Evidence of meeting #54 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 csis.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Carmen Cheung  Senior Counsel, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
Joanna Kerr  Executive Director, Greenpeace Canada
Ron Atkey  Adjunct Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, As an Individual
Keith Stewart  Head, Energy Campaign, Greenpeace Canada
Paul Champ  Counsel, International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
Barry Cooper  Professor of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Chief Perry Bellegarde  National Chief, Assembly of First Nations

8:45 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp

Good morning, colleagues, and welcome to our witnesses here today.

This is meeting number 54 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. Today we are continuing our study of Bill C-51, An Act to enact the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act and the Secure Air Travel Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

We have a group of witnesses here for the first hour, then further witnesses for the second hour, and then another table of witnesses this evening. We will start with opening statements by our witnesses here today. We would remind you that you're entitled to a maximum of 10 minutes, but should you be able to be a bit more brief, that would give more opportunity for the committee to have a dialogue with you.

At this particular point, we welcome Carmen Cheung, the senior counsel from the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association. From Greenpeace Canada, we have Joanna Kerr, executive director, and Keith Stewart, head of the energy campaign. As an individual, we have Ron Atkey, professor from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. Welcome to all of our witnesses today.

We'll start with opening statements now.

Ms. Cheung, you have the floor.

March 12th, 2015 / 8:45 a.m.

Carmen Cheung Senior Counsel, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association

Thank you, Chair.

8:45 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp

On a point of order, Mr. Easter.

8:45 a.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Mr. Chair, I'm not exactly sure of the procedure here, but when the Minister of Justice appeared at the last committee meeting, he said some not too pleasant things about the British oversight committee. Quite honestly, the Minister of Justice was talking about history and was not up to date.

I have before me a report that was tabled in the British Parliament by their Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, which explains what they do and shows how fast they act. The problem, Mr. Chair, is that it's 200 pages long. It goes through the concerns they originally had and how they upgraded that intelligence committee with the Justice and Security Act 2013.

I think it would be important for committee members to have a copy of this report. It does show the good work they do and basically refutes what the Minister of Justice said about how they do it. However, it's not bilingual.

I would like to table it before the committee, or at least the summary of it, which I can get translated if that is the way we want to go about this. I understand the need for it to be bilingual.

I'm at your disposal, Mr. Chair. How do I get this tabled so that the committee has access to it, because it is pertinent and basically refutes the misinformation that the Minister of Justice gave this committee about how their oversight committee operates?

8:50 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp

Thank you, Mr. Easter.

There are two thoughts on the matter. Of course, under our routine orders anything that is to to be tabled before the committee must be in both languages, unless, of course, we have unanimous consent to approve a tabling of any document in any form it's in.

Yes, Ms. Doré.

8:50 a.m.

NDP

Rosane Doré Lefebvre NDP Alfred-Pellan, QC

Could someone give us a translation of the documents to be submitted or a summary in both official languages?

8:50 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp

Well, what the chair would suggest, if that is the will of the committee, is that if Mr. Easter wishes to prepare a summary and or present a summary in both official languages, it would be pertinent to discussions that have already taken place and would be allowable at that point.

8:50 a.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and Rosane. I will do that.

8:50 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp

Thank you very much.

Yes, Ms. James.

8:50 a.m.

Conservative

Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON

It's my understanding that for something to be tabled in this committee, it has to be presented or tabled in both official languages. Any time in the past this issue has come up, the opposition has demanded that it be presented in both official languages before it's tabled. I think we should stick to the rules that govern this committee. That has been so in the past as well.

I have no problems with the Liberal member opposite having that translated for the committee and then tabling it at that point.

Thank you.

8:50 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp

That is what the chair has suggested.

The chair has suggested that the summary has to be translated, in both official languages, if he wishes to present just a summary. Mr. Easter certainly can look after that. Should he not, then we would rule otherwise.

We will now go back to our opening statement.

Thank you for your patience, Ms. Cheung. Please carry on.

8:50 a.m.

Senior Counsel, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association

Carmen Cheung

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning. It is a privilege to appear before the committee again. On behalf of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, I'd like to thank you all for your invitation to speak today.

