Debates of Dec. 13th, 1994

Employment Equity Act

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to.)

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-226, an act to amend the Criminal Code, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Criminal Code

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the recorded division on the motion that Bill C-226 be read a second time.

As is the custom, the vote will be taken row by row, beginning with the mover, and moving on to those in favour of the motion who are on the same side of the House as the mover.

Those in favour of the motion and seated on the other side of the House will be called on next. Those who oppose the motion will then be asked to vote in the same order.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee.)

The House resumed from December 9 consideration of the motion.

Recognition Of The Patriotes Of Lower Canada And The Reformers Of Upper Canada

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Pursuant to the order made on Friday, December 9, 1994, the House will now proceed to the taking of the recorded deferred division on the motion, as amended, by the hon. member for Verchères under Private Members' Business.

As is customary we will proceed with the recorded division row by row, as we did for the previous division.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I declare the motion carried.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

(Motion agreed to.)

[Ben Serré, Liberal, Timiskaming—French-River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the record to show that I was present during the vote, but that I deliberately abstained from voting.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

It being 6.40 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from November 15 consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

Communications Security Establishment

[George S. Rideout, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have an opportunity to rise and speak on this motion of the member for Scarborough-Rouge River to deal with an issue which I am sure does not capture the hearts and minds of a whole lot of people.

I had the opportunity to work on a parliamentary committee in the previous government. We were responsible for a five-year review of CSIS. This motion really emanates from the lack of courage as I would put it of the previous government to deal with this issue of oversight over agencies that can collect data and information on individual Canadians.

In that sense I welcome the opportunity to be here this evening and talk about the proposal that would see the Communications Security Establishment, CSE, fall within the oversight provisions of SIRC, the Security Intelligence Review Committee.

This recommendation really flows from our committee recommendation which was unanimously adopted by all parties in the previous Parliament. I congratulate the member for Scarborough-Rouge River for keeping the issue in front of Parliament and in front of Canadians and bringing forward a motion that I hope all members of the House will see their way clear to support.

The effects of the motion quite frankly would see that CSE would fall under oversight. People will ask what is oversight and what does it mean. It is a protection for individual Canadians and it is really Parliament overseeing agencies that can collect data and information and even conversations of individual Canadians as they go about their daily lives.

I think the issue was put quite nicely by the Library of Parliament in its paper on CSE. I would like to read one section of it because it does put the issues fairly succinctly. I am quoting page 14:

Ward Alcock told the House of Commons subcommittee on national security in June 1993 that CSE is a foreign intelligence collection agency. The very nature of its work depends upon a degree of secrecy. To the extent to which it works is not secret, it loses its capacity to function and to collect information that is of use and value to the Government of Canada.

This statement puts the key issue into its most basic terms: how can a government institution that functions most effectively in the shadows be held publicly accountable without compromising its efficacy? This question is especially important when it relates to an agency with the capacity to violate the rights and freedoms of Canadians.

The opinion that was given by the Library of Parliament was also buttressed by a well known author, Richard Cleroux, who recently wrote a book, "Official Secrets", a look at the spy agencies and other agencies that were involved in collecting data on Canadians and to protect Canadians from untoward activities by foreign governments and foreign agencies.

While I hate to read a rather lengthy quote, I think Mr. Cleroux in his book captures the spirit of what is involved and what this motion is trying to do. I quote pages 77 and 78:

The CSE, which is considered the only government agency more secret than CSIS, employs more than 1,700 people, and uses highly sophisticated radio and telecommunications equipment to listen in simultaneously to thousands of embassy, ship and airline telephone and telecommunications transmissions and voice conversations across Canada and around the world.

The CSE functions as a funnel. Everything that is telecommunications in Canada is sucked into it. It needs no judicial warrants because it is part of the military, not part of CSIS.

Later on the same page:

Most of the information picked up by CSE is in the form of electronic data rather than voice conversation. Ninety-nine per cent is shipped wholesale, without ever being analysed here, to the U.S. National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Virginia. The Americans in turn tell the Canadians what they think the Canadians should know.

That is a very clear and concise statement of what is happening with CSE as noted by the author Mr. Cleroux. It points to why we need some oversight, be it parliamentary or otherwise.

This motion says it should be SIRC that carries out that particular function.

We had the privilege of having Stuart Farson advise us and do research for us as we looked at the five-year review of CSIS. He was concerned that CSE was without any parliamentary oversight and that the question of Canadian rights being possibly trampled was very important. In effect he made recommendations to us as a committee that we should look at including CSE in the oversight function.

As we look at what some of the authors have to say, both Mr. Cleroux and Stuart Farson in his paper "Canadian Security Intelligence in the Eighties", it becomes clear that we have a number of agencies. CSE is well-known and clearly defined, being discussed in Parliament and elsewhere. There are also other agencies within the RCMP and other departments of government that have no oversight. That circumstance only exists in Canada. The United States Congress has an oversight committee as well as do other countries in the world.

It is important that we protect Canadian rights. We can still protect secrecy. It is the beauty of the circumstance with the Security Intelligence Review Committee that only those things that should be made public are in fact made public. It is an independent committee of independent people who are the eyes and ears of Parliament.

I go further and support the member for Scarborough-Rouge River in his efforts to have some parliamentary oversight. While there is some duplication, in the long run it is beneficial that we have that oversight in order to protect the rights of Canadians. When one thinks somebody could be listening into a telephone conversation or the electric transmission on a fax machine without having a warrant, something is fundamentally wrong with the circumstance. It requires parliamentary or in this case SIRC oversight. That is what the motion will hopefully accomplish.

