Debates of Oct. 27th, 2009

Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to commend my hon. colleague for his very informative and well-written speech. I am quite impressed.

I am also very pleased to hear that we as New Democrats will be supporting the bill in principle and examining it in more detail when it goes to committee.

We were pleased with some of the provisions in the bill that the hon. member talked about: the creation of a new Criminal Code offence to prohibit people from agreeing with or making arrangements with another person to sexually exploit a child; and the creation of a new Criminal Code offence for possessing a computer virus for the purpose of committing mischief.

However, there are a few things that the member mentioned that we as New Democrats have concern with. I am talking about the thresholds and allowing the judge to have that balance.

I am wondering if the member could explain that in more detail for me.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague who does such a wonderful job representing his constituency. He has given much of his career to helping people in the community, particularly the children and families in need. I commend him for all the work that he does.

The concern that my colleague quite properly raises has to do with a change in the language in the bill around obtaining warrants by the police for intercepting or preserving digital data. It uses a very curious phrase. It talks about police appearing before a judge and demonstrating that they have reasonable and probable grounds to suspect that a crime has been committed.

The normative word that has been used in this country for decades for a normal warrant is to appear before a judge and demonstrate that one has reasonable and probable grounds to believe that a crime has been committed. The change of the word “believe” to “suspect” has some meaning. Civil liberty and privacy groups are concerned that this would be a reduction in the standard that police would need to demonstrate before they got an order.

Again, we are dealing with very sensitive material here. We are dealing with people's digital lives, their emails and the websites that they are visiting. This gets to the heart of a person's communications. My colleague from the Bloc made an analogy to Canada Post. This is our mail and our personal communications.

While all Canadians have an interest in ensuring we have effective tools to ensure we are not abusing those tools to commit crimes, we need to ensure there are rock solid lines drawn in the sand to ensure that anybody who is intercepting that material has demonstrated to someone in a judicial capacity that there are reasonable and probable grounds to warrant having that privacy interfered with.

That is why New Democrats have been working to understand why this change has been made in that bill and to understand what impact it may have. If it results in a diminution of Canadians' privacy rights with respect to their digital lives, we will oppose that change.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member made a comment regarding a possible five year parliamentary review of the legislation, which is a particularly good idea for a number of reasons. First, technology changes over a five year period can be very extreme, as we know. Even in one year, there can be major changes in technology.

I am interested in knowing what form this review would take and what sort of mechanism would be employed, or if we would simply be looking at a sunset clause here, which is often done in legislation. After five years, the legislation would expire and we would need to start over again at that time. Does he feel that a review mechanism would be better?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, with respect to my hon. colleague's very cogent question, the privacy commissioner herself has called for assurances that any proposals on surveillance as a concept of good public policy should have a number of concepts attached, and one of them includes a five year parliamentary review.

What I think her office meant by that is not a sunset clause but a parliamentary review so that parliamentarians can sit in the chamber five years from now, examine how these surveillance powers have been exercised and determine how the judiciary has interpreted these sections. As we all know, once these sections get litigated, a wording can sometimes take a turn that parliamentarians may or may not have intended.

I would think that the minister would be responsible for bringing such a review before the chamber. It is his and his government's legislation and they should bring it back to Parliament to ensure it is meeting its objectives.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-46, which would modernize investigative methods in relation to computer crimes.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-46 in principle. It will allow police forces to adapt their investigative techniques to contemporary technological realities, such as the widespread use of cellphones or the Internet, and it will facilitate the work of police officers without unduly infringing on basic rights. I will come back to that later and to the Ligue des droits et des libertés du Québec. The Bloc Québécois has always preferred that route for fighting crime and protecting the individual.

The Bloc Québécois feels that increasing the chance of being caught is much more of a deterrent than increasing the punishment, which often seems remote and abstract. However, this bill raises a number of concerns with respect to privacy, while any justification for infringement of privacy has not been fully demonstrated.

Given the importance of enhancing police powers to deal with the most complex forms of organized crime, the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-46 in principle. However—and this caveat is important—it will ensure in committee that any invasion of privacy is minimal, always necessary and very clearly defined.

As a number of my colleagues have already said, fighting cybercrime is a major challenge in today's world, which has 1.5 billion Internet users, not to mention those who use cellphones, BlackBerrys or other communication devices.

Before I go any further with this bill, I would like to digress and point out that the problem with access to Internet service is an increase in economic crime and crimes against individuals. At the same time, the fact that certain regions do not have access to high speed Internet represents a major problem. There should be a debate on this in the House. To a number of economic and social stakeholders in my region, access to high speed Internet represents an economic issue for the very development of rural regions and communities. It is now essential to some financial and trade transactions with other countries. It is distressing to see that a number of municipalities in my riding, such as Mandeville, Saint-Gabriel-de-Brandon and Saint-Mathieu, do not have access to high speed Internet. Accordingly, a number of municipalities in the riding I represent want these services.

