Public Safety Committee on March 31st, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

The chair will rule this inadmissible under the parent act. The ruling is that “an amendment is inadmissible if it proposes to amend a statute that is not before the committee or a section of the parent Act”. And, of course, this is dealing with the Canadian Security Intelligence Act; that is why it is not admissible.

We now can do amendment NDP-20, Mr. Garrison.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, but I'm falling behind in my page turning.

Amendment NDP-20 would be the last of those amendments attempting to restore the inspector general's position. In the absence of the other two amendments, which you ruled out of order because they're beyond the scope, the remaining amendments really don't make sense in terms of trying to restore the inspector general. So, because of your earlier rulings, I am forced to withdraw the amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Garrison.

We will now go to amendment NDP-21.

(On clause 51)

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Well, Mr. Chair, I'm afraid we're on the same slippery ground, but we'll try this one again. We really needed the instruction from the House to deal with the question of scope of the bill for some of these to be in order.

One of our witnesses at committee, CIJA, made a very interesting suggestion, and we've tried to do as much of it as we could, thinking we'd stay within the scope of the bill. Their suggestion was to make the SIRC chair an officer of Parliament. Seeing that this would clearly have been ruled out of order, what we tried to do was to change the reporting of the SIRC chair from the minister to Parliament.

I await your ruling as to whether this is within the scope of the bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Changing the administration of it is in order, so the amendment is in order, Mr. Garrison.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

I knew, Mr. Chair, that if we tried to create, in a word-smithing—

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You're not missing. Your word-smithing has made it in order.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

—it would not have been in order.

What we're trying to do here is raise the status of SIRC and the visibility of its reports to the same level other officers of Parliament enjoy, and that's important when we're giving new powers, as we're doing in the case of CSIS. We're changing really fundamentally the role of CSIS, and so we would like to have those reports go directly to the House instead of through the minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I have a question to Mr. Garrison on this amendment.

Having changed where SIRC reports, as I understand the way it's worded here, there still wouldn't really be the oversight over all our security agencies that so many witnesses have asked for; it would still just be dealing with SIRC's ability to look at what CSIS does. Is that correct?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Easter, for the question.

Yes, we have the same problem with the scope of the bill. We would like very much to have had the SIRC chair become an officer of Parliament with responsibility over the other national security agencies through a sort of super-SIRC. But again, we run into problems with the scope of bill and rules here in the House and would not have been able to accomplish that under the purview of Bill C-51.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you, Mr. Easter and Mr. Garrison.

If there is no further discussion, we will call the vote.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

At this point, as we are moving on a little—we're getting a little close to the appointed ending time, but hope springs eternal—the chair is going to call a brief recess.

We will suspend for 10 minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

We are now back in session and at Green Party amendment 50.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thought we still had new clause 50.1 with NDP-19 and NDP-20, but maybe I'm mistaken.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

NDP-19 was inadmissible, and NDP-20 was withdrawn.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Sorry, Mr. Chair.

I'm happy to move to my amendment, which you'll find at the end of part 4, the very end. I attempt to augment the elements of the report. The report is already specified under clause 50 of part 4.

My amendment adds some additional specificity to what the report shall contain. “The number of warrants issued under section 21.1” is already listed. But this also includes “the number of renewals issued”; “the number of assistance orders issued”; “the number of requests for assistance” ordered; and “the nature of the measures authorized under section 21.1.”

The current language of the act allows for only the number of warrants, not the nature of the measures that were authorized. Certainly SIRC will find this of much greater use.

The report shall not contain any information the disclosure of which would

I won't read all the details, but it's would for other public policy or security reasons be inadvisable.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Ms. May.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 51 agreed to)

Now we will go to NDP-22.

Just for your information, Mr. Garrison, NDP amendments 22, 23, and 24 all fall under the same category, but you can certainly introduce each one in order, should you wish.

On NDP amendment 22.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

NDP amendments 22, 23, and 24 all attempt to improve information sharing among review agencies, as did the previous amendment, which was ruled beyond the scope of the bill. I fully expect to receive the same ruling on all three of these, which, again, is why we had moved the motion of instruction before the House earlier today, on which the debate was, unfortunately, adjourned without a decision. As far as I'm concerned, we can deal with all three at once.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you.

Of course, the draft ruling from the chair is the fact that they, on the counsel of the legislative clerk, are also all deemed to be inadmissible. NDP amendments 22, 23, and 24 are all inadmissible

Now we have clauses 52 and 53 we can deal with together, should you wish. Are we comfortable with that?

(Clauses 52 and 53 agreed to)

(On clause 54)

Now we will go to Green Party amendment 51.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is my first amendment dealing with part 5 of the bill. I think it's a fair statement, having sat through the committee hearings, that this was the least studied section as we went through the process of reviewing Bill C-51, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act section.

The changes in the language that are found in section 54, the insertion in relation to what the minister must file with the court in order to get a security certificate.... The new language is “that is relevant to the ground of inadmissibility stated in the certificate”.

It's very strange language. We've consulted with a number of special advocates who have found this to be essentially poor drafting. It's confusing. The words, “The ground of inadmissibility”, information “on which the certificate is based”, and “the case made by the Minister” are likely to lead to confusion for the court about what needs to be shared with special advocates.

The language as amended here is to replace the confusing language found in the current version with:

and all other information related to the information's origin and reliability, as well as

“a summary of information”, and so on with the rest of it.

There is a risk here—and Professor Donald Galloway, from the University of Victoria, has identified it—that the way it's currently drafted could allow a minister to submit to a judge information that had been obtained by torture, without revealing that to a judge. That is also a concern.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

Yes, Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I think there really is a need for special advocates on this amendment, Mr. Chair. I think it would bring more balance to the decision.

I'd ask the Justice officials who are here. I forget which court case this was related to. I believe it might even have been Arar's.

A CBC story pointed out that the amendment in Bill C-51 in clause 54 related only to disclosing material that is “relevant to the grounds of inadmissibility stated in the certificate”. It has been pointed out that that will contradict previous Supreme Court rulings on what the crown must provide to the special advocate.

Can the Justice officials explain how that is appropriate in the bill? In other words, the Supreme Court ruled that all the information needed to be disclosed. As I understand it, this narrows what information can be disclosed.

[Nancie Couture, Counsel, National Security Litigation and Advisory Group, Department of Justice]

Thank you.

The proposed amendment clarifies the ministers' disclosure requirements regarding security certificates. I would like to draw your attention to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in the Harkat case. It identified what it means to be sufficiently informed of the ministers' argument.

In that decision, the Supreme Court required that the information be disclosed if it would enable the individual targeted by the measure or someone who is not a Canadian citizen to be sufficiently informed in order to give meaningful instructions to his or her legal counsel and to give meaningful instructions to the special advocate.

Of course, that information will always be disclosed to the individual as long as that disclosure is not injurious to national security. If such a disclosure could be injurious to national security or the security of another party, it would be disclosed to the special advocates.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.