I would refer members to our report on CSIS and recommendation 87. It says:

The Committee recommends that Parliament 1) formally establish the CSE by statute-

This is not the case presently.

and 2) establish SIRC as the body responsible for monitoring, reviewing and reporting to Parliament on the activities of the CSE concerning its compliance with the laws of Canada.

As it says in the write-up:

The Committee sees no reason in principle, however, why the security and intelligence arms of the Department of National Defence should not be reviewed by SIRC.

Personally I support the position. I voted in favour of it when the committee looked at it and I support it now. All Canadians need to be protected. These are important rights that should not be easily trampled on. We do not need some big funnel in the sky scooping up all of the information and transporting it to the United States for analysis.

I would recommend the motion to all members of this House.

[Pierre De Savoye, Bloc, Portneuf, QC]

Mr. Speaker, let me first of all commend the member for Scarborough-Rouge River for his concern for making the debate on the CSE more transparent than the answers given during Question Period by the minister responsible, the Minister of National Defence.

Indeed, the member who also chairs the sub-committee on national security, has moved: "That, in the opinion of this House, the government should amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act to authorize the Security Intelligence Review Committee to review the operations of the Communications Security Establishment (CSE)".

As you can see, this augurs much better than the minister's various statements on the subject. This motion is based on a principle which the Bloc Quebecois has stated many times: the ability to account to our taxpayers for the activities of federal institutions, including the Communications Security Establishment.

If this motion is adopted and implemented by the Liberal government, the Communications Security Establishment will be accountable to the Security Intelligence Review Committee, better known as SIRC. It is estimated that the CSE spends between $200 and $300 million a year without being held accountable for it. It is also estimated that the CSE employs between 800 and 1,000 employees, but other sources put the number as high as 1,850.

However, it is impossible to obtain confirmation of these figures at this time. Furthermore, recent allegations from a former spy who worked in the CSE for several years indicate that agents used electronic eavesdropping to intercept the telephone calls of Quebec politicians. When questioned on this subject, however, the Minister of National Defence hides behind the sacrosanct national interest and refuses to answer.

The motion of the member for Scarborough-Rouge River does not set a world precedent, far from it. The Australian Security Intelligence Organization, MI-6, the Government Communications Headquarters in Great Britain, and the CIA in the United States are already monitored in their respective countries by an outside committee, which operates in a way similar to what is proposed in Motion M-38.

Belgium and some countries which belonged to the former Warsaw Pact are now considering the possibility of doing exactly what the member for Scarborough-Rouge River is proposing for Canada. Unfortunately, our Minister of National Defence tells us that it is not in the national interest to reveal the operational methods or the administrative standards which

apply to the CSE's activities, and I refer to an article in Le Devoir of October 25, 1994.

Where is the respect for democracy when the minister, always in the so-called national interest, refuses to tell us how many people work for the Communications Security Establishment? After all, the Agence France Presse reported, on November 8, 1994, that the British defence minister was downsizing the secret service, and that about 100 of the 6,000 positions related to these operations at the Government Communications Headquarters would be eliminated.

The British can evaluate how their secret service is managed, as well as appreciate the fact that it is affected by the budgetary cuts announced by their government. They also know how many employees work for that service, and they are informed of the cuts affecting this organization responsible for analysis of so-called sensitive information, or intelligence.

This is where democratic transparency starts. By now, you will have guessed that I am in favour of having an external body monitor CSE's operations, as proposed in the motion now before us.

However, I have some reservations regarding the Security Intelligence Review Committee. First, I wish to point out to the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River that the current membership of that committee, SIRC, must be reviewed. Indeed, the members of the committee were essentially appointed on the recommendations of the main political parties in the previous Parliament. These appointments were made on the basis of recommendations by the Liberals, the Conservatives and the New Democrats.

I agree with my Bloc Quebecois colleagues who feel that some SIRC members no longer have a legitimate right to sit on the committee, since their presence does not reflect the will of Canadians, as expressed during the last federal election. Indeed, these members essentially represent political parties which were democratically rejected by voters.

The membership of this committee should take into account the wishes of Canadians, and it should reflect the political reality of this Parliament. It is time members of SIRC did the honourable thing and promptly resigned so that Parliament could then appoint new members to represent them on this committee.

I should add that in the near future we will have to take steps to take politics out of the process of appointing members to this committee. Furthermore, the legislation governing SIRC should concentrate on reviewing certain mechanisms that raise a number of questions. For instance, does the process of reporting to Parliament really give members a chance to establish that the rights and freedoms of Canadians and Quebecers have been respected? Should this mechanism be more transparent? Should SIRC be allowed to submit its annual report uncensored to the Speaker of the House?

Under section 54 of the CSIS Act, SIRC is also required to submit to the Solicitor General, on a regular basis, special reports concerning specific events. Should we provide that the nature and subject of these regular reports be routinely communicated to the House?

Section 30 of the CSIS Act defines the functions of an inspector general, which include monitoring compliance with operational policies and reviewing the operational activities of CSIS. Before including the CSE in this legislation, we should consider the relevance and effectiveness of having both an inspector general and the SIRC for monitoring purposes. Is this duplication that could be avoided?

Should the mandate of the director of the CSE be seven years, like his counterpart at CSIS? Or should tenure be during pleasure? Should SIRC have access to cabinet documents which are not legally accessible at the present time? And finally, should a member of the Auditor General's office audit CSE's accounts and report his findings to this House?

Many questions remain to be answered. I think that in the public interest, the government should answer them as soon as possible to prevent further erosion of the public's trust in federal institutions.

In concluding, I seriously hope that the government will react favourably to the motion presented by its member for Scarborough-Rouge River and that it will give careful consideration to my questions and recommendations.

[John Duncan, Reform, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to contribute to debate on motion M-38 introduced by the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River.

