Evidence of meeting #34 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.
6:50 p.m.
As an Individual
Sure. I would say, above all, hold a proper public consultation. Hold a long-term, participatory, open, and transparent consultation. Just do it. Don't create something that people can call a sham.
6:50 p.m.
Voices
Hear, hear!
6:50 p.m.
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
We know that a significant amount of research has been done on the issues of intelligence, cybersecurity, and all of that stuff. Can you suggest one or two best practices? Some of that research.... When I hear you say to pull out of Five Eyes, get out of everything, and don't engage in the global intelligence world, I'm thinking that there has to be a better way, because we have to know what's going on in the world.
6:50 p.m.
As an Individual
There must be a better way, but for me there has to be transparency on the part of the government so that those of us outside government know how these things work. Right now, we don't, and I think that even members of government don't understand how they work. Last year, when I interviewed a deputy chair of the Senate committee, this same committee in the Senate, he explained to me that he didn't have the security clearance to understand.... He was asking about what CSIS did, when he had the chair of CSIS before his committee the following day.
I think we need real parliamentary oversight. We need judicial oversight, but we also need parliamentary and governmental transparency. People can't protect themselves if they don't know what they're up against.
6:50 p.m.
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
I understand that, because you look at things that are posted on Facebook and Twitter and Facebook has all of your information. The information is out there. It's about how it's being used. We know there are hackers all over the world getting into systems and getting information.
Going back to squaring something up, knowing that this world is alive out there, and knowing that we want to protect the rights of our residents, yours and mine, how do we manage that in that world?
6:55 p.m.
As an Individual
I think you have the tools already. You have CSIS and CSEC, which have billions of dollars in funding and all this intelligence and expertise, which is used in very secretive ways. If you take those powers and open them up, use them transparently, and use other forms of governance.... We have government that for years now has been talking about the problem of understanding the digital economy and big data. You have this entire part of government that's hived off from the rest that has these tools and has this knowledge.
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Yes, but that's where we get into the national security piece. If we just take that information and do a dump into the general public, I don't know if that's advantageous either. Or do you think it is? That we should just do it with all information....
6:55 p.m.
As an Individual
On the spot, I can't say one way or the other. I think this has to be a long-term participatory decision-making process. It can't be made on the spot. It has to be a big co-operative deal, because it's something that affects all of us, that affects our kids, our parents, and our hospitals and research institutions.
I work with researchers on projects around the world. In working with vulnerable communities, for instance, a project that I was part of was working with seniors' groups around the world. You don't want to store your data on Dropbox because it's in the U.S., and you're telling people, in goodwill, that you will protect their identity, that you will protect that information, and you actually can't.
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
6:55 p.m.
As an Individual
You should be able to. The Canadian government tells people that they fund for doing research and you have to keep your information secure, but at the same time it engages in activities that violate that security.
6:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Are there any other questions?
Thank you. We now have your name on the list of people not breaking secrecy for experts for our committee, so it's good to know who you are.
Sharon Howarth.
6:55 p.m.
Sharon Howarth As an Individual
Thank you.
Sharon Howarth is my name. When my daughters were younger, I had to look to see what was the most important thing they needed me to be working on. My research concluded that it was solutions to climate change.
One of the groups, Climate Action Now, has just put up this chart which shows that if we do not curb emissions and keep them below the two degrees, boy, are we in trouble.
First of all, if we go beyond the two degrees, that's horrendous, not only for the planet—it doesn't matter about the planet—but for humanity to be able to survive. It shows desertification of the southern part of the U.S. That's the direction that we're heading in, and those people are not just going to sit there. They're going to walk into Canada. The Pentagon, years and years ago in their report, said that the greatest issue that affects national security is climate change.
When I heard about Bill C-51, I became paralyzed that I could be targeted because I was speaking on a topic that I knew about and either participating in rallies or protests or just speaking up, as paralyzed as I am now. I still can't.... Look at this. This is unbelievable, yet I could be targeted, and also my neighbours and on and on we go. For me, my ability to have free speech in Canada—we have to be a role model here—superseded any perceived threat of terrorism. I really want you to take this free speech and constitutional.... That has to be the most important.
Thank you.
6:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
As I suspected at the beginning of the meeting, we have a number of people who have added their names to the list. I am going to now suggest that we move to two minutes per speaker so that everyone will get a chance to say something.
I know that some themes have developed and emerged. I suspect that those themes will continue, but we'll try to go for two minutes per speaker.
Set Shuter.
7 p.m.
Set Shuter As an Individual
Hello. Thank you very much for listening to me, and yes, Set Shuter is my real name.
I come from a single-parent family. I put myself through school. I got a degree in sociology and then another degree in sociology, and now I'm a video engineer, filmmaker, and comedian. One of the things I do every day is data management. I work for a relatively large post-production house here in the city. Every single day, I deal with how much it costs to keep data online, how data is tracked, etc.
One of my biggest concerns as a taxpayer who is happy to pay my taxes to live in this amazing country, which I'm grateful to live in, is how much money this is going to cost, what data is being collected, how it's being collected, how long it's being kept, how it's being kept, and what the budgeting is for this. I feel that there are many other things in this country that we could be tackling rather than keeping all the data that was discussed earlier by many other people—random text messages, email, etc.—and that we don't necessarily give a second thought to. Maybe it's being stored somewhere. Maybe my tax dollars are paying for that rather than something else, such as education, day care, your salaries, etc.
