Evidence of meeting #62 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site.) The winning word was chair.
A video is available from Parliament.
Director and General Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
It would ensure that section 83.3 recognizances and the new terrorism peace bonds and section 810.011 would apply to youth under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, and that applications would be heard in youth court.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Sorry, I'm just being advised that the section is here. Thank you very much.
I see the existing section does contain provisions for recognizance and so those would be dealt with in youth court. I'm less concerned about that than I was at the beginning.
Thank you for your assistance.
Thank you to our analysts.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you. We will now go to the vote on clause 32.
(Clause 32 agreed to)
(Clauses 33 to 39 inclusive agreed to)
Now we go to NDP-15 and its proposed new clause 39.1. You can certainly move it, but I think you do understand that it will be inadmissible. You're capable of moving, should you wish, Mr. Garrison. It's inadmissible under the parent act, with the effect in the Criminal Code on that.
If you wish to introduce it and say something, you can.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Some of your advice has thrown me.
I would like to introduce the amendment. It's one of four amendments here that attempt to restore the office of inspector general in CSIS, which was eliminated by this government in 2012. It was one of the primary internal oversight mechanisms available both to the minister and also indirectly therefore to Parliament for making sure the activities of CSIS were conducted always in a lawful manner.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you very much.
I have of course counsel from the legislative clerk, and I will just refer to it, Mr. Garrison. The amendment proposes to modify section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Services Act. As House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, states on pages 766 to 767 “...an amendment is inadmissible if it proposes to amend a statute that is not before the committee or a section of the parent Act, unless the latter is specifically amended by a clause of the bill.”
In this case, since section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Act is not being amended by Bill C-51, it is therefore the opinion of the chair that the amendment is inadmissible.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
I expected not, but a lot of witnesses called for an inspector general so I wanted to put it on the record.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
We will now go to Green Party 37 and its proposed new clause 39.1. We have a similar situation.
You have the floor, Ms. May.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This amendment is one that was recommended by Professors Forcese and Roach. This is in relation to recommendations that have been received by the Security Intelligence Review Committee.
The recommendation I want to quote from is from Professors Forcese and Roach:
The most problematic part of paragraph 2(b) is the phrase 'detrimental to the interests of Canada'. It is not found in any other Canadian enactment. It is almost wholly subjective: no criteria are provided to offer any standard for determining what is 'detrimental'...this is hardly the kind of broad discretion that Parliament wished to grant to a security service which was required to maintain the principle of a 'delicate balance' between the need to acquire information and an individual's right to privacy.
The precise meaning of the term “clandestine” is not certain and merely secret activities could be interpreted as clandestine.
They concluded that “Although this formulation of paragraph 2(b) is narrower, we believe that it will provide an adequate mandate for the Service.” This is where I'm going, in making this recommendation to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act by suggesting that “foreign directed activities within or directly relating to Canada that are detrimental to the interests of Canada and are surreptitious or deceptive or involve a serious threat to any person”.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you very much, but as the chair indicated earlier, this is inadmissible. It follows my previous statement regarding Mr. Garrison's amendment, that section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Act is not being amended by Bill C-51. Therefore, it is the opinion of the chair that this amendment is inadmissible.
Now we have two clauses, 40 and 41.
Can we deal with them together, Mr. Garrison and Mr. Easter?
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Green Party amendment number 38 will also be inadmissible, Ms. May, but I will read you the ruling from the legislative clerk in a bit. But you have the opportunity, first of all, to introduce it very briefly.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to at least speak to why we've tried to move this.
This is an attempt to delete all those sections that change the fundamental role that has existed for CSIS since 1984, being an intelligence gathering operation, and to move them to having so-called kinetic powers to be able to take actions to disrupt.
We'd prefer they notify the RCMP and for the RCMP to do the disrupting.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you very much, but of course the ruling follows House of Commons Procedure and Practice, , second edition, where it states “An amendment that attempts to delete an entire clause is out of order, since voting against the adoption of the clause in question would have the same effect.” So the amendment is inadmissible.
Now we will go to Green Party amendment number 39.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In this amendment we're attempting to replace lines as opposed to deleting them. They again relate to the kinetic powers, but this time rather than deleting them, we are trying to restrict them so the possible activities that could be classified as threats to the security of Canada, using the definition in this section of the CSIS Act. I submit that these amendments, while I'd prefer to eliminate them altogether, would provide some narrowing of the potential for CSIS agents using kinetic powers.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
I believe this amendment is not consistent with the intent of the bill, which is to give CSIS an effective mandate to reduce all threats to the security of Canada as defined in the CSIS Act.
By limiting the scope of the threat reduction mandate, the amendment would greatly reduce the value of threat reduction as a national security tool. Although the focus of Bill C-51 is terrorism, the rationale for a threat reduction mandate applies equally to the full range of threats to the security of Canada as defined in the CSIS Act. Opportunities to reduce threats have been identified beyond terrorism, but CSIS, lacking the necessary threat reduction mandate, has been unable to take advantage of those opportunities. We need to advantage them, and therefore I am not in favour of this amendment.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I noted with interest that Ms. May said she would like to delete this entire section, and certainly at report stage we'll be asking to remove all of these disruption powers of CSIS.
The McDonald commission, which resulted in the setting up of CSIS many years ago, drew a very proper distinction between disruption activities as the purview of law enforcement, and the importance of separating that from intelligence collection, which I believe all of our allies do in separate organizations.
I don't think this is actually fixable by narrowing the scope, so unfortunately we won't be able to support Ms. May's amendment because we believe the whole thing needs to be taken out.
Conservative
Diane Ablonczy Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Mr. Chair, it is important to be clear about what the Green Party and now the NDP are proposing because if this amendment passed, CSIS could no longer take measures to reduce threats posed by foreign-influenced activities or by domestic subversion. We'd be taking away important tools from CSIS to deal with an evolving threat. I don't think this would make sense to very many Canadians.