It is also a pleasure to support this motion. It is not only timely but essential to accountability. It is essential to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act to authorize the Security Intelligence Review Committee to review the operations of the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE.

This motion brings to light concerns expressed as early as 1990 in the book Spy Wars and more recently in the new book Spyworld written by Michael Frost, a former CSE employee, where it is alleged that this organization routinely snoops on law-abiding citizens. It compiles dossiers on everything and

everybody from Margaret Trudeau to Quebec separatists. It is open season on any unsuspecting Canadian citizen.

CSE is a unique entity in government. It normally comes under the jurisdiction of the Minister of National Defence as its budget is hidden in the communications budget of the military. However, in reality it is a separate entity that receives its operational tasking from the deputy clerk for security and intelligence of the Privy Council. The political tasking comes from the cabinet committee on security and intelligence.

As we witnessed as a result of recent questioning in the House, the mandate of the CSE is questionable. There is no political accountability except to a group of cabinet ministers which is the most secret cabinet committee of government. Here we have an agency with a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars listening to overseas phone calls and accountable to no one person. This is not ham radio and catching the BBC Sunday night opera. This is serious business. It requires serious attention.

We are told all this snooping is done to protect national security. Well the Diefenbunker is no longer a secret and we are about to mothball some CF-18s. There is no obvious external threat, so why so much resistance from the government to outside scrutiny?

While I am no big fan of SIRC, it is as good as anything we have for this purpose. SIRC has managed to keep an eye on our spies without exposing them to danger. We can work on the patronage elements of SIRC at a different occasion.

Why not let SIRC have a review capacity in CSE? Why should CSE be above the law? Why should its budget, mandate and methods not be scrutinized? The operative question is: Does CSE spy on Canadians? The Deputy Prime Minister says it has no mandate to do so, but the Deputy Prime Minister recently refused to answer direct questions regarding if in fact it had.

In September 1990 a report entitled: "In Flux But Not in Crisis" was tabled. This report was the work of a special parliamentary committee on the review of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act. On page 153 it reported: "This organization clearly has the capacity to invade the privacy of Canadians in a variety of ways. It was established by order in council, not by statute and to all intents and purposes is unaccountable."

The passage goes on: "While the committee understands that this agency must be shrouded in secrecy to some degree, it believes that Canadians should be in a position to understand what the organization does and should not have to wonder whether their rights and freedoms have been infringed. The committee has evidence that both the RCMP and CSIS have asked the CSE for assistance and as such the committee believes that the Communications Security Establishment should have a statutory mandate that provides for review".

My congratulations to a member of that special committee, the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River, the member responsible for the motion before us today. He at least recognizes the gravity of the previous passage I just read from the report.

The Minister of National Defence unfortunately believes there is already sufficient review. To me, he is another of those do nothing, say nothing, status quo ministers who would rather stonewall than change. Things are just fine the way they are because they do not impact on his personal and private life.

The fact is this minister really does not have control of the CSE. What he controls is financial and administrative matters. The chief of the CSE reports to the Clerk of the Privy Council for policy and operations. This is not what I consider a fully constituted part of DND like the minister says it is.

The minister need only take a look at the government's response to the "In Flux But Not in Crisis" report entitled: "On Course: National Security for the 1990s" to see what it has to say about control of CSE and what is and what is not a fully constituted part of the Department of National Defence. The Prime Minister and the Privy Council Office are the real power and the issue. The Minister of National Defence is the filler in the sandwich.

I am not as naive as to believe that Canada does not need to intercept communications for intelligence purposes. It is part of the electronic information highway. There has to be some form of review and accountability, otherwise abuses can take place.

As the book Spyworld states: ``Employees of the CSE routinely listened to the conversations of Canadians as they tuned and tested their equipment''. I also believe there is nothing wrong with sweeping offices or encrypting phones. This is normal in today's age but I want to know what the CSE is doing besides this. I want to know that it is not abusing its powers. An external review agency seems the only way we can lift this veil of uncertainty, assure accountability and free the CSE from suspicion. That does not sound like such a bad thing to me.

I understand that the CSE is good at what it does. Let us make it even better. Let us support this motion for the good of all Canadians.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Hamilton—Wentworth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to support the motion of the member for Scarborough-Rouge River.

Let me begin by first making an observation about the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. We recognize that the role of CSIS is one of counterespionage and counterterrorism in Canada. Its role is to ensure that foreign governments do not

have an improper influence on the lives of Canadians in the sense that it would compromise Canada's security.

That is a very important function in Canada because we are a multicultural society. We value very greatly immigration from all lands. We value our tremendous ethnic and cultural diversity. The fear is that this ethnic melting pot, as it were, may be influenced by some of the foreign nations from which immigrants come and the traditional ethnic hatreds that some countries have.

To that end CSIS protects our interests by doing intelligence work in the ethnic communities in Canada in order to prevent terrorists or foreign governments getting a hold. In doing that we as Canadians have to be concerned that while CSIS fills that very important function that it does not go too far and that the rights of Canadian citizens are protected, including ethnic Canadians.

To cover off that problem we have built into the CSIS act a very excellent control, the Security and Intelligence Review Committee. It is basically a committee of Canadians of conscience who are appointed. They have sweeping powers to doublecheck what CSIS does to make sure that while it does operate in secrecy it operates in a way that has the interests of all Canadians at heart.

Now we come to the Communications Security Establishment. This organization springs from the second world war and Canada's involvement in code and cipher breaking. It is well known what it does now. It is an agency whose role is to intercept communications and to process them. Its direction is toward the collection of foreign intelligence.

I should say it has quite an interesting history. It arose from an organization called the examination unit and specialized in the second world war in breaking Vichy French codes and some Japanese and then went on to break the codes of the free French.