The BCCLA is a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Vancouver, British Columbia. For over 50 years the mandate of the BCCLA has been to promote, defend, sustain, and extend civil liberties and human rights in Canada.

We have submitted for the committee's consideration a written brief setting out our chief concerns with Bill C-51, and hope that as the committee examines this bill it will consider not only whether its provisions are constitutionally compliant but whether they are also efficacious and just.

We raise six chief concerns with the bill. Given our limited time here I can only canvass them in my opening remarks, but I do hope that the committee will refer to our written submission, which sets out our views in greater detail.

First, it is our submission that the security of Canada information sharing act is fundamentally flawed and should not be enacted. It endorses a radical conception of security unprecedented in Canadian law, and an unbounded scope of what it means to undermine Canadian security. Based on these expansive concepts, the act authorizes warrantless information sharing across government and dissemination outside of government. As the Privacy Commissioner has pointed out in his letter to this committee, such widespread and relatively unfettered access to personal information poses serious dangers for individual privacy. We and others have also suggested that such massive data collection and information sharing may not necessarily benefit security, either. Moreover, the act deepens an already serious deficit in national security accountability.

Professors Kent Roach and Craig Forcese have extensively detailed the legal problems with this proposed act, so we will not repeat them here.

Paul Champ, who is appearing on behalf of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group later today, will discuss in greater detail the human rights concerns raised by the information sharing act. We share the ICLMG's concerns. We add only the following observation. To those who might say that this proposed act poses little threat to freedom of expression and dissent, recent examples show that government already takes a very wide view as to what constitutes a threat to Canada's security. We need only to look at CSIS and RCMP monitoring of non-violent protests undertaken by first nations and environmental groups.

Second, it is our submission that the secure air travel act should be rejected. As a threshold matter, we question the efficacy of no-fly schemes in general. Travellers on such lists are deemed too dangerous to fly yet too harmless to arrest. It is our view that if law enforcement officials have enough information to determine that an individual poses a threat to aviation security or that they are planning to board a plan in order to commit a terrorism offence, the officials are also likely to have enough information to lay charges or to seek a recognizance order with conditions. If it is indeed necessary to impose a travel ban, then the criminal law is already well equipped to allow the government to seek a court order to that effect.

But even if no-fly schemes do improve aviation security, the system proposed here suffers from serious procedural deficiencies. The proposed act creates a system where travellers have no concrete way of knowing whether they are on the no-fly list, where the reasons for listings are largely kept secret, and where the judicial process for reviewing delisting applications can be held in secret. This is a dangerous lack of due process. While travellers can't access information relating to their own listing, the proposed act does allow the government to share its no-fly list with other countries, with no statutory limitations on how that information can be used by a foreign state. Canada's experience with mistakenly labelling individuals as security threats and providing that information to foreign governments should counsel against such carte blanche approaches to foreign information sharing.

Third, we oppose the creation of an advocating or promoting terrorism offence in the Criminal Code. We see no security interest in further criminalizing expression beyond what is already proscribed by law. The Criminal Code already makes it illegal to counsel anyone to commit a terrorism offence. Considering that terrorism offences include acts that fall well short of violence, such as preparing to commit terrorist acts or supporting terrorist activity, this already captures a broad range of terrorism-related expression.

Similarly, the participating, facilitating, instructing, and harbouring provisions already contemplate recruitment and instruction to commit terrorist acts as criminal offences. In the Khawaja case, the Supreme Court of Canada also considered the constitutionality of the definition of terrorist activity in the Criminal Code, and allowed it to include threats of violence.

This new offence, then, would criminalize expression far removed from acts of terror or violence. It would make criminals of individuals whose sentiments may never even leave the confines of their own living room, so long as their listener is someone who might commit a terrorism offence. The new offence contains no requirement that the speaker actually intend a terrorism offence to be committed, and it contains no requirement that the listener commit a terrorism offence either.

