Bill C-21

An Act to amend certain Acts and to make certain consequential amendments (firearms)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,
(a) increase, from 10 to 14 years, the maximum penalty of imprisonment for indictable weapons offences in sections 95, 96, 99, 100 and 103;
(b) establish a regime that would permit any person to apply for an emergency prohibition order or an emergency limitations on access order and allow the judge to protect the security of the person or of anyone known to them;
(c) deem certain firearms to be prohibited devices for the purpose of specified provisions;
(d) create new offences for possessing and making available certain types of computer data that pertain to firearms and prohibited devices and for altering a cartridge magazine to exceed its lawful capacity;
(e) include, for interception of private communications purposes, sections 92 and 95 in the definition of “offence” in section 183;
(f) authorize employees of certain federal entities who are responsible for security to be considered as public officers for the purpose of section 117.07; and
(g) include certain firearm parts to offences regarding firearms.
The enactment also amends the Firearms Act to, among other things,
(a) prevent individuals who are subject to a protection order or who have been convicted of certain offences relating to domestic violence from being eligible to hold a firearms licence;
(b) transfer authority to the Commissioner of Firearms to approve, refuse, renew and revoke authorizations to carry referred to in paragraph 20(a) of the Act;
(c) limit the transfer of handguns only to businesses and exempted individuals and the transfer of cartridge magazines and firearm parts;
(d) impose requirements in respect of the importation of ammunition, cartridge magazines and firearm parts;
(e) prevent certain individuals from being authorized to transport handguns from a port of entry;
(f) require a chief firearms officer to suspend a licence if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the licence holder is no longer eligible for it;
(g) require the delivery of firearms to a peace officer, or their lawful disposal, if a refusal to issue, or revocation of, a licence has been referred to a provincial court under section 74 of the Act in respect of those firearms;
(h) revoke an individual’s licence if there is reasonable grounds to suspect that they engaged in an act of domestic violence or stalking or if they become subject to a protection order;
(i) authorize the issuance, in certain circumstances, of a conditional licence for the purposes of sustenance;
(j) authorize, in certain circumstances, the Commissioner of Firearms, the Registrar of Firearms or a chief firearms officer to disclose certain information to a law enforcement agency for the purpose of an investigation or prosecution related to the trafficking of firearms;
(k) provide that the annual report to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness regarding the administration of the Act must include information on disclosures made to law enforcement agencies and be submitted no later than May 31 of each year; and
(l) create an offence for a business to advertise a firearm in a manner that depicts, counsels or promotes violence against a person, with a few exceptions.
The enactment also amends the Nuclear Safety and Control Act to, among other things,
(a) provide nuclear security officers and on-site nuclear response force members with the authority to carry out the duties of peace officers at high-security nuclear sites; and
(b) permit licensees who operate high-security nuclear sites to acquire, possess, transfer and dispose of firearms, prohibited weapons and prohibited devices used in the course of maintaining security at high-security nuclear sites.
The enactment also amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to
(a) designate the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness as the Minister responsible for the establishment of policies respecting inadmissibility on grounds of transborder criminality for the commission of an offence on entering Canada;
(b) specify that the commission, on entering Canada, of certain offences under an Act of Parliament that are set out in the regulations is a ground of inadmissibility for a foreign national; and
(c) correct certain provisions in order to resolve a discrepancy and clarify the rule set out in those provisions.
Finally, the enactment also amends An Act to amend certain Acts and Regulations in relation to firearms so that certain sections of that Act come into force on the day on which this enactment receives royal assent.

Justice

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we will continue to work on bail reform, including working with the provinces to ensure that we have a fair, responsible system that keeps Canadians safe right across the country.

If the member opposite were really serious about moving forward on keeping communities safe, he would back our upcoming Bill C-21 at third reading to make sure that we are keeping assault weapons out of the hands of people across the country, strengthening gun control to freeze handguns and continuing to move forward.

Instead of being in the pockets of the NRA, we are focused on Canadians.

Online Streaming Act

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad I caught your eye so I can speak to this piece of legislation. I know I started speaking on it, but I guess the government made a mistake in its original motion. I was so keen to make sure I was here to add my voice and the voices of my constituents on this.

Years ago, when this bill was known as Bill C-10, which then got converted to Bill C-11, I remember standing at a Calgary Stampede pancake breakfast in my riding in the community of Auburn Bay. The hosts served two to three thousand people that day. I stood at the front of the line, and before people got their pancakes, they had to interact with me.

I had a great many constituents tell me the number one issue they wanted to talk to me about was Bill C-11. I was floored that some of them knew the number for a piece of legislation. A lot of young people wanted to talk about it. What they knew was that Bill C-11 was coming through and would have an impact on free speech, and they did not like it. I asked them what they knew, and we had an exchange about it.

The majority of emails I get are in opposition to Bill C-11 and also in opposition to Bill C-21. I have had a handful, which I could literally count on one hand, of people who have had positive things to say about Bill C-11.

People are extremely upset with the government over the Senate amendments and which of the amendments it has chosen to proceed with and which it has not. One of the Senate amendments it rejected would have protected user-uploaded content.

As we know, with most user-uploaded content, there is a possibility for someone to make revenue from it when they have a channel. All of it is captured by these amendments that the government would be accepting in Bill C-11. Bill C-11 is still a deeply flawed piece of legislation.

Before I continue, I want to say that I am splitting my time with the member for Lakeland, who I am sure will do a terrific job speaking on behalf of her constituents as well.

I want to go through the legislation, specifically section 7, which I have the most concerns with.

In my home, my kids go on YouTube and streaming services exclusively. We do not have cable. There is no over-the-air TV like back in my day. When I say “back in my day”, I still remember when there were black and white channels.

In Communist Poland, there were only two channels we could get. They were both in black and white. The joke always was that the regime had set up a second channel to prove to people the first one was not that bad. I do not remember it, but the first time I got to watch TV in colour was when I came to Canada in 1985. It was a nice thing to see that colour TV was something we could get.

My kids do not have that experience at all. They go onto YouTube and I go onto YouTube as well. I am going to mention two particular channels I love, because they are by Canadian content creators who would be impacted by Bill C-11.

The first one is an Ontario channel called TheStraightPipes. It is two guys from Ontario who review cars. They just get vehicles and review them. They would have to go to the CRTC to get a licence that says the videos they post are Canadian content.

They are from Canada. They are Canadian content creators. Even when they travel to America, I still think of their videos as Canadian content. Would they be eligible for a licence for their Canadian and international audience to be able to look at their videos if they go to America and do them?

The second one I want to mention is my favourite, and I mentioned it earlier in the previous stage of debate on Bill C-11 It is Leroy and Leroy. If people are not on Instagram checking out these guys from Saskatchewan, they are missing out.

Leroy and Leroy is the funniest comedy channel about funny street signs all over Canada. I will always remember the one video they uploaded of a “no parking” sign on a straight road somewhere in Saskatchewan. I know it is really difficult to figure out one straight road from another in Saskatchewan. It is a rural road, there is a “no parking” sign and there is just nothing there that someone would be concerned about vehicles blocking.

I wonder whether they would have to keep reapplying to the CRTC as Canadian content creators. Are they Canadian enough? When they travel outside of Canada to do their comedy routine, would they be Canadian enough?

I have a Yiddish proverb. I always have a Yiddish proverb. I am going to butcher the pronunciation of it.

[Member spoke in Yiddish]

[English]

It means, “Truth has all the finest qualities, but it is shy.” I am glad we are having this debate this evening, because it is an opportunity for the shyness to come out and the truth to come out.

