Public Safety Committee on Oct. 19th, 2016

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

From my point of view, but not necessarily from my colleagues.

[A voice]

[Inaudible—Editor] He said, what's the point of asking the question [Inaudible—Editor]

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

The chair may want to elaborate a little bit on what the purpose of this meeting is. The primary purpose is to consult with you. Many of you have made your views very clear. While I think the question from the last gentleman who was up at the mike was posed in an open-ended way, he ended with a very conclusory statement. His statement was—

[A voice]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Sorry, I'll just finish.

His statement was “repeal it”. As I have been taking notes, and I don't think anybody's going to dispute this, I certainly am getting the sentiment from the room that there is a lot of concern with the legislation and there's a desire to see it repealed. That's not so much a question as it is a statement about what you are expecting will be the result of this consultation. I think we're all trying to take good, accurate notes about what your thoughts are.

[A voice]

I did pose a question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Yes, and I think Mr. Dubé was helpful in reminding you that we are not the government. We're Parliament and we are not of one mind at this committee. We're Parliamentarians who have many minds, frankly. We represent three parties, and even within our parties we have a diversity of opinions. We are not able to answer a specific question because our committee has not written its report. We're not here, frankly, for you to consult with us. That's not why we're here. We're here to consult with you.

Our task tonight is to listen to you, as we've been doing. We've been taking notes. It's all being written down. We have several people working at making sure we get the information. At the end of the process, which goes on for many weeks—we don't even know yet how many weeks it will go on—we'll issue a report about what we heard, and then, from what we've heard, we'll make recommendations to the government through Parliament. That's the Canadian system of Parliament.

We're here to hear you. We've been hearing you. There are themes emerging. One of the things that our analyst does is a summary of evidence, where we write down the themes. We obviously have to do this. The meeting here is different from the one in Vancouver, which was different from the one in Calgary, which will be different from the one in Montreal, and which will be different from the one in Halifax.

Expert witnesses are different from the general public. We'll have briefs coming in. I expect that hundreds of briefs will come in, if not thousands, and there will be people who don't go to meetings because that's not their preferred choice of expressing their opinion. They will express it through writing us a brief or they will speak directly to the minister who is doing a consultation, who has already had, by the way, 8,000 submissions last week.

All 338 Members of Parliament will be consulting. We're the committee doing this, but every one of you has a member of Parliament. I would encourage you to speak to your member of Parliament regardless of what party they are in. Tell them your opinions. Frankly, MPs listen. That's our job.

We're still listening, so Miguel is next.

I just have a note that this public meeting is recorded, by the way. All our meetings are recorded. A transcript is prepared. That is a public document. You can see what we heard. You can see all our meetings and what we hear, and then you'll see our final report when it gets to Parliament to see whether we fairly represented what we've heard.

[Miguel Avila, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for this opportunity to share my thoughts and ideas on Bill C-51.

I want to congratulate a number of Canadians here tonight who are brave enough to come and speak on this important item.

Tonight I feel offended that I had to come into the reception desk and submit my ID, my phone number, and my address. I think it's scary for someone who is not a political activist I am to be engaged in these kinds of conversations. People will be afraid.

My name is Miguel Avila. I'm an activist in Toronto. Originally, I am from Peru. I escaped a tyrannical government and, 29 years later, I'm here now fighting an oppressive bill that wants to shut out my voice. It will not let me express my opinions.

The reasons have been explained already by the community. They have been already detailed and explained to you. Every member here has a copy of all those deputations and submissions. It's going to be a wonderful report.

As for the promises that Prime Minister Trudeau mentioned, he said was going to repeal it, but he's cherry-picking things that he likes because he wants to make the companies happy. We are against that.

For instance, there's Enbridge. This is throwing away the environment, but you know what? He is going to be heavily lobbied by the corporations to ensure that this bill is in the favour of the corporations, not in the favour of us, the people. We want to ensure that our children have a better future. I'm sure you all have families, and I'm sure you all want to have a good environment where your children can grow in freedom. We want to remind you that the Constitution gives us the freedom to speak and not to be silenced.

I appreciate this opportunity. Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Watts.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Very quickly, and for your information, because I know you said that when you came in you had to sign the paper and put down your name, address, and email. Maybe the chair can elaborate as to where that information goes, since we're talking about privacy and information, just to make sure you're satisfied that it's not being spread around everywhere.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

The information is not published. It stays with the clerk, who is an officer of Parliament, and it is destroyed at the end of the session. We keep it in case we need to clarify what you said in our public document, because we keep track of those things. That's why we do it. Then it's destroyed.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Then it's destroyed.

[Miguel Avila]

There's one thing I want to add. I forgot.

You know, Harper gave away money to the RCMP and the border agency. Is it possible that you can recommend to the Justin Trudeau government to take back that money and use it for good things, such as housing, employment, and health? That's what we need money for.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

We've heard you.

Mohamed Shukby.

[Mohamed Shukby, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for the opportunity. Before I begin, I would like to join my fellow citizens out here. I strongly disagree with Bill C-51 and there's no question about it.

What I want to talk about is the GSP, the government security policy, especially regarding the security clearances on different levels. I was going through this document. When you want a security clearance, what you do is voluntarily give up all your information to the government to investigate and get back to you. This talks about how they're going to do a background investigation, and you are voluntarily giving up your information for them to check.

