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.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Mr. Payne, I'm sorry, but we are out of time, sir. I'm sorry. You're just getting started, I realize, but our first hour of testimony has expired. Certainly, I'd like to express regrets that we all haven't had an opportunity—
Point of order, Mr. Easter.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Yes, Mr. Chair, one of the parties in this lineup hasn't had the opportunity to question the witnesses. That's really problematic.
I understand that we're out of the first hour, but if the hearing process is going to eliminate the ability of one of the parties to raise questions, then we have a severe problem.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you very much.
Do you have another point of order, Ms. James, or are you speaking to the same point of order?
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Thank you. I was just going to suggest that we limit the opening remarks, and instead of having them up to a maximum of 10 minutes, we perhaps reduce them to 7 or 8 minutes in order to accommodate the third party.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Okay. I understand Mr. Easter's point, and it is a valid point. No one wants to be excluded from having an opportunity to question.
There were two problems. One, of course, was that we had the point of order first by Mr. Easter, which took some significant time away from the opportunity. However, that aside, I think that in all fairness what the chair is prepared to do at this particular point is to suggest that when our next witnesses come forward, I will encourage them to keep it as short as possible, then take a look at the time that is left after that and spread it equally among the four parties, the four original first-round people.
That is the chair's decision as to where he is going to go on this issue. The questioners might get seven minutes and the questioners might get five minutes, depending on the time that is left, but at least our first full rounds of questioners will be available so that each party will certainly have their opportunity.
I would like to move on to our next witnesses. If you have a point of order, state it prior to that, but right now the chair would like to suspend. Is it on this point?
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
This is exactly the concern we raised with the government when we were setting the number of witnesses. We objected very strongly to having three witnesses per panel because of exactly this problem.
When we've invited people here to give their testimony, we're now going to cut them short, and we're going to cut the questioning short. I want it very clear on the record that this is a result of the government's insistence on having three witnesses per panel instead of two witnesses per panel, as we thought would be appropriate.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you very much. The chair will just simply not respond accordingly, other than the fact that it has been the practice of this committee on most occasions to have up to three witnesses...so this is certainly not an exception. It has been normally the rule.
The chair would like to move on. We have other witnesses to hear. Unless there is a point of order on the same point, the chair is willing to rule.
Yes, Ms. James.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The guidelines that are set out for this committee, which the entire committee as a whole agreed upon, basically scheduled the time for questions to be the first round at seven minutes for the Conservatives, seven minutes for the NDP, seven minutes for the Conservatives, and so forth. It goes in that rotation.
I would like to request that we stick to those original guidelines, as we've done in the past when we've had three witnesses, which is the standard practice of this committee. It's to have three witnesses per hour. That's nothing new. It's what was agreed upon. That we just reduce the length of the opening remarks to seven or eight minutes would certainly accommodate the ability for the third party, the lone Liberal individual, to have a chance to ask some questions.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
The chair will do what he can do to try to provide some balance here.
We will now suspend to bring in our next witnesses and thank our witnesses for coming here. Your appearance is very much appreciated.
Thank you very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Okay, colleagues, we will resume and welcome our three witnesses for the second hour.
We have with us Paul Champ, counsel from the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group. As an individual, we have Barry Cooper, professor of political science, University of Calgary. And we have, from the Assembly of First Nations, National Chief Perry Bellegarde.
Welcome all.
Gentlemen, we are running tight on time. I recognize that we cannot ask you to change your opening remarks. That would not necessarily be fair, given that you haven't been told. In the future this committee could perhaps suggest reducing the length of opening remarks, but at this particular point, all I would ask is your courtesy in trying to make them as brief as possible.
As the chair has mentioned, the round of questioning for the first round will be split accordingly.
We will start off with Mr. Champ. You have the floor, sir, for up to 10 minutes, but preferably significantly shorter.
Paul Champ Counsel, International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. Clerk, and honourable committee members, for the privilege of this invitation.