Many members on the opposite side do not like the fact that we call this a censorship bill. We say the CRTC is going to be able to control what people see and hear online, but that is what many of the witnesses have been saying.

Countless witnesses, professors and academics, people who have specialized in writing, including a constitutional lawyer who used to work for our justice department, have expressed concern over the content of the bill and how the bill is written. When there is a disagreement between experts and the common, everyday people who write to my inbox telling me they are upset with the contents of the bill, I am going to trust my constituents, the real experts when it comes to legislation before the House. They are the ones I represent here. They are the ones who are going to have to live with the decisions we are making and the types of legislation we are going to pass.

I am very concerned with section 7. It reads, “For greater certainty, an order may be made under subsection (1) with respect to orders made under subsection 9.1(1) or 11.1(2) or regulations made under subsection 10(1) or 11.1(1).”

We write these laws in this manner. I am not burdened with a legal education, thankfully, but I did go back to the Broadcasting Act to see under which sections the government would be able to direct things. This one would allow cabinet to issue, under the heading “Policy directions”, any of the objectives of the broadcasting policies set out in a different subsection, or any of the objectives of the regulatory policies set out in a different section. It starts by saying, “the Governor in Council may...issue to the Commission directions of general application on broad policy matters with respect to”, and then it goes into detail.

The next section I will talk about is licencing. Everything to do with licencing would be impacted as well, because the government would be able to direct the CRTC through a policy directive and tell it what to do. That is all in section 7. It goes on to talk about regulations generally, and we find that in many pieces of legislation.

For those constituents who are perhaps watching this and will use this as an explanation when I go through this, it goes from literally 10(1) all the way down from (a) to (k), and the government covers everything down to what respects the audit or examination of the records of licensees.

What does that mean? Is it that, if Leroy and Leroy gets a licence with the CRTC to prove its creators create Canadian content, the creators can be audited, such as with respect to how many videos they did in Canada versus not in Canada? If TheStraightPipes brings in an American vehicle, or a vehicle perhaps manufactured elsewhere, are the creators going to be audited on that?

The bill talks about distribution, mediation rules and respecting the carriage of any foreign or other programming services by distribution undertakings. What happens if TheStraightPipes decides to do a joint episode with an American channel? Does it need a special licence, a different licence, and have to pay a fee? Is it Canadian content enough?

All these broadcasting rules are being brought into the age of YouTube, and they do not really apply here where the cost of production is so low and so close to people. However, in the bill, there are things about advertising, Canadian programming and what constitutes Canadian programming, which is where this Canadian content comes in.

Again, there are a schedule of fees, performing of the licence and the undertakings, which are all being covered, and it starts with the policy directives that can be set by the Government of Canada. A lot of different groups have expressed concerns about it. Like I said, it is probably the number one issue emailed to me or in the phone calls I get in the office.

I talked about the Calgary Stampede pancake breakfast outside the Auburn Bay A&W, which was hosting it. The gentleman who runs it, Balwant, is a great community activist. He is always helping different charitable groups and supporting them.

There are a lot of groups and individuals who think this is bad legislation: Digital First Canada; OpenMedia; J.J. McCullough, who is an independent journalist but has his own YouTube channel as well; Justin Tomchuk, who is an independent filmmaker; and the Digital Media Association. The list goes on and on.

This piece of legislation is bad. It is about censorship, or it would give the opportunity for it, and if the government really meant for it not to be not to be known by that, it would have abandoned this piece of legislation. It would have gone back to the drafting process and drafted a better bill.

This entire situation could have been avoided. Motions were tabled that actually did not do what they were supposed to do, and then the government came back and tabled a different motion because it is just trying to ram the bill through the process, and that has not worked out for the government. I think there are way more Canadians who know about Bill C-11 and about the CRTC than ever before, and the vast majority of them in my riding are opposed to Bill C-11.

I am going to vote against Bill C-11. I will continue to advocate against it, because that is what my constituents want me to do. Hopefully, through this intervention here in the House of Commons, I have been able to demonstrate that the legislation, particularly section 7, and its amendments to the Broadcasting Act are completely on the wrong track. The government needs to kill Bill C-11.

Telecommunications Act

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and join the debate this morning in the House of Commons. I will be sharing my time with the member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake.

Bill C-26 is a bill that addresses an important and growing topic. Cybersecurity is very important, very timely. I am glad that, in calling this bill today, the government sees this as a priority. I struggle with trying to figure out the priorities of the government from time to time. There were other bills it had declared as absolute must-pass bills before Christmas that it is not calling. However, it is good to be talking about this instead of Bill C-21, Bill C-11 or some of the other bills that the Liberals have lots of problems with on their own benches.

Cybersecurity is something that affects all Canadians. It is, no doubt, an exceptionally important issue that the government needs to address. Cybersecurity, as the previous speaker said, is national security. It is critical to the safety and security of all of our infrastructure. It underpins every aspect of our lives. We have seen how infrastructure can be vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Throughout the world, we have seen how energy infrastructure is vulnerable, like cyber-attacks that affect the ability to operate pipelines. We have seen how cyber-attacks can jeopardize the functioning of an electrical grid.

At the local level, we have experienced how weather events that bring down power infrastructure can devastate a community and can actually endanger people's health and safety. One can only imagine what a nationwide or pervasive cyber-attack that managed to cripple a national electrical grid would do to people's ability to live their lives in safety and comfort.

Cyberwarfare is emerging as a critical component of every country's national defence system, both offensively and defensively. The battlefield success of any military force has always depended on communication. We know now just how dependent military forces are on the security of their cyber-communication. We see this unfolding in Ukraine, resulting from the horrific, criminal invasion of that country by Putin. We see the vital role that communication plays with respect to the ability of a country to defend itself from a foreign adversary, in terms of cybersecurity.

I might point out that there is a study on this going on at the national defence committee. We have heard expert testimony about how important cybersecurity is to the Canadian Armed Forces. We look forward to getting that report eventually put together and tabled, with recommendations to the government here in the House of Commons in Canada.

We know that critical sectors of the Canadian economy and our public services are highly vulnerable to cyber-attack. Organized crime and foreign governments do target information contained within health care systems and within our financial system. The potential for a ransom attack, large and small, is a threat to Canadians. Imagine a hostile regime or a criminal enterprise hacking a public health care system and holding an entire province or an entire country hostage with the threat to destroy or leak or hopelessly corrupt the health data of millions of citizens. Sadly, criminal organizations and hostile governments seek to do this and are busy creating the technology to enable them to do exactly this.

The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics conducted three different studies while I was chair of that committee that were tied to cybersecurity in various ways. We talked about and learned about the important ways in which cybersecurity and privacy protection intersect and sometimes conflict. We saw how this government contracted with the company Clearview AI, a company whose business is to scrape billions of images from the Internet, identify these images and sell the identified images back to governments and, in the case of Canada, to the RCMP.

We heard chilling testimony at that committee about the capabilities of sophisticated investigative tools, spyware, used by hostile regimes and by organized crime but also by our own government, which used sophisticated investigative tools to access Canadians' cellphones without their knowledge or consent. In Canada, this was limited. It was surprising to learn that this happened, but it happened under judicial warrant and in limited situations by the RCMP. However, the RCMP did not notify or consult the Privacy Commissioner, which is required under Treasury Board rules. This conflict between protecting Canadians by enforcing our laws and protecting Canadians' privacy is difficult for governments, and when government institutions like the RCMP disregard Treasury Board edicts or ignore the Privacy Commissioner or the Privacy Act, especially when they set aside or ignore a ruling from the Privacy Commissioner, it is quite concerning.

