Bill C-8

An Act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts

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. It also establishes an administrative monetary penalty scheme to promote compliance with orders and regulations made by the Governor in Council and the Minister of Industry to secure the Canadian telecommunications system as well as rules for judicial review of those orders and regulations.
Part 2 enacts the Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act to provide a framework for the protection of the critical cyber systems of services and systems that are vital to national security or public safety and that are delivered or operated as part of a work, undertaking or business that is within the legislative authority of Parliament. It also, among other things,
(a) authorizes the Governor in Council to designate any service or system as a vital service or vital system;
(b) authorizes the Governor in Council to establish classes of operators in respect of a vital service or vital system;
(c) requires designated operators to, among other things, establish and implement cyber security programs, mitigate supply-chain and third-party risks, report cyber security incidents and comply with cyber security directions;
(d) provides for the exchange of information between relevant parties and the disposal of personal information; and
(e) authorizes the enforcement of the obligations under the Act and imposes consequences for non-compliance.
This Part also makes consequential amendments to certain Acts.
Part 3 provides for a five-year review of the provisions enacted or amended by this Act.

Government Business No. 13—Proceedings on Bill C‑22

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is yet another erosion of the rights of Canadians. The same that we see in bills like this, in Bill C-11, Bill C-18, Bill C-9, Bill C-8 and Bill C-34 to some extent, although we are still studying it. This is an erosion of democracy, and it limits the participation of many in democracy. We hear every single day from our constituents, asking why we cannot do something about it. It is because they shut down debate, they shut off the cameras and they shut down committees.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very wise question.

Like every country, we are facing cyber-attacks from foreign entities, particularly India and China. We need to ensure that we have robust tools, and Internet providers must do the same. The bill provides some protections and imposes cybersecurity protection requirements on telecommunications service providers. That is what we did with Bill C-8. It also requires important collaboration to support the work of law enforcement. We agree with that. It is one of the good things about the bill.

I have to admit that I agree with the government members, and I think that there is a consensus on that. There is nobody here who does not want to support law enforcement in their work and who does not want to give the police modern tools with which to carry out their duties, but it is hard to draw a line between ensuring public safety and ensuring some degree of privacy protection under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

Rideau Hall

Ottawa

June 15, 2026

Mr. Speaker,

I have the honour to inform you that Mr. Ken MacKillop, Deputy of the Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bills listed in the Schedule to this letter on the 15th day of June 2026 at 8:25 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Ryan McAdam

Executive Director

Office of the Secretary to the Governor General

The bills assented to on Monday, June 15 were Bill C-8, An Act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts, Bill S-228, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sterilization procedures) and Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and the National Defence Act (bail and sentencing).

Government Business No. 12—Proceedings on Bill C-30

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, no. We do not have to agree to it. The opposition parties are guaranteed those 26 days, which do not include the many days when the Conservatives brought in concurrence motions.

Here is why it is important. If the Conservatives follow along, they will better understand why there is time allocation. Let us look at the legislative agenda. There is Bill C-3, the Citizenship Act; Bill C-4, the carbon tax cut; Bill C-8 respecting cybersecurity; Bill C-5, the one Canadian economy act; and Bill C-9, the combatting hate act, a piece of legislation I know the minister responsible for crime is very keen on.

We have Bill C-10, the commissioner for modern treaty implementation act; Bill C-11, the military justice system modernization act; Bill C-12, the strengthening Canada's immigration system and borders act; and Bill C-13, respecting trade in Great Britain. We also had Bill C-16, the protecting victims act, and Bill C-20. Bill C-14 is the bail and sentencing reform legislation. I was just speaking about Bill C-16. There was filibustering even on that legislation.

There is Bill C-20, the Build Canada Homes act, which the Conservatives were criticizing in the speech before mine. There is Bill C-21, the Red River Métis self-government recognition and implementation treaty act, and Bill C-22, the lawful access act. When we brought in Bill C-2 regarding lawful access, the Conservatives said, “absolutely not”. They were going to oppose it, and there was no way they were going to let it pass. We had to bring in Bill C-22, and they are still opposing it.

There is Bill C-25, the strong and free elections act. Do members remember that one? I just made reference to it. Everyone agreed to it, yet the Conservatives still made the bells ring because they really did not want to debate, apparently.

Bill C-26 would authorize certain payments to be made out of the consolidated revenue fund for the purpose of improving housing supply. Conservatives talk a lot about housing and affordability, even though the average cost of a house has gone down since the new Prime Minister was elected. The average cost of rent has gone down since the Prime Minister was elected. However, we would not know that if we listened to the Conservatives.

The list goes on. Bill C-28, one I really like, is the Canadian space launch act. There is a whole industry, and there is industry potential. Thousands of jobs could be created. However, all the Conservatives say is that they do not like it and do not want it. We have to force legislation through.

That is not to mention the Senate bills. I can say that the Government of Canada, headed by our newly elected Prime Minister, has a very aggressive legislative agenda because we want to and will, despite what the Conservatives continue to put in our way, continue to fight and bring in legislation that is going to make our communities safer and stronger. As the Prime Minister says, we want a strong Canada for all Canadians. That is what we are striving for. We are saying we are going to build the strongest economy in the G7.

All one needs to do is look at the actions that the government and the Prime Minister have taken since the last election. All I made reference to was the legislation. In that legislation, there are a number of initiatives that complement the legislation. That is all part of the budget process and what the bill we are currently debating, Bill C-30, the spring economic update 2026 implementation act, is all about. It is the next step in supporting Canadians and building a stronger Canada, but the Conservatives still want to filibuster.

Let us look at what took place at the standing committee. On the one hand, the Conservatives say they want more time. They had 30 hours. From what I have been told by many of my colleagues and have heard from across the way, it was a filibuster show, with no discussions back and forth that could have taken place. That is a decision made depending on the motions that are brought forward. I know how standing committees work. When there is collaboration, good ideas and a willingness to work together, a standing committee can be very productive. I know that because there was a day I participated in standing committees. There is so much potential for all of us to work more collaboratively together on a wide spectrum of budgetary issues and legislative issues.

In fact, with respect to legislative issues, the first thing we did when we formed a majority government, contrary to what the Conservatives will say, is that we actually passed Conservative opposition private members' bills through to different stages. I suspect there is a real chance that under the Prime Minister since we have been a majority, in eight, nine or 12 weeks, whatever period of time it is, we have probably passed more opposition initiatives than Stephen Harper did in his four-year mandate. It would not surprise me if this is in fact the case.

I challenge members opposite to show me what private members' initiatives from the floor of the House of Commons actually passed when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, when the leader of the Conservative Party sat around the table, and contrast that to what we have done in eight weeks. There is no surprise there, because we have a Prime Minister who is committed to collaboration. Where there is a willingness to collaborate, we collaborate.

Let us take a look in terms of all the provinces. Let us talk about the major projects. Let us talk about Bill C-5, which I made reference to. That was possible only because of the collaboration between provinces and Ottawa under the Prime Minister. There is a reason we had the King of Canada make the throne speech. The King of Canada came in a historic moment and delivered the throne speech here. It was a significant time in Canada's history.

I think that, coming out of the election, we all need to recognize what was taking place prior to the last federal election. Canadians were concerned about our economy. They were concerned about what I classify as the three Ts: President Trump, the issue of tariffs and the issue of trade. We have consistently taken actions to address the issues Canadians have faced and will face yesterday, today and, obviously, looking forward into tomorrow.

All one needs to do is take a look at the actions we have actually taken. Shortly after the last federal election, numerous meetings took place between the Prime Minister and premiers, with the idea, as we said to Canadians in the last election, of building one Canadian economy. Based on what was taking place with President Trump in the United States, and to address the anxiety and the concerns Canadians had, the Prime Minister was working hand in hand with provinces.

By doing that, we were able to build a consensus. We were able to bring in the legislation. We were able to take down the federal barriers, interprovincial barriers that the federal government is responsible for, which enabled us to be able to talk and continue the dialogue with provinces to take down those provincial barriers that prevent the trade between provinces. We have had some success in doing even that. We continue to have dialogue with provinces.

All one needs to do is take a look at a province such as Alberta. In the province of Alberta, we are now implementing an MOU that was signed by the Prime Minister and the Premier of Alberta. The Conservatives can criticize that, but I believe that the Premier of Alberta is right in her assessment, as is the federal government, of the way in which we can in fact build Canada and make Canada a superpower when it comes to energy.

All one needs to do is to look at the consensus building that we have been able to bring together by working collaboratively through major projects from coast to coast to coast. There have been serious investments in things such as wind power and the expansion of energy opportunities on the east coast, as well as something I often talk about, which is the expansion of the Montreal port. We can take a look at Ontario and how we are enhancing the nuclear industry in Ontario through major projects.

In my home province of Manitoba, the Premier of Manitoba is NDP, but we work with all political entities. The people of Manitoba have realized that, for the first time in generations, there is now opportunity to have hope in regard to the port of Churchill and the potential of its becoming a port where things such as, potentially, LNG and certain minerals could go through, let alone other opportunities through agriculture. These are very tangible and real in my home province.

In Saskatchewan, we could talk about copper investments through the major projects. On the canola front, the Prime Minister was able to deal with it, at least in part and far more than what we saw when the leader of the Conservative Party was seated around the caucus table. We could talk about Alberta and B.C., the two of them together, whether it is on the issue of coming up with agreements on pipelines, LNG and other fossil fuels, or mining.

We could talk about northern Canada. It was not that long ago that the Prime Minister, was in, I believe, Yellowknife in northern Canada. I am not 100% sure it was Yellowknife, but he made the announcement about how we are going to protect Canadian sovereignty by investing literally billions of dollars. We have great potential, major investments, coast to coast to coast.

The government recognizes that building a stronger infrastructure, improving our economic corridors, if I can put it that way, through trade, means a great deal to our nation. It is where our future is in terms of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs. We have a Prime Minister who goes out and looks for investment. We have commitments for billions of dollars of foreign investment to come to Canada. In fact, foreign direct investment coming to Canada in the last 12 months, if it is not number one in the G7, which I believe it is, it could be as high as number one in the G20 countries. That factors out some of the commitments that were also made.

There is reason for us to be optimistic, because we have a government that understands the importance of investment, of bringing and building our infrastructure. We have a Prime Minister who is committed to enhancing where we can and being patient with the United States in regard to the trade file. We are not going to capitulate. We will continue to advocate for the very best deal for Canadians, and where we need to, we are assisting industries that are being hurt by the negotiations and what is taking place in the United States.

Let us recognize this: We have had 20 trade and defence agreements, and we have agreements in the making. I often talk about how important the United States is, and everyone should recognize that. I recognize that, but let there be no doubt that we have a government and a Prime Minister committed to expanding our trade opportunities beyond the Canada-U.S.A. border. That is where we got the 20 defence and trade agreements, and we also have had formal trade agreements not only signed off but brought into the House and passed as trade legislation.

I could also talk about the trade potential between Canada and India, two great nations. I would welcome and love to see a formal agreement signed off this year. The Prime Minister has met with the prime minister and the president of two great nations.

The opportunities are real and tangible, which is why there have been 17%, I believe, export increases to non-U.S.A. locations. Our government continues to work, day in and day out, at expanding opportunities for businesses, small, medium and large alike, because we realize the real beneficiaries from those are the citizens of Canada, and they are who we will continue to work for every day.

Second Reading and Concurrence in Senate Amendments

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I recall that in one of my earlier interventions in this House, I wanted to do a history of Liberal censorship, but I had only 20 minutes and I knew I would run out of time.

We have now seen four iterations of the online harms act: Bill C-8, Bill C-22, Bill C-11 and Bill C-18. It may sound like I am rhyming off numbers in a bingo game, but all of these bills would restrict the rights of Canadians.

I mentioned censorship, and the Minister of Public Safety appeared. It is like Beetlejuice.

At the end of the day, we all have to stand firm for freedom in this House and this chamber. We need to fight against 10 years of a Liberal record of pushing against it.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour, as always, to rise on behalf of the people of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South. It is in the same vein, with a heavy heart, that I have to rise once again on one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation the government has ever introduced. Bill C-9 is a bill that has been litigated in the media, across kitchen tables and in town halls across the country. It has been litigated almost everywhere, except in this House and at committee, where the Liberals have availed themselves of a myriad of parliamentary tricks to shut down debate and silence the voices of Canadians.

We are, at this exact moment, I believe, about 25 minutes into the debate on the Senate amendment to Bill C-9. A little over 12 minutes ago, the Secretary of State for Combatting Crime walked in and said that there had been no agreement on this bill and the government would be moving to silence debate once again on this motion. Less than 15 minutes into the beginning of this debate, the Liberal government is already trying to shut it down. It is perhaps very poetic that it is once again censoring debate on its censorship bill.

Let me repeat in this House what I have said in this House, at committee and across the country multiple times: Hate is real and it is a scourge on this country.

I come from London. Just the other day, we had the five-year anniversary of the heinous and hate-motivated murder of the Afzaal family, who were killed for no other reason than their Muslim faith. We have seen the absolutely despicable hate on Canadian streets and streets around the world targeting the Jewish community, with synagogues and day schools being shot up, and posters trying to find a missing Jewish girl being ripped down. We have also seen, and I say this as a Christian, 123 Christian churches in the last five years burned or vandalized. Interestingly enough, when Justin Trudeau was prime minister, he was asked about this and said it was “understandable”. Some would say that is hate from someone who is supposed to be a unifying figure in this country, a prime minister.

Then we have, of course, the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, who literally said at a meeting of the justice committee, before he was promoted to cabinet, which gives a pretty good indication of what the Prime Minister welcomes among his closest advisers, that people should be criminally prosecuted for quoting certain verses of holy scripture. He mentioned Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Romans. Two of those are books in both the Bible and the Torah, but he said it could extend to other things as well. He said, and I have the direct quote, if any of my Liberal colleagues would like to call this misinformation, as they so often do, that some verses of scripture are so inherently hateful that they should warrant criminal prosecution.

Some Liberals may say that it is not true and that is not how it is going to unfold. However, if Liberal members cannot even agree on what constitutes hate, how can police, prosecutors, civil society groups and others who are going to be responsible for implementing what is in Bill C-9, if and when it receives royal assent and becomes law?

This is important because that same minister, just yesterday, introduced Bill C-34, with sweeping reforms to Internet regulations. I have not read through the entire bill myself yet, but I will point out that one of the things the Liberal government has tried to do with its two previous online harms bills is weaponize the state against what Liberals view as hate speech, not actual criminal hate speech, but what the Liberal government views as being speech that should be banned and restricted. Therefore, this Liberal government does not deserve the benefit of the doubt on anything to do with speech or conscience.

Canadians see through that. That is why Canadians have been so resoundingly clear that they do not want Bill C-9. That is why Canadians have, through hundreds of thousands of phone calls, contacted the Liberal members, who have in some cases listened to the concerns but clearly not taken them to heart, because they have not only forced through Bill C-9 at every stage, but silenced debate and silenced the voices of Canadians.

In the Senate, we saw this on full display within the last week and a half, when 240,000 postcards urging senators to reject Bill C-9 were sent to members of the Senate. What happened? The Senate mailroom said there were too many and that it could not deliver them all to the senators' offices, so it would send a couple of samples their way and put the rest in a warehouse in Gatineau.

Eventually, due to public pressure, and I thank my colleague, Senator Denise Batters from Saskatchewan, for her efforts on this, the postcards were moved to a Senate office room. Even so, senators were told to come on down if they wanted to get their postcards. Most did not. The very same senators then voted the bill through without seeing the scale of response from Canadians who do not support it. This is coming from Canadians of a very diverse array of political, religious, ethnic, philosophical and ideological backgrounds.

One of the things I found so fascinating, as someone who had the opportunity to meet with so many Canadians about Bill C-9, is how the strange bedfellows, as the old saying goes, were forming. There were evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews, devout Muslims and non-religious civil liberties actors. I cannot say I have had many opportunities in the chamber to link arms, metaphorically, with my colleagues in the NDP and my colleague the leader of the Green Party, but on Bill C-9, both the left and the right saw that the Liberal government cannot be trusted with matters of civil liberties.

The Liberal government members, when facing any of the criticism, of which there has been much on Bill C-9, resort to the same old tired lines. They say that the bill cannot affect someone's charter rights, because the charter protects their rights. If that sounds familiar, it is because that was the identical argument they used to insulate themselves from criticism when they invoked the Emergencies Act in 2022. They said that it could not violate someone's charter rights because the Emergencies Act says it has to be charter-compliant.

What happened in the aftermath of that? Bank accounts of political protesters were frozen. The mobility rights of people engaging in peaceful protest were banned. It was so Orwellian and draconian that the federal court said it was unconstitutional, that it violated the civil liberties of Canadians. The government appealed. It went to the Federal Court of Appeal, which said once again that it violated the civil liberties of Canadians. Then, in the last hour of the last day on which the Liberal government could seek leave to the Supreme Court to appeal that decision, it appealed it, once again telling Canadians that it would defend its right to violate their rights.

That is what the Liberal government would be doing with Bill C-9. Perhaps someone will be wrongfully charged under Bill C-9, will avail themselves of the legal process and be exonerated, but as we have seen in the Emergencies Act case, that is likely to take years.

In anything to do with freedom of expression, the issue is not what decisions the state will make in totality. It is also a question of what chilling effect the legislation would create. Faith leaders all of a sudden are not confident about their ability to preach the totality of their holy book, and for them, not the government, to be the arbiter of which scriptures mean what. No faith leader should ever have to vet their sermons through the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, which is effectively the benchmark we are told must exist because it is the minister who would decide which verses of scripture are hateful and which verses are not.

We looked at the bill, and we saw that the Liberal government would be removing long-standing protections for religious speech, or what is often called the religious defence. This was an agreement between the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois that would remove long-standing protections that have been on the books for over 50 years. These are protections that say good-faith religious expression is not hate speech. It is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for expressing hate. Someone cannot rob a bank, run down the road and yell, “God is good” and expect that the religious defence will save them. I do not recommend anyone tries.

What the religious defence says is that if someone is making a good-faith religious expression or citing a religious text, that cannot meet the definition of hate speech. Calls for genocide and calls for violence, calls that are themselves criminal, were illegal, are illegal and will always be illegal.

The religious defence does not protect against criminally hateful speech. It simply sets out what is not and should not be construed as hate speech to protect against authoritarian censors, like the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, who wish to say that good-faith religious expression can and may be hateful. Canadians are so alarmed by this because when we remove good-faith protections that apply only to people who have made good-faith expressions, the only people we are protecting are those who were engaging in good-faith debates, whether they were on a religious matter or an academic matter, or whatever else may come about from them.

The removal of the religious defence is not the only problem with Bill C-9. It certainly became a flashpoint in the discussion. It was one of the most significant points for people of faith, who, I would note, have already seen a litany of attacks on their rights from the Liberal government. Going back a couple of years ago, there was the threat of removing their charitable status. That was an endorsement given by Liberal and New Democrat members. Going back years earlier, there was the ideological and religious litmus test the Liberal government put on organizations that wanted to receive Canada summer jobs funding, as though their ability to hire a summer student to help out should be contingent on their religious and moral beliefs. This is not new. It is why people were, rightfully, so concerned about it.

In the end, we also had the process before us truncated. Efforts to bring in the testimony that the Minister of Justice claimed he would listen to and did not were stymied. Efforts to read letters from faith leaders from very ecumenical backgrounds were not permitted. I wonder why. Even now, I wonder why, just a few minutes into our discussion, the secretary of state for combatting thought crime decided to rise and try once again to shut down debate on Bill C-9. The Liberal government lacks the courage to even defend the totality of what it is doing.

I repeat that this is not a rejection of the existence of hate and the need to respond to it. I will specifically recognize hate against the Jewish community. I remember that one of my colleagues, the member for Mount Royal, who has been very outspoken in standing up for the Jewish community in his riding, was at one time entertaining leaving the Liberal caucus because of the Liberal caucus's anti-Semitism problem. Irwin Cotler, a renowned human rights advocate, was urging my colleague from Mount Royal to leave the Liberals because they were not standing up against the hate facing our Jewish community. This is why I do not take the Liberals seriously when they say they have the solution to a problem they have allowed to fester, and it is why Canadians do not trust them.

Interestingly enough, one of the fascinating conversations I had in the course of our deliberations on Bill C-9 when it was before the House was with the Rabbinical Council of Toronto, which is a group of Orthodox rabbis, not just in Toronto, but actually across many parts of the country. These are men I met with who face tremendous discrimination and hate. They do not even feel safe walking around parts of Toronto looking visibly Orthodox. They said hate is real and anti-Semitism is real, but they are not going to be protected by laws that limit their ability to preach their faith and read their scriptures.

Religious freedom for one is religious freedom for all. That is why faith groups like the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the United Church of Canada, the primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council, some of which are more liberal with a small "l" and some of which are more conservative with a small “c”, but all of which represent different faith groups, have all found problems with Bill C-9. In some cases, they have found problems with the entirety of it. In others, they have found problems with the parts dealing with removing long-standing protections for religious speech.