I'm appearing on behalf of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, which is a pan-Canadian coalition of over 40 NGOs, faith groups, and trade unions. It's been involved in national security and civil liberties issues since 2002. Personally I'm a human rights lawyer and I've been involved in many national security cases in which civil liberties and human rights have been violated, so I have quite a bit of background in this area.
I'm going to touch on three issues, three bells. I'm going to speak to the information sharing bill; the no-fly regime; and the expanded powers for CSIS, that is, the powers that will allow the secret authorization for CSIS to violate fundamental human rights of Canadians.
We'll also provide a written brief in which we go into more detail on these points we're making, obviously with the footnotes and references, which are always great to have. I'm just going to try to hit the high points for you this morning.
First, with regard to the security of Canada information sharing act, from our perspective there are two novel features. The first is the expanded definition of the security of Canada. This is a new definition that is unprecedented in our legislation. What we have right now for the security of Canada is in section 2 of the CSIS Act, and that is then incorporated into about 10 other statutes. In Canada we refer back to the definition in the CSIS Act, and what has been truly surprising for many critics looking at this bill is trying to understand why the definition of the security of Canada has been expanded. If the point is to capture terrorism, it is captured by the CSIS Act's definition. This bill has nine enumerated activities, and terrorism is only one of those. So if the true target of the bill is terrorism, why are we expanding the definition? With great respect, I heard the minister's testimony the other day when he said it's not meant to capture advocacy and dissent. If that's the case, then why change the definition? The definition of threats to the security of Canada as it appears in the CSIS Act was more than adequate and included things like serious acts of violence, attempts to violently overthrow the government, and espionage. That has been the definition in Canadian law for over 30 years, so why change it now?
The second point we have with regard to the security of Canada act is that it is dropping the walls around privacy across government, and it gives a mandate to government officials in all of these departments to basically spy on Canadians. If you look at clause 5 of this bill, it is asking all government departments to act and to try to prevent, detect, identify, and disrupt activities. These are going to be government officials who don't have experience in law enforcement, or security intelligence. What does a tax auditor know about disrupting terrorism? That's what this bill is doing. It's turning all government employees into spies, and it's going to facilitate the creation of secret files on Canadians because someone feels that a person's lifestyle or opinions or travels are suspicious. There are harms and risks associated with information sharing. Information sharing is such a benign phrase, and I can tell you when I first encountered it as a lawyer I thought what's the big deal? I have encountered many cases and have acted on behalf of individuals whose lives have been devastated because of improper and erroneous information sharing by Canadian government officials. It can have devastating consequences. We've had two public inquiries in the last ten years in Canada dealing with four Canadians who were brutally tortured by foreign officials based on erroneous information sharing by Canadian officials. That's not my opinion; those are findings by two public inquiries paid for by Canadians.
Just last week, committee members, I settled a case with the Government of Canada on behalf of an Algerian refugee and aerospace engineer who spent five years wrongfully imprisoned in the United States and seriously abused as a 9/11 suspect because of the sharing of erroneous information by Canadian government officials. Last week the Canadian Government finally righted that wrong and settled with my client. Those are the kinds of consequences that are associated with information sharing. When you don't have proper controls and regulation over information sharing, it can have devastating consequences on individuals. The O'Connor inquiry involving Maher Arar had excellent recommendations with regard to that and said that we have to have controls and filters to ensure that information is relevant and reliable before it is shared. We don't have those safeguards in this bill.
The secure air travel act is the no-fly regime. The client that I act for, the International Civil Liberties Monitoring group, has been one of the most active groups in studying the no-fly list since it was first introduced in Canada in 2007. We know that in 2007 there were over 2,000 Canadians on the Canadian no-fly list that was announced by the government. Ever since, the International Civil Liberties Monitoring group has been asking the government and Transport Canada repeatedly how many Canadians are on that list, just the number. The government has repeatedly refused to provide that number, and I think if this committee is going to seriously consider this bill you should be asking government officials to at least tell you how many people are on that list right now. How many Canadians' rights are being put at risk because of this bill and why are they refusing to tell Canadians? That's an answer that you need.