Endorsing acts of terror may be upsetting to some and repulsive to many. But freedom of expression is what creates a democratic society in which we can debate the merits of ideas, even those that, as individuals, we find deeply offensive. A democracy is based on the premise that individual citizens have the capacity to govern themselves, to understand and to evaluate different perspectives with which they are confronted, to deliberate their merits, and to ultimately decide which viewpoints to adopt and which to discard. Accordingly, we urge this committee to reject the creation of this new offence.

Fourth, we submit that this committee should reject the proposed preventative detention amendments. Bill C-51 expands a troubling regime of preventative detention by lowering already low thresholds for detaining individuals on mere suspicion of dangerousness. When this committee debated the reintroduction of the preventative detention provisions currently in the Criminal Code, we expressed serious concerns about the necessity for such sweeping arrest and detention powers. While we continue to believe that it is preferable to charge terrorism suspects under the criminal law so that they are afforded appropriate due process protections, the fact remains that the government already has extraordinary powers at its disposal.

The question that this committee and all Canadians should be asking is not what additional powers should be granted to government to protect public safety, but how well existing powers are being used and whether the existing criminal law is being properly enforced.

Fifth, we believe that the proposed amendments to the CSIS Act are unwise and unnecessary and should be rejected. By giving CSIS the power to engage in threat disruption, Bill C-51 blurs the line between spying and policing, carefully drawn following the McDonald commission. This threat reduction power is a policing power. It is a policing power made extraordinarily broad by virtue of the expansive definition of threats to the security of Canada contained in section 2 of the CSIS Act, a definition that was constructed to set out the mandate of an agency responsible for collecting and evaluating information, not a policing authority. It is a policing power made dangerous, given the secrecy that accompanies national security activities. Rights violations may be more difficult to detect, and once detected, more difficult to remedy, and it is a power that seems wholly unnecessary. Government has provided little evidence for why this expanded power should be granted to CSIS or why CSIS should have any policing powers at all.

We are deeply troubled by the proposed CSIS warrant powers in this bill and the proposition that Canada's courts should be tasked with authorizing measures that violate constitutional rights. As many others have observed, this profoundly misconstrues the role of the court in our constitutional system. Asking the court to authorize violations of fundamental rights, such as those protected by the charter, is simply offensive to the rule of law.

Over the past decade, we have seen the effects of an approach to national security that privileges bare legality, and at worst, descends into illegality. The consequences for the rule of law and human rights have been profound. Meanwhile, it remains an open question whether the gloves-off approach to national security has made Canada or any of our allies any safer.

Finally, Bill C-51 ignores the Supreme Court of Canada's teachings that the government cannot rely on secret evidence in security certificate proceedings without providing some way for the named person to know the case to be met and a procedure by which the evidence could be tested.

The proposed amendments to IRPA that would limit the scope of materials produced to special advocates should be rejected. It is difficult to conceive what sort of information is being exempted by these provisions. By definition, the information is neither relevant to the government's case against the person nor is it information to be considered by a judge when determining whether the certificate is reasonable. It begs the question of why this information is being placed before a judge at all, and leads us to conclude that this class of information may be so problematic that, rather than being exempted from disclosure, it must be made available to special advocates to review and potentially challenge.

It is difficult to comment on national security powers without also discussing the need for real accountability and review.

I know that I am out of time, so I will just end by saying this. We cannot afford to enact this bill, because we cannot afford to further expand the reach of the scope of our national security activities without taking steps to ameliorate what is now a staggering accountability deficit.

Thank you again for this opportunity and for this committee's work. I look forward to your questions.

9 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp

Thank you very much, Ms. Cheung.

Ms. Kerr, you have the floor.

9 a.m.

Joanna Kerr Executive Director, Greenpeace Canada

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for giving us the opportunity to express our views on Bill C-51, which is critically important.

I am Joanna Kerr, executive director for Greenpeace Canada. I am here today with Keith Stewart, who is in charge of the Greenpeace Climate and Energy campaign.

In my global roles as chief executive of ActionAid International, policy director with Oxfam Canada, and now with Greenpeace, I have seen first-hand the power of protest and dissent in effecting real, transformative change for the betterment of people and the planet.

