Evidence of meeting #80 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 debate.
A recording is available from Parliament.
8:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Is there any debate?
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Next is NDP-6.
8:55 a.m.
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
Chair, this is our retention schedule, which at 15 years we feel is much more in line with some of the concerns we heard, notably from the Privacy Commissioner, when it comes to how long this information will be kept, particularly with regard to CBSA. Different departments seem to have different policies as to how long they will retain the information. We feel it's important to have it specifically outlined in the bill.
As I mentioned in an earlier comment, at 15 years we're dealing with something that makes much more sense when it comes to protecting Canadians' privacy as opposed to paying lip service to it.
8:55 a.m.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
We think 15 years is a reasonable time, and we would be pleased to support this amendment.
8:55 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
I think it would be reasonable that we would extend the time actually from 15 years. There are circumstances in law enforcement history as well as in terrorism tracking where 15 years of data could be not a sufficient amount of time to track a person's movements. I know there's a reasonableness to it and I would hope that in this legislation we can arrive at something that allows for a bit of an extended time. I would agree that 99 years may be excessive, and zero is certainly not acceptable. Fifteen years still allows someone to be able to lose the record of their movement back and forth. I would propose that it be extended by at least double that. Thirty years would give someone—
8:55 a.m.
An hon. member
[Inaudible—Editor]
8:55 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
I know, but it's something that.... I can't support 15 years. I just think it's unreasonable. People can certainly have activities going on here that cannot be tracked beyond 15 years back. I know from experience that we lose a lot of information on retention schedules that we have already.
9 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Well, to be honest with you, we do need some retention years in here, obviously. I think 15 years is unreasonable. It's a start, but it's too low. I think if as a group we can live with 50 or 35, somewhere in that range, that allows for.... When you look at terrorist activity or criminal activity—and I'm just looking at this—they come into the country at 16, 18, 20 years old, and they hibernate, if you will, for some time. We can track—
9 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you are making an argument. The question is, are you prepared to make an amendment and then make your argument?
9 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
If you are prepared to make your amendment, then we can debate the amendment.
9 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
With the committee's indulgence, I would seek to amend the years of record retention to 40 years.
9 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
I think that's in order, and it's certainly within the purview.
I'll let Mr. Motz make his argument first, and then get others to respond.
Mr. Motz.
October 26th, 2017 / 9 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you, Chair.
That could be an arbitrary number, obviously, but the reason I suggest that is there are individuals who might enter this country and disappear for a time, with no activities and no travel back and forth or whatever, and their activities and their movements would be great to have because they could become involved in criminal activity, terrorist activity, in subsequent years and we could lose it. I do know from experience on criminal matters that in even some of our minor files we have record retention schedules of 10 or 15 years, and individuals may be silent in those years and we lose them permanently. They're gone and you can't ever access them again and it's critical that sometimes that information comes up.
I know we need a reasonableness balance here, but 15 years doesn't really allow us enough time and I see at the other end it's too much time. If someone comes into the country at age 20 years or 16 years, and we have a 40-year span, we hope that by the time they're 60 or 70 they're going to have demonstrated themselves already to be a risk to our country.
9 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Mr. Motz.
For the purpose of clarity and further debate, the subamendment would effectively make the NDP amendment read “retain for 40 years beginning on the day of”. Is that clear to everyone?
Mr. Dubé.
9 a.m.
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
Yes, Chair, I won't be supporting the amendment. I feel that even in the justice system, when it comes to life in prison, you're talking about 25 years, so I think that already demonstrates the length of time that this represents. It doesn't seem like a long time, but as soon as you're arguably close to a lifetime span, it again becomes a moot point.
It's also important to note that we already collect entry information anyway, which is exactly what Mr. Motz is talking about. This doesn't change that. This is specifically about the exit information that's being retained. We do have records of who enters the country. That's already something that exists, regardless of whether this bill is adopted or not.
Again, I feel 15 years allows the legislative objectives to be accomplished. I'm certainly also glad to see that the government sees that the same way, and I'll be voting against this amendment.
9 a.m.
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
To reassure my colleague, I do share the concern that we don't want to lose information. Having worked on databases covering 10 years of data, the behaviour, the pattern you want to look at is pretty much covered in this period of time. Where we feared losing some information at the beginning of the period, more than 10 years, we have the challenge of stretching that to the trial and justice system and what you can prove is quite limited because of time to give all the evidence you need. I think 15 years takes a good shot at expanding what exists already on the 10-year limitation of keeping data in the system, but long enough at least to give us a good idea of the pattern, the substance we're looking for, and gives us substance to work with. I'll remain at 15 years.
9:05 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Dubé, you're right about the exit information. We know that many of the threats posed to our country are because they're radicalized somewhere else. Monitoring the exit information and the number of times they leave this country to maybe have that exposure elsewhere in our world would be important to track for longer than 15 years.
Thank you.
9:05 a.m.
Liberal
9:05 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
My colleague referred to terrorism, but terrorism is not the only concern. We are talking about all kinds of crimes, property crimes and many other things. That is why retaining the information for a long time can be crucial to Canadian security. Terrorism is one concern, of course, but there are many others as well.