I apologize for not being able to speak in both official languages, and will do my best to speak in one at a sufficient pace.
The second issue I want to address is lawful access legislation. Proposals to increase lawful access have been circulating in Canada for close to a decade, and the government has indicated an intention to re-table lawful access legislation in the current session of Parliament. While we take no issue with the notion that law enforcement powers should keep pace with technological realities, we're concerned about the proposed legislation and how it seeks to achieve this objective.
Our overriding concern relates to the reduced legal requirements for the accessing of otherwise private information that have been included in recent lawful access bills. In some cases warrant requirements have been reduced from reasonable grounds to believe, to reasonable grounds to suspect. On others there are no prior judicial authorization requirements at all. These powers apply irrespective of the offence being investigated or the level of urgency attached to that investigation. They make it considerably easier for law enforcement to access private information that can reveal highly personal details about those to whom it relates.
The CCLA is deeply troubled by this downward pressure on privacy protections. Privacy is a critical and increasingly complex right that is at the core of our constitutional democracy. It must be subject to robust protection, and any exception to this rule should be clearly necessary and subject to robust judicial oversight.
In the CCLA's view, the lawful access powers that have been proposed are overly invasive and overly broad. They are not properly tailored to address legitimate concerns that have been raised by law enforcement, and they go far beyond what is necessary to modernize Canada's lawful access regime. As such, the CCLA urges the committee to recommend against implementing this legislation until it has been adjusted to appropriately balance the needs of both law enforcement and personal privacy.
Finally I'd like to address the issue of creating a list of criminal organizations, which I know has been proposed in some of the committee's earlier hearings on organized crime. We're not aware of a specific proposal having been put forward that would set out exactly how such a list would work; however, we do have some concerns about any form that we can envision such a list taking.
From our experience, and generally speaking, lists of this nature have proven to be cumbersome to administer and difficult to maintain. They frequently impose consequences or sanctions on the basis of an executive decision rather than a judicial finding, raising concerns about the opacity of the process that results in a listing decision.
As we have seen with no-fly lists, such endeavours can quickly spiral out of control, creating significant problems for those who might find themselves wrongly included on a particular list. Wrongly affected persons often have great difficulty getting their names off such a list, and until they can do so, they must endure significant interference with their personal liberty.
As such, it is the CCLA's position that it would be inadvisable to create a list of criminal organizations. If, however, the committee suggests that such a list be created, the CCLA would recommend, at a minimum, the following measures be put in place to ensure that its potential negative impact is as limited as possible.
First, we recommend that any organization added to the list should only be included following a judicial finding that it meets the Criminal Code definition of criminal organization.
Second, we recommend that the list should be regularly reviewed to ensure that all of the groups on it continue to meet the definition.
Third, a procedure should be established through which any group that is on the list and feels it should not be can apply to have its name removed. Where such an application is made, the members of the group applying should have access to the evidence upon which the listing determination was made.
Finally, the list should be usable only for the sole purpose that has been advanced for its justification: reducing redundancies in the prosecution of criminal organization offences.
I'll conclude with that and thank you again for the invitation to be here today. I look forward to taking your questions.
Thank you.