Indeed we will find when the book is written on the subject that the Communications Security Establishment during the early part of the cold war undoubtedly specialized in analysing the diplomatic codes and ciphers of France. I think we will find that this was one of the reasons for the vive le Quebec libre speech of Charles de Gaulle. I think he was very annoyed to discover that Canada had France as a target.

There is nothing unusual in that as all nations monitor the telecommunications of other nations, be they friends or enemies. It is a way of determining whether contracts are kept, if governments are interfering in the diplomatic and commercial affairs of one's own nation.

This type of study takes two shapes. It is code and cipher breaking where you actually attempt to break the codes and ciphers of another nation, be they diplomatic or commercial ciphers. It also takes the form of traffic analysis. When you cannot break the codes and ciphers of another nation you examine where messages are being sent and the volume of messages. That gives an indication of what that country is doing in terms of its diplomatic or commercial activities.

Over the last 15 years code and cipher breaking has lessened in importance in the field of communications intelligence, primarily because code and ciphers have become increasingly hard to break. More than that, it is because communications satellites particularly have enabled governments to monitor the affairs of other nations in a much more efficient manner than could be done hitherto.

I believe the collapse of the Soviet Union had much to do with the fact that satellites were monitoring its lack of economic progress more than with any other cause. The Soviet Union could not hide from the satellites that trains were not running, that there was pollution everywhere and that the Soviet Union was in an economic mess. It worked the other way as well. The Soviet Union was monitoring Canada and the United States and the western world. It could see that it was losing the economic war.

In the world of intelligence the agency that looks after domestic counterespionage and the foreign intelligence gathering agency like the Communications Security Establishment are complementary. They always work together. In the case of foreign and diplomatic intelligence it is important for CSIS to monitor what is happening to foreign nationals on Canadian soil who may be engaged in espionage. The parallel activity is the Communications Security Establishment which monitors the actual traffic in diplomatic and commercial communications. These things always go together.

There is the same situation in Canada with its ethnic makeup. While we have CSIS looking after anti-terrorism shall we say, it inevitably has to probe into the affairs and activities of various ethnic communities in Canada. Similarly the CSE has to be in tune with what may be happening in terms of communications, whatever it can derive either from telecommunications or other communications sources what is happening to the nations that may not have Canada's interests at heart or may be attempting to influence ethnic communities in Canada. The two are complementary and very necessarily so.

This type of activity overlaps in subtle ways. I would like to go back for a second to World War II and tell a very brief story which illustrates this point. It was a great triumph for Canadians during World War II and was not reported very well at all.

In 1940 in North Africa the British were facing the Italians in great numbers. Britain had very few troops on the ground in Egypt and the Italians had an enormous army in the western desert. Britain had its back to the wall with the fall of France and

was very fearful with Italian entry into the war about what would happen in North Africa.

The Canadian army intelligence had the advantage of being able to monitor the telegraph lines that left Canada from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and went to Britain, the Canary Islands, Spain and ultimately to Italy. Telegraph traffic coming out of the United States had to pass momentarily through Canada before it went on to Italy.

Even before Mussolini declared war on the allies after the fall of France, or as France fell, Canadians were monitoring the traffic of Italian Americans communicating with relatives in Italy. Mussolini, in an attempt to raise money to buy weapons, had asked Italian Americans to remit U.S. dollars to Italy so relatives would be paid a bonus in lira in Italy. Italian Americans were constantly sending remittances to their relatives in Italy. This was just before the Italians declared war and just after.

Canadians were monitoring all this. As the banks in the United States required that the remittances give names and addresses, it was found that many remittances were being sent to Italians in the military. They were being sent to the actual bases where the Italian military personnel were located. This enabled Canadians to construct the entire Italian order of battle before Mussolini declared war. Wavell, the famous British general who defeated the Italians in the western desert, knew exactly where every division or every unit in the Italian army was in the desert.

We can see how in the intelligence field, communications intelligence, foreign intelligence gathering can be mixed with something that is essentially a domestic phenomenon. In this case it is out of country; it is the Italians but it is a communications phenomenon.

I told the story for the basic reason that we should have a situation in the intelligence world where one arm of secret intelligence gathering, which is CSIS, is responsible and answerable to some review committee which, shall we say, has an oversight role. We cannot have half a loaf; we need the entire loaf. I submit that no matter how competent the Communications Security Establishment inevitably there is some overlap. Both arms of secret intelligence should make this independent review, and for that reason I entirely support the motion.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me as well to speak on the motion put forth by the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River and the amendment of the hon. member for Bellechasse.

The motion per se is to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Act to authorize the Security Intelligence Review Committee to review the activities of the Communications Security Establishment. As for the amendment, it is designed to force the review committee to table each year before this House a report on the activities of the CSE.

First of all, I would like to say that I agree entirely with the motion with amendment, as I think it is essential for the elected representatives to retain a minimum of control on agencies and institutions related to the world of espionage and intelligence that CSIS, the CSE and the SIRC are.

It also appears necessary, in the light of recent events, to remind the individuals who are part of such organizations that their duty is first and foremost to serve the public and that we have been elected to represent the public.

Concerns expressed by members from both sides of this House are born out by disconcerting revelations concerning alleged unlawful activities of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Communications Security Establishment.

How does a country that prides itself on being one of the most democratic in the world explain having agencies that account for their activities only when and to whom they please? One can also wonder what the current Liberal government is doing to give a feeling of security and restore confidence to all Canadians, but Quebecers in particular, who may have been targeted more often than they should by unlawful investigations.

Why did the government not react when it found out that serious allegations had been made and that the relevant standing committee of this House had been unable to obtain satisfactory answers? Why did a private member have to take the initiative? How will this be perceived by the public?