In terms of recommendations, I studied surveillance when I was doing both of my sociology degrees. In preventing Canada from becoming a surveillance state, which is happening around the world, I think accountability with an oversight committee would be great, and an oversight committee not just of parliamentarians but also of legal processionals and civilians. I think it's very important that people like us have a say. Having the oversight committee include civilians may give another perspective that is sometimes forgotten when you are a government official or a lawyer. It's just another perspective.
I think transparency is also very important. We need to know what you're doing, we need to know how, and we need to know what you're keeping and for how long, etc.
As a young person in this country, I want to say that I understand in this time that we need to have a balance between surveillance and people's individual rights. It's inevitable now. We live in a society in which surveillance is everywhere. We can't get rid of it. That's not the goal anymore. It's balance: keep our rights and our safety. I hear you talk about people's safety. I don't think terrorism is as much of a threat as the media would make us believe. I would rather keep my rights.
At the same time, I understand that there are many things going on in this world. It's very complicated, with the technologies we have. Our laws are not catching up to how quickly technology is innovating. I know that, and I know that many people understand that. I appreciate your committee's trying to make changes to this bill, which should not have been passed in the first place by a previously, I would say, tyrannical prime minister.
Thank you.
7 p.m.
Voices
Hear, hear!
October 19th, 2016 / 7 p.m.
Paul Dutton As an Individual
I understand this committee to be consulting Canadians on what to do about Bill C-51, regardless of who won the election and how.
I have these things to say about the shaky structure. If the shaky structure won't stand and is going to fall down on you, then get rid of it and build something that's stable.
Here's where it shakes. First of all, there are three areas of concern: the new no-fly regime in the Secure Air Travel Act; terrorism speech offences; and the new CSIS, which is a de facto secret police.
Concerning the new no-fly regime, under the new law it is illegal to tell an individual if they are on the no-fly list or not. You go to the airport, you're on the no-fly list, you're told you can't fly, and you're not told why. It's illegal for them to tell you why you can't fly. That should be illegal in itself. That's unfair and undemocratic. It's a gross offence to human rights.
While it is next to impossible for citizens to gain access to their own listing, the act allows the listings to be shared with foreign governments, with no statutory limits on how that information can be used. Canada should repeal the Secure Air Travel Act and keep suspected terrorists away from airplanes by using the existing tools under the Criminal Code. The government should repeal the Secure Air Travel Act and Bill C-51. That's what this member of the public has to say in consulting about it.
As for terrorism speech offences, the new offence of advocating or promoting the commission of terrorism offences in general should be repealed. There is no security interest in further criminalizing expression beyond what was already an offence prior to the new law. Imagine trying to work within communities to support individuals at risk for radicalization of violence when even a discussion to understand their views puts them in a position of potentially committing a crime. This is the situation that currently exists in Canada.
The new CSIS is a de facto secret police. It folds the functions of police into the functions of an intelligence organization. This is a factor of a police state.
7:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
I'm afraid I need to have you end there. We'll hear from other people. We're happy to have a written submission as well.
7:05 p.m.
As an Individual
The new CSIS powers are unprincipled, dangerous, and unnecessary. They give CSIS vast powers to operate outside the confines of the regular law in near total secrecy. These provisions must be repealed. While a free and democratic country can incorporate the need for an intelligence agency to operate with considerable secrecy, there is no place in a free country for a secret police, full stop.
7:05 p.m.
Voices
Hear, hear!
7:05 p.m.
Semret Seyoum As an Individual
Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity.
I would like to start by talking about my appreciation to the Canadian government for inviting UN world expertise, as yesterday I was participating in a meeting about African dissenters. It is always terrible to hear very terrible stories about African dissenters here in Canada. I'm hopeful for the near future in terms of that one.
By the way, my name is Semret Seyoum, and I'm an editor and journalist. I came from Eritrea.
Regarding terrorist laws and Eritrea, there were two organizations, the EPLF and the ELF. The laws of the Canadian government say that both organizations are terrorist organizations. According to this law, every member of these organizations is considered a terrorist. When we talk about these organizations, we are talking about 200,000 people who were young people in the seventies and eighties. From these 200,000 young people, around 65,000 were already sacrificed for Eritrean independence. I would like to talk about this law. It is not constitutional. This law is not based on fundamental human rights. These young people fought for Eritrean independence. Many Eritreans who are at this time in Canada are considered terrorists.
As a child, I was there also. I went to the EPLF school in the eighties. This is a bit of a problem for the Canadian government. I would like the Canadian government to respect the Canadian constitution. This immigration law is unconstitutional. If we respect the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, maybe everything is going to go in the right direction.
Regarding Bill C-51, also, if we look very closely at the laws, the target is not directly the terrorists. The target is directly the journalists, the authors and writers. Journalists in every country are victims of the different laws and whims of the government.
7:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Thank you.
I need to have you end there, because I have to get to more people. Thank you very much.