This bill is important. It is worthy of support, unlike the government's somewhat related bill, Bill C-27, the so-called digital charter. However, this bill, make no mistake, has significant new powers for the government. It amends the Telecommunications Act to give extraordinary powers to the minister over industry. It is part of a pattern we are seeing with this government, where it introduces bills that grant significant powers to the minister and to the bureaucrats who will ultimately create regulations.

Parliament is really not going to see this fleshed out unless there is significant work done at committee to improve transparency around this bill and to add more clarity around what this bill would actually do and how these powers will be granted. There have been many concerns raised in the business community about how this bill may chase investment, jobs and capital from Canada. The prospect of extraordinary fines, without this bill being fleshed out very well, creates enormous liability for companies, which may choose not to invest in Canada, not fully understanding the ramifications of this bill.

There is always the capture. We have seen this time and time again with the government. It seems to write up a bill for maybe three or four big companies or industries, only a small number of players in Canada, and yet the bill will capture other enterprises, small businesses that do not have armies of lobbyists to engage the government and get regulations that will give them loopholes, or lawyers to litigate a conflict that may arise as a result of it. I am always concerned about the small businesses and the way they may be captured, either deliberately or not, by a bill like this.

I will conclude by saying that I support the objective. I agree with the concern that the bill tries to address. I am very concerned about a number of areas that are ambiguous within the bill. I hope that it is studied vigorously at committee and that strong recommendations are brought back from committee and incorporated into whatever the bill might finally look like when it comes back for third reading.

Procedure and House Affairs

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is really important tonight of all nights that we discuss this issue. In a world of disinformation and political interference from foreign actors, democracy is in a fragile condition these days. It is incumbent upon us as parliamentarians to reassure the public and give them reason to believe that the public service has integrity. This is the reason that New Democrats came forward tonight to bring this motion, and we can see how excited the Conservatives are that, once again, they are able to respond to the NDP's lead on this. This is why, on a number of issues, we have used our position in Parliament not to burn the House to the ground but to try and find solutions.

When the Liberals overreached on Bill C-21, the gun bill, the Conservatives just loved it. They were going to raise money off of it. We were like, “No, we are going to find a solution so that farmers and hunters are not targeted.” We pushed relentlessly and negotiated. That is what we do in Parliament.

It is the same for the issue of getting Ms. Katie Telford to come before committee. The Conservatives were just using their tactics of character assassination and smear, but we said no to the Liberals. We said that we have to find a way to start getting answers.

The NDP was the first party, with our leader, to call for a public inquiry. Tonight, we are the ones leading this discussion. We need this because we are in a situation where we have just gotten allegations, which I think are explosive, that a sitting member of Parliament may have advised a senior Chinese official over the illegal detention, the hostage-taking, of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, whom we know as “the two Michaels”.

The hostage-taking of those two men was a real line that was crossed in this new century in terms of the breakdown of international order and international law. It was incumbent upon all of us, regardless of party, to put the interests of those men and their families first.

I know the member who has been accused. I have sat with him on committee. I am not here to say whether those allegations are true. However, I am saying they are so explosive that the Prime Minister must respond. One of the ways he can respond now is by following the New Democrat call for a public inquiry to restore confidence.

I am not confident that addressing this in just a parliamentary committee is enough. We are also dealing with serious state secret issues. A lot of this comes through what CSIS is going to tell us. Quite frankly, I do not trust the Conservative leader with this kind of information anymore because I see the tactics that he has brought forward.

I blame the Prime Minister for delaying, obfuscating, not addressing the seriousness of this issue and undermining public confidence. However, I think it is equally dangerous to use the tactic of character assassination and smear, as well as trashing anyone who stands in the way of the Conservative agenda on this. Knowing what they are doing, I would certainly never be comfortable knowing that state secrets could be brought to a committee. They can say what they want about David Johnston or the decision of the Prime Minister, in terms of whether it was right or wrong to appoint a special rapporteur, but shame on Conservatives who trashed the reputation of a former governor general. This is a man who was appointed by Stephen Harper and who serves his country with dignity. He deserves better than this kind of smear.

I do not think I will ever be invited to a Trudeau Foundation dinner; I would be very surprised if I were. However, when we have institutions that actually serve the public, it is not acceptable to decide to try and smear them as though they are some kind of Chinese, communist-run foundation of friends and pals. That is ignorant. I disagree with the Prime Minister on most things, but I would never stoop so low as to say that he is some kind of paid stooge for a foreign government. However, that is the language that comes from the leader of the Conservative Party, and that is dangerous because it undermines confidence.

The first time I was called a “traitor”, I thought it was a joke because I serve my country with dignity. However, I realized language like calling people “traitors” and “enemies” is now part of the Conservatives' discourse. This is why we have death threats in this country. There are disinformation reports from the World Economic Forum. We have to rise above this.

There was a time when the Parliament of Canada would have been shocked and appalled that any member would have partied with an extreme right neo-Nazi German extremist, like Christine Anderson. However, she is a folk hero to many on that side. There was a time when any Conservative leader who knew that their members were cavorting with extreme-right German extremist groups would have drawn a line, but that does not happen anymore.

We are in a situation where we are moving further away from where we need to be as an institution that reassures faith in the public that they can trust not only that our elections are completely protected and the rights of citizens are protected, but also that public institutions serve the public interest and that the people we elect to serve are doing it with a belief that public service is a public good. We have to get back there.

When we look at the situation before us, with the allegations of foreign interference, we know that there were serious questions during the convoy about Russian disinformation, proxy sites and the use of RT. It favoured certain political interests in this country, because it was undermining the present government, but there were serious questions about Russian disinformation in the convoy scandal.

We need to make sure that we have the tools to examine if this is interfering with how our democracy operates. The situation of allegations of potential interference by Chinese state actors is also concerning for another profound reason. We see a rise of anti-Asian hate and anti-Asian violence in this country. We need to say very clearly, as parliamentarians, that we are not exploiting this situation for our own personal and political gain. We are deeply concerned, just as people in the Chinese community are concerned and just as people in the Iranian community or any other community would be concerned, about any potential foreign actors. This is why the Prime Minister needs to reassure the public that he understands this.

I respect David Johnston. I do not know if we needed him as a special rapporteur. The allegations that have come out tonight are very serious, and I think the Prime Minister must respond to those allegations. I think it is incumbent upon the Prime Minister to say that we have to take this out of the realm of the partisan monkey house, which this place has sometimes descended to in the last few days, and to put it in the hands of an independent inquiry that has the power to compel testimony, the power to gather documents and—

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this place to represent the interests of the good people of Regina—Qu'Appelle and represent my caucus as the opposition House leader.

We need to frame what is going on here because what we saw over the last few weeks was a despicable display at committee, a mockery of the parliamentary process. We found out that the Prime Minister has known for years about allegations of foreign interference from the Communist regime in Beijing, specifically helping the Liberal Party. Chinese representatives of that Communist regime here in Canada said they preferred a Liberal government, and there are reports coming from The Globe and Mail, citing CSIS reports and national security committee reports, indicating that there is a large “clandestine network” of funding of candidates that is coming from the Communist regime in Beijing. Conservatives have been trying to shine a light on this at committee. We have all seen the lengths that the Liberals have gone to.

Today is what is called an opposition day. Today is the supply day when opposition parties are allowed to introduce a topic and have a debate on something. Normally the government gets to set the calendar. This is its right, as it brings forward legislation, but a certain number of days throughout the year are allocated to each opposition party. For today, the Conservatives put forward a motion to call on the government to abandon its plan to increase taxes on beer, wine and spirits. That is what we are supposed to be debating right now.

