Public Safety Committee on April 17th, 2018

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

If this is too short a time, and we've just voted against having a vice-chair, it would seem to me that if we don't have a chair for whatever reason, and that chair position is vacant, and we don't have a position of vice-chair in place—

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

We can't, though.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

—because it's already been defeated, the chair isn't around to assist in selecting a vice-chair, so to me it's reasonable in these circumstances to have a chair fill the position for a shorter time period.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I want to clarify that there may be a vice-chair. That is still within the legislation.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Can the officials tell us if we can appoint the vice-chair inside the 30-day window?

[John Davies]

That's impossible to answer given that this depends.... It's a GIC prerogative to do that and normally it would take more than 30 days. Especially on national security, we may need to vet the person and so on.

Just to be clear, proposed subsection 5(1) is the process for the acting chair. If there is no chair and no vice-chair, the process is there to appoint an acting chair, and then there's 90 days for the Governor in Council to appoint a chair. So you have three months to find a chair if, for whatever reason, the chair or vice-chair is not there.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Is there any further debate?

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Now we have Ms. Damoff on LIB-2.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

We've heard from the Canadian Bar Association concerns about the ambiguity of the language surrounding the NSIRA's mandate and whether it's overly broad. This amendment clarifies that the NSIRA has full authority to determine its own procedures. It also removes any ambiguity about the scope of authority of the NSIRA to avoid a possible dispute with other departments.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Harmony is breaking out here. My goodness, the motion passed unanimously.

We now go to NDP-3.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This amendment is very long but relatively simple. A comment was made very often during our study of the bill. As you know, the Canada Border Services Agency can receive complaints about the conduct of certain agencies or departments. However, Global Affairs Canada is not covered by the complaint mechanism, which is a very serious omission. This is a very important element, especially when it comes to consular services. We know, as it was shown in Maher Arar's case, that the sharing of information done by that department can lead to violations of Canadians' human rights, especially abroad. This amendment would enable the agency to receive complaints related to Global Affairs Canada's conduct.

The second point concerns the Canada Border Services Agency. As you also know, an opportunity to create an organization that would oversee the agency's activities was missed under this bill. That organization still does not exist. The minister showed openness, but we are anxious to see something concrete. In addition, it would be appropriate for the oversight organization, in a context of national security, to be able to receive the complaints related to the Border Services Agency's conduct in the meantime.

In closing, I would say that this amendment really just adds to the complaints provisions in the legislation. It's nothing earth-shattering but it ensures that we have a robust process for all agencies and ministries that might be involved in different situations that can become problematic with regard to Canadians' rights.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Dubé.

Is there any debate?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

While we would agree in principle on the intent of the amendment we heard that only a small part of Global Affairs' and CBSA's work actually focuses on national security and intelligence. This bill as drafted would deal with the national security and intelligence portion of it. If there's a desire to have oversight of Global Affairs and CBSA, the public would be best served by having complaint mechanisms put in that are tailored to their unique mandates. As it is now, the NSIRA will be focused on a small part of what they're doing. In fact, we heard testimony that it would actually slow things down for people who were complaining about things that fell outside the mandate.

Therefore, we won't be supporting it as written.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Like Ms. Damoff, I don't understand in what way the NDP amendment concerns national security. In fact, I am unsure of whether there is a link between the proposed amendment to the bill and national security. Officials could probably share their opinions on this, as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Davies, do you want to respond to Mr. Paul-Hus?

[John Davies]

Maybe I'm not following your question.

My understanding of the amendment is that it's for a complaints function particularly with Global Affairs and CBSA. The minister has made the point a few times that the CBSA review mechanism, including complaints, functions on a separate track and separate legislation is being worked on in that regard. NSIRA is only dealing with national security review and complaints regarding CSIS and the RCMP.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

If you look at the legislation, in proposed section 8, it specifically mentions certain aspects: reports made to the agency under the Citizenship Act, matters referred to the agency under section 45 of the Human Rights Act, complaints under the RCMP Act, and any complaint made under proposed subsections 16(1), 17(1), or 18(3). What we're seeing here is, despite the fact that the majority of witnesses who did raise this point spoke in favour of what this amendment is putting forward.... Despite it being a small portion of Global Affairs, as is being advanced, this is something that goes to the heart of what was talked about, most notably in the Arar inquiry, because Global Affairs does play a role in how these situations play out.

Moreover, CBSA, as far as I'm concerned, acts exclusively with regard to national security. I see no other way to define what goes on at the border than to say that it's related to national security.

I think, in the meantime, there's a huge gap there. There's no accountability for CBSA, so to have this complaint mechanism in the mandate of the agency and not expand it, as many witnesses asked us to, is quite disappointing. Once again, this just shows how the accountability and the review that we're seeking is not being taken as seriously as the government pretends.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I'm wondering if Mr. Davies could clarify that anything that happens with CBSA and Global Affairs that does have to do with national security, such as what happened with Arar, would be covered under this legislation.

[John Davies]

Yes, it would.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

With this amendment proposed, I'm wondering whether there is the need to add additional staff to accomplish this—and would there be additional costs, obviously, with that—and whether Global Affairs and CBSA have those resources in place already.

[John Davies]

It would be impossible to predict. The national security mandate for Global Affairs and CBSA has already been set. It's probably small, so the number of complaints would probably be small, but there would likely be resources needed, at least to sort of pressurize the system to receive complaints if that mandate was added on.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

For the record, I want to say that the RCMP is also covered by the review agency, yet that hasn't prevented the legislation from including a complaint mechanism with regard to the RCMP. I think it's important to distinguish between the agency's ability to review these agencies and the ability of a Canadian whose rights have been impugned to make a complaint to the review agency. I think it's an important distinction, and once again, I fall on the witness testimony. Many witnesses did bring this up as a large gap. More specifically, with regard to CBSA, as of now, NSIRA is the only body that has any review of CBSA. CBSA, unlike other agencies that are involved very closely with national security, has no specific review entity associated with it.

Moreover, I would just add, in light of some of the situations we see at the border, giving Canadians some kind of mechanism so that they can make these types of complaints to a body like this is absolutely appropriate.

The last point I would make, goes back to an earlier point that was made and also alluded to by Mr. Motz about staff and so forth. The amendment does make clear, as should be enshrined in the law, that the agency will not deal with complaints unless they are deemed to be not trivial, vexatious in nature, or made in bad faith.

Once again, it's a gap that is there. I see no reason why this can't be supported, other than the fact that we don't take the accountability that we claim to want to bring forward seriously.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Is it possible, given that we haven't heard from Global Affairs and CBSA, to have them here? Can we just table this for the moment and bring them here to the committee to answer specifically to this particular amendment?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Are you moving that?

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Sure.