What I can tell you about the existing regime is that in 2007 all privacy commissioners in Canada, not just the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, issued a joint resolution saying that the current passenger protect no-fly regime was too opaque and violated the privacy rights of Canadians.
In 2008 the Privacy Commissioner of Canada issued a report that Transport Canada had provided "no evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of no-fly lists despite her repeated requests for such information”. Those comments are more valid today than ever. This regime has been in place for eight years and we have no information about its effectiveness, about how many people are implicated, and why we need to expand it today.
The problem with the no-fly regime as it exists, and as it will be in this Secure Air Travel Act, is that there is no due process protections whatsoever. You don't get any notice when you are put on the list. Once you do find out, you can't challenge the evidence. It's completely secret and you don't have the right to see or challenge the evidence.
This regime as it currently stands was already found in 2008 by the Office of Reconsideration, a review body this government created to review listing regimes. That body decided and ruled in 2008 that it violates section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Transport Canada has ignored that finding, and as of yet no Canadian court has considered it. I can tell you, as a constitutional lawyer, I'm quite confident it will be struck down. I can tell you that last year in 2014 the U.S. courts found that the U.S. no-fly regime violated the 5th amendment of their constitution, which is the equivalent of our section 7 of the charter. Why are we doubling down now and enhancing and expanding this unconstitutional power that violates Canadians' rights?
The final issue is the CSIS Act, and the extraordinary expansion in the bill of CSIS' powers, allowing our spies to violate the fundamental human rights of Canadians. That's what it allows. It allows CSIS agents to violate charter rights or disrupt people's lives all in secret. The big thing about this part of the bill is that it's blurring the line fundamentally between law enforcement and security intelligence. It overrides the primary reason why CSIS was created in the first place. The agents in CSIS used to be part of the RCMP, and they were separated from the RCMP precisely for this reason, so that we would keep operational activities separate from security intelligence activities, because the overlap can endanger the civil liberties of Canadians. Why are we rolling back the clock? Why are we completely throwing out the very reason CSIS was created in the first place?
These powers have no real limits. The only limits in the act are that you can't cause death, you can't cause bodily harm, and you can't violate someone's sexual integrity. Everything else short of that is up to the imagination of CSIS agents. It could include detention. It could include secret sites of detention, the black sites the CIA had. That's technically authorized by this act. If we don't want to allow that, put detention in the bill. If it's not meant to allow that, put detention in the bill.
The final thing is that it's going to allow warrants—and Mr. Atkey testified before about how it creates problems with judicial independence. Here's one big thing I'll tell you that you may not hear from other witnesses: It relies on the candour and good faith of CSIS agents to put forth the proper information to those judges, because those warrant hearings are completely in secret. The judgements will be in secret, and we won't know.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Mr. Champ, I'm sorry, you've over time, sir.
Please respect the time commitments of the committee here. You're well over time now, and the chair's been extremely lenient.
We will now go to Mr. Cooper, please.
Barry Cooper Professor of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks for the invitation to appear before this committee on such an important matter.
It will be obvious enough that I'm not a lawyer. I'm a professor of political science at the University of Calgary. Among other things relevant to your deliberations, I've written a book on terrorism as a political religion, major reports on why we need a foreign intelligence service, on the RCMP, and on problems that democracies have in fighting small wars.
By and large I think Bill C-51 is a useful improvement to Canada's anti-terrorism legislation. I said so in a couple of newspaper columns and I won't repeat myself here. I have some critical and analytical remarks that I expect are more useful for your purposes than half-heartedly praising the government.
Let me begin by recalling that the Prime Minister introduced Bill C-51 in Richmond Hill last January with the words, “violent jihadism is not a human right, it's an act of war”. I think this is fundamentally accurate. We are in a different threat environment today than we have been previously. The problem of terrorism is not one of simply violent extremists as President Obama said, but chiefly of violent jihadis.
