Public Safety Committee on Nov. 20th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Good morning, everyone. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 14 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the House order of reference of October 23, 2025, the committee is meeting on its study of Bill C‑12, An Act respecting certain measures relating to the security of Canada's borders and the integrity of the Canadian immigration system and respecting other related security measures.

I'd now like to welcome the witnesses who will be with us for the first hour of the meeting.

From the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, we have Philippe Dufresne, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and Marc Chénier, deputy commissioner and senior general counsel.

We also have with us Mr. Robert Huebert, professor, centre for military, security and strategic studies at the University of Calgary, who is going to proceed by video conference.

We also have Whitney Lackenbauer, professor at Trent University and Canada research chair in the study of the Canadian North.

Welcome.

We'll start with you, Mr. Dufresne. You have five minutes for your presentation.

[Philippe Dufresne, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today to assist in your study of Bill C‑12.

Bill C‑12 would amend a number of laws and regulations with a view to strengthening immigration and border security and combatting transnational organized crime and the flow of illicit narcotics and financing. These are important public interest objectives.

These provisions were initially included as part of Bill C-2, but Bill C-12 omits the elements of Bill C-2, including the lawful access provisions, that raise the most significant privacy implications and on which I will have more to say when Bill C-2 is reviewed by this committee.

Last month, when I appeared before you on Bill C-8, I made reference to Bill C-12 and noted that it contains important positive safeguards with respect to information-sharing agreements for disclosures outside Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

Specifically, Bill C-12 requires written information-sharing agreements for when the Minister of Immigration discloses specified immigration-related personal information outside the department.

The bill indicates that such agreements must include the elements of personal information that may be disclosed, the purpose of the disclosure, any limits on secondary use and subsequent transfer of information, as well as any other relevant details.

The bill further provides for the issuance of regulations by the government with respect to the disclosure of information, and I would expect my office to be consulted in the drafting of these regulations. These are important requirements that I support, and I would recommend that they be included in Bill C-8 as well.

The bill also includes a provision that would grant customs officers free access to premises or places where goods destined for export are stored. To harmonize this with the existing provisions of the Customs Act, in particular with subsection 42(3), I would recommend that the bill clarify that an officer may not enter a dwelling house without the consent of the occupant, except under the authority of a warrant.

Thank you again for the invitation to appear. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Huebert, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Robert Huebert, Professor, Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies, University of Calgary, As an Individual]

Thank you very much.

I have two points to make to this committee in regard to Bill C-12, one specific and one more general.

The first one pertains to my area of expertise, which is Arctic and strategic studies and Arctic security. That is part 4, the changes to the Oceans Act and specifically to the Coast Guard.

This particular element of the change to the Oceans Act is part of the larger picture of the transformation of the Coast Guard into a much more security-focused agency. It has been moved into the Department of National Defence, and it has been increasingly given more vessels and more activities. One of the functions of Bill C-12 is that it is going to be giving the Coast Guard more elements in terms of security patrols and gathering of security matters.

One of the challenges coming forward is that the Coast Guard is not law enforcement. One of the questions that is going to have to be addressed in the longer term, as more of a security mandate is given to the Coast Guard, is what in fact that means in terms of the individual members of the Coast Guard and what they will have to be doing in that particular context.

The additions that are proposed in Bill C-12 are in fact good, but there is obviously a greater need within the overall holistic understanding of what the transfer of the Coast Guard to DND and this larger security mandate ultimately means.

The second point I would make is with regard to the overall focus of Bill C-12 to secure the borders. One of the elements that many observers have made is the question that then follows: This obviously is securing against specific individuals, and there is the fact that you have within Bill C-12 a focus on the improvements in dealing with particular issues related to the drug trade and other aspects, which raises the question of how then this overall act pertains to the identification and the proactive actions taken against individuals who are violating our borders.

At the highest level, this gets to the issue of the strategic concerns that are now arising in terms of the increasing aggressive actions that we see being taken by Russia, China and Iran, as reported in our defence update and the Canadian Arctic foreign policy.

