Justice Committee on March 4th, 2013

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you.

Before this bill, there was Bill C-30. As my colleague mentioned, we are very glad that the government realized that a mistake had been made and took a step back. Now we have Bill C-55. And there were provisions from Bill C-12 that were supposed to apply. Is there any follow-through on that?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I'm proceeding with this particular bill, Mr. Mai, at this particular time, and that's the bill we have before us. As you have probably been aware in your time here in Parliament, there's been no shortage of justice legislation, and we'll have other pieces of legislation.

But today this bill is completely focused on the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in Tse.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you, Mr. Mai.

Thank you, Minister.

Our next questioner from the Conservative Party is Mr. Seeback.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister.

I have only one question. I know it's been touched on today by both Madame Boivin and Mr. Scarpaleggia, but I want to drill down a little bit more.

The definition of peace officer in the section of the legislation mentions other persons employed for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace.

Do we know who would be grabbed within that catch-all phrase, and is it coming from a certain section of the Criminal Code?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

For peace officer, if you look at section 2 of the Criminal Code, it sets out a wide range of individuals whom I have indicated to you, starting with the municipal government, to make sure that we don't just have mayors but reeves as well. They are contained within that. There is the pilot of a plane, for instance. Individuals under a dozen different federal statutes come within the definition of a peace officer.

I guess the question you would ask yourself is whether it is absolutely necessary that they would have this particular power. What is it they are doing that would require them to intercept the private communications of an individual?

I think you might come to the conclusion that you can't imagine how and where and why it would be necessary for some of these individuals to do that in their respective roles.

I believe—and I hope it is your opinion as well after analyzing this bill—that it was appropriate for us to define a little more clearly exactly who has this ability in an emergency situation to prevent imminent harm and to intercept the otherwise private communications of individuals.

I think that was very important. Again it was one of the things we didn't have to do, but it seemed to me it made sense.

One of the things you will notice about the Tse decision when you go through it is that there is sometimes what we call an obiter. There are thoughts and discussions that take place on a number of different areas, but they do sometimes give us direction on where we might go so we're not challenged in some future case on some of these issues.

I think it's entirely appropriate to have a look at those suggestions and incorporate them into the bill. As I indicated to Madame Boivin we've done what they wanted, but we've gone beyond that as well.

Again I think—and I hope with analysis of this bill at committee you will agree—that we're better to define exactly which unlawful acts we're talking about. We're better to define exactly who it is that can and should do this. Yes, it is a good idea for provincial attorneys general, but it's good for the Public Safety Minister as well to do that. You will notice I didn't put Justice Minister in. I put Public Safety Minister in. He can take on that responsibility, and why not?. I think it's a very good idea.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you, Mr. Seeback, and thank you, Minister.

Our next questioner, from the New Democratic Party, is Mr. Marston.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, welcome, and to our officials as well.

In my past life, I was part of this equation. I worked for Bell Canada for 22 years. If somebody called in and said “I think my home phone is tapped”, I would go and test their line. If they called in and said “There's noise on my line”, I would type their number into the computer, and when it came up, I would listen to seconds of their conversation to see if there was trouble there.

My point is that there are probably some instances where Canadians are unaware of the fact that somebody, here and there, is listening. Obviously, that was for a very different purpose.

What we're talking about here is what I consider to be, from what you're saying, a very exceptional situation. I think in fairness to the government, you've made a reasonable effort in this. For Canadians, in the society we live in, with the electronics and all the conspiracy movies you see, where the government, which is usually the U.S. in the movies, is intruding on people's lives, you can understand why people would be concerned.

The question I have is the following, even though it's been touched on three times here. We talk about the emergency wiretap, which has a connotation to it of a hardwire onto a phone line and that's it.

Just for the record, I want to put it before the committee that this would include cellular communications—

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Yes.

Mr. Wayne Marston —and text communications—

Yes.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

—which the children of our generation are wearing their thumbs out doing?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Exactly.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

You had used the term “intercept communications”, which I took to mean as taking all of that in.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

It does.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

I would say, and I think it's important.... I know we just received the bar association's offers of suggestions, but there are three in there. One of the things they talked about that caught my eye was the fact that in this special circumstance of putting the wiretap on, the evidence garnered during that might be thrown out in court. That's something that I think somebody should take a look at.

This is their reading, not ours, so....

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I do have a look at what they have to say, as indeed I do for all individuals who make suggestions, but the bill is very specific and confined to what it is we are trying to address at this particular time.

Again, you can see by the title we gave it—

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

To amend the Criminal Code.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

—yes—that it's a response: “Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Tse Act”.

We put it right in there at the beginning of the bill, and that's exactly what it is we're doing. We're not trying to get into other areas.

But you touched on a number of points, also raised by my colleague, that it's not confined to one type of communication, that it's all communication where there is imminent, or the possibility of, serious harm coming to someone if that information is not given to appropriate authorities.

Again, I appreciate all inputs on these, but this bill is what it is. It stands on its own.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Well, my intent was to put it on record so that people could reflect back on it in due course.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Yes.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Sometimes, even though it's clear to us on paper, once it's passed, somebody starts raising that it's doing this and it's doing that.

It's better, I think, to have it on record.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

That's an excellent point.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you, Minister.

Our next questioner, from the Conservative Party, is Mr. Albas.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for your presence here today.

Certainly I hope we can all support this particular bill. After reviewing some of the papers the Library of Parliament has done in terms of analysis, coupled with your testimony here today, I think it's very important that all parties support this.

We all know that law enforcement at times requires the ability to respond very quickly in situations where there are urgent circumstances.

Minister, you mentioned specifically kidnapping, hostage-taking, bomb threats. Those are just a few examples of where urgent actions are expected of the police to protect innocent victims and maintain safety.

A good example, Minister, from my home province of British Columbia is the kidnapping of 23-year-old Vancouver resident Graham McMynn in April of 2006. The prompt response by the Vancouver Police Department in using all the legal resources to safely return Mr. McMynn to his family serves as a reminder as to why useful amendments such as Bill C-55 are in order so that we can continue to protect the public.

This legislation responds directly to the guidance from the Supreme Court of Canada by adding new privacy safeguards of notification and reporting. You've alluded to it in your testimony and in a number of your comments to the committee, specifically section 184.4 of the Criminal Code.

Minister, is there anything in this bill that is not related to adding more safeguards—beyond the response to the Supreme Court?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

When we get an opportunity to have a bill like this, we try to make sure that anything of a technical nature that can or should be placed into it is indeed done. For instance, the department works very hard, as you know, to make sure that the English and French translations are absolutely consistent, and so you will see references in there where there have been slight changes made to make sure they're absolutely consistent—because this is an ongoing process that we have in this country.

Indeed, we sometimes update the language in these bills. There's a reference, I believe, to the minister and the term used was a masculine one. A man or woman can of course be the minister of justice, and so we update the wording in there so that's it gender neutral. That's basically what we do. So what happens is that you might be amending legislation that was done many decades ago and find that it's not gender neutral. What we like to do when we bring forward a new piece of legislation is to clean up something like that. I think that's entirely appropriate.

Again the bill, as I indicated to your colleagues across the way, is very focused on the decision. But again, whenever you have a piece of legislation, you want to make sure of things like gender neutrality or consistency between both official languages, and so you'll see slight modifications with respect to those.