On Monday, we had a fulsome debate on this whole issue of foreign interference, and I should point out that Conservatives, at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, indicated to the NDP that we are totally fine with expanding the scope of the investigation. We believe that if there are allegations of foreign interference coming from any country, they should be investigated. We were willing to work with the New Democrats on that. We were hoping that they would vote in favour of our motion on Monday calling on the Prime Minister's chief of staff to testify at committee. The problem was that they did not let us know. They kept ragging the puck. It was a very simple question. It was the exact same motion that we had proposed at committee. Even the NDP House leader had indicated his support at committee.

It kind of reminds me of something that happened a little while ago. I was in the chamber and I saw the NDP House leader get up and try to indicate that the NDP opposed certain amendments at committee when it was dealing with Bill C-21. Of course, Bill C-21 is the piece of legislation that would massively expand the power of the government to take away lawful firearms from Canadians. I am not trying to mix topics too much, but the reason I am talking about this is that Conservatives recognized instantly what was going on. We saw it at committee. We said it was going to make unlawful so many firearms that hunters and indigenous communities use every season for their long-held Canadian heritage and history of using firearms legally.

What happened was that Conservatives at the committee saw that not only were these bad policy amendments, but they were also out of order, beyond the scope of the bill itself, so at the committee, almost immediately, we asked the chair to rule those amendments out of order. The chair said no. The Liberal chair said that the amendments were in order.

Why do I bring this up? At committee, the Conservatives challenged the chair. We asked our colleagues in the Bloc and the NDP to please support us on this as the amendments were out of order. The NDP voted no. The NDP voted to keep those amendments in Bill C-21, yet the NDP House leader came to this chamber and asked the Speaker to do what his team actually voted against at committee. He tried to take credit, saying they were bad. It was only after their MPs heard from their constituents, who told them how terrible it was. This is exactly what we are facing here today.

We have tried to give the opportunity to the NDP members multiple times to hold this government to account and yet, time and time again, they are showing Canadians that they would rather prop up Liberal corruption and help keep the truth covered, instead of shining a light. It is very disappointing. It is very disappointing that we see the NDP here on an opposition day move this motion. They are trying to come up with this phony story.

Conservatives want a public inquiry. We have called for it. We were trying to get this report back in the House; we could have dealt with this last week. They are the ones playing procedural games and we are not going to let them get away with it. We are going to highlight to Canadians the hypocrisy that the NDP has been showing.

I just want to indicate that I am splitting my time with the hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton.

In closing, I want to make a couple of points about this. I hear from colleagues across the way who are throwing all kinds of baseless allegations that are just not backed up by facts. Conservatives have been calling for a public inquiry. The first time the Leader of the Opposition raised this issue in the House, the Prime Minister said that he did not know anything about it, so we started to press. We started to call for this. We started to call for a full, independent public inquiry. What did the government do? It appointed a special rapporteur.

I understand. I understand the hon. government House leader and I am hoping to have a discussion with him in a few moments, but it is important to set the stage for it.

I will wrap it up with this. It is impossible to restore the confidence that has been shaken by the Prime Minister's inaction on this file without a public inquiry, not a special rapporteur with close family ties to the Prime Minister, not someone on the Trudeau Foundation board. We support the call for a full public inquiry and we are just disappointed that it took so long to drag the NDP kicking and screaming to ensure that the Prime Minister's chief of staff testifies at committee.

Online Streaming Act

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Madam Speaker, normally, there would not be much debate in the House when we talk about making updates to the Broadcasting Act, which came into effect in 1991. At face value, most Canadians would say that a lot has changed since then. A little thing called the Internet came along, and most would agree.

I have talked about this topic in the House before and I am pretty proud of myself. I am pretty sure that I was the first MP in Canadian history to put Boyz II Men in the parliamentary record, when talking about the legislation before us, because times have changed a little bit. Back in 1991, Boyz II Men, Bryan Adams, MC Hammer and Monty Python were on the charts. I wanted to put that in the record again, and I am glad I have done that.

The goals of the Broadcasting Act have been reasonable: respecting official languages and providing an avenue for Canadian content in the traditional media at the time of TV and radio. Here is the thing I have said in the House, sadly, on many issues over and over again: Only the NDP and the Liberals, working together, can take something so mundane and so innocuous and make a disaster out of it when it comes to policy.

Here is how I know that. Outside of the Ottawa bubble, there are not too many Canadians who know what Bill C-4 or Bill S-252 or Bill C-39 is when it comes to government legislation. We know that the government is in trouble and we know it is on the wrong side of public opinion when a bill title becomes famous. In the last couple of weeks or couple of months, Bill C-21 has become synonymous with an attack on rural Canadians, indigenous communities and hunters, when the government tried to ban commonly used hunting rifles. Here we are now, with the famous term “C-11”, known by millions of Canadians across the country today as the most blatant attempt by the Liberals and the NDP, and bureaucrats in Ottawa, to have control over what Canadians see and what they search on the Internet.

If that was not convincing enough, Bill C-11 being a household name to millions of Canadians, we know we are in trouble when Conservatives and Margaret Atwood are on the same page, pushing back against the government. She is a wonderful Canadian, one of the most regarded and successful Canadian artists and content creators this country has ever seen. Canadians do not have to take my word for it or believe this side of the bench if they do not want to. Canadians will take Margaret Atwood's word on Canadian culture and content any day of the week over that of the Liberals and the NDP.

I want to give members the dictionary version of what she said. She said some pretty harsh things, calling out the government on Bill C-11. When we break it down and use the dictionary to further define what she is calling out the government for, it is creating a centralized and dictator-like system of control that requires complete subservience to the state.

This is bad legislation. They know it. It has been ping-ponged back and forth between the House of Commons and the Senate. It is back in the House of Commons, and it is going to go back to the Senate. Every time there is a committee hearing, every time there are more witnesses testifying, there are more questions than answers about what the government is doing here with this bill. From consumer groups to legal experts to content creators, many, many groups from every walk of life and every angle on this topic are calling out the government's direction and how bad and how flawed the bill is.

I am proud to stand as a Conservative to say that when we form government, we will repeal Bill C-11. We will kill Bill C-11, as simple as that.

Let us get into the weeds and talk about some of these pieces bit by bit. One of the things we hear the Liberals and the NDP say is that we need to support Canadian content more.

When I think about that, I pull up a list and say, sure, let us support Canadian content, things like Deadpool. It was filmed in Vancouver, starring Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds, with a screenplay by Canadian Paul Wernick, based on a Canadian comic book character.

We have Canadian Bacon. Who could forget that? There is John Candy, a legendary Canadian actor, in a story involving Canada.

I talked about Margaret Atwood. We have The Handmaid's Tale, based on her book. When we look at the production, the series was filmed in Mississauga, Toronto, Brantford, Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, Cambridge.

I think of Canadian content like All or Nothing, a series on the Toronto Maple Leafs. It is a five-part series that followed the Leafs for months during the 2020-21 season. It is narrated by a Canadian, Will Arnett. It used Canadian crews.

Is this all Canadian content? No, every one of those examples I just cited does not meet the definition and criteria for Canadian content in the definitions that we have.

Bill C-11 is currently 56 pages long, and any Canadian can go online and look at it. They can hit Ctrl+F and search. Nowhere in there does it talk about modernizing and cleaning up that definition. I will argue that this is not about Canadian content, but about something else.

Every time, we put an amendment forward to clarify. If the government wants to debunk a myth and say that what we are saying is not the case, it can clarify it and put in amendments to say what it is not, to exclude certain things. The government refused to do so. It says, “Don't worry. We are not going to determine that. It's going to be the CRTC.”