The question that really arises is how, then, this particular act strengthens, in the overall effort to protect at the strategic and more regional levels—how will it deal with the questions surrounding issues of the increased activities of organized crime and states that are said to be participating in the development of many of these drugs, the precursors and other elements that we are trying to strengthen the borders against.

Ultimately, the question is this: The borders need to be strengthened, but who are they being strengthened against, and how then does this pertain to the administration of the other agencies that are tasked with this job?

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you very much, Mr. Huebert.

Professor Lackenbauer, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Professor, Canada Research Chair in the Study of the Canadian North, Trent University, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair and committee members, I'm very honoured to appear before you today to offer a few opening reflections on Bill C-12.

Most of my work these days, like that of Dr. Huebert, focuses on Arctic security, so my comments will relate to how we conceptualize our northern borders and how Bill C-12 will contribute to improving their security.

First, successive governments love to talk about Canadian sovereignty. To an international lawyer, this might be read as the internationally recognized right for us to control activities in our jurisdiction. To many Canadians, however, the word sovereignty conjures up broader issues about how we actually govern our lands and waters, which I think are best seen through the lens of law and regulatory enforcement.

I think we need to shift our narrative, or at least a lot of it, from treating every unwanted activity in our Arctic lands, northern waters or aerospace as a sovereignty challenge to instead seeing most of them for what they are, the breaking of Canadian laws and regulations, which is a security and safety issue and not a sovereignty one. This entails ensuring we have the right tools to secure our borders and our territory and enforce our laws throughout our lands, waters and airspace.

We do face an increasingly dangerous international threat environment, which brings new challenges to our northern borders. This includes a wide range of grey-zone or hybrid threats that fall below the threshold of armed conflict, but these are often bundled together with more conventional military threats.

Many of these hybrid threats do not fall within the Department of National Defence's mandate. We need to be more precise in how we categorize Arctic threats across various sectors of security and then think about which departments and agencies are resourced to take the lead on addressing these threats.

There has been a broad consensus over several governments that we need to strengthen Canada's domain awareness, surveillance and control capabilities in the Arctic and north, and that we're able to enforce our legislative and regulatory frameworks in the region through truly whole-of-government and whole-of-society efforts.

I say this because I see various elements of Bill C-12 as improving the Government of Canada's ability to exercise its sovereign control in the Arctic and north by focusing on tangible security threats that threaten healthy communities, strong economies and a sustainable environment. Examples include those that Dr. Huebert just referred to, of international organized crime networks that have penetrated northern communities and are involved in human trafficking and the illegal drug trade. The opioid crisis is certainly a nationwide emergency, but its impact is disproportionately severe in northern regions, particularly amongst indigenous people.

Given the sheer breadth of Canada's northern borders, monitoring border areas where criminal networks might smuggle people or illegal goods is likely to entail turning to new technologies, such as drones, to facilitate wider area surveillance. When coupled with modernized legal authorities for border and law enforcement agencies, this can enable more effective responses. In the maritime security domain, our coasts face evolving security risks that require whole-of-government efforts. We can look to the 2022 Auditor General report on the need for increased surveillance in our Arctic waters and how we need to make sure that departments and agencies have fuller awareness of maritime activities and growing surveillance needs.

While the Coast Guard has long played a role in ferrying around law enforcement agencies and supporting an integrated government approach to maritime security, Bill C-12 will amend the Oceans Act to add security-related activities specifically to Coast Guard services. This is a big shift, and this is a very welcome one that complements the Coast Guard's wide-ranging safety roles.

This change, by enabling the Coast Guard to conduct security patrols and to collect, analyze and disseminate information and intelligence for security purposes, will capitalize on the persistent presence of the Coast Guard fleet in our Arctic waters to contribute to maritime domain awareness. As Prime Minister Carney noted in June, this integrates it into our NATO defence capabilities. What exactly this looks like remains to be determined, but incorporating the Coast Guard with more fully integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance will benefit Canada and, by extension, our allies.