We do not protect anyone from hate and we do not protect anyone from persecution if we take away their rights. This is why Bill C-9 and the Liberal government's insistence on forcing this through have been such a clarion call for people across this country.

I will speak specifically about the section of the bill criminalizing hate symbols, because this is what is at issue in the amendment that has been returned to us from the Senate. The amendment would add a noose, a symbol with a tremendously hateful history, which actually did not get much exploration when Bill C-9 was before the justice committee and was not part of the original list the Liberal members put forward.

I do not actually recall whether there were any questions from Liberal MPs, or any MPs, on this. I could be wrong on that point, but I certainly know it did not take up any substantive amount of time in our committee's study on this. However, the problem that did arise on the hate symbol section was twofold. One part was a question of redundancy. Displaying a hate symbol in Canada is already a crime if someone is doing it for an illegal purpose.

I can give a very recent example of this. In the fall, there was a man whom I find to be utterly despicable, actually, in my part of the province, sadly, who decided to inflict hate on the community by mowing a Nazi hakenkreuz, often referred to as a swastika, into his front lawn. He lived on a main highway. It was very jarring for people, certainly those in the Jewish community, who had to see it. Police investigated. They did amazing work. They determined it did meet the standard of wilfully promoting hate, an existing Criminal Code offence. The evidence was the fact that he was displaying a hate symbol in a manner to wilfully promote hate. The law worked.

The idea of needing to ban hate symbols is utterly redundant, because they are already illegal, as is much of what is in Bill C-9 in general. The offences relating to obstruction, intimidation or blocking access are things already covered by existing laws. If we have a problem with existing laws not being enforced, we need to deal with that, but new laws are going to fall victim to the same cultural attitudes, which, again, I would attribute to a lack of political leadership more than to anything else.

However, the problem when we do prescribe specific hate symbols is that now all of a sudden we have introduced a new layer of ambiguity into the law. We have introduced a new problem, which is, does the displaying of what the Liberals say is a hate symbol, alone, constitute a criminal act? The Liberals claimed this was not the case. The justice minister claimed this was not the case. However, the testimony actually said otherwise.

For example, the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group said that the offence is written in such a way that the “simple display” of one of the symbols included would in and of itself “be considered a wilful incitement to hatred.” A plain reading of the offence by police or the courts could reasonably be that it is the simple display of an image that in and of itself promotes hatred. Intent does not matter. The “simple display” is all that matters.

We also heard something very similar from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, pointing out the redundancy, that “public display of a hateful symbol can already be part of a broader pattern of behaviour that leads to criminal conviction.” The CCLA gave another example from 2010, where someone “was convicted of public incitement of hatred for burning a cross”, and “ In 2012, an individual was convicted of mischief for, among other things, drawing symbols associated with the [KKK] in front of a Black family's house.” Existing laws were used to go after, in that case, anti-Black racism, which is very real, does warrant a response and should be prosecuted, as should all other illegal forms of hatred in this country.

The problem when we start enumerating hate symbols is that we are going to end up with a never-ending process of people wanting to add more symbols onto it. If we are going to go down that road of enumerating these symbols are illegal and these ones are not, we have to be prepared to look at all the symbols that cause people hate. We actually explored this at the justice committee in the House of Commons. I moved an amendment to add the hammer and sickle to the list of hate symbols. It is a symbol associated with Communism, responsible for claiming 100 million lives. The Liberals voted this down.

The Liberals are interested in only some types of hate. They are interested in going after only some types of violence. What about the logo for antifa, again, a network, a philosophy, a belief system, an organization, however we want to refer to it, responsible for demonstrable violence, threats of violence and hate? Where is that on the list?

With respect to the list of terror entities that the Liberal government has put as the main focal point of the hate symbol section, a list that is subject to change and that the government could effectively change unilaterally, there were issues raised by witnesses about, if not the veracity, certainly the integrity of that list. I think getting into that would probably be something that takes up more time. I guess I have unlimited time, but it would take up, theoretically, more time than the House would like to spend on the technicalities of it. However, it was a point that we did not get the opportunity to really interrogate about much further, because of the Liberals' desire to shut down debate on the bill.

As fascinating as I am sure a lot of Canadians find the inner workings of Parliament, or as fascinating as I wish they found them, it is actually quite frustrating. I go back to the reason I came here. One of the things I said in my maiden speech was that I came to Ottawa and Parliament to make Canada a freer place.

I was so focused on the things the Liberals have done to erode these freedoms that needed to be undone. It was shocking to see how many more things they continue to heap on and how many more bills and pieces of legislation have come forward that attempt to put the government more in control of things as fundamental as what Canadians say, what scriptures Canadians read and what religious beliefs Canadians can share and exhibit with each other.

This idea of control is so deeply ingrained in the Liberal ethos. It is shameful. I remember that many years ago, freedom of speech was a non-partisan concept. I remember how the great Senator Jerry Grafstein, a Liberal senator who was one of the champions of freedom of expression, was one of the champions of opposing section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act as it was used against people for their opinions. Where are those Liberals? Where are the freedom-of-speech-loving Liberals? I see Liberals who love censorship, and I see Liberals who love silencing people. I see them all the time. Where are the Liberals who are prepared to stand on principle for freedom of expression?

Interestingly, when the Bill C-9 debate was first going on in this House, I heard from a number of Liberal MPs who were very quietly supportive of what we were saying on the bill. They were hearing from their constituents from the Muslim community, the Christian community and all communities, raising issues about this. Those Liberal MPs seem to have been silenced by their own party, their own whip or their own Prime Minister. When push came to shove, they were whipped into voting for this bill, which their communities and constituents did not want.

As an aside, I am very interested in seeing, when this particular motion goes to a vote, how my colleague from southwestern Ontario, the member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong is going to vote, because I stood in this House with her as she eloquently railed against Liberal assaults on civil liberties. She stood up and talked about how the Liberals wanted to put her in jail for her religious beliefs. Will there be room for that member to stand and vote her conscience in the Liberal Party? I do not know. History would indicate no. I know people of faith are watching. Perhaps they are praying for a miracle. I do not know.

I look at the discussion that took place in the Senate. As someone who has been a member of Parliament for a little over a year, there is a lot I need to learn, and a lot we can all learn, about how the procedures and mechanisms work in this place. I have not had the opportunity to delve too much into how Senate procedure works.

I was watching some of the debates that took place at the Senate human rights committee, which was reviewing Bill C-9. I was actually heartened that it had many witnesses testifying who had been barred by the Liberals from testifying when the bill was before the House, like Lisa Bildy, who is a tremendous human rights lawyer from the Free Speech Union of Canada, Professor David Millard Haskell, from Wilfrid Laurier University, and a great many others, including The Democracy Fund's Mark Joseph. These people all said something very similar, which was that as the bill is written, the only assurances we can take that the wrong people would not be charged are the government's assurances that that is not what it is trying to do.

I realize that we are getting late into the evening. Even if we take the Liberals at their word, which I do not think people generally do, and certainly not these Liberals, we are relying on every single person in the country reading the definition of hate the same way. We are relying on every police officer, every provincial attorney general, every civil society group and every faith leader to read this the same way and understand it. Hate is a subjective concept.

One of the changes that I am glad was made to Bill C-9 was an amendment to the original Liberal definition, which everyone agreed significantly lowered the threshold to charge someone for their speech. I am glad that we were able to change it. However, there were other amendments that the Liberals rejected. One that I was actually quite shocked to see them reject was an amendment to remove the applicability of the Liberals' new stand-alone hate offence to all federal laws and limit it to just the Criminal Code, because the new stand-alone hate offence is a criminal law.

Under Bill C-9 as written, that law would apply to even non-criminal statutes like, for example, the Canadian Human Rights Act. Someone could be criminally charged with a Liberal-defined hate crime for breaking a non-criminal law. The Liberals had no interest in fixing what many people assumed might have been an accident or a drafting error. They had no interest in fixing that.

Then we can look at some of the other arguments that were put forward in the Senate. Now, the Senate human rights committee originally added more amendments than just the one that we are discussing today. Some of those attracted a great deal of swift response from people across the country. For example, the Senate proposed a specific criminalization of residential school denialism:

Everyone who, by communicating statements other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against Indigenous Peoples by condoning, denying or downplaying the Indian Residential Schools System...is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or...is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

This is an amendment that passed the Senate human rights committee. It almost passed the Senate but was rejected at report stage, ultimately. This is an amendment that has actually been denied and decried by a great many indigenous leaders, who fear that something like this would bar them from even telling their own stories and discussing their own approach.

Interestingly enough, we heard from the government's representative in the Senate. I am not just saying she is a Liberal senator because Justin Trudeau appointed her, but she actually bears the title of the government's representative in the Senate. She said that the reason she voted against that amendment was because it did not go far enough. She thought it did not go far enough, and she said the government was instead working with a member from the NDP, the member for Winnipeg Centre, I believe, who has a private member's bill that attempts to do something very similar. The only reason the Liberal government's representative in the Senate said no to that amendment was that it did not go far enough. That is worth noting.

The original amendment that dealt with the noose issue was an amendment that would have actually prohibited a noose, a burning cross or a white pointed hood, or any other symbol that is used or associated with the promotion of ideological violence based on race, ancestry or ethnic origin. Nobody wants to see hate in this country. No one wants to see hate symbols. No one wants to see the proliferation of burning crosses, nooses, things used to traumatize and terrorize people, things associated with very real historical harms.

I remember some years ago, there was a Liberal member of Parliament, the member for Vancouver Centre, I believe, who spoke. It ended up being completely made up, but she spoke about some rash of cross burnings in a community, which ended up not being accurate. I do think that for people who have actually experienced these things, it is horrible, and we should condemn it. We should use existing laws that deal with hate.

Then I look at when the discussion came to the Senate human rights committee on the religious defence, the most contentious part of the bill. This was the part of the bill that was ultimately responsible for the hundreds of thousands of phone calls to Liberal MPs, for the hundreds of thousands of postcards, for the emails that I have gotten and still continue to get about this bill, and for the conversations that, in my riding, real people have with me because they have heard what the Liberals are doing and cannot stand it. It was the removal of the religious defence.

The Senate human rights committee voted against reinstating the religious defence. It was focused more on adding more restrictions and more layers and less on preserving the fundamental nature of freedom of expression and freedom of religion that should underpin all work we do here, upholding the fundamental values that are enshrined in our charter but definitely predate the charter.

Then, when those amendments were rejected at report stage, we had another discussion, at third reading in the Senate. Conservative Senator Yonah Martin tried a much more modest way of telling faith communities in this country that their rights would not be targeted, and that was to take the Liberal pablum that was inserted to try to pacify people. I will read that. This was after the justice minister said he was going to canvass faith communities and said he was going to listen to their concerns. Some people called us and said, “Hey, great, we won. The justice minister said he's going to fix it.” They then saw the text and realized that, once again, a Liberal had written a cheque that could not be cashed.

The line that the Liberals put into the bill, referring to the section to do with wilfully promoting hate, was this:

For greater certainty, nothing in subsection 319(2) or (2.?2) of the Criminal Code shall be construed as prohibiting a person from communicating a statement on a matter of public interest, including an educational, religious, political or scientific statement made in the course of a discussion, publication or debate, if they do not wilfully promote hatred against an identifiable group by communicating the statement.

To put that in plainer text, what the “for greater certainty” clause says is that one is not wilfully promoting hate if one is engaged in a religious or political or educational discussion, unless one is wilfully promoting hate. I am not sensing the clarity there. It is circular reasoning if ever there was some.

We had lawyers, scholars and faith leaders who weighed in on this, who said they know how we can salvage this. We can take off that last line, the circular line, “if they do not wilfully promote hatred against an identifiable group”. That was rejected when we tried to do it at the House justice committee, and it was rejected when Senator Martin tried to do it in the Senate. Again, the government's representative in the Senate refused to budge on any of this, refused to give even an inch on sending a signal to faith communities in this country that their rights and freedoms will be protected.

I mean no disrespect to our colleagues in the Senate, but it was interesting hearing the debates both on the Senate floor and in the Senate human rights committee, when none of the thorny issues that one would think would have to be addressed when dealing with these definitions was actually asked about. For example, when the amendment on criminalizing residential school denialism or downplaying was being discussed, nobody that I heard asked what that means. Nobody asked how we define it, how we distinguish academic inquiry on a subject of historic significance from downplaying in a way that is, as the legislation defines it, hateful.

Even when talking about the noose, no one actually interrogated the point of what a noose means. That may sound silly to some people, because we can all in our minds imagine what that is. When we are talking about the point at which a symbol becomes illegal, it is a very different question. The point at which a symbol becomes illegal needs to have a very clear definition, especially if we weave it into the dialogue we heard from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, from the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group and others, that a display of a symbol is inherently hateful regardless of intent.

I do not wish to sound glib here. I do not wish to do what the Supreme Court does, which is to concoct all these reasonable hypotheticals to try to rewrite law. I will point out that there have been stories where someone has thought something was a noose and it was not. I could see situations in which someone sets up a really terrifying Halloween display on their home, for example, and someone may misunderstand the intent and call the police. This is the problem. When we are enumerating symbols and we are separating out intent, which is what lawyers have said the stand-alone hate symbol ban does, we are going to have a chilling effect on discourse, which is precisely the problem.

Just as when we remove long-standing protections for religious speech from the Criminal Code, we are sending a signal to people of faith that their sermons, their beliefs and their scriptures are now fair game for prosecution. That is the message that we are sending. That is the message that is being sent when the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture says that some verses of scripture are so inherently hateful, they should attract prosecution. That is the message we can draw when Justin Trudeau says it is understandable that someone would want to burn a Christian church. All of this is part and parcel of why Canadians were so alarmed.

If I try to find the silver lining in all of this, it is that I have had the opportunity to have discussions with people I would not find myself on the same side as politically. I have had a great many discussions with people where we can disagree on nine out of 10 other things, but on this, we are united. I do not actually think that is any testament to my ability to attract friends and whatnot. I think it is a testament to how well the Liberals have mastered creating enemies, because the Liberals do not have the goodwill from these communities either. The Liberals know they do not have the benefit of the doubt, and we have seen this in the context of other legislation too.

The Liberals' Bill C-8 and Bill C-22 were both subject to their same pre-emptive defence that they made with Bill C-9, which is, “Don't worry. You can trust us.” Canadians look at that and say, “Oh no, we can't,” and I agree with those Canadians. The Liberal government has to make its case that it is trustworthy and that it is not going to abuse its power and its authority.

Let us imagine a parallel universe here in which the Liberals do not want to weaponize their authority against political dissidents. I know that seems like a very fictional, hypothetical scenario, but let us just imagine that world for a moment. What is to say that the next government would not? This is the problem, and we can look at the Emergencies Act as an example, with laws that give the government power that is supposed to be constrained only by its goodwill. This is why we are so concerned about other legislation in which ministerial discretion is so central to the powers and authorities vested in the laws. It is because we do not trust these ministers.

Quite frankly, earlier today during Oral Questions, a very influential, powerful minister, the minister responsible for the public service, the President of the Treasury Board, was asked a simple question about his file, and he looked through his papers for 30 seconds to find the answer and could not. In the end, he sat down and let someone else answer the question. We can imagine a minister like that put in a role where they get to decide what Canadians say online, or what telecom companies have to do. We can imagine the power that other people in the Liberal government would have, with a minister who will just read whatever is on the page and, if it is not there, will just sit down.

That is why we have to restrain government power, and it is not just because of a distrust of the Liberal government. It is because of a distrust of the state in general that Canadians have. We should not be happy giving the Liberals any power that we would not want Conservatives to have, that we would not want the Bloc to have, that we would not want New Democrats to have and that we would not want the Greens to have. It is not that all of these parties have an equal likelihood of forming government, but I am just using them as an example here.

All should agree with that. All should understand that. We can think of the Emergencies Act. Did anyone honestly think that the Liberals would be so gung-ho to use the powers that they used that act for? What if a Conservative government was doing it against a group of protesters that they felt were more aligned with the left?

All of this is speaking to what I believe is the most central reason that Bill C-9 was so vociferously opposed by so many Canadians. It was not because of all these dog whistles that the Liberals like to use: conspiracy theories, obstruction or certain people wanting a licence to hate. People want freedom in this country. They want to know that their rights and freedoms are protected. They want to know that the Liberal government is not just going to pay lip service to the charter but is actually going to live and embody it in all it does.

The values of freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure and the right to privacy, all of these things, are not just slogans that the Liberals can discard at their whim when they run up against a policy they want to champion. These are central things not just to Canadian identity but to the human experience.

Freedom of expression is, in many respects, the most important freedom. This is not my thought, but it is one that I have shared a great many times: If all other freedoms were stripped away but one, the freedom of expression, we could use that to fight to win all the others back.

I am standing up today, in what will more than likely be my last opportunity in the House to address Bill C-9, to say that we cannot let our freedoms be eroded. We cannot. It is not just about whether people believe a faith, beliefs or values to be hateful. I do not believe that the majority of people in this country are hateful people. I believe it is is a small minority, and I believe that small minority needs to be addressed. When their expressions and their actions rise to the criminal level, they need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

However, I also believe that the issue is not about whether people themselves want to use their freedom to spread hate. It is about whether those who disagree with them will agree not to use the word “hate” to malign them or silence them.

I am so grateful for the leadership of some people who now find themselves in the Liberal Party. I mentioned, for example, my former colleague from Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, who was a fierce crusader against Bill C-9. I also have to recognize the Liberal member for Nunavut, who was a tremendous crusader against Bill C-9. I applauded her second-reading speech, when she spoke about the powers the Liberal government was trying to give itself. I hope the member will remember her roots and vote against this.

Public Safety

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Oakville West for her advocacy.

Canadians must have confidence in the integrity and security of the products and services they use each and every day. This is why we are taking the necessary steps to protect Canadians, our critical infrastructure and our economy through Bill C-8. This piece of legislation will help critical infrastructure operators better prepare for, prevent and respond to cyber-incidents that threaten Canadian interests. We will continue to modernize Canada's security tools while safeguarding privacy and keeping Canadians safe.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with a background in public safety projects, I recognize that cyber-threats pose a growing risk to Canadians, and our government is confronting this challenge head-on. Last week, Bill C-8, the act respecting cybersecurity, passed third reading in the Senate and is now awaiting royal assent. This legislation will ensure critical infrastructure operators can prepare for, prevent and respond to cyber-incidents.

Could the Minister of Public Safety explain what this means for the safety and security of Canadians and critical infrastructure in key sectors such as finance, telecommunications, energy and transportation?

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I found it interesting that the hon. member raised that subject, since the government, within one year, has done more than any government before it: Bill C-8 on cyberthreat, Bill C-9 on heinous crimes, Bill C-12 on border security, Bill C-14 on bail reform and more severe sentences, Bill C-16 on protecting victims and accelerating justice, and now Bill C-22 on legal access.

I hope that this time the Conservatives will vote with us.

Lawful Access Act, 2026

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today on behalf of the Edmonton Griesbach riding. I will be using my time to speak to Bill C-22.

Bill C-22 is significant. It touches on public safety, privacy and the fundamental relationship between citizens and the government. That means we absolutely have to get it right.

It goes without saying that Conservatives believe in law and order. We have always stood for common-sense measures to keep Canadians safe. For the past decade, we have been urging the Liberal government to reverse its failed policies and restore safety to our communities. Instead, the Liberals have let the situation get out of control.

Last fall, the Liberals put forward Bill C-2, which would have fallen well short of protecting Canadians while overreaching in other areas. Thanks to the work of our Conservative team, we forced the Liberals to back down from Bill C-2, successfully blocking their infringement of individual freedoms and privacy. We stopped the Liberals from limiting the use of cash. We stopped them from opening mail without oversight. We stopped them from demanding that any service provider, including even dry cleaners, disclose user data without judicial oversight. Now we are presented with Bill C-22. While this bill excludes some provisions that Conservatives opposed, it also reintroduces parts of the failed Bill C-2.

My Conservative colleagues and I continue to carefully review every line of this bill, as lawmakers. This legislation requires the necessary scrutiny and, yes, skepticism. Conservatives take this responsibility seriously. We support law enforcement. We want officers to have the tools they need to keep Canadians safe. That is not in question. It has never been in question. Also, we know these powers must be accompanied by strong safeguards, clear limits and independent oversight to protect Canadians' rights and freedoms. At the same time, we stand for the rights and freedoms of Canadians. We stand for privacy and due process. Those two principles must go hand in hand. We will continue working to ensure that privacy and due process are protected, with this legislation and all future legislation.

Unlike the Liberal government, we believe in listening before legislating. As a result, Conservatives have spoken with law enforcement about Bill C-22. What we heard was clear. Officers want tools, and they want clarity. They want to be able to act quickly when it matters most. Of course, we agree with that. We welcome measures that lawfully, and with proper judicial oversight, allow police to access information needed to stop serious crime.