I'd really like to start with a few very simple questions. Would women have the vote today if the suffragettes had not engaged in widespread non-violent protest? Would racial desegregation in the U.S. have occurred without sit-ins, march-ins, public protests, and peaceful sustainable resistance to unfair laws? Would despotic governments have been overthrown around the world without people merging onto the streets and holding ground? Would decolonization have happened without non-violent direct action?

All of these movements and those against slavery and apartheid, to name but a few, employed peaceful but actually unlawful means to confront unjust laws and practice and challenge society's views of right and wrong. They expedited change, which was urgently needed. That is the kind of change that is required today if we are to address the formidable threat that is posed by climate change.

Greenpeace's mission was forged in non-violent direct action, and we have used it to great effect over 40 years. We were instrumental in ending nuclear tests in the waters of the South Pacific, in ending scientific and commercial whaling, in ending toxic dumping in the world's oceans and getting a treaty to curb acid rain, and in the protections now afforded Canada's Great Bear rainforest. None of these critical environmental protections would exist without peaceful confrontation—what we refer to as non-violent direct action.

Do we really believe the interests of national security will be served by restricting these fundamental options for civil protest, be it against injustice, corruption, racism, or pollution? Because that is what Bill C-51 proposes in the name of national security.

Professors Craig Forcese and Kent Roach have shown that the bill could be used to target democratic protests engaged in such struggles. Based on public statements by cabinet ministers, as well as leaked RCMP and government documents, there is strong reason to suspect that these powers could and would be used against those advocating for clean water, for precious ecosystems, and an end to catastrophic climate change.

We are very concerned that the draft legislation appears to target environmental and first nation climate activists as a threat to security. To borrow a line from David Suzuki:

Pollution and climate change caused by excessive burning of fossil fuels are [the] real threats, not the people who warn that we must take these threats seriously. And while we must also respond to terrorism with the strong tools already in place, we have to remember that our rights and freedoms, not fear, are what keep us strong.

Greenpeace joins many others in having serious concerns with this legislation. More than a hundred legal experts wrote an open letter to Parliament calling on you to amend or kill this bill on the grounds that it is a danger to the rule of law, to protected rights, and to the health of Canada's democracy. They argue that it may be ineffective in countering terrorism and also could actually frustrate anti-terrorism efforts. We share their concerns.

Today I would like to focus on what this bill could mean for democratic debate in this country.

The government says the sweeping new powers to be granted to CSIS would not be used to target its political opponents. If that is so, then as legislators you have an obligation to write the legislation so that it cannot be used in that way. This was a key finding of a 2009 United Kingdom parliamentary review of the relationship between policing and protest movements. It stated that “the better approach is to draft legislation itself in sufficiently precise terms so as to constrain and guide police discretion, rather than to rely on decision makers to exercise a broad discretion compatibly with human rights”.

Your British colleagues went on to note that “We are concerned by the reports we have received of police using counter-terrorism powers on peaceful protesters,” and to urge that amendments be made to make clear “that counter-terrorism powers should not be used against peaceful protesters.”

As University of Ottawa law professor Craig Forcese has pointed out, the anti-terrorism law with its reference to “foreign influenced activities within or relating to Canada that are detrimental to the interests of Canada” could be used in the case of “a foreign environmental foundation funding a Canadian environmental group's secret efforts to plan a protest (done without proper permits) in opposition [for example] to the Keystone Pipeline Project...”.

We have already seen evidence of this. Government ministers have already characterized anti-pipeline protesters as foreign-funded radicals and even money-launderers. A copy of the federal government's oil sands advocacy strategy obtained by Greenpeace under access to information legislation identified environmental and aboriginal groups as “adversaries”, while oil companies were listed as “allies”.

It’s more detrimental than just name-calling. The 2012 omnibus budget bill not only rewrote Canada’s environmental legislation to reduce public involvement in decision-making, but also gave the Canada Revenue Agency millions of new dollars to conduct audits of charitable organizations that disagree with government policy.

The Voices-Voix Coalition has documented more than 100 cases of recent attacks against those who have simply raised their voices to criticize government policy. Last month, the newspaper La Presse obtained a copy of a secret RCMP critical infrastructure intelligence assessment that names Greenpeace, Tides Canada, and the Sierra Club as part of “a growing, highly organized and well-financed anti-Canada petroleum movement that consists of peaceful activists, militants and violent extremists who are opposed to society’s reliance on fossil fuels.”