To wrap up, Canada's 2019 Arctic and northern policy framework, or ANPF, states, “In the Arctic and in the North, as in the rest of Canada, safety, security and defence are essential prerequisites for healthy communities, strong economies, and a sustainable environment.”

The Canadian Arctic and the north pose distinct challenges in producing a comprehensive picture about what's happening across such a vast region, and, as well, our “ability to respond to regional challenges, provide security and ensure compliance with our laws and regulations largely depends” on our ability to put this picture together, because, as the ANPF says, “gaps can have life-threatening consequences.”

Increasing maritime and cross-border traffic creates new challenges for border enforcement, and it's imperative that we advance whole-of-government and whole-of-society collaboration to enhance monitoring and surveillance, to integrate information from more diverse sources and to enable timely law enforcement action as required.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Professor Lackenbauer.

Mr. Caputo, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Thank you very much.

There's so much here to digest.

Commissioner Dufresne, I'm not sure if you're comfortable with this, but I'm going to ask if you're comfortable talking about this. Bill C-12 came from Bill C-2, and there were some pretty significant privacy aspects in Bill C-2. I don't believe that you have spoken about Bill C-2 at committee.

Would you feel comfortable if I were to ask you about your general concerns, just so that as we move forward as His Majesty's loyal Opposition, we can have a sense as to what your concerns are? Is it okay if I lead off there?

[Philippe Dufresne]

Thank you.

Yes, I'm happy to speak to that, of course not specifically to provisions that I would do on Bill C-2, but generally, similar to my comments on Bill C-8. I always look at these types of national security bills to see what the tools are that law enforcement needs, because they need those tools, and whether they are necessary and proportionate.

That's a big lens, so we look at what the thresholds are. Are you requiring a warrant? Are you requiring reasonable suspicion or reasonable belief? What are the processes for Canadians to be informed of these things? What are the processes to challenge these things? What are the timelines to challenge these things? Who is given those types of powers?

In Bill C-2, there also are issues about requiring organizations to make information available. Is that done in a way that is going to create systemic risks or vulnerabilities to systems, and are we mitigating that?

Those are the types of things I'll be speaking to when I come here on BillC-2. I will be making recommendations in terms of some of those thresholds, particularly when they deal with sensitive personal information, and how they can be made stronger: for example, taking it from reasonable suspicion to reasonable belief. These are the types of points I'll be making.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but is it fair to say that around parts 14 and 15 generally—those are the lawful access areas—you have considerable concerns about that? For instance, reasonable grounds to suspect or believe versus reasonable suspicion are very different legal thresholds. Am I summarizing that accurately?

[Philippe Dufresne]

Those are the parts of Bill C-2 where I will have the most to say, and particularly on these threshold matters, absolutely.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Okay. Perhaps you and I can speak outside of committee at some point, because I would love to hear your insights.

Professor Lackenbauer and Dr. Huebert, I really listened to what you had to say. One thing that is often understated is our Arctic sovereignty.

Before we get to that, Dr. Huebert, you talked about putting the Coast Guard into National Defence. Is that simply, in your view, a matter of meeting our national targets to placate, perhaps, or to address international commitments? As far as I know, the Coast Guard serves no proper defence function. If fired upon, they retreat. They are not military or defence—not in the traditional sense that I would think of, anyway.

Could you give any comments on that, please?

[Robert Huebert]

Absolutely. The Coast Guard itself is undergoing a major transformation. We're seeing an explosion of new vessels being produced. In fact, as we speak, we have four very large vessels that are all being built at the same time—one in Vancouver, one that's going to be between Finland and Quebec City, and the two AOPS that are being constructed in Halifax. Really, what we're seeing is part and parcel of what you suggest—1.5% of meeting our 5% security elements for DND. The move of the Coast Guard to DND will assist the government in that regard. As my colleague Dr. Lackenbauer made clear, however, the geography of the Arctic is so vast that the problems of the new threat environment we're facing at both the subnational and national levels require the whole of government.