Here is the concern. Too often with the Liberal government, the devil is in the details. We have seen it before. We saw it in Bill C-2. What was packaged as a so-called border bill actually included proposals to inspect Canadians' mail without a warrant. Canadians rejected that. We saw it again in Bill C-8, a cybersecurity bill that made sense on the surface but also included sweeping ministerial powers with little oversight. Now we have Bill C-22, and serious concerns remain.

One of the biggest concerns I have with this legislation is about oversight. This bill would grant significant authority. In some cases, that authority would rest with ministers, not with the courts or with independent bodies. That is a problem. Ministerial authority is not the same as judicial oversight. It is not the same as accountability. It risks becoming arbitrary.

Canadians have reason to be skeptical of Bill C-22. The government has a track record. Time and time again, it has pushed the limits of government power. Time and time again, the Liberals have asked Canadians to simply trust them, but trust must be earned, and right now it is in short supply.

Civil liberties groups from across the spectrum have raised alarms about Bill C-22. That should tell us something. It tells us we need to slow down and take a closer look. This is not just about technology or policing tools. This is about Canadians' personal information, their data, their communications, their private lives. Metadata alone can reveal a great deal, more than many people realize, yet we are being asked to consider provisions that would involve broad data practices without clear limits or definitions. For example, the bill does not clearly define what constitutes a service provider. That could mean telecom companies. It could mean email providers. It could mean messaging apps or cloud storage. In other words, it could mean access to deeply personal aspects of Canadians' lives.

This is not a small matter. We cannot afford vague definitions because once those powers exist, they do not just apply today. They apply tomorrow. They apply to future governments as well. This is not about partisanship but about principle. We must always ask, “How could this power be used, and how could it be misused?” This is our duty as legislators, and it is a duty Conservatives will uphold as we continue to examine this proposed legislation. As legislators, we cannot look at lawful access in isolation. If we are serious about public safety, we need a system that works from start to finish. This includes bail and sentencing. This includes giving police the support they have been asking for over the past number of years.

Too often, the government has been selective, listening to law enforcement when it suits it and ignoring it when it does not. Conservatives will always stand with those on the front lines, but we will not accept a trade-off when Canadians' rights are weakened in the process. On one hand, we must ensure that those who enforce our laws have the tools they need. On the other, we must protect the fundamental rights and freedoms that define our nation. Conservatives will not sacrifice one for the other. If we get this wrong, the consequences will be serious.

We have seen what happens when legislation is rushed and when concerns are dismissed. This is why we will not rubber-stamp Bill C-22. We will do our job. We will study it, question it and propose amendments where needed. We will listen to experts, law enforcement, civil liberties advocates and Canadians, because that is what responsible lawmakers do. We deeply support the objective of keeping Canadians safe. We support giving police effective tools. However, we will not ignore the risks of government overreach or the need for oversight. We will not ignore the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In closing, Bill C-22 raises serious and complex questions. It shows some progress, true, but it is clearly not there yet. It requires careful examination, detailed study, and scrutiny at committee and beyond. Conservatives will continue to stand for common-sense solutions that protect Canadians' individual freedoms, privacy and safety. That work is still ahead of us.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Mr. Speaker, every time I rise to speak when you are in the chair, I know you have some fun pronouncing the name of my riding, as it is quite a mouthful for any chair occupant. You did a great job of pronouncing it.

As the Bloc Québécois critic for public safety and emergency preparedness, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-22. It is important to note that the government already tried once to introduce a bill on lawful access. That was Bill C-2, which was introduced last June, nearly a year ago. Bill C-2 was severely criticized, not only by civil society, but also by major organizations, which argued that the bill made no sense.

I understand that the government worked very quickly, although perhaps not responsibly enough, because it also wanted to please the American government, especially President Trump, who was threatening Canada at the time. To respond quickly, the government drafted a bill hastily without conducting all of the consultations necessary to produce a high-quality piece of legislation.

Today we are debating Bill C-22, which builds on the principles of Bill C-2 but is much more comprehensive and much better crafted, because the government sat down at the table with various groups and consulted with them. There are some groups that say they were not consulted and would have liked to be, but it does seem like the work got done. However, there is still more to do.

We cannot necessarily oppose Bill C-22, because we know that as soon as it gets its majority, the government will take steps to have Bill C-22 studied in committee and passed. I am well aware of that. However, I was truly delighted with the minister's response today. I was satisfied. He told me that he was still open to amendments. We have ideas stemming from our own consultations, and it is still possible to improve Bill C-22. I was really pleased to hear the Minister of Public Safety answer yes to my question about whether he was open to amendments. That is to his credit, because I believe he really wants the best possible bill to achieve his objectives, namely public safety and privacy protection.

I could not help but say “mon Dieu”. I was tempted to say “my God” but I will not say that. It occurs to me that, if the government had been in a majority position last June, Bill C‑2 would have passed, which would have been very bad. That brings me to what the opposition can offer whether the government has a minority or a majority. When the work is taken seriously and is carried out professionally and diligently, our role is to help improve a bill by listening to experts and asking questions.

Bill C‑22 does have some privacy safeguards that were missing from Bill C‑2. However, are they enough? We are going to be asking questions about that. We still have a lot of questions on this matter.

As a reminder, “Part 1 amends various Acts to modernize certain provisions respecting the timely gathering and production of data and information during an investigation.” It amends the Criminal Code and the Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act. It amends the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to allow the Minister of Justice to authorize the enforcement in Canada of foreign orders requiring the disclosure of transmission data or information. It amends the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and the Cannabis Act.

In other words, this bill amends quite a few existing statutes, so an in-depth study is needed. I have no doubt the bill will go to committee, and I am eager to see how it will be handled now that the government has a majority. I heard the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons call for collaboration and openness. I heard the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety talk about how open they are. I look forward to witnessing that if the bill gets the support it needs to go to committee.

Part 2 of the bill provides further details on how access to information will be granted and regulated, and so it creates a new law. Naturally, Part 3, as is almost always the case in bills from this Parliament, indicates that Parliament must review the legislation three years after the law comes into force. It is true: Parliament will need to take the time, take this seriously and review this legislation three years after it receives royal assent. In fact, the Bloc Québécois proposed such a review for Bill C-8 on cybersecurity. We made that proposal because cybersecurity, cyber-attacks and basically the entire digital landscape are evolving so rapidly that bills can quickly become outdated given the circumstances, the technologies involved and the ingenuity of unscrupulous individuals seeking to attack our critical systems. This is therefore a task that will require collaboration, and I look forward to our work in committee.

I can assure you that, if the bill makes it to committee, we in the Bloc Québécois will work on it with the utmost seriousness and rigour. That is why I was a little offended when the Prime Minister said that now that the Liberals have a majority, it is time to get serious. I have always taken my role as an opposition member seriously and have always taken a constructive approach. Quite frankly, I do not really fit the mould of someone who obstructs or refuses to co-operate, and I have plenty of examples to prove it.

I think the members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security are exemplary. We studied Bill C-12 and Bill C-8, important government bills that required significant and professional contributions from the opposition parties. I will say it again: It bothered me when the Prime Minister said that now that the Liberals have a majority, the serious work can begin. It is a nice sound bite, but it could be offensive to certain members who take their work very seriously.

We do have some minor concerns about Bill C‑22. Some concerns are more significant than others. In particular, there is the whole issue of the definition of essential services. I think that needs to be clarified. We also have a problem with everything that can be changed by way of regulation. We look forward to hearing from experts, if the bill is ever sent to committee, to see how we can limit those elements that will be set through regulation and establish them in the legislation instead. I look forward to hearing the arguments.

I want to raise another point. When we compare ourselves to the Five Eyes, people always say that Canada lags behind. There was plenty of testimony at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to this effect, and I believe it too. However, some aspects of Bill C‑22 are more invasive than they are in the other Five Eyes countries. For example, Australia has an organization similar to the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, or the NSIRA. However, the Australian organization has a more important role than the role given to the NSIRA in the context of Bill C‑22.

I hope my colleagues understand that it is with a constructive approach that we will continue to debate Bill C‑22 and try to understand how we can improve it. Accordingly, I think the minister and his team can count on the usual co-operation from the Bloc Québécois.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think committee is a great place to hash out legislation and to hear from experts on civil liberties, privacy and law enforcement. When we have all those voices, as we saw with Bill C-8 at the public safety committee, we are able to put forward proposals to fix things.

When I was talking, in the wake of the Bykovets decision in 2024, to local integrated child exploitation teams, they were so disappointed, because a lot of the tips we receive in Canada actually come from the FBI. A lot of the child sexual abuse material being circulated is coming from Canada, but they are finding it only on computers in the United States. Under the Bykovets decision, that information could not be used, because it was not being obtained by a production order and a warrant. We need to ensure that our system is stronger so we can ensure that Canada is not a safe haven for people who produce child sexual abuse material.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-22, an act respecting lawful access. I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague from Kitchener Centre.

I want to give a shout-out to my excellent staff here in Ottawa, Harry McGuire, Aidan Plesa and Andrew Gelok, for their great work in helping me research, both in committee and in the House, this important legislation.

Conservatives recognize that we need to ensure that law enforcement and national security agencies have the tools required to investigate serious crime in this increasingly digital age, but as members of His Majesty's loyal opposition, our job is to hold the government accountable to ensure that we can get the best legislation for Canadians. That means holding government accountable when we are talking about important issues such as expanding state powers in relation to increased surveillance. It is our responsibility as an official opposition to scrutinize, to challenge, and to ensure that any new authority is absolutely necessary, proportionate and consistent with the rights and freedoms of Canadians.

This legislation has evolved from the original Bill C-2 legislation that was brought forward in the fall. It is important to give a bit of background on that legislation and why we are here today. The first substantive piece of legislation introduced in the sitting of the current Parliament was Bill C-2, which proposed a number of significant legal changes regarding Canada's national security, to disrupt organized crime and secure the border.

Conservatives were and remain supportive of any efforts to provide law enforcement with the tools necessary to keep Canadians safe, but we could not support Bill C-2 in its original form. We know that civil liberties organizations and all opposition parties in the House felt that Bill C-2, in particular the lawful access regime in parts 14 and 15, fell short of what was needed. Bill C-22 represents the government's second attempt at enacting lawful access legislation. While I would say that there are improvements, particularly in narrowing certain provisions, some of the structural issues remain and have to be looked into further.

Law enforcement and CSIS need modern tools to deal with modern threats. The issue that the bill is attempting to address is real. Law enforcement and national security experts have long argued that they do not have the tools to effectively go after terrorists, organized criminals and child predators, who are coordinating a lot of their activity online.

Part 1 of the bill focuses on investigative authorities, and in many respects it is an improvement over what was previously proposed in Bill C-2. That said, while the direction in this legislation is more measured than Bill C-2, concerns remain, particularly with respect to the legal thresholds, scope and the adequacy of any safeguards.

I want to talk about the new powers and authorities proposed in the legislation. Part 1 proposes a number of changes that are clearly aimed at improving the efficiency of investigations in a digital environment. It would amend existing search warrant provisions to permit the examination of computer data during the execution of a warrant, and it would also introduce new information demands and production orders that could be used both by police forces and by CSIS. In addition, it would create mechanisms to facilitate access to data held by foreign-based service providers, which reflects the reality that much of the information that law enforcement and security agencies need in this country is not even being stored within our own borders.

These would be very practical changes, and they would respond to real challenges faced by investigators. However, the details of how these powers would be structured, and the limits that would be placed on them, remain critically important.

I want to talk about the confirmation of service demands. One of the proposed powers outlined in part 1 is the confirmation of service demands. This would allow authorities to ask a telecommunications provider a very narrow question, which is whether or not it provides service to a particular person or subscriber. The response would be limited to a simple yes or no. Compared to what was proposed in Bill C-2, this is a much more restrained approach. In Bill C-2, information demands could be issued to any person who provides services to the public. This would now be limited to telecom providers.

One of the more concerning elements of Bill C-2 was other subscriber data. For example, there was concern that people's medical records could be accessed. Thankfully, I believe that this has been clarified and the scope has been narrowed with the new legislation.

I want to talk about foreign data requests. Another significant element of part 1 of the bill is the introduction of a mechanism that would allow Canadian judges to authorize requests for data held by foreign entities. This reflects a very real challenge to modern investigation, as data is frequently being stored outside of Canada, often by companies that operate in multiple jurisdictions. Providing a judicially authorized pathway for these requests may improve co-operation and provide greater legal certainty for foreign service providers. However, it is important to recognize that this would not fully resolve the challenges associated with cross-border data access and whether there would be any way to compel foreign service providers to comply with the requests.

There is also a section on publicly available and voluntary information. The bill clarifies that law enforcement would be able to receive and act upon information that is either voluntarily provided or publicly available, without the need for a warrant or a production order. This appears to be a reasonable clarification, but I do wonder if it raises questions about scope, because what exactly qualifies as publicly available information? Does it include information that has been exposed through data breaches or leaks? Without clear definitions, there is a risk that this provision could be interpreted much more broadly than seems to have been intended. This is something that needs to be addressed.

I want to talk about one of the reasons the legislation was brought forward. It was partially in response to the Bykovets decision of the Supreme Court. In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that IP addresses have a reasonable expectation of privacy. In that case, police had received an IP address voluntarily from a financial company that had flagged suspected fraudulent transactions to the police. However, since the IP address was not acquired using a production order, this evidence could not be used. Privacy experts have raised concerns that the provisions in the bill may not actually address the issues created by the Supreme Court of Canada's decision. That is concerning.

Part 2 of the bill would enact the supporting authorized access to information act. It is in this section of the legislation that privacy experts seem to have raised the most concerns. It would require electronic service providers to build and maintain systems capable of supporting the lawful access regime, including real-time interception when authorized. In practical terms, this means that companies would be required to design their systems in such a way that law enforcement could access communications once the appropriate legal authorization has been obtained.

With respect to the scope of the application, one of the key concerns with part 2 is the breadth and the definition of what an electronic service provider is. As the bill is currently drafted, this is not limited to traditional telecommunications companies and could extend to a very wide range of entities, including digital platforms, messaging and cloud services, and potentially businesses where communications are only an incidental part of the business.

This could create both practical and legal challenges, as well as uncertainty about who is captured by the legislation, because almost all businesses these days have some sort of electronic recording or storage. There is a possibility that smaller or non-traditional actors would be subject to complex obligations that they are, frankly, not equipped or cannot afford to meet. If the objective is targeted modernization, then the definition needs to be more clear. Unfortunately, as was recently the case with Bill C-8, many of these specific details were left blank and have been left to regulations.

Another area of significant concern in part 2 is the retention of metadata. Under the act, ESPs could be required to retain metadata for a reasonable period of time of up to one year. This is particularly concerning since that data may reveal a person's location. While there are provisions on the retention of information that could reveal private communications and web browsing history, experts have raised concerns that Canadians who are not accused of any wrongdoing may still have their data retained that could reveal their location. It is important to note that similar provisions that were put in place in the EU were actually found disproportionate and unlawful.

In his analysis of the legislation, privacy lawyer David Fraser explained that requiring companies to create capabilities that do not currently exist within their systems to assist law enforcement could lead to creating vulnerabilities within the systems themselves. This can include the development of interception tools that resemble traditional wiretap capabilities adapted for modern environments.

In 2023 and 2024, multiple U.S. telecom companies were compromised, and hackers were able to access data from millions of customers and obtain audio recordings of calls made by senior government and elected officials. I raise this example because U.S. officials subsequently reported that the hackers exploited vulnerabilities that the companies had installed in order to comply with lawful access requests from law enforcement. We need to be very aware that we could be creating a risk if this is not done properly.

The legislation would also have practical cost considerations that cannot be ignored. We know that the compliance costs could be significant, and we do not want those costs to be borne by taxpayers.

In conclusion, I believe that Bill C-22 addresses some real and pressing challenges. It contains provisions that can include the effectiveness of investigations, but at the same time we need to ensure that these new powers would be effective and necessary, and that they would not unnecessarily infringe on the freedoms of Canadians.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are facing a problem, which is a lack of confidence in the government to protect their privacy and their constitutional rights.

Time and again we have seen the Liberal government abuse its power. I hope that in committee, we can have meaningful debate and careful scrutiny of the proposed bill and, again, just like when we talked about Bill C-8, be able to work with our Bloc colleagues and also come to some kind of agreement or consensus that we could improve this bill, so that we can rebuild the trust of the Canadian people in our government.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been a member of the House for almost a year, and seeing the process in committee is very important for me as a newer member. The truth is, we did that work on Bill C-8. We had similar concerns, as the member said, to the NDP members and the Bloc members. He is right. When all the members of the opposition parties, including the Green Party, realize there is an issue with the bill, and we present solutions and recommendations, and they are ruled out of order or out of scope, in the end, are we getting what Canadians need or are we just getting what the Liberals want?

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people from Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola. I will give some background here. My colleague and I both sit on the public safety committee. Bill C-8 came to us at the public safety committee. I felt it was a deeply flawed bill. There were, I would like to say, probably 30 amendments that we went through at committee. I believe the committee process is an important one. We may not always agree with the Bloc, but in this case, the Bloc shared a number of our concerns. The NDP shared a number of our concerns, though it does not actually have standing at the committee. One has to think, when the NDP and the Bloc start sharing concerns with the Conservatives, maybe there is actually something to this. Bill C-8 went through committee and it was long. It was a bit tedious at times, but it was very important for us to address that bill.

Can my colleague comment on Bill C-8 and her experience with that, and how it informs what she believes we should be doing with this bill and how we should be scrutinizing it?

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola.

As the member spoke about Bill C-8 and Bill C-9, I wonder how those bills, having meandered their way through this House and committee, have informed his position on the issues he is raising with respect to this bill.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his tremendous work on this and on Bill C-8 as our shadow minister for public safety.

In fact, as soon as Bill C-22 was tabled, I printed it off and started going through it with a highlighter. I then made time to ask law enforcement officials in my riding about the very real situation they face now, what they think would be improved or not by Bill C-22, and what else they would like to see that is not in the bill. The fact that my first calls were to law enforcement officials affected by this, I think, to my colleague's point, speaks to the fact that we take law enforcement's concerns very seriously.

The point I have raised is that the government has given itself power. Ministerial authority does not mean giving power to law enforcement or tools to law enforcement that are subject to judicial oversight. It is quite the contrary: It means arbitrary ministerial capabilities.

We have seen the record: In Bill C-2, Bill C-8 and now potentially Bill C-22, there are these poison pills hidden that detract, in our view, from the overall objective of the bill. That is what we are being very mindful of and ensuring that we do not support, but I absolutely stand with law enforcement.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Mr. Speaker. I was in the room for weeks studying Bill C-8 clause by clause. Every amendment that was tabled by the Conservatives was a great threat, technically, to this country and to Canadians. I was defending every technicality on those bills, and I am happy that they could not move most of those amendments.

Coming back to Bill C-22, can my colleague tell this House if he knows what the cost of inaction to Canadians would be if we did not pass this crucial legislation that law enforcement is asking for and that relates to a rapidly evolving threat environment? I wonder if he will be comfortable voting against it when his own colleagues are supporting it.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour, as always, to rise on behalf of the people of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South.

This is an incredibly important issue, and it is one that, as lawmakers, we cannot afford to get wrong. On one hand, we are talking about ensuring that the people enforcing the laws that we set out in this place have the tools, resources and laws in place to do their jobs. On the other hand, it is about being a guardian of the most fundamental rights and freedoms Canadians have: the right to due process, the right to privacy and the right to freedom from search and seizure. I am someone who understands and greatly values both of these things.

I have the great privilege of sitting on the justice committee, where Conservative colleagues and I worked vigorously to ensure that real, tangible reforms to the bail system were put forward in the government's bail bill, Bill C-14, not so long ago. The bill was inadequate, but it did something. In fact, law enforcement officials had been telling us that they wanted more. They had been telling us that the Liberal government had actually caused the bail problems in this country and that they wanted more to fix them. We were happy to do that.

I have also been, as many people would know, very vocal, even before I was elected to the House, in calling out decisions and bills by the current government that would erode not only trust in institutions but also civil liberties of Canadians. I have seen this first-hand since I had the great privilege of being elected, just shy of one year ago.

The government's very first bill was presented to Canadians and to the House, Bill C-2, as a border security bill. Again, I have been among the people talking for years about how the government has allowed the borders of this country to become a joke. I welcomed the Liberals' recognizing that there was a problem, but when we looked into the bill, we saw that lawful access provisions had actually been snuck in.

We also saw that the bill, which, again, was presented to Canadians as being an answer to the border crisis, inexplicably had a proposed ban on transacting in cash above a certain amount. That is not something Canadians wanted and is actually something that Canadians rejected so vociferously that the Liberals, thankfully, decided to, among other things, pull it aside and not proceed with it.

Bill C-2 also would have given the ability to, without a warrant, inspect Canadians' letter mail. Even letters that Canadians send to us as members of Parliament and letters that someone might send to a loved one across the country would have been subject to warrantless scrutiny by Canada Post. Therefore, we had to look into the details of Bill C-2, and in doing so we found that it could not be supported.

Then there was Bill C-8, which, again, on the surface is something we want and welcome. It is legislation that would deal with very real threats to cybersecurity infrastructure that companies and countries face. This was something that, again, I thought we would be able to find common ground on across party lines, but the devil, as always, is in the details.