It doesn't talk about how they are going to do this investigation. It talks about out-of-country checks. It never talks about how they are going to do them, who they are going to consult, and what kind of information is going to be shared with a foreign country. I think that a person who is voluntarily signing up for that has the right to know what kind of information is going to be shared with a foreign country.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

Eric Mills, and then Faisal Bhabha.

[Eric Mills, As an Individual]

Thank you. I speak as an individual.

In the 1960s, the RCMP burned down a barn to prevent a political meeting. They broke into an office to steal the membership list of an electoral political party. They spread false rumours of an individual's psychiatric history in a political group, and they did other things. These and other revelations created a scandal that led, of course, to the McDonald commission, which we know well, and to I think the Keable commission in Quebec.

That led to the creation of CSIS, in order to remove political analysis from the RCMP and turn them into just a police force, but that didn't stop the RCMP from, as we have heard, bombing an oil well in Alberta and from entrapping two rather confused individuals in B.C., as we saw in the court case that came down recently. Bill C-51, rather than reining in the security forces from these behaviours, seems to encourage more of it by CSIS, and probably by other security forces as well as by the RCMP.

The Harper government used rhetoric linking environmentalists to terrorism. Under Bill C-51, would the committee think that a community organizing to protect clean drinking water could be surveilled and disrupted?

Bill C-51, as I understand it, even authorizes security forces to request a warrant to explicitly violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in order to disrupt a political movement. I presume that asking a judge to override the charter would be found unconstitutional eventually. If it isn't, we might as well go to Texas. How likely is it that a case could even get to court, how long would it take to get a judgment, and even if the judgment found the warrant unconstitutional, how long would the law remain on the books for security agencies to cite?

This is just one example of Bill C-51's outrageous and flagrant abuses. It's shameful that the party that became the government voted for this bill, and it would be just as shameful if this committee didn't recommend the outright repeal of Bill C-51 or a complete overhaul that amounts to repeal. I think you should go on to redress the abuses by the security agencies that went on before Bill C-51 and that undoubtedly are continuing to go on.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

That was very clear.

Faisal Bhabha, and then Chaitanya Kalevar.

[Professor Faisal Bhabha, As an Individual]

Good afternoon, and thank you.

My name is Faisal Bhabha. I'm an associate professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School. I'm here in my capacity as the occasional counsel to the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the NCCM. It's an organization that's been actively advocating on issues related to national security for at least 15 years. It has appeared before parliamentary, Senate, and other committees, as well as the Supreme Court of Canada , on relevant issues.

Not surprisingly, I'm here to echo a lot of what you've already heard. I don't want to repeat the specific reasons why you should repeal Bill C-51, the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015. There are general or contextual reasons that I want to talk to you a bit about. This relates to the experience of Canadian Muslims specifically in living under the current threat that is posed to them as a result of the very existence of the powers under this law.

On the one hand, Canadian Muslims face the exact same risks of death or injury as a result of a terrorist attack. Globally, Muslims have been the overwhelming victims of Islamic terrorism. That's the unfortunate irony of the thing. At the same time, here in Canada, we also face the risk of mistaken identify and wrongful suspicion, which can bring on an entire world of pain. We know a lot about that.

The green paper cites the reports that adduce plentiful facts that show us how badly things can go wrong when the RCMP and CSIS operate without effective oversight. Just ask Arar, Almalki, Nureddin, El Maatii, Benatta, and others.

The Honourable Dennis O'Connor, specifically in the Arar case, warned about the discriminatory impact on Canadian Muslims as a result of the simple fact that intelligence and security enforcement appears to be obsessed with Islamic terrorism, and they don't seem to be looking at other sources of terrorism that may pose greater risks. We're asking for rationality in security and not overreaction, which is what Bill C-51 represents.

We firmly believe that the criminal law as it exists is sufficient to protect Canadians, and we warn you against the dangers that come from the excessive powers, the excessive information sharing, and all the things you've heard about tonight.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I'm afraid I need you to end there.

We have invited the National Council to speak as a formal witness at our committee, so the group will be here as well.

[Prof. Faisal Bhabha]

Thank you. I might see that.

I'd just say there's an inherent contradiction between the prevention strategy and the green paper, which is laudable, and the rest of it. The two cannot operate at the same time in a credible manner. If you want to work with communities, then you have to earn their trust first.

Thank you.

[Voices]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

Chaitanya Kalevar, go ahead, and then David Henderson.

[Chaitanya Kalevar, As an Individual]

My name is Chaitanya Kalevar. Just call me Chai for short.

I am an engineer, and I belong to a group called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. I would like to bring to your attention that the whole terrorism world came onto global prominence after 9/11, and we engineers and architects are convinced that 9/11 was a false-flag operation.

Since Canada is so closely linked with the United States, and a part of Five Eyes and all of that, I think we should be questioning that. Why is terrorism a big problem when you haven't even gotten hold of the two criminals who started terrorism in Iraq, the two SOBs: son of a Bush and son of a Blair? I think we have to address it and get these two people up before the International Criminal Court before we start dealing with this petty terrorism that is coming out of Iraq and all the Middle Eastern countries. There, they have been bombed to death, and whole communities have been destroyed. When are we going to deal with the big terrorists that belong to the Five Eyes group?

I think that unless we address those things, terrorism will continue. If I may put it this way—by the way, I am also the author of a book called Climate Change in the Nuclear Age—do you think this petty terrorism is more important than climate change and the nuclear threats that you face?

[Voices]

Hear, hear!