The vision for the Coast Guard, which really depends on how the government actually follows through on the implementation, is that the Coast Guard, of course, will not be at the pointy end. It will not fight. It will not have the capability of engaging in kinetic reactions. Where it can play a critical role is in terms of surveillance, in terms of presence, in terms of the ability to deal with threats that are sub-kinetic. That means not actually fighting. It means being able to get people into locations and being able to provide.

One of the thoughts that are being considered by some is that as we are increasingly recognizing the new high-intensity threat environment that is posed, particularly by the Russians and, many suspect, the Chinese, the surveillance capability cannot be done only by DND. You're going to have to get platforms. Again, how that works out is something that is still very much an issue in progress. We've yet to see it in this context. The recognition is that DND cannot do everything by itself. This is where I think the role of the Coast Guard becomes so critically important and is underlined by part 4 of this act.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

How much time do I have left, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

I'm sorry, Mr. Caputo. That's all the time for now.

That brings us to MP Ehsassi for six minutes, please.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses. Your testimony has been very helpful.

Perhaps I could start off with Professor Lackenbauer.

One of the issues you touched on was criminal activity in the north. I must say that this is something that does not receive a lot of attention. I'm wondering if you could speak to that issue and further educate us on the threats we face insofar as criminal activity is concerned.

[P. Whitney Lackenbauer]

Thank you. It's an excellent question.

When I think about Arctic security, I often distinguish between threats through the Arctic—ones that would pass through the region, such as long-range strategic delivery systems, which are very much a military mandate—and a lot of the threats to and in the Arctic, which have been documented and fall with other departments and agencies. In our national discussions, it behooves us to dedicate more energies and perhaps more attention to those departments and agencies that have been overlooked up to this point in time.

We look at the opioid crisis and what that means in the north. We look at patterns of human trafficking and ask what the unique Arctic pathways or unique Arctic vulnerabilities are that are not covered by our existing national systems. We look at certain provisions in terms of a very limited footprint for border services in the north and a limited footprint of RCMP federal policing as being key gaps that have been identified in the last five years and that we're still in the progress of addressing.

I think this is where Bill C-12 helps to create the enabling legislative conditions to see the investment of resources. When we look at announcements of increasing CBSA and RCMP personnel, we also need to look to the north and ask ourselves what kinds of vulnerabilities we need to be investing in with federal resources in the region. It's here that the language of sovereignty, to my mind, is not just about lines on a map. For all of us, it's actually everything that goes on within those lines.

I would say that the most acute security issues are actually perceived at the community level. Here's where it's important to look at things like human trafficking, to look at a lot of the other forms of violence that are playing out in these communities, and to also understand the pathways for transnational organized crime, what that increasing presence in the north and throughout the north means, and how we can counter it.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I'm sorry. When you say transnational organized crime, is that coming from the north, or is it coming through our southern border and then moving its way up?

[P. Whitney Lackenbauer]

Again, I wouldn't be privy to any of the detailed classified information on those pathways. We might look to the fact that we have a western border as well. I'm not sure how much organized crime is passing, but certainly issues relating to gun smuggling, for example, and theoretically to drugs, would warrant looking to that western border.

I think, more generally, a lot of the pathways are through southern Canada, reaching up to the north. In essence, investing in broader, more robust safeguards for our southern borders is ultimately helping us to address some of these northern aspects of our threat environment.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you very much.

I will turn to Professor Huebert.

Professor Huebert, I find that the previous question you were asked by the member opposite seemed to have a very dim view of the Coast Guard, but, as you noted, the Coast Guard is going through a transformation. Could you unpack that for us some more and perhaps share with us why you think that the Coast Guard is fully capable of doing so?

[Robert Huebert]

The Coast Guard is often the victim of its own success, because so many of its activities in the north are beyond the vision of what we see. We don't see them resupplying. We don't see them in the engagements.