We looked at Bill C-8, and I thank my colleague from Kitchener South—Hespeler and my colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola for their work on this. We saw that the bill would actually give the Minister of Industry and cabinet members of the Liberal government incredible power to take people or companies off-line, with no oversight and no scrutiny.

I am so proud to be part of a team that understood that enforcing the law and protecting Canada from threats cannot and need not come at the expense of fundamental rights and freedoms and at the expense of civil liberties. Conservatives worked collaboratively with our colleagues in the Bloc, and we put forward amendments that would deal with these challenges.

However, now there is Bill C-22, a bill that repackages a lot of what was already in Bill C-2, a lot of what had already been rejected by Canadians, and it puts it forward for review. Fortunately, the Liberals have finally understood the essence of some of these challenges. I am very grateful that in part 1 of the bill, they have eliminated some of the most problematic components. I will give credit where it is due. Again, the Liberals should have been more keenly aware of these things from the get-go, but there have actually been significant improvements.

That being said, the lack of oversight on some parts of Bill C-2 very much warrants scrutiny here. Why I bring this up and why it is so important is that the reason there has been such push-back with respect to Bill C-22 so far, from civil liberties groups in particular, on the left and on the right, is that the Liberal government has squandered the trust that Canadians have and can have in government, specifically in the current government, due to the way that it has eroded civil liberties in the past.

Again, as I say this, I am reminded of the fact that a few weeks ago the Liberals filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada on their Emergencies Act usage just over four years ago. That is relevant because what the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal found is that the government violated the charter rights of Canadians not only by unlawfully invoking the Emergencies Act but by using the fake emergency to justify freezing people's bank accounts.

Now, this was one of the reasons that our amendments in Bill C-8 included conscience and speech protections, because recent Liberal government history has revealed precisely why those protections are necessary, and why, when people come up with scenarios, we do not actually take the Liberals seriously when they try to dismiss those scenarios by saying that would never happen and it would never get there. We have seen them go there already. We have seen them go down roads that most people never would have thought possible, using plain language that we must take at its word and at face value.

The Liberal government has not been constrained by the charter, and it has not been constrained by norms. That is why Canadians from the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group to the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms have raised concerns about Bill C-22.

That being said, I do have to acknowledge the very real demands that law enforcement have made. I have taken on the responsibility, not just as a member of the justice committee but as the member of Parliament for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, to talk to law enforcement and to speak to them exactly about the shortcomings they feel exist in the current system. Now, one thing I will point out is that they welcome having expanded powers and clear authority. They welcome a lot of what is in Bill C-22.

Last week I spoke to Chief Thai Truong of the London Police Service. It is a very large police service given London's size. I also spoke to Chief Marc Roskamp of the St. Thomas Police Service. I have spoken to other frontline officers and I am happy to continue doing this work because, unlike the Liberal government, this party has a history of listening to law enforcement when they say they do not want anything to do with the Liberal government's gun confiscation scheme, when they say they need real bail reform so they are not arresting the same people over and over again, and when they say there are tools and clarifications they need to do their jobs. We will continue to do that.

The men and women of law enforcement in my riding and across the country want to take bad guys off the streets. We, as a party, want to make sure they have the tools and resources to do that. It is not entirely accurate to say that Canada has no lawful access regime. Police have been able to access subscriber data, they have been able to access electronic materials and they have been able to get warrants to search people's computers, phones and accounts. The issue is the speed they need when dealing with it. We welcome anything that provides an opportunity, lawfully and with judicial oversight, to access the type of information at play here.

We cannot look at any of these things in isolation. We cannot look at simply being able to confirm subscriber data, perhaps for an offender or a suspected offender who is possessing, producing or disseminating child sexual exploitation and abuse material, and say that that will solve the overall problems.

We have to look at lawful access in the same vein as we look at other things in the criminal justice system that would interact with that suspected offender, such as the sentence they are going to get. This week the justice committee is reviewing Bill C-16. We are saying that the Liberal government is jeopardizing mandatory minimum sentences for people who peddle in child sexual exploitation and abuse material. We believe wholeheartedly that the government needs to have robust punishments to vigorously go after these heinous predators.

What the Liberal government has been doing, and not just on lawful access but on other justice bills that have come before them, is selectively deciding when they want to listen to law enforcement and when they do not, selectively deciding when they want to hide behind this stakeholder or that stakeholder and when they do not.

We are the lawmakers in this chamber. It is an honour I do not take lightly. We have to listen to all stakeholders and come to a reasoned constitutional position that balances the rights and needs of a free citizenry in this country with the practical expectations and needs of law enforcement to effectively discharge their duties. That is a balance that we need to get right, not only because it is simply our duty but also because the last thing we want to do is pass a law that we will have to somehow find a way to fix years later if a court finds it to be unconstitutional. This is the tricky thing we have to deal with here. We cannot pass law that will not withstand charter scrutiny.

Interestingly, with regard to Bill C-8, I mentioned the tremendous work of my colleagues on the public safety committee and other colleagues in caucus. Bill C-8 had been amended by Conservative efforts, with the support of the Bloc, to have judicial oversight for some decisions that the minister would make, and that was so important. In the end, it was unfortunate that this was ruled out of scope when it came back to the House because that would have been an incredibly important safeguard that would have told Canadians we are not giving unchecked power to cabinet ministers representing a government that, by the way, does not have a great track record on upholding civil liberties and that when cabinet ministers say to just trust them, we might as well play the laugh track from a 1990s sitcom because that is about as much as it is worth. We are always going to approach anything that looks like surveillance or a violation of privacy rights with a level of skepticism. When the Liberals bring forward bills that touch on these issues, they should not dismiss these very real and, I would say, good-faith concerns that people across this country are making because of that lack of distrust that I was talking about.

When we look at some of the details, there is a blanket retention of metadata, but so much of our personal information is captured and so much of what is in metadata is not as anonymized as people may think. For example, in comparing this to other jurisdictions, in the United States, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act allows for preservation of metadata on demand, but it does not require blanket retention. It does not even allow blanket retention. The Court of Justice of the European Union has declared that blanket retention of metadata is incompatible with the fundamental rights that Europeans have, especially when it comes to privacy.

When we look at electronic service providers, specifically the applications in part 2 of the bill, we do not have a definition of what a service provider is. We only have the expectation that the government will come up with a definition down the road. This category could actually include email providers. It could include messaging apps. It could include other cloud services and storage systems. It is not just about whether one has a Telus account or a Rogers account. It could extend to the accounts that have content. That is where accessing someone's electronic information is truly accessing a window into their lives, their most intimate experiences, thoughts, conversations and photos. Therefore, we cannot afford to not get this right.

I would much rather see a cohesive definition of what that category would be, not something that could be redefined based on the whims of not just the current government but future governments. As we well know, if we are talking about any legislated power for government, for cabinet, for law enforcement, we have to imagine what that power will look like in the hands of another government that comes beyond. This is not a partisan issue. It is where I look beyond the left versus right on this. I do not want my colleagues on the left to be concerned about how a theoretical Conservative government would abuse civil liberties, which is certainly not the Conservative governments that we are putting forward for Canadians to choose, but how another government might use it.

That is why we must always constrain government power to protect the vital privacy rights and autonomy of individual citizens, and the lack of oversight remains a very key problem in Bill C-22. It would enable secret ministerial orders to any digital service Canadians rely on, with no public registry, no parliamentary approval and no right for Canadians to even know it is happening. That is the architecture of a surveillance state. That is something that we must always protect against.

I believe we must all come to an agreement on where we go forward, because we are being told by the Liberals that this is all fine and to just pass the bill through. We have been down that road before, and again, I do support, if the bill gets to committee, vigorously scrutinizing it, debating it, calling witnesses, looking at the ins and outs and going through it line by line, but there is a very real challenge, especially if I situate my remarks today in the broader political context of our time, in that bills can go into committee and come out worse than they went in.

The government can expand its power. We saw this recently with Bill C-9, where a flawed bill went into committee and an outright dangerous one came out, so we have to be very mindful of whether the Liberals have signalled an intention that goes beyond the text of the bill. That is why we cannot look at Bill C-22 without looking at things that the Liberals failed to advance in Bill C-8 and Bill C-2. Those have actually been pretty good indicators of where the Liberals want to go, where they think they can go and perhaps, if they have unchecked majority power in this House of Commons, where they are likely to go.

I go back to the comments I have made about law enforcement and how I am fully committed to listening to the perspectives of frontline officers and the perspectives of police leadership. I actually have a meeting coming up with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, which as timing worked out, I wish I had done before I had the opportunity to speak today, but it did not work out that way. However, I will listen to law enforcement, not just on lawful access, but on the whole suite of reforms to fix the last 11 years of Liberal justice legislation, which the police have been demanding, to make communities safer.

I will just end on why this is so important. I was speaking to a grade 10 class a few weeks ago about my job and about the work that we all do in Ottawa, and like anyone else speaking to a group of grade 10 students, it is not always as engaging to talk about politics. I choose to believe it was politics that was boring them and not me, but nevertheless, I was trying to make politics relatable to them. I was trying to actually come up with a way to provide them a window into why the work we do here matters to them, and I brought up two things. I brought up employment. I asked how many of them were having trouble getting a job, and every hand went up. Then I asked them how many of them feel safe walking around downtown, and they all laughed. They all laughed, truly. To them, safe streets are a punchline, and that is the record of Liberal so-called justice laws over the last 11 years.

If we are going to listen to law enforcement, let us actually listen to law enforcement and let us start opening up the door to undoing the harmful reforms that have gotten us to where we are. If the Liberals want to know why people are so skeptical of lawful access regimes coming from the government, they need to look in the mirror and see why Canadians do not trust them to not abuse power, abuse authority and violate the rights of Canadians.

We will always stand firmly behind that. We will support law enforcement, but not at the expense of the charter, as the Liberals have a record of doing.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola.

We are only about an hour and a half into today, and this is my third time rising. What an honour it is to speak in the House of Commons, not only so frequently but also on matters of such import. We are dealing with really important issues today. Sometimes we deal with things that are quite performative in the House, but I can candidly say that, today, this is an issue of fairly significant importance.

Before I start, I want to recognize one of my very good friends, who is celebrating a birthday. Philip Lee is 48 years old. He is somebody I went to high school with and have known for the past 36 years now. We have had the opportunity to travel together, and he has been a wonderful friend. I would like to wish Phil all the best in the upcoming year.

I also want to recognize two people from Kamloops who accomplished something really significant. Johnny Hicks and Brady Milburn are part of the Denver Pioneers hockey club. That club is part of the NCAA. This weekend, the team was crowned the men's NCAA champion. I congratulate Johnny and Brady, who are both Kamloops products, and the whole Denver Pioneers team. Winning the NCAA championship is a tremendous accomplishment.

What brings us here today is Bill C-22, but we have to look at the past to inform how we got here. Bill C-2 was heralded as a cure-all, a panacea, if we will, to all the things that ailed the justice system. If only we could pass Bill C-2, everything would be fine.

Unfortunately, we have heard that before in the House. For years, we were told there were no issues with bail and sentencing, yet here we are now with a so-called new government, with many of the same cabinet ministers as the old government, and we are still dealing with the same issues.

I believe the minister referenced Commissioner Carrique talking about this type of legislation going way back to 1997. In fact, Conservatives put forward legislation on lawful access and were roundly mocked by Liberals. There is a famous quote, which I will not repeat here today, that stemmed from that very debate, and now we hear there is a rush to pass this legislation. I understand why lawful access is so important, but if there was a rush, then why were the Liberals opposed to it in the last decade? If there was a rush, then why has it taken the Liberal government 11 years to bring this bill forward? If there was a rush, then why was Bill C-2 so clumsily drafted?

We are here because of Bill C-2. In fact, if we look at portions of Bill C-2, we can see that we now have two bills that stem from it: Bill C-12 and Bill C-22. Both of those bills have dramatically remodelled what was contained in Bill C-2. In fact, Bill C-12 renovated so much of the text of Bill C-2 that it underwent further amendments at committee. I believe that my colleague, the shadow minister for immigration, the member for Calgary Nose Hill, did a great deal of work and produced a number of amendments at committee that were supported by the government or the Bloc and ultimately made it into the bill. That bill was a substantially better version of portions of Bill C-2. What do we have in Bill C-22? We have parts 14 and 15 of Bill C-2.

One of the things that always strikes me is how, in the past, Conservatives heard criticisms of omnibus bills. Bill C-2 is about as omnibus as it gets. I think it would have impacted something like 11 pieces of legislation. I do not want to be quoted on that because I cannot remember, but it would have impacted so many pieces of legislation and created pieces of legislation. It is well over 100 pages. It is an omnibus bill to the point where we now have two bills that have stemmed from it, and I think we probably have three or four distinct subject matters that are contained within Bill C-2 that still have not been addressed. The part of Bill C-2 we have before us now is the notion of lawful access.

I am going to focus on what is in Bill C-2, but I will also focus on some of the concerns I have. My hope is that the government will take these concerns legitimately and that we can proceed in the spirit of open and constructive dialogue.

My colleague for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound asked a question. He sits on the national security committee, commonly known as NSICOP, which provides secret and confidential advice to the Prime Minister. Those who are on the committee are not permitted to speak about anything that is discussed in committee, and would be subject to very significant penalties under criminal law if they did, but one thing my colleague and friend for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound spoke about was not only the necessity, from NSICOP's point of view, of lawful access, but also what should be in that legislation.

As Conservatives, we will always take the position that initiatives to help law enforcement, initiatives that allow those in law enforcement to do their jobs more easily, is something we will always be open to, but we have to make sure that those revisions to the law are both charter-compliant and consistent with the rights of privacy that we believe all Canadians should enjoy.

In my view, the government has, in the past, tried to overstep its boundaries at times. Bill C-2, in parts 14 and 15, is an example, as it goes so far as to use language like any threat or “any action”. We saw that in Bill C-8 as well. Bill C-2 essentially wants the government to have access to “any information”. Well, that goes quite too far. I was happy to see that the government, at the very least, went back to the drawing board.

Previously, a question from the government was about how the Conservatives could have just passed this in Bill C-2. Well, no, Conservatives would not have passed this in Bill C-2 because Bill C-2 is a poorly written piece of legislation. If Conservatives should have passed it in Bill C-2, then the government should have put forward a better piece of legislation, and I would go so far as to say that the government is admitting such because it has put forward Bill C-22. If Bill C-2 had no issues, if it did not, in the eyes of experts throughout the country, take significant liberties with privacy rights and things like that, then we would not be here today. The fact that the government has put forward Bill C-22 is itself an admission that Bill C-2, in its omnibus form, is, unfortunately, poorly drafted. That is what brings us here today.

What are some of the things in Bill C-2? There are three parts. The first part we are looking at is on tools for law enforcement to access digital information. I do not believe this is going to be a controversial part of the bill. Right now, based on decisions from the Supreme Court of Canada over roughly the last 12 years, law enforcement has to write a great number of court orders, which is how I would put it. Another way to put it is “judicial authorizations”, and some people call them “warrants”. They often take the form of a warrant or a production order, such as an order to a business saying, “Is Frank Caputo your subscriber, yes or no?” Then it would say, “Please produce all the Frank Caputo subscriber information.” Those might be two distinct questions. The problem is that this takes time.

Every time somebody has to go and get a court order, somebody has to write up that court order. They have to swear an affidavit in support of that court order. That takes time. As Conservatives, we recognize that when there are inefficiencies in the law, we need to address them. That is something that I do not think people take a great deal of issue with, but sometimes the devil is in the details and we need to ask further questions about those things.

The current process in regard to subscriber information is informed by the decision of Regina v. Spencer. Now, that decision came out in 2014. Spencer impacted the obtaining of production orders, just to put it colloquially. I am sure somebody is going to be looking at the headnote of Spencer and will compare my words. I am just talking generally here, not with the legal precision that I would in court. We are looking at getting production orders for just about everything for which a subscriber may have an expectation of privacy. That would change with Bill C-22.

Bykovets was another really key decision of the court, 10 years after Spencer. I believe Bykovets was about the expectation of privacy in a person's IP address. This was significant because most people do not know their IP address. A lot of people do not even know that they have an IP address. If they do know they have an IP address, they might not even know how they get it. When Bykovets said there is an expectation of privacy in that, I believe some legal scholars said, “Okay, that's interesting.”

I am not here to take potshots at decisions. I am here to recognize what the issue is. Whenever there is an expectation of privacy, then we need a search that is authorized by law through a court order. That meant a court order was required to get an IP address, even though finding an IP address was essentially akin to finding a phone number in the phone book. That was the analogy, as I recall. Most of us in the House will remember phone books. The member for Kenora—Kiiwetinoong probably does not, but he is probably the only one. The rest of us remember what it was like to get phone books. Let us face it, phone books were everywhere. Anybody could find anything. Anybody, as I understand it, with some semblance of digital acumen would be able to get an IP address, but nonetheless, the courts said there is an expectation of privacy.

These are all issues we are dealing with right now, within the current framework, that part 1 would address. As well, let us not forget that these are often offences against children and terrorist offences. Those are the two offences that are probably of the most interest to the legislators in the House, as in how we address those things.

Let us get into part 2 a little bit. I have skipped over some of part 1 because I want to give part 2 what it requires in terms of debate. Part 2 talks about ministerial orders. I am mindful of the fact that the Intelligence Commissioner now has a role to play within these ministerial orders.

The thing that I think we need to look at or that I would want more information on, as I craft my position and Conservatives craft our position on this, is that when there is a ministerial order that is secret, the government should be prepared to substantiate why it is secret and if it should be secret in every single instance. For instance, we spoke about NSICOP recently and how everything that is about national security will be top secret. There may be a place to say yes, if it is going to impact national security, but does that mean that every single ministerial order is going to be secret or should be secret?

Furthermore, when it comes to the Intelligence Commissioner, precisely what role would that person play, and how would their independent oversight impact a number of the concerns? One of the key areas that part 2 of Bill C-22 impacts is that it compels third parties to keep information. I want to be very clear here that the information, in my reading of the bill, would still require a warrant. I believe the way the minister explained it was that the information would be kept and then could be accessed. That is, the government does not simply receive the information, but it is present in order to be accessed.

It is my view that whenever the government tells anybody, including electronic service providers, that they must keep something, including metadata, it is something we need to ask questions about. This is probably one of the biggest issues. As I understand it, the bill's intent is to require that metadata be kept. That can include location services, but it is not meant to include the content. That is my reading of the bill. I think this needs to be closely scrutinized, and I look forward to asking more questions in the next two days of debate here on that very issue.

First, I would love to hear about the constitutionality of the requirement to have a third party keep something so the government can access it. I am not going to stand here and say whether that is or is not constitutional as it is not something I have studied thus far, but I think it is a question Canadians may have.

Second, on the idea of the requirement that a person's location be kept, who is going to keep that? Where is the data going to be stored? In my riding, we have a huge data storage facility. Are there going to be requirements as to how and where that data is stored and things like that?

This is a very complicated piece of legislation. I think somebody could read Bill C-22 three times and think they are starting to get a sense of what it actually says. When we deal with pieces of legislation that are quite intricate, obviously we need to develop our positions not only in a careful way but in a way that is sound. That is what I hope to do and what we as Conservatives hope to do.

Is there a mechanism by which web browsing history can be captured under Bill C-22? I think a lot of people would be alarmed if that were the case, from a privacy point of view. The issue of data retention is not a new one. One of the principal issues that I went up against, as somebody who prosecuted Internet offences against kids, was data retention. I was speaking with police officers today, and ISP addresses, in some cases, can actually disappear within as little as 30 days. I am not saying we should not be looking at that. We should absolutely be looking at that, but perhaps there should be limits.

If we are going to impact privacy rights, maybe that should be based on the offence. If we are looking at a sexual offence, perhaps the terminology we could look at is “an offence against the person”. All sexual offences are, by their very nature, violent, and I do not mean to dichotomize there. However, with respect to sexual offences, sexual offences against children or investigations into violence against the person, if there are concerns, perhaps there could be a narrowing so there would not be simply a fishing expedition to try to find an offence. Rather, we would be looking at all offences.

I see my time is coming to a close. Before I end, I want to acknowledge three people: Kelly Hunter, a baseball and softball umpire who was inducted into the Kamloops Sports Hall of Fame this weekend; Jessica Hewitt, a speed skater who was inducted into the Kamloops Sports Hall of Fame this weekend; and Glenn Armstrong, a football coach who was also inducted into the Kamloops Sports Hall of Fame. These three individuals have made dynamic contributions to the Kamloops area in sport, and I congratulate them.

With that, I will enjoy any questions.

