Public Safety Committee on Dec. 15th, 2010

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

One minute would be wonderful.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I'll give you two minutes.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

That's wonderful. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's the Christmas spirit.

Do you want to finish your questions?

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Sure.

I asked Minister Nicholson about this, and he didn't answer the question, so I'll ask you. This expired in February of 2007; he did agree with that. Between then and now we've had a number of years of experience. My question asked how Canada or Canadians have suffered as a result of not having these provisions in force. What have we needed, based on actual factual scenarios on the ground, that we haven't had?

[Donald Piragoff]

That question would be better posed to the RCMP or CSIS. They might be testifying on this bill as to how the existing law may have hindered them or not.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Minister Nicholson said something similar. He said he couldn't ask the RCMP, but he's the Minister of Justice who is proposing to bring back these provisions and make them law again. I would think the responsible answer from the Minister of Justice, who wants to pass this law, would be to give us examples of how we've suffered by not having these provisions, rather than to tell us to ask somebody else.

To repeat, do you have any information at all about how Canadians or Canada has suffered by not having these provisions from February 2007 to the present? I don't want to know if somebody else might have that information; I want to know whether you have anything.

[Donald Piragoff]

Whatever information I have has been provided by the RCMP and security forces. I think the question should be posed to them.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Okay. Are you aware of how Canada or Canadians have suffered in any way? I'll do that in two parts, if you like. If you are aware that there has been some need that wasn't satisfied and you're aware that we suffered, you can say “yes” or you can say “no”. You don't have to provide any examples.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

There is one other option, which is to say that he prefers not to answer the question. There are three options.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

I don't think it's necessary for you to interrupt me on that. It's my question--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

It's my job to make sure that when we have the department here.... I read from the book last meeting, and on those types of questions of security, departmental officials do not have to answer.

Continue, Mr. Kania. I'll let you continue.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

I actually want to address this, since it was addressed last time by you. I don't think it's appropriate for you to be interrupting when other members are posing questions. We can have a point of order on this if you wish, but in essence you made a ruling that we don't agree with. We believe they do have to answer, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't interrupt my questioning--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Kania. Thank you. Your time is up.

We'll now go back to the government side. Go ahead, Mr. Norlock, please.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Chair, I believe it was Mr. McColeman's turn.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I'm sorry. Yes, it's Mr. McColeman.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Go ahead, Mr. Kania, on a point of order.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

My time was not up when you interrupted.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Your time right now is 7:40, and your time was just up to the seven-minute mark.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

At the time that you interrupted me, it wasn't up yet, was it? Otherwise you would have simply said, “Time's up”, rather than interrupting me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

No.

Go ahead, Mr. McColeman.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have several questions, but first I want to say that my background is construction, not law.

Across the table we've seen an aggressive labour lawyer trying to pin you down on certain things that may or may not be included in existing legislation. I'd like to take the approach of asking you some questions that were brought up in testimony from our last group of witnesses. Professor Forcese, from the University of Ottawa, has done a paper and some extensive study on the subject of whether or not this bill covers off some of the eventualities that could happen with the threat of terrorism. He admits there is a gap in the current legal law enforcement tools that this bill would address. He says it's a gap, albeit a small gap, but it's gap. Then, when the rest of the panel was surveyed on whether there was a gap based on his analysis, all disagreed that there was a gap.

As another side note, when asked if they thought terrorism was a real threat in Canada, all but one agreed that it was. Often the threat that we've seen--for example, with the Toronto 18--is that people are already committing acts. The police were aware of those acts as a result of that, but had they had some prior knowledge and been able to investigate prior, they might have stopped those acts.

That said, as the government and as your department, we've obviously looked at the laws of the other major countries in the world that have experienced real terrorist attacks, including Great Britain and the like, and the United States. Great Britain has 28 days, as you know, in terms of detention time.

I'd like your general comments, sir, on our law as it compares to those of other modern western democracies in terms of whether it gives the police the tools they need to close the gap that was talked about by one of our last witnesses. Also, when the department came to the determination of the types of clauses that would be included, were they evaluated against other countries and their existing laws?

[Donald Piragoff]

As you indicated, the U.K. legislation provides for preventive detention of up to 28 days. Australian criminal law is a state issue as opposed to a federal issue. It varies from state to state, but in many states in Australia, preventive detention can be for up to 14 days.

Our bill is not focused on detention. It's focused on arresting the person, bringing them before a judge, and then releasing them with or without conditions. It's not presupposed that a person will be detained for a long period of time, so that's a major difference.

With respect to the investigative hearing, the United States has the grand jury system. Canada had the grand jury system up until the mid-1960s. It permits a person to be brought before a judge in order to be examined under oath to provide testimony prior to a charge. That does not exist in Canadian law anymore, although it did under the grand jury when we had it.

The one exception where it does exist under Canadian law is under the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. That act provides for a judge to order a person to attend before him or her to testify under oath for the purposes of obtaining evidence to send to a foreign country pursuant to their judicial request to provide mutual legal assistance.

Those are the comparisons to other legislation, as well as some other past or current precedents that we have in Canada.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

So from your answer to the question and the comments we've heard from other witnesses, who have actually said this is a tool that law enforcement would benefit from, and that we'd perhaps be able to stop something from happening in its tracks because we'd be able to investigate on a different basis than the current law allows us to do, and in comparison to our other international partners or other western democracies, which, frankly, are under threat from terrorism....

We know this. We know that we need to have law enforcement that has all the tools available to it in its toolbox to be able to fight that war, and that our law as proposed today is far less onerous on the side of the personal rights or human rights issue. We have it far more balanced than the other western democracies, based on some of the things that are included in their current terrorist legislation. Am I correct in saying that?

[Donald Piragoff]

This bill has more safeguards than a lot of legislation that exists in our allies' legislation.