What we know historically is that the Coast Guard has been vastly underfunded and has been asked, always increasingly, to do more and more difficult tasks. These tasks have become even more pronounced as climate change has, of course, added new environmental demands in terms of how they are responding to crises—not only flooding and forest fires but also decreasing ice cover. That means the Coast Guard has always been the agency that the Canadian government tells to go up and fix the issue.

As we enter into this new geopolitical threat environment, there is the realization that it's not good enough simply to have the Coast Guard dealing at the subnational, lower level of responding to threats: We have to figure out how in fact we can utilize these new resources for the greater security issue.

This is something that the Coast Guard is wrestling with right now. It's the issue of not only how we integrate it so that it can still meet all of the requirements that we've always called upon it to meet, but also how we add on these new responsibilities. This is very much a policy issue in motion, literally as we speak.

The Coast Guard will figure out whatever is required. They're going to be given four ships from four different shipyards. They will figure out all the first-of-class problems that come with that. They're going to figure out what type of training is necessary. The problem we always have is that they do it so terribly well that there often is a tendency to say that they have enough money and that they're figuring it out.

Ultimately, we come back to the issue that we see with Bill C-12. We see the new ships. We see the transfer to DND. Will the Coast Guard get the resources it needs to maintain itself and to fully fulfill itself as it is given more security responsibilities?

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I think I have very little time left.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

I think the time is over, unfortunately. Thank you for that segment.

Mrs. DeBellefeuille, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I apologize to the witnesses, but I would like to move a motion regarding Bill C‑12. My assistant has the French and English versions and can submit them to the clerk. The motion is as follows:

That, in order to allow the members of the Committee to take into account the appearance of 24 witnesses before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration as part of the study of Bill C‑12, the Committee postpone the deadline for submitting amendments in preparation for the clause-by-clause study of Bill C‑12. That, for this purpose, the deadline for submitting amendments be set for Friday, November 21, 2025, at 11:59 p.m.

I find I have no choice but to move this motion to ensure a high degree of professionalism. Likely on Friday morning, the committee members will receive a list of recommendations based on the testimony and briefs received, of which there are probably dozens, about the part of Bill C‑12 that deals with immigration and refugees. I can't even imagine us, the members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, not having time to familiarize ourselves with this document and analyze it on our own to determine whether or not we're going to propose amendments, given that the deadline for submitting amendments was set for Friday at noon. I'd be quite embarrassed should the witnesses who appeared before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration have to learn that all their work had not been given proper consideration to enable us to assess whether or not we're going to propose amendments.

That's why I'm proposing this to the committee, and I imagine there won't be much opposition to the idea. Instead of having until noon to submit our amendments, I propose that we give ourselves until the end of the same day to do so. That would give us time to familiarize ourselves with the material and everything the witnesses have done.

Honestly, I can't understand why we didn't make room in our committee's schedule to listen to and discuss what occurred at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. We're talking about 24 witnesses. I don't know how this happened. I know that the scheduling of our work on Bill C‑12 was adopted in large part because of an alliance between the Liberals and the Conservatives, because I, for one, was not in favour of it.

I can't help but talk to you about it today, because I've always been thorough in the past. I can't accept that the deadline set for submitting amendments doesn't give me the time I need to read the document produced by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, assess its relevance and read a few briefs, so that I can do my job properly in preparing for clause‑by‑clause consideration of the bill.

I don't expect there's going to be a lot of debate on my motion. I think what I'm saying makes sense. It makes no sense to have to submit amendments no later than two hours after receiving the document produced by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

If we stuck to the current plan, I wouldn't be shy to explain the situation to all the groups who shared their recommendations or took the trouble to draft a brief. It would be as if we were sending them a message that our committee did not want to take their work into account.

Mr. Chair, I would encourage you to call the vote on my motion. Once that's dealt with, we can continue the meeting. I'll let you do your job.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Mrs. DeBellefeuille.

The motion on Bill C‑12 is in order. That said, as we've just been notified, I'm going to suspend the meeting for a few minutes to make sure that all committee members can read it. We will resume immediately thereafter.