Addressing the Continuing Victimization of Homicide Victims' Families Act

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, first and foremost, it is important for me to express my full support tonight for “Le communautaire à boutte” movement. Before becoming an MP, I served as executive director of the Hautes-Laurentides community development corporation for over five years. I worked closely with more than 50 organizations that provide services that government agencies cannot. These are dedicated people. I commend the organizations that have been around for 40 years. I will name a few: La Griffe d'Alpha, Maison Lyse-Beauchamp for the homeless, L'Arche du Nord, La Petite Mission, and Maison de la Famille du Nord. There are so many of them and they are part of our social fabric. Our regions need them, and this is a unique model that Quebec has developed over the decades. I stand with them wholeheartedly in ensuring that services for the vulnerable are not interrupted in the future.

Today, we are discussing Bill C-236. The Bloc Québécois will be voting in favour of the bill because we want to study it in committee. It is a Conservative Party bill that is at second reading stage. I should mention, however, that the bill may be unnecessary. Let me explain. The case cited by the Conservative Party to justify this bill shows that the Parole Board of Canada already takes account of refusals to disclose the location of a victim's body and refusals to admit guilt.

In fact, Australia since 2015, the United Kingdom since 2019 and the United States since 2021 have had similar legislation in some of their federated states, although studies suggest that these laws are unnecessary and even violate certain rights of inmates, in addition to transforming the goal of the parole system from rehabilitation to punishment.

As is always the case when the Conservative Party introduces bills related to the justice system, the Conservatives' vision of justice is not justice in the noble sense of the word. All too often, the official opposition wants Canada's justice system to be about revenge.

Not only that, but the parole system already takes certain criteria into account when making its decisions. Once again, the Conservative Party wants the legislative branch to play a role in the administration of justice. Once again, the Conservative Party wants to severely restrict the discretion of the members of the Parole Board of Canada. Once again, the party of law and order wants to control the law.

Nevertheless, setting aside partisan considerations, I want to say that, despite these reservations, I recognize that victims' loved ones deserve answers and that this bill deserves to be studied in committee. This actually allows me to point out that parliamentary committee work is fundamental to demystifying complex issues. My colleague from Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon just talked about this in the context of Bill C-8.

It is easy to introduce bills to pander to one's base, but the bill has to pass the smell test and that is what parliamentary committees are for. It is an opportunity to hear from academics and experts on the issues at hand. In this case, that will include families, loved ones, and the Parole Board of Canada, to learn in detail exactly how things work in practice. We need to challenge assumptions and sit down to ensure that the system is working as it should.

That is why the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of the bill, because this matter deserves to be addressed with all the seriousness, diligence, and impartiality that the issue of justice demands.

Just two weeks ago, when I rose here to speak to a Conservative Party justice bill, I said that the justice system is under attack throughout the west. It is a tactic employed by the far right and various fringe groups. I have said this on several occasions since becoming a member of Parliament, and that concerns me.

Using the justice system and judges as political tools is a road to nowhere, except to inflate dubious theories. Do we want an American-style system, with all the problems that come with it, or do we want a justice system worthy of the name? I believe and hope that we can all agree on the answer.

Populism is on the rise all over the world. It is a troubling trend. As a member of Parliament, I have made it my mission to stand as a bulwark against populism and to always focus on the facts. I urge my colleagues from all parties to do the same. Let us send this bill to committee and have it studied thoroughly to ensure that it meets our legal principles.

That is why I am saying here today that we need to look at the facts and send the bill to committee.

Amendments to Bill C-8—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I am now ready to rule on the point of order raised on March 23 by the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader concerning amendments adopted at committee to Bill C-8, an act respecting cybersecurity, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other acts.

In his intervention, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader contended that, during clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, three amendments, CPC-2, CPC-5 and CPC-15, were adopted by the committee after having been ruled inadmissible by the chair. He argued that the three amendments were inadmissible on the grounds that they exceeded the scope of the bill as adopted by the House at second reading, and requested that the Speaker review the amendments and, if found to be out of order, that they be struck from the bill.

The member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, in her intervention on the matter, suggested that the Speaker should reject the arguments of the parliamentary secretary on the basis that no reasoning was offered to support that the amendments were inadmissible. She then stated that the amendments in question should not be viewed as beyond the scope of the bill because they seek to impose conditions on executive decision-making by requiring prior judicial authorization for certain orders. Citing several precedents, she contended that this type of limitation to the authority of ministers has been found to be acceptable and within the scope of bills in the past.

The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands also intervened briefly on the matter, questioning the validity of the point of order, suggesting that determinations about amendments are ordinarily made by the committee chair and are not subject to review by the House.

While the Speaker generally refrains from intervening in matters that fall within a committee's authority, once a bill is reported back to the House, members may challenge the procedural admissibility of amendments adopted in committee. As is explained in House of Commons Procedure and Practice, fourth edition, section 16.96:

Since a committee may appeal the decision of its Chair and reverse that decision, it may happen that a committee will report a bill with amendments that were initially ruled out of order by its Chair. The admissibility of those amendments, and of any other amendments made by a committee, may therefore be challenged on procedural grounds when the House resumes its consideration of the bill at report stage. The admissibility of the amendments is then determined by the Speaker of the House, whether in response to a point of order or on the Speaker's own initiative.

When specific amendments are brought to its attention, the Chair considers whether the committee acted beyond its authority in adopting the amendments and assesses amendments against the established rules governing their admissibility.

The member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake is quite right in pointing out the importance of providing sufficient context when raising a point of order concerning amendments in a committee report. While the Chair is obliged to review the matter once it is raised, explanations as to why the amendments fall outside the scope of the bill assist the Chair in conducting a thorough and accurate review.

In the present case, the amendments in question were initially found by the committee chair to be inadmissible on the grounds that they exceeded the scope of the bill. As explained in section 16.74 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, fourth edition:

An amendment to a bill that was referred to a committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principle of the bill.

The Chair has therefore carefully reviewed Bill C-8 as adopted by the House at second reading and the amendments in question to ascertain how they relate to the bill's principle and scope. The principle or main legislative objectives of the bill include strengthening Canada's national cybersecurity and providing new legal authorities to protect critical cyber systems and secure the telecommunications sector. The amendments in question relate to part 1 of the bill, which amends the Telecommunications Act.

Whereas the bill as introduced would give the minister or Governor in Council new authority to make orders to accomplish the bill's legislative objectives, CPC-2 modifies the bill by requiring the Governor in Council or the minister to first obtain authorization from a Federal Court judge before issuing orders under sections 15.1 and 15.2 of the act. The amendment would also allow the judge to attach any conditions to the order that they consider appropriate.

The bill as introduced also provides that an order made under section 15.1 by the Governor in Council may include a provision prohibiting the disclosure of its existence or of its contents. CPC-5 amends the bill to require that the Governor in Council make an application to the Federal Court should the Governor in Council wish to prohibit the disclosure of the content of an order made under section 15.1. Where the bill would allow the Governor in Council to determine the necessity of such a prohibition, the amendment transfers the actual ability to prohibit to the Federal Court, instead of it being part of the order made by the Governor in Council.

CPC-15 effects the same transfer of authority to a Federal Court judge, but in cases where the minister is seeking to include non-disclosure provisions to orders made under section 15.2.

In the Chair's view, these amendments relate to the overall objective, broadly stated, of strengthening Canada's national cybersecurity systems. The question, therefore, is whether they exceed the scope of the bill.

While the concept of judicial oversight appears in the bill, its purpose is to review decisions already taken by the Governor in Council. The three amendments instead transfer the authority to make certain orders, or to prohibit the disclosure of the content of certain orders, from the executive branch to the Federal Court. In doing so, they confer new powers on the judicial branch that were not contemplated in the bill as adopted at second reading.

The Chair finds there to be important distinctions between this case and the precedents raised by the member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake. In the case cited from 2006, the amendment in question did not affect the Minister's power to act; rather it introduced a power to appeal after the fact. In the more recent example relating to Bill C‑483, the amendments to the bill maintained the role for the National Parole Board already conceived of in the legislation, but in a more limited form than was originally proposed. Both of these cases can accurately be viewed as a constraint on decision-making authority already found in each bill. In the current case, the Chair views the amendments as going beyond the imposition of a condition on the exercise of authority by the minister or Governor in Council, transforming what were ministerial powers into judicial powers instead.

Consequently, the amendments proposed appear to the Chair to contain new concepts that are beyond the scope of the bill and lead the Chair to conclude that the amendments were correctly ruled inadmissible by the chair of the committee.

Therefore, I order that the aforementioned amendments, CPC-2, CPC-5 and CPC-15, be declared null and void and no longer form part of the bill as reported to the House. Furthermore, I am ordering a reprint of Bill C-8 with the removal of the inadmissible amendments. This reprinted version will stand as the official version of the bill for consideration at report stage.

I thank all members for their attention.

Amendments to Bill C-8

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would argue that this is a very important point of order, and I would recommend that everyone stop to listen.

Standing Order 117 says, “The Chair of a standing, special or legislative committee shall maintain order in the committee, deciding all questions of order subject to an appeal to the committee”.

Secondly, a committee chair's ruling on the admissibility of an amendment is not infallible. Mr. Speaker, in a ruling on November 3, 2025, at page 3,327 of the Debates, you yourself reached a different conclusion than the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance had concerning the need for royal recommendation for an amendment that the committee made to Bill C-4. The test for the Speaker's intervention in committee reports concerning bills does not rest simply on whether a committee chair's ruling was overturned, but rather on whether the committee, in adopting the impugned amendment, exceeded its authority.

The parliamentary secretary referred the Chair to paragraph 16.74 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, fourth edition, which provides that an amendment to a bill is out of order “if it is beyond the scope and principle of the bill.” The parliamentary secretary, however, did not offer any argument or reasoning for the amendments being allegedly beyond the scope of the bill. Mr. Speaker, I think you should reject the government's argument on that basis alone, since it is asking you to overturn a committee decision without any true procedural justification. As Janse and LeBlanc wrote at paragraph 16.96, “The admissibility of those amendments, and of any other amendments made by a committee, may therefore be challenged on procedural grounds when the House resumes its consideration of the bill at report stage.”

Indeed, as Speaker Milliken mentioned on March 14, 2008, at page 4182 of the Debates, “successive Speakers have been reluctant to intervene in the proceedings of committees except in highly exceptional circumstances.” That is, in fact, a commonly understood principle in this House, but the parliamentary secretary failed to offer any justification meeting that threshold of exceptional circumstances. Indeed, the same former Speaker explained on November 27, 2002, at page 1950 of the Debates, “it is true as well that committees are permitted a greater latitude in the conduct of their proceedings than might be allowed in the House. It may not always be clear in a particular set of circumstances how best to proceed and so the ultimate decision is left to the committee itself.”

However, should you disagree with me on the ending of your inquiry here, Mr. Speaker, allow me to offer submissions about how these Conservative amendments are actually within the scope of this bill. Let us get our bearings. First, footnote 164 on page 63 of Janse and LeBlanc refers to the scope of a bill as “meaning the schemes by which the principles of the bill are achieved.”

Paragraph 28.81 of Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, 25th edition, expands upon the concept. It states:

The scope of a bill represents the reasonable limits of its collective purposes, as defined by its existing clauses and schedules. In particular cases, difficult questions of judgment may arise. The scope of a bill, particularly of a bill with several purposes, may be wider than its long title, although the long title may help to determine the scope.

The same authority continues, explaining the United Kingdom's practice:

Standing Order No 65 gives a general authority to any committee on a bill to amend the bill as it sees fit (even if this entails amending the bill's long title in consequence), provided that the amendments are relevant to the subject-matter of the bill, that is to say, within the scope of the bill.

Bill C-8 is a broad bill, touching on a number of facets of the digital world. For our purposes, let us focus on part 1, containing amendments to the Telecommunications Act and making provisions for a variety of measures, including empowering the Governor in Council and the Minister of Industry, respectively, to make orders and give direction regarding the security of Canada's telecommunications system. What amendments CPC-2, CPC-5 and CPC-15 do collectively is require prior judicial authorization for certain of those orders, including for decisions of the cabinet or the minister to impose a gag order on Canadians.

I would submit that nothing about this changes or expands the scope of Bill C-8. Instead, they oppose conditions on executive decision-making, without changing the nature or scope of the decisions that might be made under the authorities proposed in the bill. In a ruling given on October 26, 2006, Mr. Speaker Milliken held at page 4308 of the Debates, that:

I cannot conclude that an amendment which provides for an appeal of a decision by the minister is contrary to the principle of the bill. As I see it, such an amendment places a condition on how decisions of the minister are exercised, but the principle of the bill remains intact.

Another precedent concerns a former bill, Bill C-483, which proposed to transfer decision-making authority over the temporary escorted absences of convicted murderers from penitentiary wardens, who are officials of the executive branch, to the quasi-judicial national Parole Board. The public safety committee reported that bill back to the House with amendments that would instead have had the decision-making responsibilities shared between institution heads and the Parole Board.

Mr. Speaker, your predecessor found the committee's amendments to have been in order, commenting on May 2, 2014, at page 4880 of the Debates, that:

I can see nothing in the bill as amended by the committee which would alter the aims and intent of the bill, namely the limiting of the power of institutional heads to grant escorted temporary absences and providing a role for the National Parole Board in the granting of such absences.

In the present case before you, Mr. Speaker, the government itself contemplates a rule for the federal court elsewhere in clause 2 of Bill C-8, namely, in its proposed section 15.9 of the Telecommunications Act, making provisions for the judicial review of the cabinet and ministers' orders. The amendments to Bill C-8, challenged by the parliamentary secretary, are like the 2006 precedent. This is the simple creation of a condition on how the decisions of a minister are exercised without changing the types of decisions that could be made and, like the 2014 precedent, simply adjusting to the responsibilities of the decision-makers who each already have assigned roles within the proposed statutory scheme.

To sum up, the parliamentary secretary's point of order should simply be dismissed for its failure to advance any procedural grounds for why the public safety committee's third report might be procedurally flawed. In the alternative, the impugned amendments are all, I submit, within the scope of the bill and have a nature consistent with committee amendments, which your predecessors have found to be within the scope of the bills concerned.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising in response to the point of order raised yesterday by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons concerning certain amendments made by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to Bill C-8, concerning cybersecurity and telecommunications. In his intervention, the parliamentary secretary referred to three amendments that the committee had agreed to consider despite the committee chair ruling the amendments inadmissible, which it subsequently adopted.

Firstly, I would like to remind the House that appeals of committee chairs' rulings are simply part of the routine practice of this place. Standing Order 117 says so. It says, “The Chair of a standing, special or legislative committee shall maintain order in the committee—

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

Mr. Speaker, very briefly, I do not think I have seen this before, so perhaps the hon. parliamentary secretary, at some point later in debate, or the Speaker can answer the question I have.

Is it at all normal that we would have a point of order to review amendments after committee work has closed on Bill C-8 to ask if it is within scope? Those questions are usually taken up at the moment when the amendments are brought forward. The clerk of the committee and the chair of the committee judge whether the amendment proposed is within scope.

I know retroactivity seems to be a big thing these days, and we just passed Bill C-4, which came into effect 26 years ago, but I question the validity of this point of order.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to raise a point of order respecting three amendments that were adopted in a committee during clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-8, an act respecting cybersecurity, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other acts.

The three amendments include CPC-2, CPC-5 and CPC-15. When these amendments were moved at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, the chair ruled these three amendments out of order. The report respecting the bill was tabled in the House on March 11. I submit that the committee, in adopting these three amendments, exceeded the scope of the bill, which was determined by the second reading vote on October 3, 2025.

Page 649 of the fourth edition of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, at section 16.74, sets the limitation of amendments moved in committee to a bill that is adopted after second reading. This limitation, which deals with the scope and principle of the bill, states:

An amendment to a bill that was referred to a committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principle of the bill.

In each of the aforementioned three amendments, the chair of the committee ruled CPC-2, CPC-5 and CPC-15 inadmissible because they would be proposed concepts that go beyond the scope of the bill. The CPC challenged the ruling of the chair for each of these amendments. The Bloc supported overturning the decision of the chair, and these three amendments were adopted.

Now that the bill is back before the House, I would request that the Speaker review the bill as amended and decide whether the amendments proposed through CPC-2, CPC-5 and CPC-15 exceed the scope and the principle of Bill C-8. Should this be the case, I would request that the Speaker order that the bill be reprinted without the offending amendments for the House's consideration at report stage.

Business of the House

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Minister of Transport and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I think we will have to ask CPAC which of the two of us more people tune in to see, because both of us, as the member well knows, tend to be very lovable and appreciated by all Canadians as we talk about the Thursday question.

I will say, in response to my hon. friend, that we will be coming back next sitting week to Bill C-9, which I know was a solemn election commitment by his party as well as mine. I know we all look forward to protecting community centres, temples, synagogues and mosques in Canada. These are obviously important things, especially as we watch the conflict in the Middle East.

We will continue the debate at third reading of Bill C‑13, an act to implement the protocol on the accession of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Tomorrow, we will resume debate at second reading of Bill C‑20, an act respecting the establishment of Build Canada Homes.

As I said, when we return from our constituency week, on Monday, March 23, priority will be given to the very important Bill C-9, the combatting hate act, and of course Bill C-8, the cybersecurity legislation, which is essential for Canada in these days of online risks.

Finally, Tuesday, March 24, shall be an allotted day.

Public Safety and National Security

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in relation to Bill C-8, an act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other acts.

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

Government Business No. 6—Proceedings on Bill C-9

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to speak in this incredible House on behalf of the good people of Calgary Midnapore. I cannot believe that this spring it is nine years that I have been in this chamber. I want to thank you so much for your support, Mr. Speaker, as I began this journey so long ago.

I have to say that it has been several years of wonder being here every day and not being able to believe that I am in this great House where so many incredible people have come before me. I am surrounded by outstanding individuals, and I am so excited about the future parliamentarians who will come after me.

However, within that time, as well as wonder, there has been some disappointment. Here today is a piece of that disappointment, because we are discussing closure. Closure is always disturbing and disappointing because it means that my voice is being silenced in speaking on behalf of the citizens of Calgary Midnapore. It also means that there are other members in the House who will not have the opportunity to speak on behalf of their constituents.

I have had many citizens reach out to me on Bill C-9 with their most grave concerns. It is quite sad that these expressions will not get the opportunity to come to light and to be expressed fully in the House. Unfortunately, this is a trend with the current government.

Another trend that I see with the government is that it can never seem to present a good piece of legislation without a poison pill.

The crux of Bill C-9 is that we are talking about obstructing access to religious institutions. Who could be opposed to the safety, welfare and well-being of those who want to practise their religious freedom at this time? There is a 67% increase in crimes targeting religion in 2023 compared to 2022. In 2024, 1,342 police-reported incidents were motivated by religion, which included 900 incidents against the Jewish population and 211 incidents against the Muslim population, and over 100 Christian churches have been burned or vandalized since 2021.

Bill C-9 was a piece of legislation that we could support and get behind, but the Liberal government did what it does. It played politics. It put in the poison pill of removing religious defence from the Criminal Code. Why would the Liberals do that? Why would they remove freedom of expression of the most deepest and dearest sentiments of humans in existence?

They would do it for politics. They do not want this bill to pass unanimously. They do not want to see us working with them for Canadians and for the common good of Canada. This is a farce, and it does not elude them. It was planned intentionally for their hopeful political gain. They cannot put forward good legislation for the purpose of us all supporting good legislation. There must always be a poison pill.

My grandfather was from Bucha, Ukraine, which is where they found the mass graves. Ukrainian heritage has been a key part of my life since I was a little girl, whether my mum was making pedaheh and kubasa, or we were admiring the paska at family weddings in the beautiful shape of doves.

War came to Ukraine with tragedy and sadness. After contributing to Putin's war effort in supplying the turbine to export oil, the Liberal government had the good idea of a trade agreement, which was wonderful. It was an opportunity to show our support in the most tangible way possible: the economy. As Conservatives, we became excited at the prospect of supporting the bill. All of us would be working together for peace and democracy against one of the greatest dictators of our time. However, the Liberals placed a carbon tax in the bill, which their own government claimed to reverse, at least in principle, but at the time it was another poison pill. It was another measure deliberately placed by the Liberal government to give us, the Conservative Party of Canada, hesitation in supporting the legislation.

Again, the Liberals say they want us to work together. They claim we are obstructionist, but it is always deliberate and by their design, as I am explaining. They can never just present legislation that is good in its entirety for Canadians. They always have to have a poison pill because they want to play politics and they want to divide.

The Building Canada Act provides powers to get major projects approved in Canada, but it does not repeal Bill C-69 or Bill C-48, which would make it palatable to investors. That would have made it even easier for us as Conservatives to support it, even though we did. We gave them every opportunity to create prosperity in this great nation. In Bill C-8, they say they want to protect Canadians from cyber-threats, but their legislation would ultimately give the government the power to secretly cancel Canadians' Internet accounts. Again, they claim they are doing good, but there is always that poison pill.

In Bill C-2, they tried to give Canada Post sweeping powers to open any piece of mail, any piece of mail in the land, an incredible invasion of privacy, an incredible invasion of communicator to receiver. They tried to do this and to ban cash payments of over $10,000. It is cash, a way in which business has been done in this nation, a way in which commerce has been conducted, for forever. Conservatives forced the government into splitting the bill into two pieces to take out the poison pills.