That being said, I recognize that, as in any law of general application, Bill C-51 has aroused the anxieties of Canadians concerned with peaceful and sometimes not-so-peaceful protests and how this activity will be treated under the provisions of this bill. However, the chief conflict I would say is not between the police and criminals. In order to understand the main threat to Canadian security, it's important to look first at how the opposition understand themselves, and they say they're at war.
In a study published last year by Clark McCauley and Sophie Moskalenko, the authors deal with the importance of the jihadi narrative, which they argued moves often isolated individuals from radical opinion to radical action.
Two things are important here. The first is a four-part jihadi narrative. First, Islam is under attack; second, jihadis are defending Islam; third, their actions, which we call terrorism, constitute religiously justified warfare; and fourth, the duty of Muslims is to support their actions. Second, about five percent of British Muslims, where this study was conducted, agree entirely with this narrative. Eighty percent agree with the first element that Islam is under attack, and the authors think that this is a low estimate.
I mention this at the outset because the liberties of Canadians are threatened a lot more by Islamic states than by CSIS or the RCMP. Bill C-51 contemplates changing CSIS into something more than a security intelligence service but less than a foreign intelligence service. Forcese and Roach, from whom you'll be hearing later, are both critics of Bill C-51 and call this a kinetic service, and that seems accurate enough.
For what it's worth, I support a dedicated foreign intelligence service with real spies dedicated to stealing secrets from other countries. This new CSIS may be a step down this road, but if so, it needs to eventually deal with the fundamental problem of catching spies or neutralizing threats that require an entirely different skill set than espionage and associated extra-legal or illegal operations.
Historically, the separation of spying and spy-catching has been the rule among democratic regimes because the operational focus and organizational culture of such operations are so different. What a newly kinetic CSIS will be like is not at all clear, which introduces the second problem that seems to me equally intractable. It's not possible—it's not possible—to harmonize the purpose of the police with that of security intelligence, though it may be possible to manage their incompatibilities.
Part 1 of Bill C-51 on information or intelligence sharing seems to address this tension between CSIS and the RCMP. Let me say that intelligence sharing is useful and even necessary, and part 1 is a good start.
That said, the underlying tension has not disappeared for the simple reason that intelligence and police organizations have distinct and sometimes conflicting purposes. Police want to arrest suspects and gain convictions in court. Intelligence organizations want to play suspects for additional intelligence. Police need to be scrupulous in following legally correct procedures of gathering evidence, for example, to ensure convictions. Intelligence operatives, who are not primarily interested in convictions, do not.
This tension cannot really be dissolved since it goes to the heart of these different kinds of organizations. How CSIS and the RCMP will ensure that disruptive or kinetic activities of the former do not also disrupt the criminal investigations of the latter is a problem. Personally, I would hope that CSIS intelligence gathering, except in emergencies, trumps their kinetic activity, which in turn trumps the RCMP. This is more or less what Bill C-44 proposes, I believe. If so, I'd say that it reflects the appropriate priorities of the two organizations.
One other thing I would mention deals with oversight and review. As with the distinct purposes of police and security services, there is a distinction to be made here as well. Where CSIS’s contemplated activities would violate the law, a Federal Court judge must pre-approve these with a warrant. This adds something to oversight by taking it outside the executive chain of command. I would reserve judgment as to whether we need additional oversight beyond search and surveillance warrants until we see how the proposed structure works. But how will we know how it works?
This is a matter not of oversight but of review, of after-action audits similar to what SIRC, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, is currently supposed to do with CSIS. I say “supposed to do” because, as I am sure you know, this review agency is underfunded and understaffed. Worse, if there is to be a whole-of-government approach to security and intelligence sharing, as contemplated by Bill C-51, and which, as I said, is a laudable objective, then there needs to be a whole-of-government approach to reviewing what the government agencies do.