Although the member's initiative is eminently positive, we have a right to wonder what kind of image this passive government is sending to the population whose suspicions and concerns are quite justified.

There is no doubt that the Security Intelligence Review Committee is essential to ensure at least a minimum of accountability on the part of CSIS and eventually the CSE.

Only yesterday, we learned from a Canadian Press article published in La Presse that CSIS may have overstepped its mandate and inadvertently revealed secrets in trying to fight industrial espionage. The national agency may have collected with complete impunity information having nothing to do with any threat to national security.

It is certainly not the first time, and probably not the last, that such a thing has occurred. In this case, the review committee produced in 1993 a secret report that was obtained under the Access to Information Act. This should not be seen as a model of openness but it is an acceptable minimum. Unfortunately, this

acceptable minimum does not currently apply to the CSE which, as we have seen recently, enjoys an unusual level of freedom.

The Deputy Prime Minister said loud and clear in this House that the CSE's mandate was not to spy on Canadians. But no one was fooled, especially since the question that was put to her did not deal with the CSE's mandate but with its actual operations. In fact, the CSE has no mandate defined in legislation and is accountable only to the Privy Council. Clearly, it is not in the Privy Council's interest to make the CSE's blunders public, which makes it a very poor watchdog, we must admit.

The motion being debated today would considerably improve the situation, since it would make the CSE subject to monitoring by SIRC. Unfortunately, I must express some reservations about SIRC's effectiveness. I am thinking, for example, of SIRC's serious credibility problems, which are due to the fact that it is now made up of people who have not understood that they are answerable to Parliament and to the public, and who hide behind a narrow interpretation of some legal provisions to justify their silence.

The testimony given by members of SIRC before the House Committee on National Security on September 13 was a disgrace and Canadians and Quebecers were certainly not well served. At least four of these individuals, whose sense of ethics seems to be quite underdeveloped, were appointed by the previous government, which, need we remind you, was rejected by the voters in the most summary fashion. We are entitled to question the legitimacy of these well-known Conservatives who sit on SIRC.

That is why I join my colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois to demand the immediate resignation of these individuals, and I urge the Liberal government to act on this.

A significant renewal of SIRC's staff would reflect the new make-up of this House and bring new blood to an organization which really needs it.

Hopefully, with a minimum of four new members, the Security Intelligence Review Committee could regain some of its lost credibility. These changes are essential, but they are still cosmetic.

Only this government, through the Solicitor General, can make the required changes to the legislation on the Security Intelligence Review Committee.

We can have motions to force the SIRC chairman to provide real answers to parliamentarians, instead of just saying "maybe" or "maybe not", but he will not do so as long as the government does not make significant changes to the act establishing the SIRC.

Although the Official Opposition can only agree with the underlying principle of this legislation, it questions the process for appointing SIRC members, as well as the ambiguous relations of that committee with Parliament.

In conclusion, the issue debated today was in fact the relation of confidence between Canadians and their institutions. When they were in opposition, the Liberals kept asking for greater transparency, as well as better control by Parliament over spy agencies.

The Communications Security Establishment spends over $250 million annually.

What does it do with that money? How does it spend it and for what purposes? We hope that the proposed motion will shed some light on CSE's operations. However, we are very aware that it is up to the federal government to ensure greater transparency regarding intelligence activity in Canada. Unfortunately, this government seems totally paralysed over this issue, as with several other strategic issues.

I want to congratulate the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River, and the hon. member for Bellechasse for their initiative which, I hope, will be supported by the government and approved by the majority of members in this House.

[Patrick Gagnon, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General]

Mr. Speaker, I think we should bear in mind several aspects of the world situation, in other words, the geopolitical, strategic situation of Canada. As a nation with a population of 30 million and a member of the G-7, as a country with a fairly important position in the world, we have to consider not only Canadian industry but also the security of this country today and in the next century.

It would perhaps be useful, in a discussion about the Communications Security Establishment, better known as the CSE, to consider briefly Canada's foreign intelligence activities and the role of the CSE in this respect. First of all, I would like to explain what is meant by foreign intelligence. The term foreign intelligence refers to information on the resources, intentions and activities of foreign states, moral entities or individuals as they concern Canada's defence or the conduct of Canada's international affairs.

This may include information of a political, economic, military or scientific nature or indeed information related to the country's national security. We should also realize that, unlike many of its allies, Canada has no active foreign intelligence service. However, like most countries, Canada has set up a number of limited mechanisms for collecting and analysing information from other countries.

Earlier I mentioned the political context. Since the demise of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, there has been an increasing sense of instability. This is no longer the world we

used to know, where we had the Communists on one side, and the free world on the other, and when we knew who our enemies were. The world has changed considerably since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.

I think that today we live in a world that is far more insecure, unstable and uncertain-when we look, for instance, at Eastern Europe-a world where there is a certain lack of cohesion. We have all these small republics, the conflict between Russia and Chechenya, the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the problems of reconstruction in Eastern Europe. There are very real threats, not only locally, but internationally.

We no longer have the kind of control over nuclear arms that we had at one time, and unfortunately, this uncertainty has caused some nations to cast envious looks at Canada and the West. That is why Canada is not necessarily immune to the changes that have been taking place during the past five years, and especially as a result of the events and disruptions in Eastern Europe. That is, as you know, the political reality we are all faced with.

There are economic challenges as well. More and more, a number of countries, some of which we may have thought of as friends, are showing a great deal of interest in Canadian industries. I would say that, these past few years, allegations of industrial spying in the pharmaceutical industry have been increasing. In Quebec, there have been blatant cases of Quebec interests being targeted. They were spied on because they had knowledge and technologies that some of our allies, who will remain nameless, wanted for themselves. It makes us realize that we have knowledge that the whole world is interested in having. Why not use it?