This brings me to my next point, about another fundamentally flawed part of the legislation. The CRTC is an Ottawa-based acronym. Federal acronyms go left, right and centre around here. It is an agency in Ottawa, and on the Quebec side as well, in the national capital region, full of bureaucrats who, behind closed doors, would not only set the rules for what is Canadian content, but also, through the bill, be directed to start controlling the search results we have on the Internet.

Members heard that right: “behind closed doors”. We have asked repeatedly to put some sunshine, sunlight and transparency on those protocols. There are no criteria in the bill. There is no public formula. There are no clarifications or guardrails on what those protocols are, so for Canadians, when it comes to what they search and what they want to see, whether it is searching on Google, Crave, YouTube or any other platform, as a Canadian here and now, the government will control what goes up in search results and what goes down, and we would not be able to find out the algorithms and calculations it uses, because of CRTC bureaucrats doing it behind closed doors. They never have to share their reasoning, or what I call “showing their homework”. That speaks volumes.

The Prime Minister and the NDP will say not to worry because the CRTC is an arm's-length agency of the federal government. “It is independent,” they say. Let us just debunk that right now. The CRTC reports to the Liberal Minister of Canadian Heritage. Its chair and the commissioners who are working there and leading that organization are appointed directly by the Prime Minister and the Liberal cabinet.

Nobody believes it is arm's-length, and nobody believes the legislation is about Canadian artists and everyday Canadians, because if it were the right thing to do and the popular thing to do, and if there were no problems about it, the government would have made that whole process a lot more public, rather than punting it over behind closed doors.

The bill is not about sunlight. It is not about Canadian artists and content creators. I say the bill is a Trojan horse, because there are some very big cheerleaders for it. The bureaucracy at the CRTC would be exploding in size. The size of the Internet is massive. The amount of content uploaded every single day is huge. It is going to take an administrative swarm of new bureaucrats to go through, and the people who are going to hit the jackpot, the people who are doing cartwheels in downtown Ottawa, are the lobbyists who would be hired by all these groups, associations and artists to try to lobby to get them, when the CRTC goes behind closed doors, to take what is going on.

As I share my time with the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, we will continue the commentary on this and how it works. If someone is a budding content creator in north Winnipeg, a Franco-Ontarian or an indigenous artist in northern Canada, in Nunavut, they can currently upload, and may the best content win. The cream of the crop rises. Canadians will determine what they like and what they want to watch, and that should be the most popular search result. That is the most organic way possible. Trust me, the best way is to let Canadians do their own work and let the organic way go. Good videos go to the top. We have thousands of artists who have made a living by creating content and continue to do so. We do not need to fix what is not broken.

I will wrap up by saying that Bill C-11 is bad. It is online censorship. Ottawa telling 37 million Canadians what they should watch and see is wrong. The Liberals and the NDP have had years to get this right, and now they are just being stubborn.

We oppose this bill now, and as a Conservative government, we would kill Bill C-11.

Firearms

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present two petitions on behalf of my constituents.

The first is in regard to firearms and Bill C-21. Petitioners are outraged that the government would rather waste valuable time and resources on confiscating lawfully obtained firearms from citizens who have done no wrong than actually addressing rampant gun violence being committed by criminals and gangs in communities across our country. Canada has a long-standing history of hunting. For centuries, both indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians have hunted for sustenance and sport.

Bill C-21 would put unfairly severe restrictions on law-abiding Canadian hunters, and it would put their traditions at risk. My constituents are calling on the government to repeal and withdraw Bill C-21.

Telecommunications Act

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Madam Speaker, it took eight long years for the Liberal government to recognize that cybersecurity threats exist in this country and around the world. Congratulations to them for coming to the party a little late.

The Liberals have now presented a bill to try to address issues of cybersecurity in the country. As I said, it took them eight years to get there, but I have to say I am pleased that the Liberals have decided to finally do something. I look forward to this bill being passed so that it can be extensively studied at committee.

There are some things in this bill that are good. I know praising the Liberal government is strange territory for me, but I will say that the bill would give the government some tools to respond quickly to cyber-threats. There is currently no explicit legislative authority in the Telecommunications Act to ensure that telecom providers are suitably prepared for cyber-attacks. This is a good reason why this bill should probably move forward to committee to be studied.

The challenge I have, though, includes a whole number of things. My issue with the government is trust. While I do want this legislation to go to committee, I have extraordinary concerns about this bill. Many of these concerns have been raised by many groups across the country, and I do want to speak to some of those in the probably somewhat whimsical hope that the government will listen and take some of these amendments seriously.

There has been a very bad track record of the government responding to concerns from the opposition or from outside organizations with respect to legislation. There is a view that the Liberals are going to do what they want to do on pieces of legislation and that they really do not care what other people have to say. I am very concerned that the government is not going to listen to the very serious concerns that have been raised about this bill.

I have my own concerns when I look at how the government has behaved with respect to other pieces of legislation. We have to look at Bill C-11. There has been a multitude of organizations that have said the bill needs further amendment. Margaret Atwood has said that she has grave concerns about the legislation, that she supports the intent but has grave concerns about the implementation and how it is going to affect artists and content creators. We have had folks who compete in the YouTube sphere who have raised all kinds of concerns about Bill C-11, and the government's response has been that it does not care what they have to say, and that it is going forward with the legislation as it is.

The Senate has made a number of amendments to Bill C-11. I suspect the government's attitude is going to be the same, which is that it does not care what the amendments are and that it is going to proceed with the bill as it sees fit.

We also have only to look to Bill C-21 as well. We had the minister clearly not aware of what constituted a hunting rifle and a hunting gun. The Liberals introduced amendments at committee, and it took extraordinary push-back from Canadians from coast to coast to coast to get them to wake up and withdraw those amendments that they had put in at the last minute.

What it speaks to is that, despite having at its disposal the entire apparatus of the Canadian government, the Liberals are still unable to get legislation right. It takes an enormous amount of effort and hue and cry across the country saying that this has to stop and that this has to be changed. If there is not a massive uprising, the government tends not to listen to the legitimate concerns of other constituents or other groups when it introduces legislation.

With that context, it is why I have real concerns that the government is not going to listen to some of the serious concerns that have been raised with respect to Bill C-26. I am going to go through some of those.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has some very serious concerns. It has issued a joint letter that says that the bill is deeply problematic and needs fixing, because it risks undermining our privacy rights and the principles of accountable governance and judicial due process. This is a big bell that is going off, and I hope the government is listening. As I have said, I do not have a lot of faith, given other pieces of legislation where thoughtful amendments have been put forward and the government decided not to do anything with them.

I want to enumerate a few of the concerns from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. On increased surveillance, it says that the bill would allow the federal government “to secretly order telecom providers” to “do anything or refrain from doing anything necessary...to secure the Canadian telecommunications system, including against the threat of interference, manipulation or disruption”.

That is a pretty broad power. Where is the government putting the guardrails in that would limit the effects of this or protect the privacy rights of Canadians? That is something I think is incredibly concerning.

On the termination of essential services, Bill C-26 would allow the government to bar a person or a company from being able to receive specific services and bar any company from offering these services to others by secret government order.

Where are we going to have the checks and safety checks on this? Unfortunately, I am not in a position where I think I can trust the government to do the right thing on these things. We have seen it through vaccine mandates, in the legislation on Bill C-21 and in how the Liberals are trying to push through Bill C-11 without listening to reasoned amendments. If reasonable concerns are raised about Bill C-26, I just do not have faith the Liberals are going to take those concerns seriously and make the amendments that are necessary. I really hope they do.

