Bonsoir. I'd like to thank the committee for allowing me to appear.
In over 200 pages of legal analysis, Professor Forcese and I have examined the effects, including unintended ones, of Bill C-51 on both security and rights. Security and rights go hand in hand both in our democracy and in legal analysis of the proportionality of the proposed measures. We are doing our best to improve the bill in light of both rights concerns and security rationale offered by the government. A short summary of our proposed amendments will in due course be translated and be available to the committee.
Starting with part 1, like the Arar commission, we recognize the need for information sharing to help prevent terrorism. Part 1, however, goes far, far beyond that legitimate goal. It introduces the novel concept of activities that undermine the security of Canada. That concept is quite simply the broadest definition of national security we have ever seen. We do not understand why it cannot be replaced with section 2 of the CSIS Act as it defines threats to the security of Canada. If implemented, this concept risks drowning 17 designated recipient institutions in not just information about terrorism but information about illegal protests by diaspora groups that could undermine the security of perhaps repressive states and illegal protests by aboriginal and separatist groups who threaten Canada's territorial integrity.
Canada prides itself on being perhaps the only country in the world that democratically debates secession. We should not be a country that shares total and secret information about peaceful protestors. The government's defence of the limited exemption for lawful protest is contrary to the prior experience that led Parliament to delete that very same word “lawful” from the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act. If, in the few months after the disaster and tragedy of 9/11, we could see our way to tolerate peaceful protest, I do not understand why we can't do the same today.
I would also say the over-breadth of part 1 not only threatens rights; it threatens security. If everything is a security matter, effectively, nothing is. Clause 6 of part 1, which authorizes the further sharing of information to any person for any purpose, should be deleted because it forgets the hard lessons we should have learned from the story of Maher Arar and other Canadians tortured in Syria in part because of Canadian information. We support the codification of the no-fly list but we are concerned that special advocates must be able to challenge the secret intelligence that lies behind the listing process.
We share the concerns of a group of special advocates that part 5 of Bill C-51 will reduce the disclosure of secret information to those security-cleared counsel and make it more difficult for them to do their important and indeed constitutionally required job of challenging secret evidence. We note that there is no judicial review of part 1 and we note, as the Privacy Commissioner has noted, that 14 out of the 17 recipient agencies have no review, and the other three have outdated stovepipe review. We recommend the enactment of a super-SIRC or at least the Arar commission's recommendation.
Independent review should not be seen as the enemy of security and it should not be seen as the enemy of those in our security agencies who do the important and difficult work that they do. We should all understand that we will do better work if we are reviewed and, if warranted and necessary, criticized by others. The review bodies also help security agencies because they protect them against unwarranted criticism.
Next, in our view, the new advocacy of terrorism offence is not necessary. Existing offences, including section 83.22 on instruction are, in our view, sufficient. If Parliament proceeds with this offence, there should at least be defences for legitimate expression and higher fault requirements. Again, though, our concern with this offence is not narrowly on rights, it is also on security. We worry that this offence will not only chill expression but make it more difficult to work with extremists who may be radicalized into violent extremism.
We note that the U.K. legislation passed just a few weeks ago provides a statutory basis for anti-radicalization programs, which are very important given the current threat environment, but Bill C-51 does not.
Finally, I want to end on another security issue. Part 1 allows for information sharing about illegal protests, which are irritating to some, but in our view not a pressing security concern. At the same time, it ignores the Air India commission's recommendation 10 that there must be mandatory information sharing by CSIS about terrorism offences. Lest you think the Air India commission was idiosyncratic, Senator Segal's committee made the very same recommendation in the Senate in 2011.
We support Parliament's decision in 2013 to add four new terrorism foreign-fighter offences. Indeed, they place Canada in front of the curve on this new security threat. Now, Bill C-51, combined with Bill C-44, would likely make it more, not less, difficult to apply these offences. Why?
CSIS will unilaterally be able to extend privileges to its human sources, contrary to the Air India commission's recommendation, and CSIS will still unilaterally be able to withhold information about terrorism offences from the police, again contrary to the Air India recommendations.
These concerns and others suggest, in our view, that the omnibus legislation, which adds two new acts and amends 15 others, should be subject to a three-year review by a parliamentary committee. Those parliamentarians should have access to secret information, because having worked on both the Arar commission and the Air India commission, I can tell you that without access to secret information you are flying blind. There should be a four-year sunset of this entire legislation to allow for, hopefully, an informed and meaningful discussion of its necessity and proportionality in light of evolving security threats and rights concerns.
Thank you very much for your attention.