Evidence of meeting #36 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.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Lillian Kruzsely  As an Individual
Adrien Welsh  As an Individual
Johan Boyden  As an Individual
Bensalem Kamereddine  As an Individual
Timothy McSorley  As an Individual
Wendy Stevenson  As an Individual
Suzanne Chabot  As an Individual
William Ray  As an Individual
Holly Dressel  As an Individual
Francis Goldberg  As an Individual
Veronika Jolicoeur  As an Individual
Dorothy Henaut  As an Individual
Shane Johnston  As an Individual
Aaron Gluck-Thaler  As an Individual
Jacques Bernier  As an Individual
Edward Hudson  As an Individual
Rhoda Sollazzo  As an Individual
Sarah Evett  As an Individual
Robert Cox  As an Individual
Joaquin Barbera  As an Individual
Alexandre Popovic  As an Individual
George Kaoumi  As an Individual
Julia Bugiel  As an Individual
Souhail Ftouh  As an Individual
Hernan Moreno  As an Individual
Fernand Deschamps  As an Individual
Brenda Linn  As an Individual

6:25 p.m.

Liberal

Marco Mendicino Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON

—simply because I'm using my laptop. Thank you.

6:25 p.m.

As an Individual

Holly Dressel

I did mention your name and you didn't look at me, so I—

6:25 p.m.

Liberal

Marco Mendicino Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON

Because I was taking notes.

6:25 p.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Matthew Dubé

Okay. Would you wrap up, please.

6:25 p.m.

As an Individual

Holly Dressel

Yes, I would just wrap up by saying that these situations—what he's talking about—are extremely rare. What is not rare, in fact, is governments taking advantage of their position of power and of being armed—having large armed groups that are both overt and covert—to cow their populations into not expressing themselves.

I don't want to see anything remotely like this happening to Canada. The kinds of things, as the previous speaker pointed out, that have happened to Canada have not been so frightening and grave that they really call for this kind of response.

6:30 p.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Matthew Dubé

Thank you very much.

Ms. Watts would like to speak.

6:30 p.m.

Conservative

Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC

I want to make a general comment about clarity and language. We saw a Japanese delegation come forward, and they referenced concentration camps. They were internment camps.

6:30 p.m.

As an Individual

Holly Dressel

They were, but they worked, and they had very poor food.

6:30 p.m.

Conservative

Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC

I understand, it's just on behalf of and respect for the Japanese that were....

6:30 p.m.

As an Individual

Holly Dressel

Where do you draw the line on that? They couldn't leave. There was barbed wire.

6:30 p.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Matthew Dubé

Thank you.

Mr. Mendicino, you have the floor.

6:30 p.m.

Liberal

Marco Mendicino Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON

Thank you very much for those comments.

I think that I speak on behalf of all the committee—and I'll stand to be corrected if I don't—when I say we all respect freedom of expression and free speech. I think the manifestation of that freedom is the holding of a public consultation of this variety, where we are all paying very close attention to the comments that are being made—

6:30 p.m.

As an Individual

Holly Dressel

We appreciate it.

6:30 p.m.

Liberal

Marco Mendicino Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON

—and those comments will be reflected in our report. Let me just begin by saying that.

I want to press you a bit on the freedom of expression, as it is balanced out in the law, and as it exists today with what was C-51, and what is now part of the Criminal Code, and the CSIS Act, and other statutes.

There are elements within the criminal offences whose purpose is to delineate some boundaries between what is free expression, lawful protest, and civil disobedience, which are part of the fabric of our democracy, and those comments that go beyond into a different realm. I think one of the other members of the audience very astutely pointed out that there is room or flexibility for interpretation. Is it possible that the need for that flexibility is driven by the facts and circumstances of any protest, where things could get out of hand? Do we risk not getting the balance right, if we become too narrow in our definitions?

6:30 p.m.

As an Individual

Holly Dressel

I do appreciate the question, but I would concur with the speaker ahead of me that our current criminal laws are very adequate to protect us from the kind of behaviour of people who would come and wantonly set fire to things, or take over a demonstration, or otherwise become violent and dangerous to the population. As a person who does attend some of these demonstrations, I certainly don't want to be around that.

I think he made the very good point that this is extremely well covered by our Criminal Code already, and I know many people who have seen this happen and have seen this kind of delineation between the two things.

6:30 p.m.

Liberal

Marco Mendicino Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON

Thank you very much.

6:30 p.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Matthew Dubé

Thank you very much.

We will now hear from Francis Goldberg, and then Veronika Jolicoeur.

Ms. Goldberg, you have the floor.

October 20th, 2016 / 6:30 p.m.

Francis Goldberg As an Individual

The first thing I want to do is congratulate you for opening up your talk from two o'clock in the afternoon. Thank you very much for doing that. That, in my opinion, is very progressive, and I'm proud of you.

The second thing is, to those behind me, I'm really sorry that you weren't here to hear what went on from two o'clock to four o'clock.

