Mr. Speaker, the record will show that the member for Kings--Hants did not understand the question I posed to him when I asked whether he was concerned about the privacy commissioner issuing press releases on his concerns about Bill C-55 instead of reporting first to parliament. The member for Kings--Hants made it very clear in his reply that he thought that the privacy commissioner is an official of government. As we know, the privacy commissioner is an officer of parliament like the auditor general and is required by statute to report to parliament.
The reason why this issue is important is because this is a vitally important debate we are having before the House right now. It is a debate that touches on our fundamental civil liberties and tries to strike a balance with that and the need for public safety in a world that has become much more threatening than it was merely a year ago.
The difficulty with the privacy commissioner in effect going to the media with his concerns about the privacy considerations in the bill is that it inadvertently or maybe deliberately distorts the debate. We had an example when the member for Kings--Hants quoted from the privacy commissioners press release in expressing his concerns about privacy in the relevant section of Bill C-55. I think that is unfortunate, because there is no doubt that the privacy issue in Bill C-55 is very important.
What is of concern to the privacy commissioner is the prospect that the police and security officials will be able to look at the passenger manifests of aircraft, both going from this country to another and domestically, and thereby use that opportunity to look for potential terrorists and even to look for potential criminals.
One can see why they might want to do that, because one of the new things that has emerged after September 11 is the whole business where people who go by air now have to show photo I.D. Suddenly, unlike ever before, the police and security officials have an opportunity to track individual people as they travel on aircraft.
I do not think that any of us would argue that this is a very necessary thing that we would want the police and security officials to have in the interests of tracking potential terrorists. There is a legitimate question about whether or not this opportunity should be extended for the tracking of possible or known criminals. That is an issue that I think needs to be debated at length in committee. For myself, I do not think it is unreasonable to use this new opportunity to try to identify known criminals as they use our air services, given that we now have the opportunity to see precise photo identities for every passenger who boards an aircraft.
Let us set that aside for a moment. I thought the member for Mount Royal raised a number of very important concerns about Bill C-55. These are concerns that in many respects, at least in my view as a member of parliament, are more important than the privacy issue, certainly because they strike to the very heart of the accountability of this legislation to parliament. I will not repeat those because I have limited time, but in my turn let me point out something that I find in the bill that causes me great worry. It is something which needs to be dealt with in committee and of which I think every member of parliament should be aware.
The way the bill works is that it gives ministers the ability to issue interim orders. These orders enable the appropriate minister, whether it is the Minister of Health, the Minister of the Environment or the Minister of Transport, to issue orders within the context of the particular legislation to meet a current emergency.
For instance, the appropriate minister can issue an interim order with respect to the Quarantine Act. We can see why the minister might want to issue an order in that case because one of the world dangers that has arisen is the possibility of a terrorist attack using biological weapons. There is also, concomitant with that, the whole danger of new diseases coming out of Africa and South America that have never been seen before which are high contagious and highly dangerous.
I do agree that the minister should have this authority and certainly there should be a debate about how that authority should be limited, but I would agree that he needs the authority.
What I find troubling is in each one of these interim orders we find the words:
The Minister may make an interim order that contains any provision that may be contained in a regulation made under this Act if the Minister believes [the situation warrants it]...
We are talking about regulations. This gives the minister, the relevant minister, a huge opportunity to circumvent all parliamentary knowledge.
One thing that backbench MPs and all members of parliament complain about always is that the bills we pass may say one thing but the real crucial thing is what is said in the regulations. Unfortunately, so often the legislation that we pass in this House allows an open door on the type of regulations that may be made.
What that provision does in all these various bills that it touches upon, the pest control act, the drug safety act, the transportation security act and so on and so forth, is it gives the government an absolute opportunity to do anything it pleases by simply changing the regulation and then declaring an interim order.
At the very least what we have to do is ensure that when this bill passes it only applies to existing regulations and these interim orders cannot be applied to regulations made subsequently unless those regulations are cleared by parliament. It cannot leave those regulations to the bureaucracy alone.
I think this is very necessary legislation. I do not accept the thesis advanced by the opposition that this is some attempt by the government to grab massive power. The reality is that the ability to write this kind of sensitive legislation is very difficult and delicate. It is done by the people in the bureaucracy, mainly in the justice department. Our responsibility as MPs is to go through this legislation as carefully as possible, identify concerns like I have just outlined and not be deflected by those who would lobby us to concentrate on only one aspect of the legislation rather than the others.
We must look at this legislation across the board and we must also see it in the context of the Emergencies Act to ensure that there is nothing in this bill that should not properly be under the Emergencies Act because it has much better parliamentary oversight than this bill has. I hope the committee will do this.
I will conclude by saying that I think this is important legislation. It tries to strike a difficult balance. I am extremely concerned about the regulation aspect of it. I will have a great deal of difficulty unless the government, parliament and committee address that problem. I think that otherwise most provisions in the bill can be dealt with.
Let me finally say that I attempted to raise a question of privilege with you, Mr. Speaker, with respect to the privacy commissioner. I realize now in reflection that I began that question of privilege in a way in which you had no opportunity to rule other than how you ruled. However the point remains that we cannot have an officer of parliament lobbying the public through the media for his particular point of view before his concerns are brought before this House as allowed for in the Privacy Act in sections 38, 39 and 40. This House I believe will have to deal with that matter in due course.