The same with the airspace industry. Many countries have shown an interest for Canadian companies such as Bombardier and de Havilland. I also hear that we have companies specialized in high technology and biotechnology. There is no doubt that an increasing number of foreign countries are interested.

So, we are not immune to change, nor to other countries wanting to obtain information from Canada unlawfully, if not illegally.

I think that Canada has prospered because of the security we enjoy in this country, good understanding and economic and political stability between provinces, co-operation between the industry and the Government of Canada. But this security must be maintained and that is why I think that a communications security establishment meets that need not only to look after our interests, but also to ensure that military changes or upheaval outside Canada do interfere with scientific and technological progress on the home front.

There is no question that the world we live in is not an easy one. Personally, I would rather live an a world where there would be no CSE, no CIA, no M-5, no KGB, and no foreign interest.

I believe some people, and this is often the case for the Bloc, have concerns, whether they are founded or not, about the existence of the CSE and other such organizations we have known in the past. But we have a role, an obligation to protect our industries. That is why the CSE is more interested in helping protect Canadian industries trying to develop in an increasingly competitive world.

There is Eastern Europe and then, there are emerging Asian countries. Again, there is interest in the new Canadian technologies, the aluminum and paper industries in particular, where Canada has held on to a certain tradition of supremacy. In an increasingly competitive international environment, we need an intelligence service like the CSE to make sure that information stays in Canada and that such countries do not disrupt the operation of our businesses.

Canada is also a multicultural country. More and more of our people come from other countries.

Since Canada is a welcoming country, we have people coming from various countries in Latin America, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe. Sometimes, people return to Canada and settle here to destabilize the country.

There are even well-known and not so well-known ethnic groups facing internal conflicts that have unfortunate repercussions at the national level.

I think that my time is up, but I would like to say, in conclusion, that we need an intelligence service like the CSE, whose main concern is protecting Canadians in the international community and, unfortunately, because of the geopolitical realities prevailing here as the century draws to a close.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Before I give the floor to the hon. member for Saanich-Gulf Islands, being as we are getting close to a period of recess, I wonder if there might be unanimous consent to allow the member for Saanich-Gulf Islands, instead of taking five minutes now and having the remaining five minutes of his ten minute maximum to be taken up at the third hour debate at another time when we return, if the House would give unanimous consent to allow the member to make his intervention complete. At that time we would go to the late show. The member would have five minutes and we would go with no later than ten minutes from the time he would start. Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Jack Frazer, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in speaking to Motion M-38 today, I am convinced that important Canadian issues are involved. That there are problems with the Communications Security Establishment, CSE, is emphasized by the fact that the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River who chairs the subcommittee on national security feels obliged to call for the government to authorize a regular ongoing review of CSE operations.

Concerns over the mandate of CSE and other Canadian intelligence agencies have been reported in the media, and the release of Spyworld has caused indignation in many quarters.

CSE is not directly accountable to the public purse, to Parliament or to any other independent body. The 1990 review by the special committee of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act acknowledged that it is now time to examine the wider dimensions of Canadian security and intelligence community and to impose statutory mandates and review mechanisms where necessary.

However, government took no action. Ten years ago Parliament passed legislation holding CSIS operations accountable to an independent body, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, SIRC, which is made up of five political appointees.

SIRC would not rank anywhere near being the best check and balance on the operations of CSIS but it is certainly better than having no review or accountability mechanism. To paraphrase an old saying, if halitosis is better than no breath at all then SIRC is better than no supervision at all.

Thus, while SIRC may not be the best answer, one wonders why the review committee did not also invoke the same requirement for CSE operations. Therefore, Motion M-38 is timely and important.

When the special committee called for a regular review of security and intelligence agencies it also recommended that this agency should have statutory mandate to provide for review and monitor mechanisms. At the time government was considering providing the Minister of National Defence with additional capacity for review of the CSE. To this day government has dragged its heels and has failed to initiate the means for review. It has failed to hold the agency accountable to an independent body for its expenditures or even direct legislation to protect private citizens from the prospect of CSE intruding into and invading our privacy.

There is cause for great concern. Today high tech, computerized world is much different from that which prevailed at the time of CSE's inception during the second world war. It was then set up to intercept signals and break enemy codes, referred to as ciphers and codes.

Today CSE is responsible for communications or information technology security, COMSEC or INFOSEC, and signals intelligence, SIGINT. It sounds not unlike Goldfinger in James Bond or Captain Kirk in "Star Trek"or "Star Wars" all rolled into one.

Unquestionably there is a need to know the state of the art so that CSE can ensure federal government telecommunications or electronic data processing systems are known to be secure.

It must ensure that government personnel are given security training or education and that Canadian industry has access to appropriate security advice, although this aspect might better be left in the hands of the private sector.

The darker side, of which little is known, is that CSE monitors the communications of foreign countries to provide intelligence to government. It listens in on radio and telephone communications between embassies and home countries or consulates. It follows all national and international telephone calls. It records foreign radio communications and reads electromagnetic transmissions from embassy typewriters, processors, and so on.

We understand that 80 per cent of its operational budget is directed to the signals intercept program for communications intelligence which uses radio waves or radar to spy and protect national security; for example, telemetry intelligence, interception of signals relaying information from sensors on board a test vehicle to test engineers, revealing the vehicle's flight and performance characteristics.

Parliament has no statutes or laws to direct the CSE because it was established by order in council, by a cabinet directive. Thus one can speculate on the obvious CSE operations but only the depth of our imagination limits the breadth of its capability and potential involvement. By and large it seems that CSE is accountable to no one. It has virtual carte blanche to write its own terms and exercise full discretionary powers.

