Public Safety Committee on March 31st, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Mr. Easter, I would be so amenable to sincere discussion on the issue, but we will now go to the vote.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[Chair]

We will now go to Bloc amendment number 4.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Mr. Patry, on advice from our legislative clerk, I will repeat that House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, states on page 767-768:

Since an amendment may not infringe upon the financial initiative of the Crown, it is inadmissible if it imposes a charge on the public treasury, or if it extends the objects or purposes or relaxes the conditions and qualifications specified in the royal recommendation.

In the opinion of the chair, the amendment does propose such a new scheme, which would impose a charge on the public treasury; therefore, I do rule this amendment inadmissible

We will now go to Bloc Québécois amendment 5. The chair also notes that should this amendment be adopted, Green Party amendment 11 could not be moved, as, of course, it has similar intent.

We will now go to Bloc Québécois amendment 5.

Mr. Patry, you have the floor, sir, briefly.

[Claude Patry, Bloc, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As we announced many times and as discussed when we examined the anti-terrorism bill, we are proposing that this legislation include an expiry date. We want the legislation and its application to be thoroughly reviewed by the committee three years after it has come into effect.

We want it to have an end date. That is what we are asking, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Patry.

Madame Doré Lefebvre.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The amendment proposed by the Bloc Québécois has some good points. However, in my opinion, part of paragraph (2) of the proposed clause 11 is simply unacceptable. It reads: “A comprehensive review of this Act and its operation shall be undertaken by any committee of the Senate, of the House of Commons or of both Houses of Parliament...” That is unacceptable for a number of reasons.

On one hand, the Senate is made up of unelected members. On the other, various witnesses raised concerns about a parliamentary review. They said that parliamentarians who had been elected and were accountable to the public should be the ones to oversee this process. I agree that we should head in that direction, but unfortunately I cannot vote in favour of this amendment since it involves the Senate, which is made up of unelected members.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Payne.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

My comments are very similar to the ones I made on NDP-7 that sunsetting the act would return Canada to the current situation with national security information sharing. This is contrary to what we're trying to accomplish so that we can continue to evolve, because the terrorists are evolving their plans and so on.

I think the parliamentary committees still have the ability to review government legislation and this amendment would tie the hands of future parliamentarians. On that basis, I can't support it, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

Ms. James.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I am also going to oppose this amendment. I can't imagine, for a moment, that when we're dealing with issues pertaining to national security and the protection of Canadian citizens, we would, at a certain point in time, just all of a sudden shut down something that has clearly been identified as required to protect that same national security and Canadians.

If you can imagine what would happen in that particular situation and the devastating effects that a sunset clause like this could have.... Again, Mr. Payne was pretty clear that committees such as this one and governments of the day have the ability to go back and amend, take a look at, or study any piece of prior legislation that is relevant. For those reasons, I'm not going to support this amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

With no further discussion, I will call the vote on BQ-5.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We will go to Green Party amendment 11.

Yes, Ms. May.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This amendment, as other similar amendments in the same spirit do, picks up a tradition in Canadian anti-terrorism law. Certainly, my colleague, Mr. Easter, will remember because he was there during the drafting of the anti-terrorism legislation after 9/11. In contrast to this process, it wasn't rushed; even with the enormous emotional impact of the devastation of what al Qaeda did in New York on that day, parliamentarians were allowed to take their time and hear many witnesses in hearings that lasted long enough to explore the issues properly, which this committee is not being allowed.

Back in 2001, the legislation that was passed included a number of sunset clauses. Future parliaments could always take it up, and as we've seen, a lot of the anti-terrorism legislation of 2001 has been extended. Green Party amendment 11 puts in the proviso that the act ceases to have effect on the day following the day that is the third anniversary of the coming into force of this section—and of course, this section refers to part 1.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

Madame Doré Lefebvre.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do not want to spend too much time talking about the amendment proposed by the Green Party. However, I must say that I think that a sunset provision that takes effect after three years without a review by parliamentarians misses the mark. The purpose of a sunset clause is to make sure that a bill gets reviewed.

I know that the amendment is well-intentioned, but I think it is missing something and that is a review of Bill C-51 and an assessment of its impact. I am therefore going to vote against the amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Colleagues, the bells have been called.

We can suspend immediately unless you just want to go for the vote on this and then suspend, but that would require unanimous consent. This would get us towards the end of clause 2.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hopefully we have agreement from the committee to continue moving forward with our clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. Obviously, the votes are just down the hall; it would only take a minute or two to get there, and I'm hoping that we can carry on for at least another 15 to 20 minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Mr. Garrison.

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

Given that the motion in the House affects the work of this committee, I think we should suspend at this time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you.

We have unanimous consent. We will now suspend.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Colleagues, we will now resume. We are on amendment Green Party amendment 11.

There were no more speakers at that time, of course, and the chair is prepared to call for a vote unless there is further discussion.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Colleagues, that's the end of clause 2. Shall clause 2 carry as amended?

Mr. Garrison?

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

Each clause of course will be debated as we come to it, but first I have a motion that I would like to move.

Given that we've just come from a vote in the House to suspend debate on a motion of instruction that would expand the mandate of the committee, and which, if successful in the House, would allow amendments that have been proposed on oversight and deradicalization to be considered by this committee and not be declared out of order, at this point I move that, given that debate is only suspended, is still on the order paper, and could be called at any time, we suspend debate on clause by clause until we have the opinion of the House on the motion of instruction to expand the scope of this committee's work on the bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

The chair's initial ruling on this, Mr. Garrison, as you are well aware, is that this portion of the bill and the clauses of the bill do not deal directly with oversight. Your motion put forward on the bill does deal with oversight. While oversight has been the subject of discussion during the course of the bill, oversight is not for discussion in dealing with the amendments. As such, I would make a decision that we are going to proceed with the amendments.

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

Mr. Chair, with respect, my motion is about the motion of instruction before the House of Commons, which is about the scope of the work of this committee. It's not about any of the particular topics of that scope.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

That's correct, but until—

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

It is a motion to expand the scope, so how can we proceed?