On undermining privacy, the bill would provide for the collection of data from designated operators, which would potentially allow the government to obtain identifiable and de-identified personal information and subsequently distribute it to domestic, and perhaps foreign, organizations. When someone takes the de-identified personal information of Canadians and does not say how they are going to deal with it or what protections they have in place to make sure it is not misused, what happens in the event that they take that information and somehow there is a government breach? Where does that information go? These are things I think we should be extraordinarily concerned about.

There was also an analysis provided with respect to this by Christopher Parsons, in a report subtitled “A Critical Analysis of Proposed Amendments in Bill C-26 to the Telecommunications Act”. Parsons raises concerns about vague language. The report notes that key terms in the bill, such as “interference”, “manipulation” and “disruption”, which trigger the government's ability to make orders binding on telecom service providers, are unidentified.

Where are the guardrails in the legislation to prevent government overreach and therefore protect Canadians? This is something that I think all Canadians should be watching and be very concerned about. They should be letting their voices be heard by the government on this.

The report talks about how the minister of industry's scope of power to make orders is also undefined. We would be giving a whole host of undefined powers to the minister and the government that would allow them to have all kinds of sensitive information. These are things that may be necessary, but I do not know. They are highly concerning to me. They should be highly concerning to Canadians, and I hope the government will hear from real experts at committee.

Let us not have a two-day committee study where we think Bill C-26 is perfect as it is and bring it back to the House of Commons, bring in time allocation or closure and pass it through. We have seen that story before, and we do not want to see it with the piece of legislation before us. My really big hope is that the government is going to take the time to really consider the seriousness and breadth of Bill C-26 and make sure we have the ways to protect Canadians.

I just want to add that the Business Council of Canada has released its own letter to the Minister of Public Safety, expressing its incredibly deep concerns with respect to the bill: there is a lack of a risk-based approach, information sharing is one-way and the legal threshold for issuing directions is too low.

There are three reports, right there, that are outlining significant concerns with Bill C-26, and I, for one, just do not believe the government is going to listen or get it right. It does not have the track record of doing so, but I am hoping it will, because cybersecurity is incredibly serious as we move toward a digital economy in so many ways. I really hope the government is going to listen to these things, take them seriously, do the hard work at committee and bring forward whatever amendments need to be brought forward, or, if the amendments are brought forward by the opposition, listen to and implement those amendments.

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

Madam Speaker, I have a lot of trouble putting any confidence in the Liberal government. It took seven years for it to ban Huawei. It is a government that sat on its hands and did nothing about cybersecurity for the past several years. I know this is a government I cannot trust. When I look at Bill C-11, the Liberals are now trying to censor Canadians online. They are trying to control what people see online, which violates charter rights, especially when it comes down to freedom of expression, freedom of association and the ability to actually have discourse online about our political situation in Canada and around the world. When the Liberals try to put veils over certain parts of our information system, I have to be very concerned.

I look at Bill C-21 and how the Liberals have gone after responsible firearms owners like hunters, sport shooters and farmers. To me, that builds no trust in the government to get the job done.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to be joining the debate today to offer some of my thoughts and perspective on Bill C-26, a much awaited bill on a cybersecurity infrastructure.

Bill C-26 is a good reminder to members that the Department of Public Safety and its subject matter is so much bigger than just firearms, because, of course, firearms and Bill C-21 have been dominating the news cycle for the last couple of months. That bill, in particular at the public safety committee, has occupied so much time and wasted so many resources. Bill C-26 is a good reminder that with cybersecurity we have so many other agencies that are dedicated to national security under the umbrella of public safety. Cybersecurity is a big subject matter. We also have Bill C-20, which is an important bill on oversight and accountability for both the CBSA and RCMP.

Today, we would not find many members in the House of Commons who are arguing against the need for better cybersecurity. All of the evidence out there points to this being a new and evolving threat. Artificial intelligence systems offer some interesting advantages, but with those advantages come threats and with those threats come actors who are determined to use them in nefarious ways that will harm and have harmed Canada's interests. We need a whole host of options to counter this threat. We need our national security agencies to take these threats with increased importance. We also need legislation to fill in the gaps and make sure that all of Canada's laws are up to date.

I have spent a lot of time on the public safety committee. We did a couple of reports that directly touched on this area. One of our first reports identified violent extremism. Our most recent study looked at the threat posed by Russia. We know that since Russia conducted its invasion of Ukraine, which has recently passed the one-year anniversary, it has also increased the threats that it offers to Canada and to like-minded countries. One of those areas is cybersecurity.

Our committee has not yet tabled its report, which should be tabled in the House of Commons soon so that members of the House and the public can not only see the results of the deliberations, but also see the important recommendations that the committee is going to make. However, we heard a lot of testimony during those committee hearings on the cyber-related threats from Russia. Many witnesses identified that those are among the most serious and relevant for Canada's public safety and national security, particularly in relation to critical infrastructure.

I want to set this table before I get into the nuts and bolts of what Bill C-26 is offering, but also set some of the problems that are in evidence with this first version of the bill.

We have to understand a few basic terms. The Government of Canada refers to critical infrastructure as the “processes, systems, facilities, technologies, networks, assets and services essential to the health, safety, security or economic well-being of Canadians and the effective functioning of government”, whether that is the federal government, the provincial governments or our municipal governments. Because so many of those pieces of critical infrastructure are now tied into computer systems that are vulnerable to attack, a bill like this becomes quite necessary.

I could go on and on about all of the critical systems in our modern society and the range of sectors, from our energy production to our food distribution systems to our electricity grid and transportation networks and how our ports and our banking system work. If one were to interrupt any one of those services, it could create absolute havoc within any Canadian community or countrywide.

One of the witnesses we had during our public safety meetings on the topic of the threats posed from Russia, and this was just talking about the cyber-threat more broadly, was Jennifer Quaid, Executive Director of the Canadian Cyber Threat Exchange. She reminded our committee that there are nation-states that are conducting espionage and statecraft through the Internet, but there are also criminals who are engaging in cybercrime for financial gain.

In some cases, those criminal groups and the nation-states are working together. There is evidence of this not only in Russia but in places like North Korea and China, where it is almost like the policy that was in place back in the 1700s and 1600s, where privateers would go out and do a nation-state's bidding. In this modern-day version of that policy, there are criminal organizations that are working hand in glove with some nation-states to give them some plausible deniability, but the systems they are using do pose a very real threat to Canada.

One of our key witnesses during the study was Caroline Xavier, Chief of the Communications Security Establishment. She was not able to go into much detail or specifics, given the very sensitive nature of the topic, but she was able to assure the committee that cybercrime is absolutely the most prevalent and most pervasive threat to Canadians and Canadian businesses. She observed that the state-sponsored cyber programs of China, North Korea, Iran and Russia posed the greatest strategic threat to Canada, and that foreign cyber-threat activities have included attempts to target Canadian critical infrastructure operators, as well as their operational and information technology.

Leaving aside the government, it is important for members to realize that most of Canada's critical infrastructure is, by and large, in the hands of the private sector. This is going to underline some of the important elements of Bill C-26.

We also had testimony from David Shipley, Chief Executive Officer of Beauceron Security. He was relaying the same stuff about Russian criminal organizations working in tandem with the government, and saying that criminal gangs have crippled Canadian municipalities. They have gone after health care organizations. The range of malicious cyber-activity has absolutely extended to many small and medium-sized enterprises.

When we look at the reporting requirements of Bill C-26, one of the biggest gaps that we have in our system is the fact that many businesses, private enterprises, are loath to report the fact that their systems have experienced a cyber-attack. They may be threatened to not do so. There is also a very real concern about the institutional harm that could come from the public release of said information. A large corporation that relays to its customers that it has experienced a cyber-attack may find people are loath to do business with it if they are unsure that its systems are up to par.