Remarkably, this RCMP report downplays climate change. It says that these groups “assert climate change is now the most serious global threat, and that climate change is a direct consequence of elevated anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions which, they believe, are directly linked to the continued use of fossil fuels” and that by highlighting “the perceived environmental threat from the continued use of fossil fuels” we are fuelling a “broadly based anti-petroleum opposition”.

While the RCMP questions the legitimacy of the threat of climate change, the Pentagon has called climate change a “threat multiplier”. The most recent U.S. national security strategy identified climate change as a threat on a par with terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and disease. The World Bank says that it “is a fundamental threat to sustainable development and the fight against poverty.” An article published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found “that human influences on the climate system are implicated in the current Syrian conflict.”

Perhaps most worrying in light of Bill C-51, the RCMP document categorizes civil disobedience and unlawful protest as being “beyond peaceful actions,” conflating peaceful activists with those who engage in violence in the category of “anti-petroleum” extremists.

To be clear, we believe the threat of climate change must be addressed through peaceful, democratic means. If for any reason someone causes another person harm or damages infrastructure or property, that person should and would, under current laws, face legal consequences.

The vast majority of people calling for a debate on fossil fuels and climate change, including those who engage in civil disobedience, aren’t violent anti-petroleum extremists. They are schoolchildren and grandmothers. They are ranchers and parents. They are people from all walks of life who care—

9:10 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp

Ms. Kerr, you're over time. Would you wrap up, please.

9:10 a.m.

Executive Director, Greenpeace Canada

Joanna Kerr

They care about their family.

The word “lawful” was struck from the current anti-terrorism law, following expert testimony in 2001, so that unlawful activity such as trespassing or minor property damage would not be conflated with terrorism.

I want to ask you again, in closing, do you believe that the interests of national security will be served by restricting fundamental, often vital, options for citizen expression and civil protest? We absolutely do not. We ask you to think through—

9:10 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp

You're well over time. I'm sorry, but I still have to have some time constraints here. Thank you very much.

We will now go to Mr. Atkey, please, for 10 minutes.

9:10 a.m.

Ron Atkey Adjunct Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, As an Individual

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Members of the committee, I'm honoured to be invited to appear before you regarding this important bill, which has certainly captured the attention of so many Canadians from across the country and internationally

My interest and background concerning this subject is set forth in my short form resumé that is attached to my speaking notes in both official languages. In the interests of time, I'm going to omit that information from my opening statement, although you should feel free to ask any questions.

Given that the government and one opposition party have already indicated support in principle for this bill, I want to indicate that I am not here to destroy the bill. Rather, I want to assist in proposing some practical amendments that would improve it and perhaps save its constitutional legitimacy and integrity. Like so many others in Canada, I accept, based on known evidence, that the current terrorist threat to Canada's security is real and that enhanced measures are necessary for major agencies such as CSIS, RCMP, CBSA, and Transport Canada to combat this threat through lawful means.

In the few minutes I have today, I want to deal with five important matters. First, is constitutionality and the independence of the judiciary. Second, I'm going to touch on freedom of expression; third, on the issue of fairness; fourth, on effective review by SIRC and others; and fifth, on parliamentary overview, which is something you should consider.

Constitutionality and the independence of the judiciary go right to the major flaw in the bill. Part 4 authorizes the Federal Court to issue a warrant to CSIS to take measures that may contravene a right or freedom guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This provision, in my view, is clearly unconstitutional and will be struck down by the courts.

The existing charter already has a built-in limitations clause authorizing reasonable limits where necessary in a free and democratic society, and proportionality applies to those limits based on almost 33 years of charter jurisprudence. If Parliament wants to invoke the notwithstanding clause, it is free to do so under this Constitution, although no federal Parliament has had the courage or need to do so since the charter was proclaimed in 1982.

