 was referred to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security before second reading, and the committee recently finished its study of this bill. I want to thank the committee members for their diligent and thorough examination of the legislation. An even stronger bill, with over 40 adopted amendments, is now before the House, thanks to their great work.
The measures would do two things at once. They would strengthen Canada's ability to effectively address and counter 21st-century threats while safeguarding the rights and freedoms we cherish as Canadians.
This is where I get into some new material. Rather than elaborate on any specific proposed measure, I will focus my remarks today on the high level of engagement, consultation, and analysis that contributed to the legislation we find before us today.
Bill C-59 is a result of the most comprehensive review of Canada's national security framework since the passing of the CSIS Act more than 30 years ago. That public review included unprecedented open and transparent public consultations on national security undertaken by Public Safety Canada and the Department of Justice. Canadians were consulted on key elements of Canada's national security laws and policies to ensure that they reflected the rights, values, and freedoms of Canadians. Several issues were covered, including countering radicalization to violence, oversight and accountability, threat reduction, and the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, which is the former Bill C-51.
All Canadians were invited and encouraged to take part in the consultations, which were held between September and December 2016. The response was tremendous. Thousands of people weighed in through a variety of avenues, both in person and online. Citizens, community leaders, experts and academics, non-governmental organizations, and parliamentarians alike made their views and ideas known over the course of the consultation period. In the end, tens of thousands of views were received, all of which were valuable in shaping the scope and content of Bill C-59.
With almost 59,000 responses received, the online consultation is what generated by far the largest volume of input, using a questionnaire consisting of more than 60 questions organized into 10 themes.
Nearly 18,000 submissions were also received by email. These consisted mainly of letters and other pieces of communication submitted by individuals. In addition, public town halls were held in five Canadian cities: Halifax, Markham, Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Yellowknife. This gave citizens across the country a chance to share their thoughts and opinions in person.
The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security also held numerous meetings and consultations. It even travelled across the country to hear testimony not only from expert witnesses but also from members of the Canadian public, who were invited to express their views.
A digital town hall and two Twitter chats were also organized. Members of the public also had the opportunity to make their voices heard at 17 engagement events led by members of Parliament at the constituency level. In addition, 14 in-person sessions were held with academics and experts across the country, as well as one round table of civil society experts.
A total of 79 submissions were received from stakeholders, experts, and academics. The Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Information Technology Association of Canada are just a few of the organizations that participated in the consultations.
A great deal of time, effort, and expertise was spent not only to ensure that engaged citizens and interested parties were heard, but also to painstakingly collect and consider all input received from the public. All data collected during the consultation process was reviewed and prepared for analysis. The next step was to carefully analyze every comment, submission, letter, and other forms of input.
These views have been published on the Government of Canada's open data portal, so anyone interested in learning more about what was said can see what was said.
In addition, an independently prepared report provides an overview of what was heard during the consultation. The results are summarized in 10 sections, one for each of the themes explored in both “Our Security, Our Rights: National Security Green Paper, 2016” and the online questionnaire.
While it would be difficult to summarize everything we have heard from Canadians, I can speak to a few key themes that emerged. First of all, I can attest that in any large volume of input, there will be widely different opinions. That was certainly the case in the public consultation on national security. However, the results made one thing perfectly clear. Canadians want accountability, transparency, and effectiveness from their security and intelligence agencies. They also expect their rights, freedoms, and privacy to be protected at the same time as their security.
Consistent with what was heard, Bill C-59 would modernize and enhance Canada's security and intelligence laws to ensure that our agencies have the tools they need to protect us. It would do so with a legal and constitutional framework that complies with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Taken together, the proposed measures in Bill C-59 represent extensive improvements to Canada's national security framework. They also reflect thousands upon thousands of opinions expressed by this country's national security community, Parliamentarians across party lines, and the Canadian public writ large.
I firmly believe that it is important for all Canadians to be informed and engaged on Canada's national security framework. I am proud to stand behind a government that shares that belief.
The input received during the public consultation process in the pre-study period at committee was both considerable and instrumental in the development of Bill C-59 itself. There is no doubt in my mind that the legislation before this House today has been strengthened and improved as a result of the committee's close scrutiny and clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. To highlight just one example, the bill would now include provisions enacting the avoiding complicity in mistreatment by foreign entities act. This act would have to do with the ministerial directions issued last fall to Canada's national security and intelligence agencies. To ensure transparency and accountability, those directions would be made public under an amended Bill C-59. They would also be reported on annually to the public, to review bodies, and to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.
I encourage all members of this House to vote in favour of Bill C-59. Should Bill C-59 pass, this important piece of legislation would enhance Canada's national security, keep its citizens safe, and safeguard Canadians' constitutionally protected rights and freedoms. For all these reasons, I urge my honourable colleagues to join me in supporting Bill C-59.