It is these games that hurt Canadians, in delayed legislation, in amendments, in going back and forth to committees, in discussing these things and, therefore, in delayed outcomes for Canadians on things that would improve, fundamentally, the lives of Canadians. It is all a result of putting these poison pills in pieces of legislation. They really do not want us coming together for the good of Canadians. They want to divide and Bill C-9 is just another example of this. It is intentional.

It is never about 95% of the bill. There are always the good clauses, the positive clauses. We can point to good things being done for Canadians. Rather, it is always about that 5%, that one little hitch, that little poison pill that we simply cannot pass. It is like we are eating a hot dog, and then, all of a sudden, we hit that hard piece, and it just ruins the hot dog, or we are eating an olive and, all of a sudden, we hit that little piece of pit, which just ruins the experience, the item, in its entirety. Most of it is good. It was a really good hot dog or a really good olive. It is that small piece that ruins the item in its entirety. It is the same with Liberal legislation.

Liberals say it is for the good of Canadians. They say they want us to work together. It is not true. There is always, with the Liberal government, a poison pill. We see this as well within Bill C-9. We can support Canadians being safe in their places of worship. We want Canadians to be free to go to their places of worship, to be able to worship who they want, how they want and when they want. We absolutely support that within Bill C-9.

We cannot support the criminalization of merely offensive speech. We cannot leave up for interpretation what is motivated by hatred. We cannot condemn Canadians for speaking their utmost and sacred truths. Apparently, we, the elected representatives, can be silenced for attempting to stand up for and defend those who agree with us in these sentiments. That is shameful.

Opposition Motion—Serious crimes and refugee claims

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in fact and in reality, the government has been very ambitious in bringing forward a crime package to ensure the security of Canadians. We have heard time and time again of what is happening on the streets, and so we have been very bold in our approach, bringing forward Bill C-5, Bill C-2, Bill C-8, Bill C-9, Bill C-12, Bill C-14 and soon Bill C-16.

We are very much looking forward to the Conservatives' co-operation.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to address the Conservative motion presented today on public safety, extortion and our immigration system. While this is an important conversation, I have been following the language used by the Conservative members very closely. Unfortunately, it is based on flawed assumptions, misinformation and political posturing, rather than a thoughtful, evidence-based approach to justice in Canada.

Let me be clear: Our government is committed to a justice system that protects victims, punishes repeat violent offenders and is rooted in evidence, not political ideology or fearmongering. In the face of partisan attacks, we are going to set the record straight.

As Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, I will specifically focus on parts (c) and (d) of this motion. First, let us talk about part (c) of the motion, which seeks to bar judges from considering some collateral consequences at the sentencing stage. For those unfamiliar with our sentencing framework, judges can consider a wide range of collateral consequences when imposing a sentence. These include impacts on employment; travel restrictions; loss of professional licences; mental health; housing; firearm rights; inclusion in the sex offender registry; family responsibilities, such as care for sick relatives; and immigration status.

Here is the question: Why are the Conservatives complaining only about judges' considering immigration status when deciding a sentence? Why are they not raising the same concern when judges consider the loss of a firearm licence, even in cases involving firearm-related offences? If their goal is truly to remove one type of collateral consequence from judicial consideration, then logically they should be advocating to remove all of them. This includes the very ones, like the loss of a firearm licence, that directly affect public safety. However, the Conservatives focus solely on immigration status. This tells Canadians everything they need to know. Rather than addressing collateral consequences that impact public safety directly, the Conservatives are choosing to stigmatize immigrants.

The reality is clear: Judicial discretion considers all relative factors, and selectively targeting immigration status is both misleading and dangerous. This is not the Conservative Party of Brian Mulroney, who worked to ensure that we did not stigmatize immigrants or portray them as criminals. This is not even the Conservative Party of former prime minister Harper. In fact, the practice of judges considering immigration status as collateral damage and consequence actually started under former prime minister Harper's government.

In 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada in R v. Pham ruled that judges could consider immigration status only if so doing ensures that the sentence remains proportionate to the crime committed. Former prime minister Harper was fine with that, because it allowed judges the necessary discretion to evaluate all relevant factors. Even the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Calgary Nose Hill, who were in cabinet at the time, said nothing. I suspect they knew it was not a problem then and know it is still not a problem today. However, they are now exploiting the issue to scare Canadians, score political points, cater to the far right base and portray all immigrants as criminals.

This is shameful, and anyone who supports the motion should be equally ashamed. The Conservatives are once again pushing for a failed approach that undermines judicial independence and ignores binding Supreme Court precedent. Rather than interfering with judicial discretion, let us focus on the facts. The courts are not misapplying sentencing guidelines or reducing sentences inappropriately. If the Crown believes a sentence is too lenient, it has the right to appeal. It is just that simple. I dare the members opposite to point to a single case in which the Crown has appealed a sentence for a non-citizen based on immigration status. They will not find one.

Now let us turn our attention to part (d) of the motion, which calls for the repeal of Bill C-75 and Bill C-5. These bills were critical reforms designed to modernize the criminal justice system, protect victims and address the realities of today's world.

Let us take Bill C-75. This bill strengthened protection for victims of intimate partner violence, which is something every member of the chamber should be concerned with. Under Bill C-75, we defined “intimate partner” in the Criminal Code to include ex-partners for all Criminal Code-related purposes, and we created a reverse onus for repeat offenders of violence between intimate partners, making it harder for them to get bail. Repeat offenders, the ones who are the most likely to reoffend, are being targeted.

However, the Conservatives are so blinded by their obsession with headlines that they refuse to see the facts. They claim that Bill C-75 weakened public safety, but the president of the Criminal Lawyers' Association has made it quite clear that this claim is a false narrative.

Let us talk about Bill C-5. The Conservatives have tried to make it sound like we were somehow soft on crime, but that could not be farther from the truth. They have raised concerns about house arrest for extortionists, but what they fail to say is that conditional sentences are not available for serious crimes like extortion when the sentence is two years or more, or when the offender poses a threat to public safety. Therefore, Bill C-5 did not give criminals a free pass. We actually maintained mandatory jail time for extortion involving illegal firearms or criminal organizations, the kinds of crimes that concern Canadians most.

While the Conservatives play politics, our government has a comprehensive agenda to combat organized crime. Bill C-14, for example, would introduce over 80 targeted Criminal Code reforms aimed at tackling violent offenders and organized crime, including extortion, yet what did the Conservatives do? They blocked the bill at committee. Their members wasted valuable time at the committee. They are on record talking about their love of cats and puppies, instead of focusing on bail reform, sentencing reform, gender-based violence and extortion.

Let us not forget Bill C-16, which tackles the growing menace of sextortion, a horrific form of online exploitation. The Conservatives have done nothing but block it. They are even asking the government to split the bill.

While the Conservatives stand in the way of very important public safety reforms, we are pushing forward with real solutions. We have introduced targeted reforms, including lawful access, which would, with Bill C-2, give law enforcement the tools it needs to catch the extortionists before they even commit the crime.

With Bill C-14, we would create new reverse onus provisions for people accused of extortion involving violence, making it harder for them to get bail. We would require that a sentence for extortion be served consecutively to a sentence imposed for arson, not concurrently. We would prohibit weapons at the bail stage for people accused of extortion and organized crime. We would even strengthen bail conditions for extortionists in organized crime, such as geographic limitations. What are the Conservatives doing? They are obstructing.

Let us be clear: Our new Liberal government is committed to protecting victims. The Conservatives, on the other hand, have chosen to play politics with the safety of Canadians. They have obstructed every meaningful reform we have tried to pass, and now they are using partisan rhetoric to undermine our justice system. Canadians deserve better; they deserve a justice system that works for everyone, not just for the politicians who want to score political points.

Let us pass Bill C-2, Bill C-8, Bill C-9, Bill C-12, Bill C-14 and Bill C-16. Law enforcement and Canadians are waiting for this critical legislation to secure our borders, our streets and our communities.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I assume the member is talking about the opposition motion because what we are debating here is a motion, not a bill. Since he was careful to correct people on their use of language, I thought I would return the favour.

I have expressed my views very clearly. I think the motion before the House is a form of obstruction in itself, because if we go through all of these pieces of legislation, Bill C-2, Bill C-8, Bill C-12, Bill C-14 and Bill C-16, they are addressing the very issues that Canadians are clamouring for and that the member and his colleagues are clamouring for.

I will repeat: Please help us get the legislation passed like we did with Bill C-14.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member from Manitoba is going to sit there and heckle, and the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman is just going to heckle. He has nothing to add. He has been part of this obstruction from the start. He has been here for 10 years, but he has brought nothing to the table in terms of this problem, except yelling, screaming and pounding his desk on a non-binding motion. He has an opportunity. He is still yelling.

He has an opportunity to go to his leader's office. His leader sent a letter to the Prime Minister saying he's ready to co-operate. These are words on paper. Yes, on one of the pieces of legislation, the Conservatives have moved forward. On Bill C-14, we have seen some movement. After months of holding it back, after months of filibuster, we have finally seen some movement on that. My understanding is it finally passed committee after, again, mayors and chiefs of police begged the Conservatives to let these pieces of legislation through.

We still see a lot of work ahead of us. We can look at Bill C-2. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police stated that Bill C-2 is “a timely and necessary step as part of a sustained commitment to modern laws, modern tools, and modern collaboration.” This will give law enforcement the tools they need to dismantle and prosecute increasingly sophisticated organized crime networks threatening our communities.

Again, the chiefs of police are calling for action, and what do the members have on the other side? They have a non-binding motion, a non-binding resolution. Where are they in their committees? When are they saying to their leaders, “We need action on this. Our chiefs of police, our police associations are demanding action on this. They are demanding action on lawful access.” They will get up and say that terrorism and child exploitation are problems, but they have concerns with the bill. They will not examine it in committee. They will fight it here. They will go back to their constituents and say they supported a non-binding motion. Where are they? They say this is their issue. They talk about it time after time.

I would like to believe the Conservatives have some legitimacy in this space, but where are they? If these bills are so terrible, why are they not getting them to the committee to amend them and make them better in their minds? They are just leaving them here on the floor of the House of Commons. They are not speaking to the Conservative members of their caucus in the Senate to make sure the bills are expedited.

Premier after premier is screaming to get these pieces of legislation passed, whether it is Bill C-2, Bill C-8 or Bill C-9 on combatting hate. The Conservatives are just fundraising off their obstruction of Bill C-12, Bill C-14 and Bill C-16. We even heard the member wanting more mandatory minimums. At the same time, he is obstructing Bill C-16. It is unbelievable, but again, they have a non-binding motion. That is their solution. I am sure that when they meet with chiefs of police and with mayors, they are going to say, “Well, we have this piece of paper.” When they are asked why they would not support other legislation that we have been calling for, they will have no answer. They have had no answer here.

The only thing the Conservatives do have, which I am sure they have not mentioned, is that crime is actually down, but who are they going to blame? They have a non-binding motion to blame immigrants and refugees for the problem. At the same time, they are clutching at their pearls.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey Newton, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Surrey Centre.

Let me begin clearly: Extortion is a serious crime. It terrorizes families, threatens small business owners and undermines confidence in public safety. In Surrey and across British Columbia, I have met with constituents who are living in fear. They deserve real solutions, not political theatre.

The Conservative motion claims to be about fighting extortion, but it relies on misinformation and proposals that would weaken, not strengthen, our justice system.

In British Columbia, the federal government has provided significant resources to combat extortion. We have committed $4 million to strengthen the B.C. extortion task force through the regional integrated drug enforcement team. In addition, the federal government and the Province of B.C. have jointly provided $1 million to support victims of extortion. The federal RCMP will deploy up to an additional 20 RCMP officers, along with helicopter resources, to support on-the-ground enforcement efforts in Surrey. Further funding is being delivered through the federal gun and gang violence action fund to disrupt gun and gang violence linked to extortion networks.

We have also taken decisive action by listing the Bishnoi gang as a terrorist organization. The RCMP and the CBSA are actively supporting investigations, laying charges and, where appropriate, also pursuing removal orders against foreign nationals who are inadmissible due to criminality or to non-compliance with Canadian law.

Once passed, Bill C-12, the strengthening Canada's immigration system and borders act, would modernize immigration enforcement and crack down on transnational organized crime, including extortion networks, making it harder for violent offenders to exploit procedural delays.

Now let us address the Conservative proposals directly. They are claiming that non-citizens convicted of serious crimes can make refugee claims to avoid consequences. That is simply false. Claiming asylum does not and will not prevent criminals from being punished to the fullest extent of the law. Criminal matters take precedence over immigration matters. When CBSA believes a claimant is inadmissible on the grounds of serious criminality, their claim is put on hold while their criminal case proceeds. If they are found inadmissible, their asylum claim is terminated, their lawful status ends, and they face removal.

Foreign nationals already subject to a removal order cannot make a refugee claim. In cases of serious inadmissibility, those individuals are permanently barred from re-entering Canada.

CBSA is aggressively pursuing the removal of criminals attempting to misuse the asylum system. Where credibility issues arise, CBSA prioritizes those files, presents evidence to the Immigration and Refugee Board and seeks dismissal or admissibility hearings leading to deportation.

Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, a claim is already ineligible if the person is inadmissible for serious criminality or has been convicted in or outside Canada of an offence punishable by at least 10 years. Adopting the Conservative proposal would not close a loophole; it would create new administrative layers and invite litigation.

Paragraph (b) of the motion would bar asylum claims for those with active criminal proceedings. That, too, has already been addressed. CBSA officers may suspend eligibility reviews when a claimant is charged with a serious offence. Once the criminal case is resolved, the officer resumes the assessment and may deem the person ineligible. Canada's system already prevents asylum claims from advancing when serious charges are pending.

In paragraph (c), the Conservatives call for an end to so-called leniency to avoid deportation. What they are really proposing is to prohibit judges from considering immigration consequences at sentencing. Judges may consider immigration consequences to ensure that a sentence remains fit and proportionate, but never to reduce a sentence below what is appropriate. There is no evidence that the courts are improperly lowering sentences to avoid deportation. Any rare adjustments are reviewable on appeal and often reflect the joint positions of the Crown and defence. Eliminating judicial discretion would weaken, not strengthen, the justice system.

The Conservatives are also demanding the repeal of Bill C-5 and Bill C-75. Canadians elected this government with a mandate to strengthen public safety and modernize the justice system, and we are delivering. We have tabled more than six major public safety and criminal justice bills designed to crack down on violent and repeat offenders. Conservatives have delayed them, while premiers, police chiefs and municipalities have called for their urgent passage.

Bill C-75 did not weaken bail. It strengthened protections for victims of intimate partner violence by defining “intimate partner” to include former partners, creating a reverse onus for repeat offenders and requiring courts to consider prior convictions. Bill C-14 would go even further by clarifying that restraint does not mean automatic release, yet the Conservatives have blocked it. I have seen that in the House. The other day, speaker after speaker from the Conservatives did nothing but block Bill C-14, which would strengthen the bail act.

Bill C-5 did not allow house arrest for serious extortion. Conditional sentences are unavailable when sentences exceed two years or offenders pose a public safety threat. Mandatory jail time remains for extortion involving firearms or criminal organizations, which are exactly the cases that Canadians are most concerned about.

Our current legislation agenda targets extortion directly and effectively. Bill C-14 would create a new reverse onus for violent extortion, require consecutive sentences for related crimes like arson, prohibit weapons at bail and strengthen geographic restrictions. Together with Bill C-2, Bill C-8, Bill C-9 and Bill C-12, these reforms would strengthen border enforcement, cybersecurity, hate crime laws and immigration integrity. These are evidence-based measures supported by law enforcement and municipalities across Canada.

Extortion is not a street-level crime; it is driven by organized networks and money laundering. That is why the response must be comprehensive. Fighting extortion requires evidence-based policy and firm endorsement, not false promises, and it requires a justice system that is tough on crime while still upholding the rule of law.

The Conservative approach is to blame immigration and repeal laws. Our approach is to dismantle criminal networks, strengthen enforcement, protect victims and uphold the rule of law. Victims of extortion want results, not slogans. This motion would divide communities, undermine due process and distract from real solutions.

For those reasons, I will oppose this motion and support the serious, targeted reforms needed to keep Canadians safe.

Financial Administration Act

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, whether it is the Epstein files or Santa Claus, the names on the lists are never released. Society has come to the moral place where those who have done wrong are protected: tax cheaters, offenders living among us or parliamentarians who have worked negatively with foreign governments. Everything is withheld behind the false veil of privacy.

Why is it that the government wants to track the information of millions of average Canadians on their laptops but will not go after those who go against one of the most basic social contracts of society, paying taxes? We have a solution in Bill C-230.

In recent years, the CRA has been waiving debts owed to government. Last year, the government waived the following debts: $4.7 billion in writeoffs, $10.9 billion in forgiveness, $0.4 billion in remissions and $2.6 billion in waivers, for a total of $18.4 billion. Writeoffs and waivers for taxes owed are done in secret because of privacy provisions under the Income Tax Act. While the CRA is pursuing small businesses and ordinary Canadians for minor amounts owed to government, it is writing off debts owed to government by corporate entities in record amounts.

Canadians deserve to know which corporations are benefiting from the CRA's decision not to collect debts to government. The solution in Bill C-230 is to create a public registry that would require the Treasury Board to publish, annually, a list of corporate entities that have debts owed to governments forgiven, written off or waived if that amount exceeds $1 million. One million dollars is a lot of money. It is not forgetting to pay back $20, or “I will get lunch next time.”

In 2023-24, 11 companies received $1.2 billion in combined writeoffs. The 11 companies account for nearly a quarter of the $4.9 billion in writeoffs approved in fiscal year 2023-24. What are these companies? Right now, we do not know. How would Canadians feel if these were publicly traded companies posting profits or even record profits? What if Brookfield was one of those companies? Right now, we do not know. Why should big corporations get enormous debt writeoffs when they target the little guy for significantly smaller amounts?

I have a message from a constituent, who writes, “They're claiming that I owe them $126 from a payroll account more than 15 years ago”.

Another constituent writes:

CRA has been holding up my return for months—with no proper timetable for a return—and meanwhile they have sent me to collections—causing me not only a large amount of stress and anxiety—but also causing me serious financial strain—in that I have had to take loans out to pay bills and support payments (which would have been covered in my return)

Another constituent is being withheld money from his mother's death benefit due to CRA delays.

He writes:

I followed every instruction I was given, yet I received no communication for months. I assumed my file was being processed, only to learn that it had been discarded. It is incredibly discouraging. This does not reflect a system that serves the people. It feels like the opposite, and that is deeply concerning.

Here's another account from a constituent:

Our mom passed away on February 28th, and her death was reported to CRA. A mistake was made and they deposited OAS into her account 2 months after her death, and then sent us a letter telling us we had to pay it back. Our dad passed away on June 8th; again, his death was reported to CRA but we have been receiving...cheques in his name. Now, we've received a letter from CRA saying they overpaid our dad's GIS for the period after our mom passed to when he passed and we owe them over $1,900.

How is an agency so incompetent that several mistakes are made [in a single] estate?

It is the Conservatives who have always advocated for transparency in government departments, tax policies and procedures. Motion 43 in the 42nd Parliament, put forward by the member for Calgary Crowfoot, was a duty of care to the taxpayer. If someone is found to be not owing, forgive the amount but also pay for legal fees.

At our recent convention, this resolution was passed:

A Conservative government shall introduce legislation requiring the forgiveness or writing off of any non-personal debt owed to the Government of Canada be publicly announced in the Canada Gazette.

Why does the Liberal government like to collect swaths of information about ordinary Canadians to place moral decision-making into its own hands but will not ever release the names of those who have violated one of the two basic tenets of our society? These are, pay one's taxes, and, pay one's fair share so we can attempt to live in a functioning and compassionate society.

The government has also not released the names regarding foreign interference. The government refused to share which federal politicians wittingly co-operated with foreign interference. The former member of Parliament for University—Rosedale only said, “our government takes foreign interference very, very seriously”. The current Minister of Justice also defended this position. This report outlined several activities, such as collaborating with countries like China, including accepting money or favours from diplomats. The National Security Intelligence Committee was chaired by the current defence minister.

Why do they not release the names?

They concealed the scope of the federal job cuts from analysts at the budget office. On November 5, 2025, the budget office asked federal managers for a breakdown of planned savings by program, but public servants and Canadians were left in the dark as to which departments would be affected or how it would impact services.

Release the names on the list.

The federal government may not want to release information for the benefit of Canadians, but it is eager to pass legislation to infringe upon the privacy and actions of ordinary Canadians. Bill C-8, an act respecting cybersecurity, states that cabinet “may...prohibit a [telecom] service provider from using all products and services provided by a specified person” if it “believes on reasonable grounds that it is necessary to do so to secure the Canadian telecommunications system against any threat”. This order may be kept secret. No warrants are required. This was also attempted in Bill C-2.