I also want to highlight a recent example from 2021, where the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador experienced a health records cyber-attack on October 30. The investigation revealed that over 200,000 files were taken that contained confidential patient information.

One can just imagine that in a province the size of Newfoundland and Labrador the fact that over 200,000 files were taken, that is a shocking theft of personal and confidential information. It really underlines just how important addressing this is.

I also want to touch briefly on the topic of artificial intelligence. I want to read a quote from a recent Hill Times article. This is from Jérémie Harris who is one of the co-founders of Gladstone AI, which is an artificial intelligence safety committee. He says:

But perhaps more concerning are the national security implications of these impressive capabilities. ChatGPT has been used to generate highly effective and unprecedented forms of malware, and the technology behind it can be used to power hyperscaled election interference operations and phishing attacks. These applications—and countless other, equally concerning ones also enabled by new advances in AI—would have been the stuff of science fiction just two years ago.

He goes on to say:

...ChatGPT is a harbinger of an era in which AI will be the single most important source of public safety risk facing Canada. As AI advances at a breakneck pace, the destructive footprint of malicious actors who use it will increase just as fast. Likewise, AI accidents—now widely viewed by AI safety specialists as a source of global catastrophic risk—will take more significant and exotic forms.

Something all members of the House really have to be aware of is how, just in the last two years, AI has advanced so quickly. We can think about what AI will be capable of two years or a decade from now. Just as Mr. Harris said, what it is doing right now was inconceivable just two years ago. The fact that AI is now being used to generate unique code for malware indicates there is no telling what it can be used to do and how it could be used to wreak havoc. That underlies just how important this issue is and how seriously we, as parliamentarians, have to take it as we serve our constituents and do the important work of equipping our nation with the tools it needs to keep Canadians, and the critical infrastructure they depend upon, safe.

When I was a member of the public safety committee, I had a chance to speak with Mr. Harris. I actually put a motion on notice that the committee should be undertaking a study on the range of threats posed to Canada's public safety, national security and critical infrastructure, specifically by AI systems. I hope one day the committee can take that study up, but it is a committee with a very heavy workload. It is still trying to find its way through Bill C-21. It is waiting for Bill C-20 to arrive on its door and, of course, this bill, Bill C-26, would also keep committee members quite busy.

I would like now to turn to the specifics of Bill C-26 and what it is attempting to do. It is separated into two main parts. According to the summary of the bill:

Part 1 amends the Telecommunications Act to add the promotion of the security of the Canadian telecommunications system as an objective of the Canadian telecommunications policy and to authorize the Governor in Council and the Minister of Industry to direct telecommunications service providers to do anything, or refrain from doing anything, that is necessary to secure the Canadian telecommunications system.

There are a number of orders that the Minister of Industry could issue. For example, he or she could prohibit a TSP from using any specified product or service in its networks or facilities; direct a TSP to remove a specified product from its networks or facilities; impose conditions on a TSP’s use of any product or service; subject a TSP’s networks or facilities, as well as its procurement plans for those networks or facilities, to a specified review process. Those are just a few examples of how the minister's orders could be issued. The bill does require the Governor in Council or the Minister of Industry to publish these orders in the Canada Gazette, but there is an allowance in the bill to allow these provisions to be prohibited, so the government can prevent the disclosure of these orders within the Gazette if they feel they need to be kept secret.

Part 2 would enact a brand new statute of Canada, a critical cyber systems protection act, which would “provide a framework for the protection of the critical cyber systems of services and systems that are vital to national security or public safety”. In schedule 1 of the government's bill there is a brief list. Vital systems and services can include telecommunication services, interprovincial or international pipelines and power line systems, and nuclear energy systems. Those are a few examples. A really important point is that the Governor in Council, through this bill, would be able to establish classes of operators and require designated operators to establish and implement cybersecurity programs.

This is where the bill would affect the private sector and make sure those cybersecurity programs are in place, especially when that private sector is involved in critical infrastructure. As a brief outline, with those cybersecurity programs, the expected outcomes would be that they could identify and manage any cyber-risk to the organization, including supply chain risks; prevent their critical cyber systems from being compromised; detect cybersecurity incidents; and limit the damage in the event a cybersecurity incident did occur.

I want to talk about concerns with the bill, because there are a lot of concerns. I have had the chance to speak with a number of organizations, but first and foremost was OpenMedia. I had a great conversation with the people there. There is a section on its website that specifically deals with Bill C-26. OpenMedia absolutely realizes that new cybersecurity protections are needed to protect Canada's infrastructure, but it believes they have to be balanced by appropriate safeguards, and this is to prevent their abuse and misuse.

We rely on these essential services, and their protection is important, but Bill C-26, as it is currently written, would give the executive branch huge sweeping powers. In my reading of the bill, there would not be enough accountability and oversight; there would not be enough review mechanisms for Parliament to check the power of the executive, and I think this is a critical point. I think, in principle, we have a good idea with the bill, but a lot of work will be needed at committee to ensure that this executive power would be checked and that it would fit within the parameters of the law. We absolutely must have that kind of parliamentary oversight.

I also know of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which said:

The problems with the Bill lie in the fact that the new and discretionary powers introduced by C-26 are largely unconstrained by safeguards to ensure those powers are used, when necessary, in ways that are proportionate, with due consideration for privacy and other rights. The lack of provisions around accountability and transparency make it all more troubling still.

I think, at this stage, we want to ensure, with the minister's powers to order or direct service providers, and the requirement to comply with these orders, that these powers are being subjected to the appropriate safeguard mechanisms. They are quite broad, as currently written.

In conclusion, I want to see a bill that protects vulnerable groups from cyber-attacks. So many Canadians rely on these critical systems, and we know so many have been targeted and are being targeted as we speak, and we know these dangers are going to multiply and get worse the longer we go on. We want to make sure they are protected, but we want to make sure that we do not have broad unchecked ministerial powers with no public oversight. That is the balance that must be achieved.

I must express, in my closing minute, my personal frustration with how the Liberals draft their bills. The idea behind Bill C-26 is a good one, but the problem with how the Liberals drafted the bill is that it would give huge sweeping amount of power to the executive branch. I just wish they would have had the foresight to understand that, of course, these provisions would be met with opposition. It seems the Liberals are putting the work on committee members to fix the bill for them, rather than having had the foresight and intuition to understand that these are problematic elements of the bill.

I think a lot more work could have been done on the government's side to have presented a better first draft. I guess we have what we have to work with, but a lot of work is going to be needed to be done at committee, and I look forward to seeing members do that work.

I also look forward to voting for the bill at second reading and sending it to committee. I welcome any questions or comments from my colleagues.

[Rob Morrison, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Madam Speaker, in the last several months, we have seen accountability raise its head here in Parliament with Bill C-5, Bill C-75 and Bill C-11. Without accountability, it is as though the government does not actually care what we are doing because with a majority government, the NDP and Liberals can make decisions based on what they think is right and there is no accountability.

With Bill C-5, the evidence is not there. Bill C-21, taking legal guns from legal gun owners, is another non-evidence-based process. With Bill C-26, which we are talking about today, it is time that we start building in some processes for accountability so the government is actually accountable for what it is doing.

Criminal Code

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to talk about Bill C-295 and the new offences it would create in cases of neglect of seniors. The neglect of seniors and vulnerable people is a serious problem in Canada, and abuse is endemic.