With the bit of extra time that remains to me after my prepared remarks, I would just like to talk a little bit about my experience at the door during the election in 2015.
In the early part of June and July, many Canadians were concerned about Bill C-51. It was a hot topic of conversation. What the former Liberal third party opposition had attempted to do at committee in the previous session of Parliament was at least get some amendments into Bill C-51 to encourage and strengthen oversight and make sure that the bill not only protected security but made sure that Canadians' privacy and freedoms were being respected.
That led to a lot of difficult conversations, because during the campaign, the three parties were really divided on this particular issue. The Conservatives were adamant that they had struck the right balance. The New Democratic Party wanted to repeal it entirely. The Liberal Party stuck to its guns and said that it was a difficult conversation to have with people, but the legislation was needed. They said we needed this legislation but we needed to fix it, we needed to do it right, and we needed to make sure that it had the safeguards we promised and attempted to achieve at the amendment stage for Bill C-51 in the last Parliament.
That is what we have done. However, we have done even more than that. We have gone back to the drawing board and have let many different groups participate to make sure that we got it right.
I just want to provide one little quote, from national security experts Craig Forcese and Kent Roach, who have said that this legislation is “the real deal: the biggest reform in this area since 1984” and that it comes “at no credible cost to security.”
I believe that through all the consultations, the drafting of the bill by the minister and his staff, the review of the bill at committee, and the help of all members of the House, we now have a piece of legislation that strikes the right balance that will make Canadians safer and will also protect their rights and freedoms, which is what we promised in the 41st Parliament we would do if elected, and we are doing it now.
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Mr. Speaker, I want to applaud the member for the quick recovery when we returned to Bill C-59.
I also want to mention that it is interesting that he talked about how members on the committee were able to work together to report this bill back to us, but he must know that all 29 amendments suggested by the Conservatives on that committee were rejected. I am concerned that perhaps his interpretation of the congenial interaction among members at the committee equalled actually hearing and listening to and accepting a point of view on the Conservative side that certain provisions should not be amended or should be amended in a certain way to assure ourselves that our security agencies can continue to do their work.
I want to focus on a specific definition in the act. The previous definition of “terrorist propaganda” included the words “advocates or promotes”. The new definition of terrorist propaganda replaces those words with the word “counselling”. I am concerned that this definitional change would have a big impact on the type of propaganda that can be produced by terrorist cells and movements that promote and also entice lone-wolf attacks, some of the most difficult types of cases to stop.
I would like to hear from the member why this change was made and how this change would help the government stop terrorist propaganda from being propagated across social media channels like YouTube.
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for focusing this debate on this more narrow public policy question of when we impinge upon free speech and criminalize free speech or protect against speech. That is obviously something Canadians are very concerned about, and that is one of the areas, again, I heard about at the door. Canadians want to know that they can engage in respectful debate. They want to make sure that the broadest amount of free speech that does not trip into the areas of hate speech and types of criminal speech will be allowed.
This is a very tough balance and may be one of the areas where the differences among the three parties most strongly emerge. I can see, with respect to the amendments proposed by the Conservatives, that the definition of the words “advocate and promote” versus “counsel” is more nuanced, perhaps, than I can get to in the short time for questions and comments. However, on the balance, I will say that I believe that this is where the Liberals had the trust of Canadians on this issue in the election and that we have struck the right balance here. I appreciate that it is a very fine point. Perhaps there are people in the hon. member's riding who obviously feel the way he does. He is sitting in this House today. The position of the Conservatives now on ths point reflects their position in the previous Parliament.
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Mr. Speaker, since my colleague just spent most of his time talking about consultations, my question will relate to that.
The expression that comes to mind is “enough already”. The people I represent know that I support consultation. I have been taking part in citizen engagement exercises since I was a teenager. I definitely encouraged that when I was a municipal councillor. However, the people I represent believe that the Liberal government's excessive use of consultations is a way to put off making decisions, to stall for time, to avoid taking a position on controversial subjects, and to drag things out. We now find ourselves voting so much because there was nothing to vote on for so long.
Does my colleague not think there comes a point when enough is enough? A balance needs to be struck between consulting and taking a position. Consulting is all well and good, but governing is about making tough choices.
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Mr. Speaker, I find my colleague's question a little strange because, most of the time, the New Democrats are asking us to consult more. Now they are saying that we are consulting too much and that we are passing too much or not enough legislation.
For this bill, we did three months of consultations. We studied the bill and discussed amendments at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.
Nearly a year and a half after the consultations, we now have the opportunity to deliberate on a good piece of legislation. Now we have an opportunity to send it to the Senate. Holding consultations and using them to draft a good bill was the right thing to do.