In my profession, I'm totally an artist. I am a painter and an actor. In my years, and I have years, I have had the experience of working in a Middle Eastern country in special education with boys at the age of 8 to 14. It was creative work that was later adapted into the area of special education. I am perceptive, and I work not on a mental level, but on a creative level.

The comments I'd like to make are in regard to Mr. Foura's and Mr. Cavalluzzo's presentations. Mr. Foura spoke of de-radicalization. I agree so much with both these men. It's a shame that the people behind me did not have the opportunity to hear them.

I would say that the biggest part of public security is educating the public, from a very early age—from pre-school right up to puberty—about the different religions that exist now in Canada.

Many of the immigrants who come to this country have deep-rooted scars from their mother country, and for a lot of them, unfortunately, those scars are so deep that they transfer them to young children. Before the child even goes into the public school system, he is biased. I would suggest—totally creatively, even though I hold a general bachelor's degree from Laval University—for the religious private school principals to be invited to the next meeting in the public sector here. I feel that the education has to start really early, before puberty, because during puberty, when you hit the teenage years, you have hormones that work, and you have a short fuse. Of course, if it's badly handled before high school, you might risk violence.

Now I want to—

6:35 p.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Matthew Dubé

I would ask you to wrap up, please, so that we have time to get to the other speakers. Thank you.

6:35 p.m.

As an Individual

Francis Goldberg

Mr. Cavalluzzo mentioned that he would like to start a committee. On that committee, I would personally like to see one or two representatives of the public, after the public's wants and critiques have been heard.

I want to thank you very much.

6:35 p.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Matthew Dubé

Thank you very much.

Given that Ms. Goldberg has mentioned the testimony this afternoon, I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone, including those who are not with us this evening who have an interest in this, that the transcripts of the testimony heard both in Ottawa and on our tour are available. We just need to allow some time for the people who support us and who work very hard on that to process them. They are on the website of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, which is part of the parliamentary Internet site.

The same thing applies to the evening testimony from the public here and from the people we have heard in the other cities. I invite you to go to the site, even if you were not able to attend the meetings in person. As Ms. Goldberg said, it is extremely interesting, and it helps us a lot in our work.

Thank you.

Since there are no questions, I will give the floor to Veronika Jolicoeur.

6:35 p.m.

Veronika Jolicoeur As an Individual

Hello. I would like to make two comments.

The first comment relates to the public's general fear when it comes to privacy. At present, a police officer may not enter anywhere they like to conduct a search; they must obtain permission from a judge, I believe. When it comes to surveillance, the government should give the public assurances that if it has suspicions about a person, those suspicions have to be supported by a judge, who will then grant permission for a wiretap, for example. At that point, the public will no longer have that fear of being spied on, by whatever means, by the intelligence services.

The second comment relates to omnibus bills. If the government could separate the subjects in bills like these so that each one could be discussed separately, I think that would do much to promote transparency and public confidence in the government.

Thank you.

6:40 p.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Matthew Dubé

Thank you very much.

Since there are no questions from my colleagues, we will move on to Dorothy Henaut, and after that it will be Shane Jonhston's turn.

6:40 p.m.

Dorothy Henaut As an Individual

I'd like to step back a bit and talk about the attitude in the body politic that this bill encourages. It's a template that hangs over the population. It encourages the police—and all police forces are influenced by it—to consider Canadian citizens as their enemies, especially those citizens who believe Canada could be a better place if changes were made toward equality, peacefulness, respect for civil liberties, open, diverse and free communication, healthy agriculture and food, etc.

We want real policies to stop global climate change, an economy not based on selling arms to Saudi Arabia...I could go on. I'm an 81-year-old citizen who has belonged to the Voice of Women since 1963.

I am a member of the group Les artistes pour la paix. I am an activist for social, economic and environmental justice.

I am a citizen, and I am afraid of laws that jeopardize our democracy.

When a government pits its police force against its citizens, it's on a slippery slope toward fascism. When a government allows its police services to break the law with impunity, anything from the way the cops drive in Montreal to some of the undercover stuff they do, and trap the naive, and consider a conscientious citizen the enemy, we have a problem. Therefore, I think a new set of glasses needs to be placed over Bill C-51. Does it pass the democracy test?

When our police behave as if they have seen too many TV shows, and start taking entertainment for reality, we're in trouble. Remember the G20 in Toronto. When there's no civilian citizen oversight over our policing system that has any degree of credibility, how close does that make us to a police state, a fascist state?

As a citizen, I want to be respected by government and by my police force, even if I hold different views from theirs. I'm not saying our government should not be concerned by security issues. If they stopped playing TV games, they might even be more efficient at that task.

So throw out Bill C-51 and start over.

6:40 p.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Matthew Dubé

Thank you.

Being from the suburbs, I think we could come back and have a whole consultation on how a bunch of people drive in Montreal, but that's another discussion.

Thank you very much.

We will now move on to Shane Johnston, please.

Next, it will be Aaron Gluck-Thaler's turn.