I ask you, why provoke an avoidable constitutional challenge? Canadian judges are fiercely independent and are not agents of the government who can be mandated to authorize measures at all costs to protect against terrorist threats. Federal court judges have carefully authorized or rejected wiretap applications since 1984, under existing section 21 of the CSIS Act. I have seen or reviewed some of those applications and judicial decisions. The process of judicial control of wiretap warrants applications works today.

Why, in drafting new parallel provisions in proposed sections 12.1 and 21.1 of Bill C-51 respecting additional measures, do you need to instruct the judges to totally ignore the charter and to allow CSIS to violate constitutional obligations in order to take these additional measures beyond wiretaps? This notion of Parliament authorizing a charter breach, short of using the notwithstanding clause, is clearly unconstitutional and is not consistent with our constitutional tradition and the way in which section 1 of the charter operates.

You can avoid this constitutional mess by redrafting proposed section 21.1 of Bill C-51 to provide that any warrant that permits CSIS to take measures thereunder will not contravene a right or freedom guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I have a bit to say on freedom of expression, but in the interests of time I'm going to jump over that and urge that you consult the documents tabled and positions represented before you by my colleagues, Craig Forcese, from the University of Ottawa law school, and Kent Roach, from the University of Toronto. They have dealt with this in detail, and I don't have the time to go through it today.

Similarly the provision of fairness, which is guaranteed by section 7 of the charter, states:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the provision and constitutional requirement of fairness. It's embodied in the special advocates, and I happen to be a special advocate, so I know a bit about that role. I think there is a role for special advocates to provide fairness in a number of the warrant proceedings, a number of the no-fly list proceedings, and you should actively consider that.

I do want to jump right into some of the issues that I know are before you and which I know something about, and that's the question of effective review by SIRC and others.

Now, I have publicly defended the structure of SIRC, which was established in 1984 as the CSIS watchdog. I had the honour to be the first chair. It was effective at the beginning, even though there were growing pains as CSIS broke off from the RCMP and struggled initially to incorporate women and outsiders. The SIRC structure has worked where the only body being reviewed was CSIS and the monitoring of CSIS's extraordinary powers was manageable. That was 1984. Things have changed over 30 years.

First, the CSIS budget, personnel, and powers have grown exponentially while the watchdog budget remains pretty much the same. It is unfair to dramatically expand CSIS powers to conduct disruptive or international activities to fight terrorism at home and abroad while leaving the watchdog frozen in time. Failure of the government to address this issue in the context of Bill C-51 is irresponsible. The public has a right to be concerned whether SIRC can do the job going forward.

Second, this debate on Bill C-51 has caused the public to reflect unfavourably on the scattered and uneven nature of review concerning a variety of federal agencies involved in security matters. There have been concerns about the extent of independent review of the RCMP and CSEC, and the absence of independent review of such important agencies as CBSA, Transport Canada, DFAIT, CIC, and 20-odd other federal agencies, not to mention provincial and municipal police forces involved in security intelligence work.

Whether we need to adopt a federal security czar to supervise, monitor, and coordinate security agencies, as is done in the U.S., or to develop a super-SIRC with expanded powers of review and accompanying budget, or to have statutory gateways to achieve accountability, as recommended by the O'Connor report in 2006, this is an issue that cannot be left aside as Parliament gallops ahead on Bill C-51.

This is not a question of oversight, which has become misused as a term. Responsibility for the planning and conduct of anti-terrorist activities in accordance with the law remains, in the first instance, subject to ministerial approval and approval of warrants by judges based on court applications submitted by appropriate agencies under the detailed requirements of the relevant legislation. This is oversight. Review bodies do not approve operations in advance, but they do ensure accountability after the event, to ensure that hopefully all agencies exercising security functions are effective and operate within the law. They engage the public through exhaustive annual reports tabled in Parliament with a minimum of redactions, redactions that are necessary for protecting individuals or methods of operation.

Let me conclude by talking about parliamentary overview. What are the responsibilities of Parliament other than to ensure that Bill C-51 is improved to allow the legislation to go forward and to assist government agencies to deal effectively with the terrorist threat while protecting fundamental rights and freedoms under the charter?