Little is known of its operations and even less about how it spends the public's funds it is given. During House of Commons debate hon. members have quoted from the Globe and Mail that expenditures in the order of $100 million to $125 million were budgeted for 1991. Another hon. member ventured to guess that $250 million would be a conservative estimate. Who knows how much is spent, how it is spent or why it is spent-perhaps some cabinet ministers, but certainly no independent regulatory agency exercising control.

When one considers Canada's massive deficit-debt it becomes obvious that government has an obligation to seek ways to trim fat, ensure accountability and avoid duplication of efforts. This motion provides government with an excellent opportunity to do just that.

Two special joint committees of this Parliament have only recently concluded reviews of Canadian foreign policy and defence policy. As a result Canada's role in foreign affairs and our military will be adjusted to better reflect today's needs. It would be logical to follow with a review of Canada's security and intelligence agencies. There has been no such review since

their inception in the 1940s and operational control has become lax because their accountability is not adequately enforced.

Obviously a certain amount of secrecy and restricted knowledge of activities is required for CSE. Everyone understands that an intelligence agency cannot adequately perform its duties unless it is to some extent clothed in a veil of secrecy. However, there must still be a mechanism to ensure that activity control limits are in place and enforced and that the taxpayer's dollar is being appropriately and efficiently employed in service to Canada and Canadians.

In 1975 an order in council transferred responsibility for CSE from the National Research Council to the Department of National Defence, but only administrative responsibility was transferred, not its mandate, powers, control or accountability. Thus, I strongly endorse Motion M-38 calling for the government to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act to authorize the Security Intelligence Review Committee to review CSE's operation and budget.

Government could and should go even further by transferring CSE from the Department of National Defence to CSIS. Such action would make CSE subject to the same control and accountability that CSIS now is.

There is urgency required in implementing some statutory directive because of CSE's capacity to invade and intrude into our privacy. Southam News has already reported that the Privy Council Office has asked the RCMP's legal branch to examine legislation that would make it easier for police to intercept digital or computer communications.

In the United States similar laws are under study and the Digital Telephony and Communications Privacy Improvement Act giving telecommunications companies funds to develop software technology allowing full access to telecommunication systems has been debated in the U.S. Congress.

If enacted, this U.S. law would permit monitoring of a wide range of personal data. Are we in Canada also to have our own big brother tracking our every move? Electronic eavesdropping is surreptitious, easily used, and has the capacity to intrude into our most private lives with no search warrants required.

Despite the minister's assurance that CSE has no mandate to spy on Canadians, we do not know what its mandate is. Without checks and balances CSE has no limits to its operations and can be used against anyone without their having any knowledge that it is happening. To have the legal ability to so infringe on our right to privacy is simply unacceptable.

In conclusion, while I have concerns about SIRC being as responsive and appropriate a monitoring agency as I would like, it is certainly better than having no monitoring agency at all. Perhaps an improvement in answer to this dilemma would be for the monitoring agency, for both CSIS and SIRC, to be constituted as a separate cell under the aegis of the Auditor General who reports to Parliament. Unless there is some technical reason why this cannot be, it would seem to provide the arm's length monitor required to do the job without political bias or interference.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired, but I want to put on record that by unanimous consent we extended the time of debate on Motion No. 38 by an extra five minutes so that the next time the motion is before the House there will be 55 minutes left of debate.

Pursuant to Standing Order 93, the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, on November 2, I asked the Prime Minister to ensure that Saint John, New Brunswick, was given a dayliner after VIA's final run through Saint John which takes place on December 15.

The Minister of Transport responded to my question by saying what he needs to hear are proposals that make sense and not what was being done by the former PC government, the party that I now represent.

I find irony in what the minister has said because what the minister has done to Saint John does not make any sense. A new train station was built just last year by the former government. The Liberal government closed it, took away the VIA service and offered a bus to take passengers to Moncton.

The former government built a new air traffic control tower in Saint John. The Liberal government has now closed it and has taken the air traffic controllers away. The decisions are a waste of taxpayers' dollars.

I understand the present fiscal constraints the government is facing. The government has decided to cut non-profitable operations. One of these operations was the VIA Atlantic train

from Sherbrooke to Saint John, the first mainline ever to be abandoned.

In the Gaspé area the NTA recommended that the Gaspé rail line be abandoned, but the government of the day, the previous government, decided that the abandonment decision should be overturned because the loss of the rail service would negatively affect the quality of life in that region.

The same thing is happening in New Brunswick and in Saint John with this decision. The quality of life in my area is severely negatively affected with the removal of VIA passenger service.

Why did the hon. member's government not do the same for the eastern line as the PC government did with the Gaspé abandonment? Where is the rat pack that was there in the opposition? The minister of fisheries, the Deputy Prime Minister and others formed what was known as the rat pack. They fought hard with myself as mayor of the city of Saint John to make sure the people of Saint John had a rail service.

I cannot accept that the government has cut off the total passenger service to my riding and replaced it with a bus. In light of the savings to the federal treasury that the cut of the Atlantic service will provide, I do not feel that a dayliner would be cost excessive. Since we have a brand new railway station I feel we should get some use out of it and not waste the taxpayers' money that was spent on it. The government looks very irresponsible as does the commission for VIA when they close down a railway station that has just been built.

A dayliner service to Moncton would be more appropriate, given the state of highways in New Brunswick. As well it seems to me that a dayliner link if scheduled and priced properly could make money, given that the highest population density in the province resides in the area of Saint John. The decision by the minister to offer a bus instead of a dayliner is really an insult to the people of Saint John.

We were told by the previous government: "You use it or you lose it". The citizens have used it. It is a way of life for our people. There are many people who have no other way to travel except by that train.