Bill C-63, in the last Parliament, proposed increasing the maximum sentence for hate speech, which carried a sentence of five years to life under the Criminal Code. This would have placed it among the most serious offences, such as manslaughter and aggravated sexual assault, which also carry life sentences. That could have effectively resulted in someone being sentenced to life for hate speech, while someone convicted of the sexual assault of a minor receives a maximum of only 14 years, or it is a maximum of 10 years for an individual found guilty of assault with a weapon.

The bill also proposed that anyone who breaks any other federal law motivated by hate be found guilty of a hate crime and subject to a maximum of a life sentence, yet it is no problem at all to forgo paying millions in taxes.

When it comes to protecting their friends and political interests, the Liberals have no problem withholding information or giving cover to their allies to do so. However, when it comes to our privacy and personal information, such as who we like, what we like, where we eat, where we shop or who we communicate with, the Liberals have no problem holding us to account and taking away our rights.

Paying one's fair share of taxes is a basic tenet of Canadian society that allows for the smooth functioning of our society. This is why Bill C-230 should come to pass. Canadians could be made aware of who is paying their fair share to society and, more importantly, why. The government does not want Canadians to know, perhaps because of who is on the list.

What pieces of indigenous art are missing? What are the names in the green slush fund documents? Who approved ArriveCAN? We may never know, but the government has the opportunity, in this moment, to shed some light on society and hold everyone to account regarding paying their fair share.

Let us pass Bill C-230 and work towards starting to achieve this.

Speaker's Ruling

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House, particularly with you in the chair. You and I founded the all-party maritime caucus. That is proof that we can work together even if we are of different political persuasions.

I also want to sincerely thank the member for Winnipeg North and the member for Calgary Nose Hill for very generously allowing me to move up my speaking spot.

Teamwork is the calling card of the Bloc Québécois. Bill C‑12 is a big bill, a massive bill, an omnibus bill. It has not been easy to work on this bill because it amends so many laws. In addition, we did not have a lot of time because there was an agreement between the Liberals and the Conservatives to cut certain witnesses' time short. The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security split the work of studying Bill C‑12. It was a monumental task.

Doing the clause-by-clause study of such a huge bill is a team effort. I would like to sincerely thank my colleague, the member for Lac-Saint-Jean, who studied the entire part dealing with amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

It was a big job for him, for the entire team in the offices of the leader and whip, for our researchers, Maxime and Michaël, for my assistant, Racim, and especially for the witnesses, who appeared before both the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security and the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. We must not forget our legislative counsel, our analysts, Sabrina and Alexsandra, our clerk, Mr. Wilson, and, of course, all the staff who provide interpretation services.

The Bloc Québécois moved amendments to Bill C-12. One amendment was adopted. We take a very constructive and rigorous approach to our work. When we are considering a bill, we determine whether it is good for Quebec. If it is, we support it.

We worked hard and effectively. We listened. We supported amendments from the Conservative Party and adopted clauses proposed by the government. I also remember voting on an amendment from the member for Vancouver East. That goes to show the value of committee work, when we are conducting a clause-by-clause study of a large bill.

We also passed an amendment that I am quite proud of. It was drafted in the wake of a visit from the Privacy Commissioner, Philippe Dufresne, whom I salute and thank for his thoroughness, his work and his vigilance. He reads every bill to see if it can be improved.

The Bloc Québécois introduced an amendment to clause 4 in order to add clear and specific guidelines to ensure that a warrant is required to search a home. There was some ambiguity about that, because the clause was not entirely clear. This clarification helps protect privacy. Privacy and security are often pitted against one another, but the Bloc Québécois believes that it is possible to strike a balance between security and privacy. For us, these two elements are not at all incompatible.

We supported amendments that compel the government to be more transparent and more accountable. We supported amendments that sought to clarify the extraordinary power granted to the minister to cancel, vary or suspend various immigration-related documents. We opposed amendments that were too harsh, that violated the fundamental rights of asylum seekers or that went against the spirit of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

Even though all the committee members acted in good faith, I was still surprised by the deal that the Liberals and the Conservatives struck to have the committee sit until midnight to speed through the clause-by-clause study of the bill.

I thought that was unproductive and inconsistent with the concept of work-life balance. How energetic, productive and attentive can members still be when they are made to work until half past midnight?

There was this deal, which really surprised me, and it led to a long day. We sat until quarter past midnight. Unfortunately, this meant that we were unable to study the briefs. There were some briefs that we did not even get to read, because we received them after the clause-by-clause study had been finalized. In fact, about eight briefs were not translated in time by the Translation Bureau. The committee sped through its work so fast that the Translation Bureau could not provide us with the translated documents. That means that people took the trouble to write briefs and send them to us, but we did not have access to them before the bill was adopted.

I was also really surprised by the filibustering by some colleagues around the table who were strategically trying to buy time so they could debate certain clauses a little later. It was disgraceful of them to waste the time of the public servants and interpreters for the sake of parliamentary strategizing. I am not the most partisan member of Parliament, but it bothers me when public servants come to support us for clause-by-clause study and the time is not used for that. It was a waste of time for the public servants, interpreters, and also the members who were there to work.

Some of the amendments introduced at report stage, if adopted, would make Bill C-12 practically useless. We are obviously going to oppose some of the amendments proposed to us this evening. I think we worked diligently. In my opinion, we could have taken a little more time to study this bill. I feel a little disheartened for the people who asked me to invite them to testify before my committee on the very day the bill was adopted. Obviously, since everything had already been adopted, inviting them was no longer an option.

It is often said that there is no shame in looking foolish. An hour before we started the study, we listened to a witness make recommendations concerning Bill C-12. Obviously, we could not take those recommendations into account, since the amendments had been tabled several days earlier and everything was sealed for debate and for the work to begin.

I would still like to thank all my colleagues. I really enjoyed working with the member for Calgary Nose Hill. She is a hard-working and diligent member who explained her amendments to us with passion and determination. It was obvious to us how much knowledge she has accumulated over the years on the issue of immigration. We do not always agree, but we do share a mutual respect for parliamentarians' ability to express themselves calmly and debate their ideas. Sometimes we agree to work together, and sometimes we prefer not to. That is understandable, and we do not hold it against each other. I wish other parliamentarians could show the same degree of respect, given that this is meant to be a place for debate. I wanted to emphasize that I really enjoyed working with her, as well as with my colleagues from the other parties who, throughout the study of Bill C-12, seemed to have a genuine interest in improving it.

I will conclude by saying that we look forward to voting at report stage of the bill so that we can move on to third reading. Although we are eager for the House to rise, we at the Standing Committee on Public Safety are eager to move on to another bill, because there is another important one waiting for us. We are supposed to start studying Bill C-8 on cybersecurity after the holidays.

Again, I want to thank everyone for putting in all the necessary effort to improve the government's bill.

Liaison

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie South—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to seek concurrence on the first report of the Liaison Committee, which details the work of the standing committees of the House. I am doing so to sound the alarm over the systematic obstruction we are witnessing on multiple committee fronts, perpetrated by the Liberal government.

I will split my time, as well, with the member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South.

In addition to my work as chair of the ethics committee, I serve as the Conservative caucus committee coordinator. As part of my responsibilities, I make a point of observing a wide cross-section of standing committees and can report that Liberal obstruction tactics include purposely not scheduling meetings, intentionally withholding ministers from facing accountability at committee, preventing witnesses from testifying, lengthy filibusters and breaking procedural rules to their advantage.

In a phrase, the Prime Minister treats Parliament like a corporate boardroom meant only to rubber-stamp his agenda. I have news for him and his government: This is a G7 democracy, not a meeting of shareholders.

This is a minority Parliament. Committees are composed in such a way that the Liberals must work with at least one opposition party to advance the government's agenda. It also means that when opposition parties unite to hold the government to account, the government must comply with the will of the committee. However, rather than working constructively with opposition parties, the Liberals prefer to take their ball and go home.

Allow me to cite some examples of Liberal obstruction.

At the justice committee, after Conservatives worked productively to receive witness testimony on Bill C-9, the Liberal law on hate speech, the committee got bogged down by a Liberal filibuster on a Conservative motion that called for the strongest legislative response possible to the Supreme Court ruling that struck down mandatory prison time for those convicted of possession of child sexual abuse and exploitation material.

That is right. Rather than prioritize legislation on hate crimes or bail, the Liberals ran cover for an egregious court decision that eases sentences for perverts in possession of child pornography. They filibustered three meetings: November 6, November 18 and November 20.

Following a filibuster on December 2, after it became clear that the Liberals were not serious about their hate crime bill, Conservatives moved that the committee prioritize the bail bill, Bill C-14. Given the daily news reports of violent crimes being committed by repeat offenders, I would think the Liberals might have wanted to work with us to pass that bail law. Conservatives are of the view that, while the bill does not go nearly far enough to fix the broken bail system, a partial measure is better than nothing.

What did the Liberals do with our offer to work quickly on Bill C-14? They voted to adjourn debate. Instead, the Minister of Justice went rogue and made a deal with the Bloc to remove religious protections built into the Criminal Code as part of the hate speech bill, leading to division in their own caucus and a stalled agenda at the committee.

Nevertheless, Conservatives agreed to work constructively through the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. The Liberals secured committee resources through to midnight on December 2, but after passing just one clause that day, they quickly adjourned the meeting, preventing the committee from dealing with the amendment on the religious exemption.

Since then, the chair refused to schedule a meeting on December 4 and has yet to put out a meeting notice for this week. While the Liberals obstruct their own agenda, the victims of crime are the ones who suffer.

I will reiterate our offer: Conservatives would be pleased to set aside other work before the committee to see that Bill C-14 becomes law.

Liberal obstruction goes far beyond just the justice committee. At the transport committee, the Conservative Party worked constructively and efficiently on Bill C-5, the so-called Building Canada Act. I note that, since its passage, not one project has been listed in the national interest, and the promise the Liberals made to approve projects and build Canada remains unfulfilled.

Conservatives secured several amendments to that bill, which included protections for indigenous people, as well as ethics and oversight provisions. One might think this would have created some goodwill among parties at the committee table. It did not.

The committee conducted a study on the Driver Inc. issue and examined ways to improve highway safety. Opposition members proposed extending the study by two sessions in order to hear from victims of trucking accidents and obtain related documents from the government. The Liberals are determined not to show Canadians that the government is unable to keep them safe, so they have launched a procedural war against this motion.

To prevent debate, the Liberal chair cancelled meetings scheduled for November 18 and 20. The members of the opposition used an extraordinary tool to force an emergency meeting through Standing Order 106(4), which began on November 25. If members consult the parliamentary website, they will see that the meeting that began on November 25 is still ongoing.

As of now, this is a 13-day meeting. The Liberals began by filibustering for hours, which was followed by a multi-day suspension, another Standing Order 106(4) letter to force the recall of the committee, another four-hour filibuster by the Liberals and another multi-day suspension. At one point, the chair attempted to mislead committee members that a suspension would last 30 minutes, but then he exited out the back door and allowed the suspension to last for days.

Rather than get answers for victims or prepare recommendations for expanded road safety, the Liberals are obstructing the work of the transport committee. We are seeing similar obstruction tactics by chairs at other committees, such as at the finance, science and research, health, and human resources committees, and more. I am pleased to begin this important debate to allow members of the House to air the grievances they have with the conduct of the chairs of these committees. It is a committee Festivus, if one will.

Unfortunately, Liberal chairs are not the only ones obstructing committee work. Ministers of the Crown are also direct participants in this obstruction. We have seen multiple absent ministers. The justice committee invited the Minister of Justice to appear in relation to his mandate and priorities on September 23. He has yet to appear. The Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety were also invited to participate as witnesses in the justice committee study on the bail system. Both ministers declined to participate.

This dynamic duo was repeatedly invited to the status of women committee to participate in its study of section 810 of the Criminal Code and women's safety. Again, they have ignored that invitation. The Minister of Justice was also invited to the national defence committee as part of its study on Bill C-11, the military justice system modernization act, given that he would be responsible for the civilian process to deal with sexual harassment in the military. Again, he obstructed the work of the committee and refused to appear.

The finance minister refused the request of the industry committee to appear with respect to the Stellantis contract, despite the fact that he was the minister who signed the deal and the contract in the first place, which has yet to demonstrate any form of job guarantee for Canadian workers. The public safety minister refused to appear at the transport committee as part of its investigation into security concerns around the decision of the Infrastructure Bank to fund the purchase of new vessels from China for BC Ferries.

The Liberals have run interference to prevent the Minister of Industry from appearing at the public safety committee on Bill C-8, even though their proposed law would give her sweeping powers to remove the Internet from citizens. The Minister of Artificial Intelligence has failed to appear at the ethics committee, despite 11 requests to do so, or the status of women committee as it conducts studies on the various impacts of AI on Canadian life.

The Minister of the Environment, Climate Change and Nature has ignored three invitations from the environment committee related to the industrial carbon tax, the global carbon tax on marine transport and the EV mandate. The Minister of Indigenous Services has failed to appear at the indigenous affairs committee to respond to the Auditor General's report on progress for indigenous communities.

The Minister of Jobs and Families, the Minister of Housing and Infrastructure, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, the Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement, the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Industry, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Finance have all failed to appear before committees on the supplementary estimates.

Billions of tax dollars are going unscrutinized before they go out the door. The list goes on. There is a lot more to say on the Liberal attack on and decline in our democracy, and the attack on committees, but I am short on time. In conclusion, we demand, on behalf of Canadians, that the Liberals end their obstruction and start being accountable for every dollar they spend, law they propose and incursion of freedom they attempt to do.

Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our job as the opposition is to make bills better. There are a number of bills that have come through us. We are talking about the budget right now, but we can talk about Bill C-8, Bill C-9 and a number of other bills that, quite frankly, are not in the best interest of Canadians.

Our job as parliamentarians is to make those bills better. I have no problem at all trying to do that. We were elected to represent our constituents, point out the flaws in these bills and try to make them better. That is what we will do. This is our job. This is our requirement. This is what we will continue to do.

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would remind the member opposite that Bill C-8 purports to be able to shut down people's Internet without a court warrant. In an era in which the government is moving toward digitization and AI controls, people could end up in digital jails. That is why it is so important to have safeguards and accountability and ensure that with the government collecting this data, we know how it is used, we know that people's civil liberties are being upheld and we know that the government is being held accountable.

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

Madam Speaker, if I look at the contrast, we are not fearful of technology. We see the important role, for example, that the Internet plays in the advancement of society. There are a lot of positive things, but there are some negatives, which is one of the reasons we brought in Bill C-8, the cybersecurity act. However, the Conservative Party has refused to allow it to go to committee so that we can address some of the concerns, and some might say paranoia, that is espoused from the other side.

Bill C-8 would protect our industries; it would protect our consumers. Can the member provide her thoughts regarding why the Conservative Party does not recognize the value of Bill C-8, which is all about cybersecurity, protecting Canadians and protecting Canada's economic industries?

Citizenship Act

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this House, but I must say I rise today in utter sorrow to speak about Bill C-3 and what could have been. I had the honour of speaking about this bill at second reading, and I poured my heart into that speech.

I spoke in French for the first time in the House during my last speech to highlight that Canada is not a postnational state. On the contrary, it is a blend of two peoples, one French and one English. It is unique in the world. Our unique heritage must be respected to maintain the value of our citizenship. Canada is strong because Canadians work hard to make it strong. That is why we object to a two-tier citizenship system. If the children of people who left want to come back, let them come after they pay our taxes, obey our laws and learn our languages. It is not complicated.

Would anyone believe that the first thing that happened after my speech was the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government leader in the House standing and saying, “voters want more co-operation on the floor of the House of Commons”? I agreed. He said we should vote for Bill C-3, allow it to go to committee and pass amendments to make it a better law. I am new here, and it is perhaps for this reason that I took him at his word. I voted for Bill C-3, and at committee, Conservatives brought forward excellent amendments to make a better law.

Shortly after that speech, I did an interview with the local CBC syndicate radio station in Kitchener-Waterloo. The host, Craig Norris, asked me what I was working on and whether there were opportunities to co-operate with the Liberals in the House. I immediately spoke about Bill C-3 and my honest belief that the Liberals would allow us to remediate this law through amendments at committee. That is why I stand in sorrow today. It seems the rug has been pulled out from under us.

Those following at home will recall that Bill C-3, before amendments, would have allowed the grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of Canadian citizens who had left the country to claim Canadian citizenship, even if they had barely lived here, had criminal records, did not speak either of our official languages or had never paid our taxes or contributed to our civil society by working or living here. Even if they had no intention of ever coming here, except to use our health care system in a pinch, they could become Canadian citizens.

In short, the bill would make Canadian citizenship out to be some sort of free goodie bag to be passed around, rather than a treasured family heirloom, but that goodie bag is not free. It is only the hard work of the Canadian citizens, permanent residents and refugees who build their lives here and build the country to make the country strong that is filling up these goodie bags the Liberals want to recklessly pass out.

It is estimated that in excess of 100,000 such free goodie bags, containing free citizenship for people who do not live here, would be handed out if the unamended law passes. We say it is estimated to be more than 100,000, but as the hon. member who asked a question just pointed out, the immigration minister says she has no idea how many more beyond 100,000 it could be.

Obviously, this would be terribly unfair to the permanent residents who are here paying taxes, respecting our laws, learning our languages and working so hard to become Canadian citizens. It is so unfair for them to have to watch 100,000 people who are not doing those things skip the line as a matter of unearned privilege. That is what we mean when we talk about a citizenship system of two tiers. Our amendments seek to level the playing field and prevent a two-tiered system from being imposed. It is with an eye to this that we structured our amendments. We used the exact same language for the same criteria that permanent residents have to fulfill.

They are eminently sensible amendments. For a person to get citizenship as the grandchild of a Canadian citizen, one of their parents must have lived in Canada for five years, they must pass a citizenship test and a security background check and they must speak one or both of our official languages to prove their substantial connection to our country. I believe the voters who want to see co-operation in this House, as referenced by the member for Winnipeg North, would want to see co-operation on each of these points.

I cannot understand how anyone except the most radical postnational ideologues, who, like Justin Trudeau, believe that Canada has no core identity, could oppose these amendments.

The new Prime Minister promised change, and voters gave him a tentative mandate as a minority Parliament on the promise of change, yet here he is, enacting Justin Trudeau's insane postnationalist ideology.

I went through the Liberal Party's 2025 election platform. Nowhere in that document could I find any proposition to give away 100,000-plus citizenships to people who have never lived here, who do not speak our languages or who might have criminal records, without passing the citizenship test. This is an absolute bait and switch. It is not what the Liberals ran on.

The new Prime Minister promised change, but here he is, reheating Justin Trudeau's radical ideological agenda to make Canada a postnational state with no core identity. This bill, in fact, existed in Justin Trudeau's last Parliament, but he could not get it through, because the House was seized with the matter of his corrupt green slush fund. This is not a one-off; this is a pattern. Bill C-8 is also a re-warmed piece of extreme government overreach that Justin Trudeau also tried to pass through this House. Once again, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The new Prime Minister promised change, but he is feeding us microwaved Justin Trudeau leftovers.

It has been six months since the last election, in which the Prime Minister promised change. He leveraged all his credibility as a lifelong bureaucrat who had been waiting in the wings to get Canadians to believe that promise. However, here we are, still debating Justin Trudeau legislation six months later. I suppose the Liberals are taking these six months to frantically prepare a budget that is also six months late.

Speaking of the election, I knocked on every door in Kitchener South—Hespeler during the spring election. I know for a fact that all the Conservative voters who voted for me would find these amendments eminently sensible and necessary.

Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House to speak. I will be speaking to Bill C-12, an act respecting certain measures relating to the security of Canada's borders and the integrity of the Canadian immigration system. What a laughable title from a government that has made such a mess of both our borders and our immigration system.

Let me talk about the mess the government has made of immigration. I want to share three short stories.

The first is the case of Mr. Khant from earlier this year. He was a permanent resident, originally a citizen of India. He pleaded guilty to attempting an indecent act. That is a bit of a legalistic way of saying that Mr. Khant tried to purchase sexual services from a minor. Unfortunately for Mr. Khant, the person he tried to purchase sexual services from was the Peel Regional Police human trafficking unit, as part of Project Juno. Rather than a jail sentence, Mr. Khant received a conditional discharge. Why would that be? In the words of the court, “Mr. Khant is a permanent resident seeking Canadian citizenship and professional licensing. A conviction would not only delay his citizenship by four years but could also prevent him from sponsoring his wife and obtaining his engineering licence.”

If people commit crimes in Canada and they are not Canadian citizens, they should no longer be in Canada.

Just over two weeks ago, there was the case of Mr. Sajeevan, an Indian citizen in Canada on a student visa. He was a roommate with several others, including several female roommates at a home in Barrie. His bedroom was in the basement beside the laundry room, which was shared by all the residents. The laundry room was beside the bathroom, which was also shared amongst the roommates.

Over a period of many months, Mr. Sajeevan used a peephole in the laundry room to spy on his female roommates in various states of undress. In July of this year, Mr. Sajeevan pleaded guilty to voyeurism, despite some initial agreement on sentencing and some very troubling victim impact statements from those who had been spied upon. The court went on to say, “The emotional and psychological harm caused is palpable...Mr. Sajeevan's offending has had a significant and enduring impact on his victims.” The court called it “more than curiosity; it was sustained predation”.