Members, I have been both a parliamentarian and a watchdog, a professional watchdog. The answer to whether Parliament or a specialized agency should have the power to review our security agencies is easy for me. Canadians should have both. Under our system of government, Parliament is the ultimate watchdog and is directly accountable to the people. The party having the most number of seats at each general election usually is called on to form the government, but Parliament itself remains the watchdog.

There is nothing inconsistent in having specialized security-cleared watchdogs created by Parliament covering the effectiveness and legality of various agencies involved in security work and having a committee of security-cleared parliamentarians charged to oversee the whole system—that is, to take a prompt overview of the situation when problems occur, which they inevitably will in this business, and to delegate the investigative responsibility to the appropriate specialized watchdog.

Indeed, there are three bills currently before Parliament calling for a committee of parliamentarians on national security. The one I like the best is Bill S-220, introduced by former Conservative Senator Hugh Segal. It calls for a committee of nine—three from the Senate, six from the House—to be appointed by the government but after consultation with opposition parties and approval of the appointment by a resolution of their respective houses.

There are provisions for appropriate security and confidentiality of each member of those committees, and the mandate would be to review the legislative regulatory policy and administrative framework for the intelligence and national security in Canada.

9:20 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp

Mr. Atkey, could you wind up, please?

9:20 a.m.

Adjunct Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, As an Individual

Ron Atkey

I will.

Why not absorb Bill S-220 into this discussion and provide for it to come into force on January 1, 2016? In this way, I think Parliament could fulfill its position as an effective watchdog, and you could have a five-year review process in place for this bill, which would start four years after the bill becomes law so the review could be effective, and Parliament could have a major role in the operation.

Thank you.

9:20 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp

Thank you very much, Mr. Atkey, and thank you to our witnesses for their comments.

We will now go to the rounds of questioning.

We will start off the first round of seven minutes, and we will go to Mr. Norlock, please.

9:20 a.m.

Conservative

Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and through you to the witnesses. Thank you for attending today.

My first line of questioning will go to the BC Civil Liberties Association. Your website, like you, describes Bill C-51 as unnecessary. It goes on to articulate that your group thinks it is unfair. One of the elements of the bill that is attacked is the issue of preventative arrest. This is an item that national security experts and law enforcement officials have stated will be of enormous value in a number of cases, so it has a high benefit in terms of preventative law and a low cost, as it applies to a limited number of individuals.

Furthermore, I understand that the preventative arrest provisions in some allied nations, also thriving democracies, go much further than what we have proposed in this bill.

That said, it is difficult to fathom a case in which preventative arrests are not useful tools for protecting the public. We have heard that radicalization happens faster than we have ever seen in the past. One just has to watch the evening news over the past, I'd say, month and a half to two months to see that happening, not only in Canada but in many other nations.

We have also heard that investigations are labour-intensive and that Canada and its allies are dealing with unprecedented numbers of citizens leaving their borders to commit terrorist acts abroad. Also, sadly, some of them, and many more, have expressed a desire to turn on their country of birth.

In that context, one says, “Could you really imagine a world in which a weekend in jail would prevent an act of terror and give the government precious extra days to make a criminal case and save Canadian lives?”

It's also curious to see the concerns of some civil libertarians with an angle like this. We say preventative arrest will be used only on terrorist subjects. Prior to preventative detention, the threshold will still be robust, because it will require reasonable grounds to believe that an attack may be carried out and that the detention is likely to prevent such an attack.

No innocent bystander would be caught up in this threshold. An officer must present hard evidence to demonstrate that this threshold is met and that the person in question is a threat to society. Then, the Attorney General must agree and consent to the preventative arrest. The arrestee must be taken before a provincial court judge then....

9:25 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp

There is a point of order.

Yes, go ahead, Mr. Garrison.

9:25 a.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

It sounds more like Mr. Norlock is testifying than asking questions of our witnesses.

9:25 a.m.

Conservative

Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON

Mr. Chair, I am entitled to make a comment and ask a question, but sometimes a question needs to have a certain amount of information before it is asked.

The member just interrupted me so that he could interrupt me. It has no bearing, and he knows that. His point of order is out of order.