Evidence of meeting #42 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
We'll now go to clauses 9 to 13.
(Clauses 9 to 13 inclusive agreed to)
We have a new clause 14, amendment NDP-12.
Mr. Garrison.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Mr. Chair, once again, when the government introduced this bill, they said that they were hoping to get all-party agreement, and that we'd have complete and full discussions in committee. Of course I'm very disappointed at this time that none of the amendments we put forward were considered.
Setting that aside, I still think it would be useful to, within two years after the coming into force of this act, go back to this act and look at what we've done, and make sure these expansions of powers have not limited the ability of SIRC or any other review mechanism to deal with providing proper oversight for national security activities in Canada.
We've had the abolition of the position of inspector general within CSIS. We had some concerns, which were ruled out of order today, about the expertise and appointment process for SIRC. All this amendment would do is say that if the government insists on pressing ahead with this, in two years we'll come back, look at the impacts of the changes the government had made both to CSIS and to other aspects of the review process, and see where we are. I think it makes sense.
We have not specified the mechanism. We've left that to the government at that time to specify. But it would be very useful for the committee to look back at what we've done because we're making piecemeal changes here.
To me, both the integrity and the credibility of CSIS, and other national security operations depend on them protecting both national security and civil liberties at the same time. Therefore, oversight is essential to the way they do these jobs.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Diane Ablonczy Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
I think that's very reasonable.
The question I have is whether that amendment is within the scope of the bill. The bill amends the CSIS Act, but what you're talking about, Randall, are activities of SIRC. It's a different thing, right?
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
I fully support this amendment.
I've always maintained that it was a mistake to do away with the office of inspector general. Actually, having been there myself, it was a great protection, even for the minister.
We are the only one of the Five Eyes—New Zealand, Australia, the U.K., and the United States—that does not have parliamentary oversight.
This would at least provide a sensible review in two years, basically a forced review, if I can put it that way, of our current oversight agencies to ensure there's a balance between national security and civil liberties, and that the current oversight agencies are, in fact, adequate to do the job. I don't believe they are, but this, at least, would incorporate it into an act, where there is at least some kind of parliamentary review that would come up within a couple of years' time, which I think would be helpful for public policy.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
First of all, this is way out of the scope of the CSIS Act and what the bill before us is about. What you're asking for, Mr. Garrison, is that the CSIS Act actually dictate that at some future point in time the Senate, the House of Commons, or committees of both, should come back and review this legislation. Regardless of whether it's out of the scope, and I'm pretty sure it is, both committees, whether the Senate or the House of Commons, can review this legislation at any time. They could review it next week if they wanted to. They make those decisions. The CSIS Act should not dictate to the House of Commons or to the Senate of Canada when and by what means they need to review a piece of legislation.
I can't support it.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Is there further discussion?
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Now we are going to the short title.
Shall clause 1 carry?
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
“Common sense” isn't in there. It is in an awful lot of them. Maybe we should put “common sense” in.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
5:10 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Do you wish to speak to “Shall the title carry?” Is that what you wish to speak to?
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
No, you said, “Shall the bill carry?”
I don't intend to make a long, drawn-out statement, but going through the amendments we've seen, I think the problem we have in this bill is that it does not touch on the question of oversight and accountability while expanding the powers of CSIS at the same time. That's very disappointing.
Also, we've raised some questions about how effective the bill will be. If it turns out to be unconstitutional, we will have wasted a lot of the time of Parliament and the courts and the agency if the bill is eventually thrown out. We had testimony from witnesses who felt that it was clearly unconstitutional. We asked the minister to table his advice on constitutionality, and I guess it would be too strong to say he refused, but he ignored the question.
We have problems with oversight. We have problems with effectiveness, and especially constitutionality. We've had a severe problem with the process here on a bill that we offered to work with the government on. We tried to get consensus, tried to have a full discussion. We were limited to, really, one day of opposition witnesses—two for us and one for the Liberals—and we ignored even officers of Parliament who wanted to appear before the committee with concerns they had about the bill.
None of those people were opposed to this bill; they were all trying to make this a better bill. At the end of today you're leaving us in a situation where we supported the bill at second reading, and you've made it very difficult for us. I'll go back to my caucus, and we'll have a serious discussion about whether we can continue to support this bill, based on those grounds that we laid out in the ways we tried to amend the bill: oversight, effectiveness, constitutionality.
I think we could have had a much better bill that would have served the country with regard to national security. It would have served CSIS in terms of effectiveness. And it would have stood the test of time.
I'm not sure we have that in the bill as it stands now.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
December 1st, 2014 / 5:15 p.m.
NDP
Rosane Doré Lefebvre NDP Alfred-Pellan, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I don't want to spend too much time on this either, but I want to express my disappointment regarding our study of Bill C-44.
First of all, we tried to present several amendments to ensure a good balance between public safety and civil liberties in Bill C-44. Following the events of last October 22, and after the introduction of this bill by the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness in the House, the importance of the balance between public safety and civil liberties was very much in the forefront, in the questions asked and the debate that took place.
Immediately after the events, it was also pointed out that it is important for parliamentarians to work together to ensure our national security.
The first test was the study of Bill C-44. Insofar as working with the official opposition is concerned, this was a total failure. We worked in the same way as with all of the other bills we have studied. Our amendments were systematically refused by the government. A time limit was placed on the debate, be it in the House or in committee where we were only entitled, unfortunately, to four hours with witnesses, and two of those hours were with officials, whereas only two were allotted to witnesses who were potentially opposition witnesses.
Moreover, the government refused to invite the Privacy Commissioner to come and testify, a rather surprising fact in the case of Bill C-44. As I mentioned, none of the amendments we presented, and none of the suggestions we made with regard to this bill, were accepted by the government.
This has all been a huge disappointment, all the more so since Bill C-44 is a crucial bill for the government, as the parliamentary secretary mentioned earlier. So, why not study it properly in committee? If it is such a crucial bill, why only allocate four hours to witnesses ?
Mr. Chair, amending the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act is an extremely serious matter. I think this bill should have been examined in much greater depth.
What is worse is that several witnesses raised extremely important points during their testimony before the committee and they were not listened to properly. I think we have not carefully considered what was mentioned in committee during the study of this bill.
I would like to say one last thing: we were not even able to find out whether the bill is constitutional. Did we do all of this work—or the small amount of work we were allowed to do, unfortunately—for nothing? The minister was not even able to confirm that the bill was constitutional.
Honestly, in light of what we had been promised, that is to say to see to it that all parties work together to ensure our national security, I must say that I am extremely disappointed with the government's handling of Bill C-44.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
I made a point on this at the beginning of committee, Mr. Chairman, but just to add to and to support what my NDP colleagues have said, in my view we are not giving time at this committee or others to properly vet legislation.
This is an important piece of legislation. We have, I think, the time to take more time. With the stacking of witnesses at committee in a fairly tight timeframe, we really don't get the time to question witnesses. We bring these people in. These people are experts in their field. I think all parties pretty well agreed on the witness list that we had here. We didn't hear from the Privacy Commissioner and we should have.
I really believe that what we're seeing here is an erosion of our parliamentary system. That worries me. That's not a partisan comment. I think we all should be concerned about that. It undermines, I believe, the safeguards in our democracy to vet legislation, to hear witnesses, and to use their expert testimony to improve legislation for the benefit of all Canadians. I think we're seeing that undermined.