Evidence of meeting #30 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 c-51.
Liberal
Marco Mendicino Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Is that because they aren't required to perform the same kind of balancing exercise that a judicial officer would? Or is it for some other reason?
As an Individual
It's because, first of all, there's no transparency. It's because there's no third independent party who is looking at a request from the government to do something that actually violates the privacy rights of Canadians in quite a major way. When the government or an agent of the state asks for the ability to tap an individual's phone line or to go into someone's sock drawer, they have to get a warrant and they need to show reasonable and probable cause why they should get that.
That requirement isn't made of governments at all when they say that they don't want to tap just one person's communications, but that they want to gather and share with foreign agencies everyone's communications. It just doesn't make sense as a matter of principle. There's no evidence that has been presented to us that it makes Canadians any safer that ministers are able to do it without a judicial authorization, so we say that it's inadequate.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Are there any other members who have a question before I ask one?
On the concept of metadata, the gathering of large baskets of information through that surveillance without warrants, the CSE is under the Minister of National Defence as opposed to the Minister of Public Safety. The green paper has come from Public Safety. I'm not defending the green paper—it's not my job—but what that does then tell me is that the oversight of security needs to include not only the public safety agencies, the CBSA, the RCMP, and CSIS, but also obviously the CSE, and we may be moving into a different environment now.
Are there any thoughts about that in terms of the oversight of these agencies and the linkage—this would be a long conversation—of the individual expert oversight of each of the bodies and then the parliamentary oversight? Are there any thoughts on that new world that we could be moving into?
As an Individual
We have a range of thoughts on oversight issues that we share with some other groups like Amnesty and the CCLA in Toronto, and we'd be happy to provide that, but in a nutshell, we're very much concerned about that. We're aware that the CSE is under a different ministry. Never mind that the government has come forward and said “national security consultations”, Canadians don't see which ministry is doing what, unless the message is from Minister Goodale and not from Minister Sajjan. We see that as problematic.
In terms of the agencies themselves, it's been a long-standing concern of ours that there are siloed oversight agencies for each. We've seen instances where there is collaboration, and in fact, the movement is of course towards collaboration. The agencies remain siloed.
We've said over and over, and many others have too, that there needs to be a crossing over, and not just with a parliamentary committee that will have the ability to look at all these agencies. There needs to be what, in shorthand, people have been calling a “super-SIRC”, some staff agency, an agency, not necessarily SIRC or the commissioner for CSE, but an agency that will have the ability outside of the committee to have oversight for integrated national security reasons where the RCMP, the CBSA, CSIS, and everybody is participating. We say that there needs to be a parliamentary committee. There needs to be a whole-of-government national security apparatus oversight agency. Whether that's something that sits on top of the existing ones or amalgamates them could be up for discussion.
The third thing that we say there needs to be in terms of oversight is very much like what they have in the United Kingdom, which I know the chair will be aware of, and probably some of the members will as well. That's basically some sort of official who is independent from civil society organizations and independent from government and who can make recommendations as to how national security law ought to evolve.
We're always at a disadvantage. We don't know what's going on with these secret agencies. Parliamentarians don't even know in a lot of cases, and there may be very good reasons, for example, why the government has chosen to do a certain thing, but from the outside we don't know what those reasons are.
In the United Kingdom they have an agent who I think is an officer of Parliament. I'm not sure what the construction is, but I believe he's an officer of Parliament, and his job is to be able to know all of those things and to make thoughtful and constructive recommendations as to legal changes needed where others wouldn't have the benefit of that knowledge. We think that's an important feature as well—
October 17th, 2016 / 6:25 p.m.
Liberal
As an Individual
Yes, something like that. That's been suggested by many people and it's agreed by professors Roach and Forcese and others. That's what we would see.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
That's perfect. We'll hear more from you.
Thank you very much.
Judy Hanazawa.