Currently, for example, Canada Border Services Agency, which conducts both police and intelligence work, is not reviewed by anybody. This is bad bureaucratic practice, to say the least. I would suggest, therefore, an expansion of the SIRC model but, as is the case in the U.K. and Australia, I would add to the specialists and the technical officers, and people like Mr. Atkey, sitting MPs from both sides to the House. This seems to work fairly well in Australia, so far as I know. Obviously the MPs, like other SIRC members, would have to be sworn to secrecy.
I would point out two further things:
First, secrecy in the review of intelligence operations is as inevitable as it is in spying and conducting security intelligence. No country can conduct intelligence operations, whether defensive or offensive, in public. Second, Increasing oversight it not as important as increasing after-action reviews. The reason is that more oversight amounts to more interference with the executive in matters where intelligence activities are often time-sensitive. Furthermore, after-action reports will influence future expectations, which is a kind of internal oversight, by providing appraisals of how the various security services behave.
Bill C-51, in short, is a good first step but it can be improved.
Finally, thank you for your attention. I'd be happy to answer a few questions later if I can. I hope I've not said too much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Actually, you're well under time.
Thank you very much, Mr. Cooper.
We will now go to Chief Bellegarde. You have the floor, sir.
National Chief Perry Bellegarde National Chief, Assembly of First Nations
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Good morning to you and the honourable committee members. My name is Perry Bellegarde, and I'm Chief of the Assembly of First Nations.
Bill C-51 is the subject of a great deal of commentary and controversy. First nations have a long history in this country of dealing with laws that threaten our rights, so we are always on guard against any legislation that could affect our rights, our citizens, and our traditional territories. The key issues at stake in Bill C-51 are the state's power to place individuals or groups under surveillance, to monitor their everyday activities, to create criminal offences that affect our ability to exercise our legally recognized rights, and the overall relationship of state power to fundamental human and indigenous rights.
On these issues, first nations have expertise and hard experience to offer this committee, the government, and Canadians as a whole. First nations people are often forced to take a stand against actions or initiatives by governments that refuse to respect or protect our rights. These activities are often deemed protests when in fact we are only calling on Canada to obey its own laws, which include the recognition and affirmation of inherent aboriginal rights and treaties in Canada's own Constitution.
At the core of this discussion for first nations is the unfinished business of balancing federal and provincial laws and authorities with the inherent jurisdiction and sovereignty of first nations. At its core, this discussion is about reconciliation, reconciling Canada's claims to sovereignty with our pre-existing rights, title and jurisdiction, and Canada's ongoing treaty obligations. We need to finish that work. It's the way forward. But until we do, first nations as individuals and as nations will assert our fundamental civil and political rights. We've had to do this many times in the past in the face of a history of imposed oppressive laws, laws that we are always told are good for us and good for Canada, but were in fact outright attacks on our identity and our rights.
We have suffered under laws that banned our cultural and spiritual practices, laws that denied our right to vote, laws that prevented us from going to court to fight for our rights, laws that gave the state the power to steal our children and assault their minds and bodies to try to kill our languages and traditions. We have been subjects of surveillance and suspicion, and seen as a threat for as long as this country has existed. Why? Because our cultures, values, and laws place a priority on protecting the lands and waters, and they place primacy on sharing and sustainability. Canada knows that our existence as peoples and nations qualifies and calls into question its claims to absolute sovereignty. But our people survived and prevailed over all the assaults against us because our ancestors and elders stood up for our people and our rights.
This generation is not going to forsake our ability to protect our lands and territories and rights that has ensured our survival. We will continue to assert our inherent sovereignty and sacred responsibility to protect the land and the waters. We have the right to be decision-makers in any activities that affect our lands and territories. Our laws and legal traditions embrace a balanced view of security, development, environmental protection, and fundamental rights. We have deep and strongly held traditions that respect individual autonomy, freedom of speech, and how to balance these for the collective good. Canada can learn from this.
That is the history and perspective we bring to this bill. We believe in the right to safety and security, but the federal government's rush to ram this legislation through is undemocratic, and it violates our individual and collective rights.
