Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to take part in the debate. I think it is my third time.
Now I have had a chance to examine Bill C-55 very carefully, line by line with Bill C-42 its predecessor, which the government withdrew to try to do a better job of it. I think the happy news is that Bill C-55 is much improved over its predecessor. I think the legislation is better written. I think, on the limitations on interference of fundamental liberties, a balance has been attempted there and the government has gone a long way to achieving that balance.
This is not to say that the bill still does not have problems and I will allude to those, but I will pick up on several of the issues that opposition members and some Liberal members have expressed concerns about.
The military controlled access zones in Bill C-55 are much, much more limited than what was defined in Bill C-42. Notwithstanding what the previous speaker said, if we go to the legislation we will see that the controlled access zones specifically are limited to where the military might have to go to respond to an emergency. There are paragraphs that qualify the range of that zone. They are very explicit that these zones can only be established when there is a clear concern for security or public safety.
What we are really responding to is a situation where there is an emergency event somewhere in the country, perhaps a terrorist event, and the military has to go in there and of course establish a controlled access zone to protect the military. It is very, very different than what people say this has to do with, throwing a cordon around the Quebec national assembly. It is just not true.
Second, the improvements to getting information about passenger travel, one of the important features of this bill is it provides legislative rationale for access to the passenger manifests of people travelling on aircraft coming into Canada. Again notwithstanding the histrionics of the privacy commissioner this bill is very, very modest in setting parameters around what is required or available to police and security authorities from passengers that are travelling on aircraft coming into and going out of Canada.
Mr. Speaker, I refer you to schedule 1 in this bill which did not exist in Bill C-42. It defines very, very clearly exactly what type of information the authorities are entitled to get. In that context I would suggest that the bill does not go far enough. It merely requires when passengers are coming from overseas or wherever else into Canada that the airlines surrender the passport number, the name, address and certain ticket information and it is not consistent with technological capability, and indeed I think it creates a problem.
It is interesting. The president of the United States just signed into law not two weeks ago the enhanced border security and visa entry reform act. What that does for the Americans, and we need to think about this very carefully as Canadians, is it requires the American immigration authorities to move immediately to set up the ability to electronically scan travel documents for biometric information by which they mean fingerprints and faces. In other words, where the Americans are going, and it is defined in the bill, is that by the year 2004 every person entering the United States, including it would appear from my reading of that act, people crossing the border from Canada, Canadians crossing into the United States, will be required to have a document that can be machine scanned for fingerprints and photographs.
I do not propose that we require fingerprinting of travellers coming into Canada. I do not accept that. I think we are a long way from that, but I would suggest that it would be consistent to put in the schedule now that the authorities would be entitled to get photographic information from the airlines. In other words, I think it is very important for Canada to be up front with Canadians and people coming to Canada that the technology is going to come for photo identification and we are going to need to use it, because very clearly we have a terrorist threat out there and photo identification rather than just a passport number and address gives a greater certainty that there will not be a mistake when somebody is travelling into Canada and this information is being previewed by the security and police authorities in the ongoing search for terrorists. I think we should look at that.
Finally, my real reservation with the bill still centres on the issue of interim orders. I understand the rationale for this provision in the bill. What we found in the situation of September 11 was that ministers were suddenly faced with emergency situations where they had to make decisions which involved cordoning off areas and limiting access of people.
The difficulty is that unless we define these powers in law then in a limited emergency situation such as what happened in the United States we may have a situation where ministers are forced to go outside the law in order to authorize actions that are absolutely necessary under the limited emergency. If we have a terrorist attack for instance anywhere in Canada in a large urban centre the transportation minister, the health minister and the environment minister may have to take prompt action to respond to that kind of attack.
Right now we do not have that type of power in legislation, so the idea is fine. The problem with the idea is these powers of making an interim order in a significant risk situation. We are not talking about a national emergency. We are talking about a highly localized event that is an emergency, and that is why the member for Calgary Centre does not seem to have read the legislation. He seems to have been reading briefings on the legislation but he is not focused.
The interim orders pertain to a limited emergency in a limited circumstance, but the way it is phrased now is that when the minister issues this emergency order this order stands for 45 days before it needs cabinet confirmation. I believe that is too long a time. I do not really see why any interim order responding to a sudden emergency requires 45 days before it gets cabinet collective approval. I would think a seven day period is certainly enough. Surely the cabinet can be brought together after a terrorist attack or similar limited emergency within seven days. To extend it to 45 days unnecessarily gives too much power to the minister, and we do not need to go that way.
Furthermore, I am concerned that the interim orders fall outside the Statutory Instruments Act, and that again is something that has been brought up by the Bloc Quebecois. I think it is a very valid concern and I would urge the minister to look at that again because the minister may make a mistake, and much as sometimes I am critical about the civil service I think we need the input of the leading authorities in the Privy Council Office when this type of situation occurs, so I think that needs to be re-examined.
Finally, there is the question of parliamentary involvement and not having to table anything before parliament until 15 days after parliament is sitting. Of course, if parliament is not sitting this creates a problem of many months before parliament is consulted.
I would urge the minister to examine these latter issues very carefully. I think they are very crucial to a bill that is otherwise very well framed notwithstanding, if I may say so, some of the histrionics that have been circulating about this piece of legislation both in this Chamber and, I regret to say, by officers of parliament outside this Chamber.