Judy Hanazawa As an Individual
Thank you very much for allowing me to speak. My name is Judy Hanazawa, and I'm the chair of the human rights committee of the Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens' Association. We're members of the National Association of Japanese Canadians.
I'm going to read a little bit from the national association's press release regarding Bill C-51:
In 1942 the Canadian government used the War Measures Act to forcibly displace 22,000 Canadians of Japanese ancestry to internment and labour camps and deported over 4,000 to Japan after the War—many who were born in Canada. Public safety and “perceived insurrection” were the reasons given for this extraordinary violation of human rights and citizenship at that time. Bill C-51 allows the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to arrest those who “may” carry out an act of terrorism. Currently law enforcement agencies can carry out an arrest if they believe that an act of terrorism “will” be carried out. In addition, those who are seen in the eyes of the Government as threatening the “economic or financial stability of Canada”—such as those who engage in non-violent, environmental civil disobedience—fall under the proposed Anti-Terrorism Bill.
I know that it's become an act since this was written.
Further to this at the time of the redress for Japanese Canadians in 1988 the Prime Minister of the day said that no further violations of this kind will be visited upon any other Canadian of any kind.
I'm speaking today after hearing the various concerns about Bill C-51 to focus mainly on the issue of race, and how the issue of racism does play into this.
As an organization and as a community that has gone through internment we've made a decision as a national community to reach out to other communities that may be facing injustice, or displacement, or other violations of human rights. We've reached out to welcome Canadians, and we've certainly heard the day-to-day realities of the kinds of rights infringements that happen to persons of Muslim ancestry and Muslim beliefs. In the same way that race has affected our history it is very much there, as has been said before. I'd like to point this out when looking at the groundwork needed to address security issues in Canada. We are looking at the radicalization of youth. There will not be any kind of reaching in to look at the social issues that affect young people today who may be of Muslim or Islamic-based background who may be considered security risks.
In this environment, where Bill C-51 can pick up people and detain them without their right of defence, and without the use of the regular law enforcement system, I believe that rather than allowing for some way of healing terrorism it will drive it underground. I think that—as with other youths of other communities of colour, our first nations youth—the sense of alienation from Canada is very much present among Muslim youth. That needs to be addressed not because of radicalization, but because this is a matter of race as much as anything else. I ask you to look at this matter as a very major factor in why the bill was developed. As much as colour represents a violation of general rights for Canadians it's very much a matter of concern to us as a community that has gone through a violation. Can I ask you to please consider that?
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Thank you very much.
Any questions?
I think you were very clear.
Joey Bowser.
Joey Bowser As an Individual
Hello. My name is Joe Bowser. I'm speaking here today as a private citizen and as someone who recently dealt with the full prior surveillance powers of most of the agencies of Public Safety Canada, and probably the CSE as well, although I'll never get confirmation of that.
First of all, I want to have it on record that I'm against the measures introduced in Bill C-51, of course. I'm also against the new proposed measures mentioned in the green paper. That would include compelling passwords at the border as well as data retention as well as back doors to encryption.
I'm actually here today to talk about accountability when our rights are actually violated; how just random Canadians, anyone with a cellphone, can actually have their rights violated; and about how law enforcement deals with actual technology to keep up with the digital world.
One recent thing that keeps popping up in the news, over and over again, is the technology. This box is called the StingRay. In case you're not aware, a StingRay is a device that law enforcement and intelligence communities can use to actually get your IMSI number, which is unique to your phone and your SIM card. It can identify you. Of course, once you have the IMSI, then you can go the telephone provider and say, “I want to know whose IMSI this is”. They can provide you all the basic metadata information, as well as probably all their Internet data, and you can actually pinpoint, using this device, when and where people are.
In once instance, Corrections Canada had one on a prison. They cracked down on illegal cellphones that had been smuggled in. They wanted to make sure no one had cellphones. But a farmer next door also got caught in it. The big problem with these cell towers is that they're fake. If the farmer had to call 911, he'd be in big trouble. It wouldn't work. The call wouldn't actually go through. It would probably reset, he'd have to dial again, and then it would go through. That's two seconds more that the person would have to deal with, where 911 doesn't work. Think about that.