We have many concerns with this legislation. First, the proposed security of Canada information sharing act sets out an overly broad definition of “activity that undermines the security of Canada”. We see this as a euphemism for an excuse to spy on first nations when they exercise their collective and individual rights. Our people could find themselves under increasing surveillance because of the broad, vague concepts and activities covered by this phrase. It clearly goes way beyond the current Criminal Code definition of terrorist activity. The “for greater certainty” clause that excludes lawful advocacy, protest, dissent, and artistic expression is not adequate to deal with the complexities of the ongoing task of reconciling first nations law and jurisdiction with Canada's asserted sovereignty.
This government often invokes the rule of law. We would like some rule of law that respects our constitutionally protected rights and our fundamental human rights.
The days are gone when absolute parliamentary supremacy trumped human rights and first nations' rights, but we still see this government struggling to accept the Constitution Act, 1982, both part I, the charter, and part II, which recognizes and affirms our treaty and aboriginal rights. Both sets of rights are at stake in Bill C-51.
First nations maintain that Bill C-51 will infringe on our freedom of speech and assembly; our right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure; our right to liberty; our fundamental right as peoples under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982; our treaty rights; and our right to self-determination.
Our right to self-determination, recognized in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, includes the right to protect and make decisions about activities and laws affecting our lands and waters. But there is a balance between rights and security, and we can find it through dialogue with one another as nations.
Unfortunately the process for developing this legislation did not meet the federal government's duty to consult and accommodate, and on that point alone it is subject to challenge in the courts if the government tries to impose it on us.
Bill C-51 sets up conditions for conflict by creating conditions where our people will be labelled as threats—threats to critical infrastructure or the economic stability of Canada—when asserting their individual or collective rights as first nations citizens. This is not an abstract argument for our people. We've been labelled as terrorists when we stand up for our rights and our lands and our waters. We can see how first nations have been lumped in with terrorists and violent extremists when they are asserting their fundamental rights and jurisdiction, as in the recently leaked RCMP memo entitled “Criminal Threats to the Canadian Petroleum Industry”. I'll be submitting this report as part of this presentation.
First nations have an unmatched record as peaceful peoples in the face of the most appalling human rights abuses, which is particularly exceptional when we remember the unrelenting assaults on our values, laws, jurisdiction, and fundamental human rights. We are peace-loving peoples, but we will push back against assault on our most basic liberties. We stand with the many other Canadians who are not willing to forfeit their fundamental rights and freedoms who are demanding that this government engage in more careful crafting of important legislation. Canada must do better and must do more to meet its constitutional and treaty responsibilities to first nations.
I leave you with a statement directed not just to this committee, but to all Canadians.
First nations know better than anyone how easy it is for government to ignore, erode, and eradicate our most basic human rights and freedoms until you barely recognize the land you're living in. First nations deserve better; Canadians deserve better. We cannot turn our backs on our hard-won human rights and we cannot turn our backs on the indigenous rights, treaties, and title on which this country was founded. We can do better and we must do better. First nations will vigorously oppose any legislation that does not respect and protect our rights. First nations will stand up for the rights of our people and our responsibilities to our traditional territories.
We make the following recommendations: first, that the government withdraw the bill and consult properly with first nations about its impact on our rights; second, that the government discuss with first nations options for a review process to examine all federal legislation that can impact the assertion of our section 35 rights.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you very much, Chief.
We will go to our rounds of questioning for five and a half minutes each.
We will go to Ms. Ablonczy, please.
Conservative
Diane Ablonczy Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses, who have obviously put a great deal of thought into sharing their concerns and perspectives.
I have been and am doing quite a bit of reading to gain a deeper understanding of exactly why we are bringing forward this bill and the concerns that animate it. I read a very interesting article that I recommend, called “What ISIS Really Wants”, in the March edition of The Atlantic. It's by Graeme Wood.
