Thank you.
Mr. Miller, for a few minutes.
Evidence of meeting #35 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 review.
Evidence of meeting #35 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 review.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Ataogul, we got cut off before our discussion—
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
In a comment you made to a question from Mr. Dubé, you said there's no evidence that CSIS has enough power. I would dispute that, respectfully, because so-called experts in the field—and I'm not one of them—have said that Private Vincent, here in Montreal, Corporal Cirillo, in Ottawa, probably would still be alive today if CSIS had the powers that they now have, and in all likelihood there probably would have been more deaths with Mr. Driver, the would-be terrorist in Strathroy.
What we are hearing is that there are some flaws in the bill. That's fine. That happens. What we need are suggestions to fix it, not just “It's no good” or whatever. Anyway, that's just a comment.
Mr. Cavalluzzo, you talked a little bit about the no-fly list. I'd like you to enlarge a bit on it, on how it could be fixed. I'll tell you experiences that I've had in my own riding.
I don't know the exact number, but I'm going to say around five constituents have contacted me over the last 12 years. Most of them have been put on that list because their name was identical to someone, or their name was similar and their birthdate was the same, or something like that. My experience has been that if I go to work with them on it, we've been pretty successful in fixing what was a mistake. Outside of that, what kind of improvements to the no-fly list could we make so that maybe there are fewer mistakes?
October 20th, 2016 / 4:10 p.m.
Representative, International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
There are two key ones that I would recommend. First of all, as was stated before, to appeal the decision of the minister you have to establish that the minister was unreasonable. It shouldn't be unreasonableness. What it should be is he or she was correct. It's too important in terms of the intrusive power it has on the citizen. The second improvement I would recommend is that much of the hearing on the appeal will be heard in secret. You're going to have the government lawyer there and you're not going to have anybody representing the individual. In Bill C-51, if you're going to have a no-fly list, I would have a provision that says there is a special advocate who will be in the hearing representing the interests of the person whose name is on the no-fly list, so at least we have some kind of an adversarial debate within the secret hearings of the Federal Court. That's not there now. That should be there.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Thank you for that.
Mr. Chairman, I know we're over time so I'm going to end it at that.
Thank you.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Thank you.
Thank you for your testimony.
I'm going to give advance notice to the committee that I have an idea in my head, which is always dangerous. We're beginning to get some different models of oversight presented to us at different meetings. I think maybe we need to host them to come together.
I think it was not quite fair to say Mr. Segal wanted to get rid of the oversight, he wanted a very beefed-up bureaucracy underneath the parliamentary oversight committee, the committee of parliamentarians. It could be like a super-SIRC that has experts, and there are all kinds of models. I think we're probably going to end up with three or four different models of oversight that we're going to have to test Bill C-22 against. I think a different format of meeting could be quite interesting where we have a panel of people who engage in a different way than we're normally doing. We're getting some fascinating expert opinions, and we as non-experts are going to have to make recommendations. You've inspired us today and we thank you for your work, not only today but always, in the pursuit of justice.
Thank you.
We're going to adjourn this meeting and we're going to reconvene at 5:30.
You are cordially invited to attend the public consultation meeting this evening.
Thank you.
The meeting is adjourned.