Evidence of meeting #107 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was debate.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
As long as we're all on the same page with respect to the numbers....
With that, I'll open the debate.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
The depth of Ms. May's concerns is entirely justified by the need to find appropriate ways for agencies to work together in order to reduce this kind of threat. That is the very spirit of Bill C-59, which seeks to give those people the appropriate tools, to give the agencies the right to exchange information, and for all of that to be done under the supervision of a parliamentary committee, especially the exchange of information. We already have the necessary tools to do this. We are still affected by the errors of the past and fearful of the future. That is normal. Of course, there will likely be more errors. Field work being what it is, we will have other experiences.
I would now like to digress and talk about two aspects that should not be taken at face value.
In light of recent events, it would be hard for me to convince my fellow citizens that these events are ultimately not as serious as they seem, given that threat mitigation measures are to be reduced. My fellow citizens would not accept that. In order not to react emotionally to such an event, I remind myself that all operations are conducted under the very strong authority of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Returning to yesterday's events, I would probably not have said anything if, for instance, that person had left home with two flat tires instead of four brand new tires. In short, an unfortunate event might have been avoided.
We are not aware of what has been prevented. For CSIS— and to its great credit—, the hardest thing is not taking pride in preventing situations that we are not aware of. Its role is to protect us and its success depends on the number of events it is able to prevent, with the help of the RCMP. I think the structure of Bill C-59 addresses this kind of need on the whole.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Is there further debate?
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Amendment PV-10 is defeated, and that vote applies to amendments PV -11, PV-12, PV-15, PV-22, PV-24 and PV-25.
Now we are on to amendment NDP-49, which I think is still alive.
Mr. Dubé.
12:15 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
Mr. Chair, I am proposing the same definition as I proposed with regard to the publicly available information mentioned in part 3 of the bill, namely, to replace those words with “publicly available dataset”. This is in order to be consistent with what is proposed in part 4 regarding CSIS. We have repeatedly heard concerns about the definition of publicly available information in various parts of the bill.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
I'm wondering if perhaps the officials could help me to understand what the impact of this would be on how CSIS would operate.
12:15 p.m.
Merydee Duthie Special Advisor, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
I'd like to start by saying that CSIS and CSE are very different agencies, operating under different mandates, and the context in which the definition of “publicly available” is applied in the CSE portion of Bill C-59 is different from the context in which it's applied in the CSIS Act. Bill C-59 establishes proposed sections 11.01 to 11.25 of the CSIS Act, which is a robust framework for the service's collection, retention, and use of datasets in support of our investigations. Essentially Bill C-59 creates three types of datasets: publicly available datasets, predominantly foreign datasets, and predominantly Canadian datasets. It establishes a system of safeguards that govern their use. The safeguards are, in general, applied in consideration of the reasonable expectation of privacy of the different types of datasets. The lowest reasonable expectation of privacy is associated with publicly available datasets, so the safeguards are the lightest but they exist.
The intention of Bill C-59 within the dataset framework is to create three mutually exclusive categories of datasets. A dataset is either publicly available or it's Canadian or it's foreign. If we took the proposed definition of “publicly available dataset”, it would take out any dataset that has a reasonable expectation of privacy. We are told by our legal experts that when you assess reasonable expectation of privacy, you have to take context into consideration, so for a dataset collected by the service, the reasonable expectation of privacy might be different if it were used by someone else.
By adopting this definition, it is possible that we could eliminate the category of “publicly available”, but there is no dataset that can be collected by the service for which there is absolutely no reasonable expectation of privacy. There are a lot for which it is very low, but reaching the standard of zero expectation of privacy would mean not having the category of publicly available datasets. In the extreme, you would create a situation in which if the service wanted to collect the Saskatoon phone book, it would have to apply to get the Federal Court's authorization to do so. From a service perspective, that is simply administratively impossible given the burden it would create for us.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
I love that you use the example of a phone book. I haven't seen one in a little bit.
12:20 p.m.
Special Advisor, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
That's the electronic version. I should have specified, because Bill C-59 does talk about electronic datasets and most of the phone books or Info-direct kind of share that.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
I wasn't trying to pick on you. It's just kind of a funny vision.
12:20 p.m.
Special Advisor, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
It's a good clarification.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
If I understand correctly as well, CSIS has stated to this committee that it won't collect hacked or stolen datasets as publicly available datasets.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
All right. It seems as though this amendment, from what I've heard from the officials, actually could very much hinder what they're trying to do and their ability to do things, and actually take away the definition of “publicly available dataset” as a whole, that entire collection, so I don't really see the value in this amendment.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Is there further debate?
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
We're now on to LIB-37.
Mr. Fragiskatos does not appear to be here, but Ms. Dabrusin is doing an able imitation of Mr. Fragiskatos.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
It is great for me to take this one for Mr. Fragiskatos.
Amendment LIB-37 would allow Canadian information found in a foreign dataset to be added as an update to a Canadian dataset. This is becoming very technical. It would do that if the addition is permitted under the Canadian datasets judicial authorization.
The reason we're proposing this is that it ensures CSIS would be able to update an existing Canadian dataset with additional information removed from a foreign dataset. It seems like it's a transfer from one to the other, but this is only when it is explicitly authorized by the Canadian datasets judicial authorization. Nothing in this proposed amendment alters or reduces the safeguards in place for the Canadian dataset, including the requirement for judicial authorization for CSIS to retain Canadian information. I really want to underline that piece. It doesn't alter or reduce the safeguards. It's transferring between two datasets.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Is there any further debate?
(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
We are now on LIB-38.
Madam Dabrusin.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Thank you.
LIB-38 is an amendment that clarifies that the director of CSIS or a CSIS employee can be designated by the minister to authorize the retention of foreign datasets. It will help to clarify the current wording of Bill C-59 to meet the original intent that the minister can designate the director of CSIS or the CSIS employee as a designated person. Of note, the minister-designated person's decision to authorize the retention of a foreign dataset is subject to the approval of the intelligence commissioner. This ensures independent oversight of a designated person's decision to authorize CSIS's retention of a foreign dataset. To me it's always important to have the role of the intelligence commissioner incorporated.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Hello.
We are not necessarily opposed to the amendment, but we would like some clarification. We do not see why this addition is necessary.
Could you please explain?
April 24th, 2018 / 12:20 p.m.
Special Advisor, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
It's a very technical clarification. It has always been the intent of the drafting of Bill C-59 to allow this. The original wording, which states “The minister or the designated person may, upon the request of the Service, authorize the Service”. It seemed to imply that it couldn't be the director or someone in the service. This amendment is just to clarify that the designated person can be the director or someone in the service. It's a technical clarification based on the drafting wording.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Is there further debate?
Seeing none, I shall put the question on amendment LIB-38.
(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Amendment NDP-50 is, I believe, still alive.
Mr. Dubé.
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
For the initial authorization, the amendment proposes a period of one year rather than the five years proposed in the bill. The commissioner could subsequently approve an extension of the authorization, but for one year only.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
We can keep information about criminals in databases for up to 10 years. So five years seems entirely reasonable to me, and I would not want security to be compromised because the relevant information had not been kept long enough.