I've also read an interesting article from the The New York Times called “The Education of 'Jihadi John'”. This article says that Jihadi John—and I think that most know who he is from watching the news—was a computer science graduate from the University of Westminster. He says:
In fact, academic institutions in Britain have been infiltrated for years by dangerous theocratic fantasists. I should know: I was one of them.
The writer of the article says that his recruiter came straight out of a London medical college. He says:
While such institutions must guard free speech, they should also be vigilant to ensure that speakers are not given unchallenged platforms to promote their toxic message to a vulnerable audience.
He ends by saying:
Until we confront this seeming legitimacy of Islamist discourse at the grass roots, we will not stop the scourge of radicalization.
I ask you, Mr. Cooper, as someone in the academic world who has done a great deal of study, whether this is a concern not just in Britain, but also in Canada.
Professor of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Well, yes. Thank you.
First of all, I'd like to say it's somewhat gratifying to see that other than academics are concerned with the problem of politicized religions, and to see papers like that one in The Atlantic or in The New York Times is something of a novelty.
For those of us who have been looking at the sources of terrorism, the recent waves of terrorism, most of the analogies are made with medieval, apocalyptic movements that believed they were going to transform the entire world by introducing, basically, new realities that were taken from the Book of Revelation. In the Islamic world there are equivalent symbolisms to what we're probably more familiar with.
That Atlantic article, I thought, was actually quite accurate. It's also something that many of the more radicalized Salafist Muslims think they can actually bring about. They can bring about the Mahdi coming out of what is now Afghanistan and Iran to undertake a final Armageddon-like battle, in all places, in Jerusalem, where Jesus is going to help them. These are exactly millennial fantasies in our common-sense world, but they motivate many of these people. It's something that academics have known for a long time, and it's really quite gratifying to see this making it into wider media distribution.
Conservative
Diane Ablonczy Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
While we are confronting this threat, clearly we need to do so in a prudent and measured way, one that respects Canadian values and freedoms. Mr. Champ and Chief Bellegarde have mentioned some concerns. Chief Bellegarde said, and I think it's understandable, that he and his organization want to be on guard to protect rights and freedoms for first nations, and I hope for all Canadians.
The minister was asked about this in committee earlier this week, and he said that this draft act “clearly states that the definition of activity that undermines the security of Canada does not include lawful advocacy, protest, dissent or advocacy expression.” He said it has to undermine the security of Canada. He also said that “lawful intent” is intended to be read narrowly, which it is already in RCMP activities.
I notice, Professor Cooper, that you've written about this issue of undermining the security of Canada. I think it would be helpful, in light of concerns that have been expressed, what your understanding is of what it would take to meet the test of “undermining the security of Canada”.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Sorry, Ms. Ablonczy, we'd love to hear the response on that, but we are over our time.
We will go now to our next questioner. Perhaps in the next round of questions, Mr. Cooper, you would have that opportunity.
At this particular point now we will go to Ms. Ashton, please.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank National Chief Bellegarde for joining us today and sharing his powerful presentation. I'm sorry that there wasn't more time to hear your responses to my Conservative colleagues' questions across the way.
National Chief Bellegarde, you are the first indigenous witness, and as the national chief you speak on behalf of many across this country on what Bill C-51 will do to indigenous peoples and indigenous communities.
I have a few short questions, and given our restricted time I do want to ask you this first. Does Bill C-51 pose a threat to section 35 rights?
National Chief, Assembly of First Nations
National Chief Perry Bellegarde
Yes, it does. I outlined earlier that there's a duty to consult and accommodate when the crown is to propose any law that would affect section 35 rights. Again, there's an obligation. It's been proven as well in Mikisew Cree Chief Courtoreille's case, which he won, that when any bill is developed, notice has to be given and there has to be a proper opportunity for responses to that bill. That didn't happen in this case, so I pointed out in my presentation that there will be legal challenges because of that.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Thank you.
Second, you referred to this in your speech, but I'm wondering if you could elaborate on it. According to you, does Bill C-51 seek to criminalize dissent, indigenous dissent, and the expression of indigenous peoples of their rights and of their title?