I think that makes my main point in this discussion that we were trying to avoid this particular thing. Because of the information that has been given to us by the Privacy Commissioner and many of the others, this is a very serious issue vis-à-vis privacy and the rights of individuals.
We have a situation where we're passing a bill here today in order to meet up with the U.S. standards that they're now applying to a system of overflights that's been in place for probably 70 years, where this information was previously not required.
Most laws in the British system are based on common law. If you look at the provision, say, of entering into someone's property, then that right is developed over time. Now, this is of course different between sovereign nations, but certainly we could look at this particular act of the United States as an additional burden they're asking us to take on in a long-term relationship.
Without the understanding of the nature of the threat assessment that's being applied to this.... Quite obviously, our government didn't think there was a great threat assessment present with the overflights over the United States. If our government had considered that these overflights presented a hazard to another country, I'm sure it would not have gone there looking for a complete exemption. It would have gone there open-hearted, giving the information to the United States, if it felt that there were reasonable grounds for doing this. So there aren't reasonable grounds in the eyes of the Canadian government.
We have a situation where we're being asked to make an unreasonable change in the nature of our relationship with the United States based on decisions that are not coming from the legislators of the United States. It's quite clear within the legislation that was developed in the United States that there are grounds for a complete exemption for overflights. That's built into their legislation, so the legislators in their wisdom in the United States said “Yes, we should have the ability to give another country a complete exemption from overflight requirements”.
That's clear. The United States, at the level we deal with as legislators, made that decision. What has happened since is that at a bureaucratic level there have been some decisions made that this overflight information is required, and that our security service and security system is not adequate.
What I wanted to accomplish with this sunset clause is to put the onus back on the government to deal with this at the highest level, to deal with this with the understanding that our legislators and the legislators in the United States both see that this information requirement is excessive, and that it can be eliminated. Without this clause, we will see that this legislation will remain in place for a very long period of time and be an unnecessary burden on Canadian travellers.
We have a situation with a review, which is fine and good, but now we have an open-ended review, so we have the government and this committee commencing a review. That's what it says. You can commence a review and you can go on for many years before you actually complete a review. I was willing to go along with that amendment when it had a fixed time, when that review had to come in front of Parliament. I don't see that now. I see a wide-open review process with no obligation for completion. There's no obligation now in the legislation that says that review has to be completed.
“Commence”—what kind of word is “commence” within legislation? How does that put any onus on anyone to complete something? “Commence a review”—that's about the worst word I can imagine to put in that situation. It really doesn't do anything. It requires there to be complete goodwill on the part of whoever is holding the majority in this committee at the time of the commencement of the review in order for that review to be completed. What you've done then is to basically make this subject to the whim of the committee. You've made the legislation subject to the whim of the committee. You've taken it away from being a very clear obligation on the part of this committee, which has made this decision to go ahead with a particular law that we've heard quite clearly can infringe upon Canadians' privacy rights. You've made a decision to go ahead with that, and now you've kept the decision for completion of a review in the hands of the majority of the committee.
Mr. Chair, we don't know what the composition of this committee will be like in three years. There will be another election within three years. There may be a majority of any shape or description on this. That's unlikely to be determined until the election. With this kind of legislation, I think we can safely say....
I'm speaking to the legislation, but there's a point of order.