Despite all that and despite the serious nature of the crime and its effect on its victims, which the court acknowledged, the court went on to accept “serious collateral immigration consequences”. The result was a jail sentence of only five and a half months. Why? That is a bit of a strange number. Why five and a half months, when in fact the court said the proper sentence should be somewhere between six and 12 months?

It was because a jail sentence of six months would have made him inadmissible to Canada. In other words, he would have had to leave Canada if he were to receive a sentence of six months. However, we did not get that because the Liberals have so screwed up our immigration system.

Last is the case of Mr. Biron, a permanent resident from the Philippines. In 2021, over four years ago, he pleaded guilty to sexual assault against a minor and was sentenced to 20 months in prison. Beginning in 2022, he was advised that he could be inadmissible to Canada because of the serious nature of his crimes. For over four years, he has fought his deportation. How can it be that a non-citizen who has pleaded guilty to sexual assault against a minor is still in Canada after four years?

Bill C-12, despite being called a fix to our immigration system, does nothing for this. These are not isolated incidents, because we know that, despite the strong border rhetoric and the fix to immigration allegedly coming from the government, we have lost track of hundreds of serious criminals in this country. The cherry on the top of this is that the very minister responsible for our public safety is himself interceding on behalf of members of terrorist organizations.

Let me turn to the border and talk about what a mess the government has made of our borders. Fentanyl, of course, is still making its way into Canada. In fact, earlier this year, in the town of Georgina, in my riding of York—Durham, the York Regional Police broke up the largest drug trafficking ring in our town's history, under Project Madruga, through which 1400 grams of fentanyl were discovered. To put that into perspective, two milligrams is enough to kill a human adult. The York Regional Police said that they had never seen a drug trafficking problem or ring of this size or scope in Georgina.

The government promised during the election to hire 1,000 new border officers, but we have discovered that was just another empty Liberal promise. More than six months later, they have hired only a few dozen and, in fact, do not have a plan to hire any more. The CBSA says that it has turnover of between 600 and 700 officers a year, so even at normal speeds, it would take over five years to hire 1,000 new officers. The Minister of Public Safety himself admitted in an interview that it would take five years to hire 1,000 new officers, and that is not even talking about the backlog and vacancies the CBSA has. The Customs and Immigration Union says there is a 3,000-officer vacancy rate and shortage on the border force.

Last, I want to talk about civil liberties because, for all these messes, whether it is the mess on the border or the mess in our immigration system, for some reason, it seems the Liberals' response is always to attack our liberty. The monstrosity that is Bill C-2, from which Bill C-12 emerged, is just one more example of the pattern of the Liberal disregard for the freedoms and liberties of Canadians.

To be clear, I want to make a point that our freedoms, my freedoms and everyone's freedoms in Canada do not emanate from Parliament or princes. We have freedom and liberty, because we are made in God's image and are human beings endowed with those by our creator, but Bill C-2 remains before the House. It would allow law enforcement to snoop on Canadians without judicial authorization. It would allow Canada Post to open mail without a warrant. As a lawyer, I know that a warrant is a basic protection that we, as normal, average citizens, have fought for hundreds of years to maintain to protect us from the arbitrary power of the state.

Bill C-2 is not the only attack on liberties that Canadians have endured under this government. Bill C-8, which we have discussed, would give unprecedented power to the government to kick Canadians off the Internet, on “reasonable grounds” in respect of “any threat”. What is “any threat”? I have been here for just over six months, and I have already been accused several times, by members from the opposite side, of spreading misinformation because they do not like my opinion. Am I now a “threat” to the government, and will I be kicked off the Internet? There would be no warrant, no trial and no due process.

Another example is Bill C-9, which has more unprecedented power for the police to control and to police speech on the Internet. Over all, it seems like, of the legislation the Liberals have introduced thus far, the majority trample on our liberties as Canadians.

This is the Liberals' pattern. They might have a new leader and call themselves a new government, but they exhibit all of the same habits as they had before. Whether it is with Bill C-2, Bill C-8, Bill C-9 or now Bill C-12, it seems for every societal problem, there is another Liberal bill ready to erode our freedom, my freedom and the liberty of all Canadians.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am so surprised to receive that question. I think I explained it to the member during my last two speeches on government legislation.

The Liberals violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when they imposed the Emergencies Act, sections 2 and 8. That is not me, but Justice Mosley of the Federal Court who found that. I would love to hear the member apologize for that violation.

Bill C-8, Bill C-9 and Bill C-2 also violate our charter. I am not going to let it get through the net.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-12. This is the fourth time I am speaking to a piece of government legislation in this Parliament.

For the first time, I think it is the story of the bill rather than its content that I find most interesting. I apologize to those following at home if it seems a little bit like inside baseball, but in every Parliament, the government introduces bills and numbers them sequentially. After the pro forma throne speech, Bill C-1, came Bill C-2. The present bill, Bill C-12, is the parts of Bill C-2 that had to be salvaged from the flaming dumpster fire of that original piece of legislation. It is as though the Liberals set their own legislative agenda on fire and the Conservatives had to comb through the charred remains to find something salvageable. What an embarrassment it is for the government.

The new Prime Minister ran on his expertise in government, having spent most of his career as a bureaucrat. He had been waiting in the wings for 10 years to plant his legislative agenda. Do members opposite remember when he was asked if he would ever become prime minister? He said, “Why don’t I become a circus clown?” Well, now he has. He has beclowned himself.

Bill C-2 is the very first piece of legislation that the Prime Minister's government introduced, and it had to be split up in this manner. What an embarrassment that is.

Why did it need to be split up? It is because the forefather of Bill C-12 contained clauses that were so howlingly bad that no one on either side of the House, nor from any coast in this country, could bring themselves to defend it.

Bill C-2 includes a provision that would allow the police to ask a doctor, without a warrant, if their services had ever been used by an individual. This is reprehensible. I am a physician; frankly, this does not just offend me as a Canadian and as a person, but it offends my whole profession. It would violate not just our Charter of Rights and Freedoms but the Hippocratic oath. If a member opposite or their child went to see a doctor who specializes in addictions, mental health, sexually transmitted diseases or reproductive medicine, on what possible planet would they think it was appropriate for the police to ask that physician to disclose them as a client?

Again, I suspect members opposite are getting ready to say that I am somehow being outlandish in my interpretation of their proposed law. Here, once again, I will read them their own darned bill.

In part 14, clause 158, it reads:

A peace officer or public officer may make a demand...to a person who provides services to the public requiring the person to provide, in the form, manner and time specified in the demand, the following information:

(a) whether the person provides or has provided services to any subscriber or client

This is bananas. This is, once again, a Chinese Communist Party level of state overreach.

Once again, if the Liberals do not trust my interpretation of their legislation, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association's interpretation or the Canadian Constitution Foundation's interpretation, will they believe their own public safety minister, the one who introduced the legislation? He was quoted in The Globe and Mail in an October 9 article by Marie Woolf, entitled “Public Safety Minister says he wants to push through refined warrantless...powers to help police”. She wrote that the Minister of Public Safety acknowledged that the “provisions in Bill C-2, the original strong borders bill, [allowing police to ask a] doctor without a warrant” if their services had been used by someone, constituted “overreach”.

This is not the first time the Minister of Public Safety has had to throw the Minister of Public Safety under the bus. Who could forget that, just last month, he told his tenant that his own gun confiscation program was a bad idea that he did not support? I would love to believe that it is merely incompetence over there. It is incompetence; it is just not “merely” incompetence.

I am a physician. I do not sign prescriptions that I have not read. I do not give out prescriptions that I do not believe in, because prescriptions are important documents and I have a professional duty to read them. On the other side of the House, we have a Liberal minister who seems not to read the legislation that he tries to pass in the House. On other occasions, he executes a gun grab he does not believe in. This sort of conduct would not be tolerated from any physician in this country. I dare say it would not be tolerated from any professional under any professional body in this country. Why does the Prime Minister tolerate it from one of the highest office-holders in this land?

As I said, it is not merely incompetence over there. I take it that the public safety minister did not write the legislation, but someone did. I want to know who, because this is not a one-off oopsy doopsy in which a junior staffer wrote a law that would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is a clear pattern with the government.

The last three pieces of government legislation that I have debated in the House, Bill C-8, Bill C-9 and now Bill C-12 have involved significant power grabs by the Prime Minister. I want to know why.

Bill C-8 would allow the Liberals to kick people off the Internet without a warrant. Bill C-9 would allow the Liberals to police speech on the Internet. Bill C-12, in its previous iteration as Bill C-2, would not only violate patient-physician confidentiality but also allow the government to read letter mail without a warrant.

What is going on over there? Why is the Liberals' response to every conceivable social problem to violate our charter rights? Who is writing the legislation?

I know that as soon as I am done, the member for Winnipeg North will ask why we do not fix this at committee, to which I would say, yes, we are going to have to, but every member in this House should be protecting charter rights. The committee should not be the goalie. The Conservatives should not be the goalie. The Liberals should not be trying to get charter violations past the Conservative goalies. They are the Liberals. They are supposed to believe in liberty. I am honestly starting to wonder if they even know what their party's name means anymore.

Here is the Encyclopædia Britannica entry on “liberalism”:

political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics. Liberals typically believe that government is necessary to protect individuals from being harmed by others, but they also recognize that government itself can pose a threat to liberty.

Do the members opposite see themselves at all in this definition today? It has been six months since I was elected to this House, and not once, in between their power grabs, have I heard them make even passing reference to individual liberty or to the fact that the government itself can threaten that liberty.

Conservatives seek to conserve our liberty. Liberals are supposed to seek to expand our liberty. However, this is three times in six months they have tried to get one past us. I am asking them honestly to reflect on this. Are they even Liberals anymore, or have they become something darker? How is it that they have betrayed the Liberal tradition again and again in this House?

I would ask the Liberal backbenchers, in particular, if this is what they signed up to do when they took out a Liberal Party membership and if the Prime Minister's Office ran any of it by them before it tried to ram it through the House. Why do they not do the right thing and withdraw Bill C-2 entirely instead of trying to get it passed piecemeal?

One piece of Bill C-2, Bill C-12, is going to go to committee, but we must not forget the omnibus monstrosity from which it came. We must not forget the questions of competence that the story of Bill C-12 raises, and we must also not look away from the authoritarian tendencies of the so-called Liberals that this story reveals.

Commissioner for Modern Treaty Implementation Act

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to be up here today to talk about accountable government and speak to Bill C-10. The government has put forward this piece of legislation, and I think it is a total admission of the Liberals' failure to keep first nations included in the Canadian economy and ensure first nations are part of the Canadian conversation. Therefore, one of the trinkets they are putting forward is the commissioner position, to acknowledge that they have been a failure over the last 10 years.

I want to talk about accountable government more broadly. People back home always say, “Arnold, you are part of the government,” but I say no, I am part of the opposition. The government is generally considered to be the front bench on the government side of the House. That is the government that lives inside of our legislative chamber. Unlike in the United States, where the administration lives outside of the legislative process, in Canada, in a parliamentary system, the government lives in the front bench, and that is the Prime Minister and his cabinet.

They direct the administration of our country, and they answer directly to the legislature. They are right here, and one of the key functions of this place is to hold the government to account, principally through question period. That is probably what people see the most. That is the Government of Canada. It then branches out from there to all the ministries, the ministry offices across the country, and the folks who work for those ministries would also be part of the government. Very soon, I hope to be part of the governing party of Canada, if not part of the government, Lord willing.

I also want to inform the House that I will be splitting my time.

When we talk about accountable government, this is an important part of Canadian history. This is something that this particular place fought vehemently for at the founding of Canada in response to being a colony of Great Britain, asking and pushing for our own responsible government. I would also point out that the responsible, accountable government that was fought for at that time was immediately put to the test in the riot reparations act that the brand new Canadian Parliament passed. It then ran out to ask the Governor General to not sign it into law, because the government had suddenly realized the ramifications of the riot reparations act. The Governor General at the time asked if we wanted a responsible, accountable government or not. He signed that into law, and the negative implications of it came to fruition. Parliament then reversed itself on that particular bill.

I tell that story just to point out that the things that happen in this place have an impact on Canadian society. I hope that is the case, and I know that to be the case. The point is that the Liberal government is the government of this country, and it has duties it has to implement. The Liberal government is classic in terms of causing a problem or failing to address a problem and then, rather than fixing the problem, coming back here for another piece of legislation and saying that this is the one that will fix the particular problem. In reality, it generally has the tools and ability to fix the particular problem or manage the particular issue or maintain the relationship around the world that it currently has.

We hear from the Liberals often that a particular UN document is demanding that they do something. Maintaining the relationship with first nations across this country, ensuring they are full participants in our economy and living up to the treaty obligations this country has signed onto are just basic functions of the government. We do not need a UN document or a UN declaration to tell us to do these things. The Government of Canada should be doing these things because we are upholding the honour of the Crown and we are upholding the things that make us this country.

In the case of the current government, it is the Government of Canada, and it should live up to its obligations. This means treaty obligations, keeping the peace in this country, working on maintaining our borders and reducing the crime. On all of these things, many times, we see total mismanagement, and then the Liberals come in here and say, “If we only had this piece of legislation.” We see this in front of us over and over again, with bills such as Bill C-2, Bill C-8 and Bill C-11, where the government is trying to solve problems it could already solve and is the cause of.

With Bill C-10, we see a classic case of Liberal mismanagement. We failed to sign new treaties across the country and failed to manage the relationship. We have seen the resource industry stalling out because of our inability to build major projects across this country, and now the Liberals are bringing this forward.

The other thing I find very interesting is that, although I say it is the tired old Liberal government, this is a “new” government, but we have yet to see any major new pieces of legislation. This is not a new piece of legislation from a new government. It is something that is long sought-after. The Liberal government has introduced this idea over and over again. This is not something new.

We are looking forward to the removal of Liberal bail. That would be a new piece of legislation. The reversal of Liberal bail in this country would be an impressive thing in order to get crime under control. That would be new, but this is not a new idea. This is something the Liberals have talked about for a long time, and now, because their legislative agenda is kind of empty, suddenly they are going to put it forward.

I am going to turn my attention to the Bloc. I always find it interesting when I agree somewhat with the Bloc. Bloc members are saying that this commissioner would not achieve anything, that it would not do anything, which is also kind of our position on this. It would not do anything and is just spending money for the sake of spending money, which, I acknowledge, is generally the Liberal test of success: Success is how much money it spends on a particular thing.

I point to the border. When we say the Liberals are failing to maintain our border and are allowing people to run across our border and things like that, their response is not that they are doing a good job managing the border; it is that they are spending more money managing the border than the Conservatives did and are therefore being successful. They are not. The problem is that the border is porous and unmanaged by the Liberals. If we could spend zero dollars to manage the border, I would be in favour of that as well. The amount of money the Liberals spend to manage the border is irrelevant if we are not getting the results we are looking for. Fundamental to an accountable government is who is responsible.

This commissioner is a distraction from the responsibilities of the government. The government is responsible for maintaining these relationships and cannot outsource it to a commissioner. It cannot outsource it. I guess the same goes for the Parliamentary Budget Officer, for example. Does his advice get followed by the Liberal government? No, not at all. Will this commissioner's advice be followed by the Liberal government? Maybe, or maybe not. The fundamental issue is the results the government has caused.

We see it over and again, whether it is with the Liberals' bail system, which they totally made a hatchet job of, border security or cybersecurity. Over and over again, the Liberals fail to be responsible for the issues the government is supposed to be responsible for in this country. We see a failure, and then suddenly the Liberals will say we need a particular piece of legislation in order to fix it. When we then look at that piece of legislation, it generally does something other than what they say it will do, or it fails to change anything.

I just want to put on the record that, in some weird way, we agree with the Bloc on this, that the commissioner would not do anything. I also want to close by stating that the bill is an admission by the Liberal government that its inabilities over the last number of years have led to failure.

Public Safety

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. Bill C‑8, an act respecting cyber security, is being debated today in the House. This legislation aims to secure Canada's critical infrastructure by bringing the Canadian telecommunications sector in line with other critical sectors of the Canadian economy.

This bill will allow us to notify operators of threats and vulnerabilities so they can protect their systems and more importantly so they can avoid falling prey to nefarious actions. In recognition of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, I hope that our colleagues across the aisle will support Bill C‑8.

Business of the House

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Minister of Transport and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it is funny that those questions did not make the top 40 of the ones they wanted to ask today. Of course, the Prime Minister and ministers are in regular contact with our friends and neighbours in the United States. We will be advocating for Canadian workers and Canadian jobs.

In terms of criminal justice legislation, the member well knows that, right now, he could stand up and ask for unanimous consent on a very tough border bill that would help the government get tough on crime. This week, we had the chance to vote on Bill C-9 and move it through the legislative process.

The member need not fret. Legislation is going to be coming fast and furious, and the Conservatives will have a decision to make whether they want to support constitutional bail reform concocted with provinces and territories, victims associations and all manner of other stakeholders, or will they keep grandstanding in the way that they do? In the meantime, we have a very interesting week coming up.

Today, we are concluding debate on the Conservative Party's opposition day motion. Tomorrow, we will resume second reading debate of Bill C-8, An Act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts.

Next Monday, we will consider second reading of Bill C-11, the military justice system modernization act. We will continue with this debate on Wednesday. On Tuesday, we will commence second reading debate of Bill C-10, the commissioner for modern treaty implementation act. Thursday, October 9, shall be an allotted day.

Combatting Hate Act

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

Mr. Speaker, with my limited time, I will do a bit of an overview. When we look at the issue of combatting hate, we see that the legislation is substantive and would in fact make a significant difference in our communities.

I would also suggest that one needs to look at the last election, where there was a commitment to bring forward legislation of this nature. I say that because the election was not that long ago. A new Prime Minister and new government were elected based on a series of commitments. Those commitments, at least in part, to date, have come in the form of legislation.

I could talk about Bill C-2, the stronger borders legislation; Bill C-4, the middle class tax break for Canadians; Bill C-5, the one Canada economy legislation; Bill C-8, the critical cyber-system legislation; or Bill C-9, which we are debating today, about hate crime. It is very real and very tangible.

With that mandate, not only the government was given a responsibility, but so were all opposition members. It was a very clear mandate given to all of us. Canadians want and expect that their parliamentarians here in Ottawa will work co-operatively in order to have legislation and budgetary measures pass through the system.

My appeal to all members of the House is to recognize the mandate that was given to us by Canadians: Legislation like we are debating today, other pieces of legislation that we have already introduced, or legislation such as our bail reform, which is going to be coming out shortly, should all be allowed to get to the committee stage. That is what is in the best interest of Canadians. This is not to limit debate, because we still have third reading and all sorts of debate and consultations that take place in our standing committees.

With respect to the legislation before us today, it is important that we recognize how much racism and hatred have increased over the last number of years. Race or ethnicity is number one in terms of hate, followed by religion and by sexual orientation. Those are the big three.

Hate happens every day in communities throughout Canada. It is one of the reasons it is so critically important that we not only recognize the legislation as a commitment that was part of our electoral platform but also recognize that communities are hurting and that the bill is legislation that would advance more peaceful communities. I would encourage all members to support it.

Business of the House

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Minister of Transport and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I want to assure my hon. colleague of my great affection for the Thursday question and our weekly rendezvous. I appreciate that.

As the member well knows, we have made a strong and firm commitment to bring in legislation this session to reform bail. The member opposite might be careful of what he asks for, because he will have the opportunity to vote for strong, crime-fighting Liberal legislation in the House. We will be absolutely and earnestly seeking his support and that of his colleagues.

This afternoon, we will continue the debate on the Conservative Party's opposition motion.

Tomorrow, we will begin the debate at second reading on Bill C-8, the critical cyber systems protection act.

As all hon. members are aware, the House will stand adjourned on Monday and Tuesday of next week to mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Upon our return on Wednesday, we will resume debate at second reading of Bill C-9, the combatting hate act. Finally, I would like to inform the House that Thursday of next week shall be an allotted day.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to welcome the House leader of the official opposition and all of his and our colleagues in the House. I am confident that we will have a productive session. We will see.

This afternoon, we will continue to debate the Conservative Party's supply day motion. Tomorrow, we will resume debate at second reading of Bill C‑3, an act to amend the Citizenship Act. I would also like to say that, next Wednesday, we will begin debate at second reading stage of Bill C‑8, an act respecting cyber security.

I would like to inform the House that Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of next week shall be allotted days.

Furthermore, pursuant to Standing Order 83(2), I request the designation of an order of the day to allow the presentation of a budget speech at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, November 4.

As to the question of a take-note debate, I would note that the Conservatives have, as I just indicated, two opposition days scheduled for next week, and they can certainly choose this very important topic, on which the government will have a lot to say, for debate if they believe it is that important.

With respect to the crime legislation, I would simply point out that there is before the House crime legislation presented by the government that meets the test of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and I would very much urge my Conservative colleagues to get on board with it right now so we can fight crime in this country.