Ensuring the protection of vulnerable seniors is a very personal matter for me. My grandfather and his companion were defrauded by a caregiver. They were vulnerable seniors who were victimized by an individual who they had every reason to believe they could trust. The circumstances are sadly familiar to thousands of other families who have endured senior abuse. They spent the final months of their lives worrying about money.

My grandfather's companion of nearly 30 years not only endured my grandfather's final months of illness and death, but also feared confrontation with the individual who defrauded them and remained in their neighbourhood. She worried about running into her at the grocery store or other places. My grandfather, who was 90 years old and in ill health at the time, did not live long enough to see justice done.

The police did not treat the case as a priority despite the case being relatively simple and straightforward. There was a poster in the police station that invited members of the public to report situations of abuse. The public communication around this problem is that it is a problem and should be reported to police, yet the police are slow to act and did not act within my grandfather's remaining time alive.

My grandfather was luckier than many. He had the support of family and was not ruined financially by the fraud. The particular fraud was not sophisticated and it was detected. Eventually, charges were laid and an arrest was made. He was not injured in body and was not denied physical care, but he was a vulnerable person like so many other Canadians.

I thank the member for drawing attention to the issue of vulnerable Canadians through this private member's bill. This bill is welcomed.

Sadly, neglect does not only occur in institutional settings, but this bill would address issues where neglect within institutions occurs by making changes to the Criminal Code that would hold operators and managers of such facilities to account when they neglect to provide the necessities of life to people in their care. I think all Canadians would agree that this level of neglect is a criminal matter and ought to be a criminal matter.

This bill would also allow courts to make an order prohibiting persons charged with certain offences from working in proximity to vulnerable Canadians. That is a good step forward as well.

There is so much that could be done. With private member's bills, we are very limited in what we can do with the one chance we get if we draw a low number for Private Members' Business. I certainly do not blame the member for all the things her bill does not do. However, there are many problems that need to be addressed, including fraud, emotional abuse, violence against seniors, abuse, neglect and other harms that occur outside of institutional settings. These are pressing issues the government needs to deal with.

I am disappointed by the government in this case. It has taken a private member's bill to make any headway on this issue, despite the Minister of Justice's own mandate letter, which calls upon him to take action. His mandate letter calls upon him to finalize a proper definition for “elder abuse”. It calls upon him to get better data on this problem and to establish new offences and penalties. He has not done so. This bill from a private member will, but the government, which has said this is a priority, has failed to do so.

The bill would actually fulfill a piece of the Conservative platform that my colleagues and I were elected on, so I certainly support the member in this. It does not matter to me who gets credit in this kind of thing. We want to improve the lives of Canadians, and that is what we can often do in Private Members' Business, so I support her efforts, but I am disappointed in the government for its lack of progress in this area.

We have a minister who was tasked with this, and I wish he had spent more time on protecting vulnerable Canadians than he has on expending enormous effort on Bill C-21, where the Liberals have had to backpedal on those amendments they put forward at committee. There was Bill C-5 that the minister put forward, which would actually weaken penalties and sentencing for violent crimes and other crimes.

Therefore, it is disappointing that we do not have a minister who will take this seriously, but fortunately we do have a private member who is taking a positive step forward.

We know the vulnerabilities of seniors in institutional care, like the vulnerability to neglect. This was all laid bare during the pandemic. We heard other members comment on this. The abandonment of vulnerable seniors, the failure to supply the necessities of life to seniors, is appalling. It was appalling to many Canadians, so action needed to be taken.

It is outrageous, really, that the Canadian Armed Forces would be called in to provide care in seniors facilities. That is not the purpose of our armed forces. That is not something we would normally think of in terms of aid to civilian authority by the Canadian Armed Forces. We are thankful for their ability and the work they did, but what a failure it was, down to an individual level in some cases, and certainly a failure of the management of facilities to ensure that vulnerable Canadians are able to get the necessities of life.

On the data, the minister's own report says there is an enormous gap and a failure to understand the extent and patterns of types of abuse, but Statistics Canada knows a bit about that. It says that between 2014 and 2019 the rate of violence against seniors grew faster than for any other age cohort, so we know that violence against seniors is on the rise. We know that fraud among seniors is on the rise.

I support what this member is doing with her bill. I am glad that this House is now taking time for us to give public voice to the vulnerable and to ensure that, I hope, fewer families and fewer seniors spend their final months as victims of crime. With that, I thank the member for her private member's bill.

Public Safety

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition in which the petitioners oppose Bill C-21 and are asking for it to be repealed because it would do nothing to prevent gun smuggling or crimes involving firearms.

Firearms

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition on behalf of a number of my constituents, in particular law-abiding firearms owners. There are two aspects to the petition. The petitioners are calling on the government to drop the last-minute amendments to Bill C-21, which I note has occurred, and in particular to focus on criminals and not law-abiding firearms owners.

The petitioners emphasize the requirement for the government to use its own data, in particular Public Safety's commissioned report done a few years back by Hill+Knowlton. It points out that over 100,000 Canadians oppose a firearms ban in this country.

The petitioners are calling upon the government to stand up for law-abiding firearms owners, sport shooters and farmers with gun legislation, quit targeting them and go after criminals instead.

Criminal Code

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House. Of course, speaking on issues as weighty as medical assistance in dying, these are perhaps some of the most difficult things we will speak of in the House. I note that this is going to be an issue I am sure we will face in the chamber over the next several months, and perhaps again, as the bill comes to pass.

Today we are talking about mental disorder as the sole underlying medical condition for Canadians to access medical assistance in dying. The bill is presenting legislation for a one-year delay. Why is the government asking for a one-year delay? Certainly, this is about the concerns Canadians have across this great country with respect to the presentation of the government.

Perhaps, it will be similar to Bill C-21, when the issues Canadians had were brought forward by the Conservatives, and the Liberals had to change position on that bill. We know that there are mental health advocates who have significant concerns about the bill, such as the Association of Chairs of Psychiatry, which brought forth issues related to mental disorder as the sole underlying medical condition.

One of the things that is germane is to help people understand what it is we were studying at the joint committee on medical assistance in dying. We were talking about mature minors. We were talking about advance requests. We were talking about Canadians with disabilities. We were talking about the state of palliative care in Canada, and we were talking about Canadians who suffer with a mental disorder. When we looked at these particular topics, there were many contentious issues, and it became heated and personal at times, which was perhaps as it should be.

For comparison, I think we need to understand that, when we look at Canada and its perhaps 38 million people, we know that in the last year, 10,000 people died from medical assistance in dying. In California, which has a very similar population and perhaps similar rules, there were only 400 deaths due to medical assistance in dying.

People might ask why we would not compare with the Netherlands. It has been at this for a while, and maybe it is a better representation. They have a population of 17 million people and about 5,000 people died to medical assistance in dying.

They already have statutes that include depression, dementia and all the other things I have mentioned previously, so if we wanted to compare that directly to Canada, including depression and perhaps advance requests, they would have about 10,000 deaths at the current time. We know that in Canada, without mental disorder and without advance requests, there are already 10,000 people who have died between 2020 and 2021 due to MAID. That is a year over year increase of 32%.

That, to me, is concerning, and I think that anybody in this chamber would also know that on the world stage, sadly, in my mind anyway, Canada has been a world leader in medical assistance in dying, and many countries around the world have brought forward concerns of the slippery slope that Canada is now going down.

One of the things the government has promised to Canadians, which they have not delivered upon, is the Canada mental health transfer, and I am sure that my hon. colleague just before me spoke about this, so I am sad to have missed it. That was a $4.5 billion transfer that was promised by the government in its platform in the last election. I read a new article about this, and it says, “in August 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this brand new transfer was needed”—