Now, let's say you see something at the art gallery while you're in Vancouver. You see one of the many protests here—like the one outside, where you can hear them chant “Stop Bill C-51”—and let's say you want to check it out. You have, of course, the RCMP with their StingRay out trying to just collect data, to see who's there, as well as to surveil the crowd. You know, they gather some data. They see some people they're interested in. They know the people who are there, so they grab all that IMSI data and then they try to weed out whose IMSIs are what, based on their intelligence. Then they go and surveil them, steal their trash, and do all the other regular normal stuff that police do.
The thing is that if you're under surveillance, even if you're not doing anything illegal or wrong, and even if you don't get arrested, it still affects your life. You're definitely way more paranoid than you were before, especially since you don't have any recourse to know if you ever were under surveillance. There's no way of finding out. There's also no way for the public to actually talk about these technologies or confirm that they were ever being used.
The way the laws are written in Canada is that the onus, the power, is entirely in law enforcement. Even though the criminals already know how to get past the StingRay—it's old technology from 2008—the public doesn't know. Criminals can just get another SIM card or whatever and just bypass this technology. But the public, they don't know. They just don't. They'll keep on getting picked up by the IMSI and they'll keep on getting their data surveilled.
The IMSI is unique to everybody's cellphone. If you have a cellphone, you have an IMSI. It can be picked up by a device that's in the back of a van with some antennas. This device isn't actually registered with Industry Canada, so that's technically illegal as well, although I'm sure there's a warrant to get around that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
We're at the end of the time.
Do committee members have any questions? No?
Thank you very much.
John Taylor.
John Taylor As an Individual
I'd like to speak on a couple of issues that I feel strongly about.
John Taylor is the fifth most common name in North America, and I can assure you, some of them are on the no-fly list. Whenever I go to the airport, it's hard to get through the guards. Now I've learned to overcome the barriers by having, first, a frequent flyer plan so that they can go back and check to see if I'm the right person. Secondly, I use my father's first name as my middle name on the ticket, and it's very unusual, so that I stand out and I don't look like all those other people on the no-fly list.
I often wonder, how do they make up that list? Everything I've read in the papers on it has said, well, that's a big secret. “The U.S. doesn't release that information, and we use their lists automatically because so many of our flights go into the U.S.”
It gets to be a real serious problem when you start thinking about who the U.S. would put on there. First of all, I guess it's anyone who's committed a felony, which would be half of the black males in the U.S. Many of them get arrested because, in most of the southern states, anyone with a felony record cannot vote. We're sort of perpetuating that by honouring it. I think there's a moral issue involved in that.
I often wonder about our own first nations people. Are they affected by the no-fly list? Many of them, maybe in their youth, may have been arrested or been charged. We've read reports that they outnumber just about everyone else in our prison system.
I feel uncomfortable with a no-fly list. I wish there was some way that it could be cleaned up, and that there would be an appeal. We could hire a lawyer to go in there and find out just exactly why we're on it and what the problem is, and that sort of thing. Apparently, nothing can be done under the present system, both in the U.S. and in Canada.
The second issue that I'm concerned about is the lack of accountability, supervision, of these big spy agencies. We have the example of the FBI in the U.S., which was under the control of J. Edgar Hoover for most of his lifetime. His tactic to keep control was to spy on all elected members of Congress, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and such, so that he never had any problem getting his budget increased every year. Anyone who came up with ideas of a reform was immediately shown their file. He had complete details on the things that they didn't want revealed about them, that they'd rather not let the public know.
It looks like we could run into that position, if the U.S. is any indication that it can be done. I would say we have only a couple of years to put those accountability issues into place to protect Parliament and the population at large. Such a system can be very abused when it's basically an alternative government. A very powerful individual has the goods on everyone.
