Transport Committee on March 10th, 2009

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

If you tell that gentleman that the law requires five years and you ask him to sign an authorization form, he is going to sign it.

[Peter Coyles]

It is in the application.

[Marie-France Dagenais]

That is provided for in the application.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

He is going to sign it automatically. Mr. Bevington’s amendment notwithstanding, that person is going to have sign the authorization. He has no choice.

[Marie-France Dagenais]

If the statutory authority prevents it, we will not be able to include it in our form. We will have to take it out, in fact. At the moment, security clearance applications contain a statement saying that someone coming from another country consents to having his information checked. Otherwise, we cannot confirm that the person comes really comes from that country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Okay.

Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I really am troubled by what you people are doing here. If you read the amendment, it says:

No information collected for the purpose of determining whether to grant a transportation security clearance may be shared with any foreign government.

“Collected”; that doesn't mean that the process of collection can only happen within the boundaries of Canada. It means that once you have collected it—“collected” means the information that has been put together—it is not to be shared. That's pretty clear in this amendment, so you're throwing up a bit of a straw dog here. You still would be able to go to another country and ask about an applicant with this amendment, because it is not about collecting information; it is about the information collected. That's pretty clear. When you put something into a law that says “information collected” you're not saying “for the purpose of collecting information”. There are two different things here. You've put forward an argument to go against this amendment that is really quite specious.

[Linda Wilson]

Even obtaining a person's name in order to go to the foreign government is a “collection” under the act: it is information that has been collected under the act in order to collect further information.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

But the information collected for the purpose of determining whether to grant a transportation security clearance is not their name. You're not using that information to determine whether—

[Linda Wilson]

Well, you do, because you have to know who to give it to.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

—a person is going to be granted a security clearance. You're using the name as an identification of the person.

Come on. You are using a very specious argument to try to keep the power open for yourselves and for the transportation department and for this government to do what you say you're not going to do. What did we see in the evidence that was presented to us by the longshoremen? CSIS said they would use the information that was collected. That is in an affidavit that was supplied to this committee from the longshoremen's association, who are now in court over these very issues.

So yes, it's an important issue. I don't want to be caught up with specious arguments about what one term means or another. What we're trying to do here is protect the rights of Canadians from having their information shared with another foreign country. That's what we're trying to do here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Shall amendment NDP-2 carry?

(Amendment negatived) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

(Clause 5 agreed to)

(Clauses 6 through 25 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 26—Security Regulations)

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

On clause 26, we have NDP amendment number 3.

Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Amendment 3 is an amendment to ensure the appropriate committee of the House will have an opportunity to conduct public hearings with respect to the proposed regulations brought forward by the minister under this legislation. This is really just a chance for some oversight by the proper parliamentary committee for any of these regulations, which we can see through this discussion are going to be pretty contentious in every application everywhere across the country.

The thought we were going to leave this in the hands of a minister—it may not be this minister, it may not be this government. As legislators, we have a responsibility when we see there are many contentious issues around the rights of Canadians: the ability of our economy to continue to run efficiently, ensuring that security is maintained. We've seen evidence that perhaps some of the ideas that have been expressed here about the nature of these security clearances may not be appropriate. They may not actually get the bad guys.

So I think it's incumbent upon Parliament, when you pass enabling legislation like this—it's not prescriptive legislation, it's enabling legislation—that you have an oversight capacity within the legislation, and that's what this amendment is trying to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Laframboise.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

What do you see as the difference between the NDP motion and the Liberal motion?

[Marie-France Dagenais]

One of the major differences is that one is mandatory and the other is discretionary.

The mandatory element means that each proposed regulation must be submitted to the committee. The other amendment suggests that it is up to people’s discretion, depending on the complaints or the comments provided. This is a major difference.

When the word “shall” is used, an amendment to a regulation becomes mandatory. We have 3000 pages of regulations, with very technical standards. We make a number of amendments to the regulations, and the majority of those amendments are not contested and cause no negative comment. Even the industry, and the provinces and territories, approve them. So it would become quite a significant burden.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

So the Liberals’ amendment would be more reasonable, in the sense that, in the case of a complaint, we can always study a part of the regulations.

[Marie-France Dagenais]

There are still some implications, of course, but it is easier to manage. If everyone is in agreement, if the people who work together with us, our stakeholders, support the amendments we propose, we do not see why there needs to be a review.

We understand that there could perhaps be a review if comments are made.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

A point of clarification.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Bevington, on a point of clarification.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

“The Minister shall have each proposed regulation to be made under paragraphs 27.1(1)(b), (c) or (d) laid before each House of Parliament.” It's not the entire bill, simply the regulations around transportation security clearances, which are not 3,000 pages.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Volpe.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

My thanks to Ms. Dagenais for her explanation to the committee. I am going to move the next amendment. I always want to be seen as a reasonable member of Parliament, not one who does not want to improve legislation.

I have another question; whoever looks after legislative matters could reply. I will speak in English, Madam, if I may.

Does a parliamentary committee have the right to constrain legislation so that it goes immediately to a committee? Seeing that committees are creatures of the House and are given tasks by the House, can a committee in its amendment circumvent the authority of the House and receive jurisdiction directly under legislation?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Basically, if the House agrees to that type of amendment, it gives the authority back to the committee.