The closure of the VIA Rail Atlantic will not save taxpayers much money and comes at a time when the Amtrak network is expanding in Maine. All these cuts and closures come at a time when in Europe and the U.S. they are building high speed and very efficient trains.

I am asking the government to ensure VIA service to Saint John by providing a dayliner to Moncton instead of a bus. In this time of giving I ask the government to give a little back to the citizens of Saint John that it has taken away.

[Joe Fontana, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, owing to the impending sale of CP's operating assets between Sherbrooke and Saint John, there is no assurance of continued access for the Atlantic train. The member knows that VIA does not own tracks. It operates on running rights from CN and CP. Therefore with CP selling the assets there is no track available for VIA.

VIA will discontinue its Atlantic train over the CP route on December 17 and will increase train frequency to six round trips per week over the ocean route. VIA has done a first rate job in arranging for bus service between Saint John and Moncton to connect VIA passengers with the ocean service. This is the most economical way to provide connections within the VIA network.

In addition, the interline ticketing and tariff agreement VIA has made with SMT will provide for ease of ticketing and baggage handling. SMT will also be modifying schedules on its Fredericton to Newcastle route, providing a direct connection at Newcastle to the ocean for passengers from Fredericton.

It is evident that a connecting bus service is the less costly option by far. The annual cost of a dayliner service would be in the order of $1.2 million per year. The bus service is much less than that by half.

We have been asked why VIA's newly constructed station in Saint John will no longer be used. Perhaps the member should ask her former Conservative government. When the station was constructed CP was already negotiating the sale of the entire Sherbrooke to Saint John line. The member might want to respond on why her colleagues spent the money on the basis of speculation.

The commitment of Minister of Transport to Saint John and New Brunswick is unquestionable. His actions with respect to the CAA at Saint John, his action with respect to the port of Saint John and with respect to highways in Saint John and New Brunswick are sure testimony of the minister's commitment to good transportation systems in Saint John and New Brunswick.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, exactly eight days ago, I asked the Minister of Human Resources Development when he would table the five missing technical papers that were to clarify, if possible, the direction that his plan to reform social programs would take.

At that time, the minister answered that he thought the remaining documents would be made public in ten days. I want to tell the minister that he has only two days left to keep his promise, but that is not the main purpose of my statement today.

On this point, I first want to speak out against how the minister is proceeding. In a few days, the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development will complete a Canada-wide tour of consultations in which thousands of citizens will have participated. What a mockery has been made of the consultation process!

An incredible amount of energy has been mobilized but the people whom they said they wanted to consult were not provided with the proper information. They were consulted on an indefinite subject, but I suspect that the chosen direction has already been decided and they are being very careful to keep it from the public. All this remains to be confirmed, of course, but the confirmation should come soon.

In the House, on December 5, I also asked the minister to confirm that he had in fact gone blindly into a reform guided only by the cuts imposed by the finance minister. Instead of answering my question, the minister replied that I was completely ignorant, and said: "A large-scale national survey showed that 96 per cent of Canadians believe major changes have to be made in social policy. It may be that the hon. member does not understand but 96 per cent of Canadians are in favour of what we are doing".

The minister was quite right. I do not understand, but not necessarily what he thinks I do not understand. I cannot understand how a minister can interpret in such a shameful demagogic way the results of a poll. Here are the facts. The Decima poll, to which the minister was referring, revealed that 96 per cent of Canadians feel that the time has come to reform social security programs. Some 53 per cent support major changes, while 26 per cent are in favour of a comprehensive reform.

How can the minister distort the facts in such a way and accuse me of not understanding anything? This is a mystery which, I am sure, only the minister can penetrate.

Let me repeat again the results of that poll, just to make sure the minister understands: 96 per cent of Canadians feel that a reform of social programs is necessary. This is not at all the same as saying that 96 per cent of Canadians support the government's approach, far from it!

I also want to tell the minister something he surely knows already: Canadians do not agree at all with the proposal, as introduced by the government. The same poll indicated that 19 per cent of Quebecers strongly supported the idea of a two-tiered UI system, while 56 per cent somewhat agreed with it. This is a far cry from the 96 per cent degree of support of Quebecers that the minister claims.

Finally, I want to take this opportunity to remind the minister that women's groups, including the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, which alone represents over 80 groups, condemn the proposed changes to the UI system, because they feel these changes are discriminatory. Would the Minister of Human Resources Development go so far as to claim that all these women did not understand anything either?

[Joe Fontana, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, as of today the government has released four background papers: "Income Security for Children", "Persons with Disabilities","Child Care and Development " and "From Unemployment Insurance to Employment Insurance". The remaining four papers will be released in the next few days. I can assure the member there is still time for public debate and for the standing committee to analyse these papers as it prepares its final report early in the new year.

Social security reform is an ongoing process. We will continue to make information available to the public throughout the process. Let me emphasize again that our programs are outdated, costly, and no longer meet the needs of today's labour market.

As recent polls have shown, the Canadian people believe there are problems with our social programs and that changes are required: 96 per cent of the people believe there are at least some problems with social programs requiring either minor changes, 17 per cent; major changes, 53 per cent; or a complete overhaul, 26 per cent. Slightly fewer Canadians, 89 per cent, believe the UI system should be changed. The majority, 55 per cent, believe change is required because the system is antiquated, while one-third believe the expense associated with the program is the main reason the UI system should be changed. There is overwhelming support, 80 per cent, for our two-tier system of UI.

I am convinced the government has the support of the Canadian people as we work to reform an antiquated social security system. The release of the remaining technical papers in the next few days will further inform and allow us to make the important decisions required to ensure the survival of Canada's social security system.