Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Throughout recent post-war history, rapidly drafted and on occasion knee-jerk new laws, or quickly deployed old laws during times of apparent or possible emergency are often flawed. This is not because of any inappropriate intent by the government of the day, but a rush to engage because of apprehended risk, be it one of terrorism or insurrection. This approach often produces robust court challenges.
The worst of these events in recent past was the deployment of the War Measures Act by the Trudeau administration in October 1970. Hundreds of Quebeckers were arrested and held in custody for many days. The core principles of Magna Carta, habeas corpus, were tossed aside. This was the worst violation of Canadian civil liberties in the post-war era. Nothing we have seen since in any way compares. None of the risks associated with this bill in any way compares to what happened in 1970.
My concerns, and that of what was then the Special Senate Committee on Anti-Terrorism in 2011, about the absence in Canada, as compared to key NATO allies—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy—of any legislative oversight capacity, predates by several years the provisions of the bill before you.
Nothing in Bill C-51 has changed my own personal view on the need for oversight and nothing in the bill makes that requirement more pressing.
Accountability on the part of our security services to the whole of Parliament is not needless red tape or excessive bureaucracy. In fact, it is the democratic countervail to the kind of red tape and bureaucracy which might unwittingly lose sight of the security mission appropriate to a parliamentary democracy, where laws and constitutional protections such as the presumption of innocence and due process must protect all citizens without regard to ethnicity or national origin.
In the spirit of breaking down silos and maximizing the efficiency of prophylactic data sharing to prevent bad things from happening before they happen, and in the spirit of Mr. Justice Major's report on the Air India tragedy, the special Senate committee recommended that CSIS be allowed to lawfully disrupt terrorist plans or conspiracies. That was a bipartisan recommendation.
The term “lawfully” did not reflect any view on the part of the special committee that interruptions could operate outside the provisions and protections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Any provisions that seek to obviate the charter would likely be struck down by the courts in any event.
When the government of Prime Minister Chrétien brought in anti-terror legislation after the horrors of 9/11, its promoters, including ministers and senior bureaucrats, in the best of faith believed the law to be charter-proof. When the legislation was renewed, members of all parties on the Senate committee on anti-terrorism spent many meetings considering and putting into effect those amendments necessitated by a series of court decisions in order to bring the law into line with the Canadian Constitution. The law was far from charter-proof.
I have little doubt that whatever decisions this distinguished committee may choose to make about amendments or the lack of same, within a short period of time will see us finding another committee doing the same sort of constitutionally-driven and court-ordered refurbishment of the legislation before you, should it pass.
My general view of the law before you, despite some excesses and slightly overwrought provisions, is that it is a law that is, on balance, helpful and appropriate, given the new technologies, recruiting strategies, and asymmetric threats which form the basis of new threats to national security in Canada and other open society, non-police state democracies.
I wish to offer one very respectful, considered word of caution about the important work before you. Attempts to keep Canadians safe, the number one job of any government, should not include provisions that make us resemble those we are struggling to defeat.