I think that's a major issue that we have to deal with, not because of what everyone else has been talking about, the accountability, the proper subpoenas, and things like that, but simply as a matter of self-preservation for our country. Thank you.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Taylor.
Regarding the no-fly list, as a member of Parliament, I've had a number of people come to me who have had problems like you've had. I know at least two or three of them, who I talked to after the fact, and once we made the proper authorities aware of it—and I don't know exactly what they did—people didn't have any trouble travelling after that.
I would encourage you to talk to your member of Parliament, or anyone else that you'd like, and I think there's a good chance that it may not happen again. I couldn't imagine being on the list, but I know some of the frustrations that some of my own constituents have told me about.
I certainly believe you, and I would encourage you to contact your member of Parliament. He or she may be able to help you.
Maurice Mills As an Individual
I'm Maurice Mills. I'm the second vice-president of Unifor Local 114 of New Westminister. I'm also the B.C. coordinator of the safe as our cargo campaign. I represent workers in the armoured car industry. The mandate of this committee is very broad and covers basically anything that includes the lives and the security of the people of Canada. Public safety, policing, and law enforcement come under the mandate of the committee.
In the armoured car industry, there is no national standard. Many of the members of Parliament with whom I've spoken are surprised to hear that. The armoured car people are the only Canadians without peace officer status that carry firearms in public. There have been 15 publicly reported armoured car robberies in Canada since 2012. There are others, but we are only counting the ones here that are publicly reported. We have a myriad of permits and security clearances. I am cleared by the RCMP and by Transport Canada to go to the airport or the port. I have a federal government clearance. I'm not sure if CSIS is involved in that or not. I've been cleared by the FBI. I can go into the United States. I have a transportation workers' identification credential to go to the restricted area of any port in the United States. Oddly enough, if you have a FAST pass or a NEXUS pass you've also been investigated by the FBI, as well as the RCMP. I have to declare to customs as a transporter when I transport across international boundaries an amount over $10,000.
Again, my concern is, what is happening with all that information? Normal everyday citizens with a FAST or a NEXUS pass are going to have almost that same level of scrutiny. Where does that go? How long is it held? Nobody seems to know. One of the things we'd like to see is this bill repealed because the amount of information that is gathered from ordinary Canadians far exceeds what I think would be the norm in almost every situation.
I will conclude with one final plug. There is a bill before the house, Bill C-285, the national standards for the armoured transport of currency and valuables act, and I would ask you to give your support to the bill, as an aside.
Thank you.
Conservative
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Thank you, Chair.
For clarification, since I didn't quite get the answer, you were saying that there were how many robberies?
As an Individual
There were 15 publicly reported robberies. I could probably send you a document the union has prepared. It would be a reference to a news article of each robbery by way of third party verification.
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Okay. You don't have peace officer status?
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Larry Miller
I have a NEXUS card. You mentioned that the U.S. has investigated it. A NEXUS card for anyone who doesn't know, is used when you go to the airport. It has already put you through a high-security screening process. My wife has one as well. Are you saying or implying that they go through something over and above regular screening of me? I have nothing to hide obviously or I wouldn't get a NEXUS card.
As an Individual
That came about when I was talking to one of the agents in Blaine, when you had to go down to Blaine to get your NEXUS card. I had already given my fingerprints, and so on, in Canada and the representative in Blaine said, “Now we're going to take your fingerprints and send them off to the FBI.” I thought, "Oh great, another three months I have to wait while I'm getting a clearance.” He put some grease on my fingers, put me on the computer screen, and transmitted them. In about a minute he said, “Yes, you're good”, and printed me off a pass. That was some years ago. I've renewed it, I think, twice since then, but that's where that comment came from. It was an agent in Blaine who told me that they actually screened you through the FBI.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you very much.
We'll now go to Brian Sproule, for three minutes.