For years now, the Bloc has been calling on the federal government to establish a program to promote the installation of high speed Internet in the regions. The federal government has finally responded with the broadband Canada program, but I think more money needs to be invested in it.

I wanted to digress here, because, as we know, the Internet poses a problem for a number of people today. At the same time, many people and regions do not yet have access to high speed Internet.

I will return now to the bill before us. With the expansion of the Internet and digital technology, cybercrime has become a growing threat, as a number of my Bloc Québécois colleagues and members of the other parties have mentioned in the House.

To deal with it more effectively, the European Union, with the cooperation of countries such as the United States and Canada, developed the convention on cybercrime. Its purpose is to formulate a common criminal policy aimed at protecting society against cybercrime, through such means as more appropriate and stronger legislation and the promotion of international cooperation.

As we know, the Internet reaches beyond the borders of Quebec, Canada and, ultimately, the world. Anything is possible with the Internet. People everywhere in the world are within reach.

In order to harmonize the legislation of the various countries, the international convention establishes four broad categories of offences. First, there are offences relating to network security. An example of this might be offences against confidentiality. Then there are computer and content offences. This refers to child pornography sites, for example. Finally there are offences against intellectual property and related rights, such as the illegal reproduction of protected works causing a great stir.

Although Canada signed the convention in November 2001, it has yet to ratify it. The government is introducing this bill, but it has not even ratified a convention we signed in November 2001.

And so the bill before us today is, in a way, a next step to the convention. Why have we not signed the convention? This is a question we have to ask today.

The legal arsenal must be constantly readapted in the face of organized and international cybercrime, which uses digital technology and Internet resources as targets or means to offend.

Bill C-46 modernizes the tools used by police services to track criminals by creating the power to require the production of data relating to the transmission of communications and the location of individuals.

This bill also creates a power to make preservation demands and order the preservation of electronic evidence.

In other words, the bill establishes the new concept of transmission of data and also makes it possible to seize transmission data.

The bill would therefore permit the seizure of data and of the content of transmissions based on reasonable grounds to believe that a person has committed an offence.

A police officer acting without a judicial warrant, and based on suspicion, will be able to compel a service provider to preserve the content of all communications that took place previously between the individual and other persons. This is somewhat like asking the post office to photocopy all of someone’s letters.

The bill also allows warrants to be issued to track transactions, individuals or things.

The concern we have about this bill is of course the entire question of confidentiality and people’s liberty. This bill must not result in wrongful intrusion into the lives of people or into communications people might engage in. Those communications are confidential to that person and the other people with whom they converse over networks like the Internet. This is a major concern.

As well, and I think this is a very important point, Bill C-46 creates a new offence, subject to a maximum sentence of imprisonment for 10 years, that prohibits the use of a computer system to enter into agreements with another person to commit a sexual offence against a child.

The bill also amends the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to make some of the new investigative powers being added to the Criminal Code available to Canadian authorities executing incoming requests for assistance and to allow the Commissioner of Competition to execute search warrants issued under the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.

Overall, the purpose of the bill is to enable police forces to adapt their investigative techniques to modern technological realities. Facilitating police work, where it does not unduly interfere with fundamental rights, is an avenue the Bloc Québécois has always advocated for fighting crime. This is what must be taken into account, and we will insist on this when the bill is considered in committee.

The new investigative methods the police will be allowed provide for access to a very broad range of information. Obviously, that information must be dealt with in a way that also protects individuals’ privacy. Monitoring someone’s activities on the Internet provides a lot more information about their private life. That is the caveat we would state.

For example, as has also been pointed out by the Ligue des droits et libertés, this bill is a cause for concern about respect for privacy, given that the justification for such interference has not yet been demonstrated.

In this respect, I would like to mention the concern of Quebec's Ligue des droits et libertés that Bills C-46 and C-47 give Canadian authorities unprecedented means and powers that allow them to pry into the private lives of citizens. The government has not shown that existing investigative powers are inadequate. In a democratic society, it is the government's actions that must be transparent, whereas the private lives of citizens must be protected. Conducting surveillance activities on the strength of mere suspicion threatens the presumption of innocence. These are concerns that were raised by the Ligue des droits et libertés.

Moreover, this urge to unduly monitor our communications could trigger a kind of self-censorship and restrict people's freedom of speech and freedom of thought.

In short, the Ligue feels that the bill is a major intrusion into people's private lives. In a democratic society, it is the government's actions that must be transparent, whereas the private lives of citizens must be protected. This is why the Bloc Québécois will carefully review this legislation in committee to ensure that the powers given to the police are not excessive but, rather, are justified and clearly delineated.

It is very important to reconcile the fight against cybercrime with the rights of Internet users. That is what this bill is all about. In order to be acceptable to the House, the bill must necessarily deal with these two important issues. Indeed, freedom of association, freedom of expression and non-discrimination are all rights that must be respected.

The right to speak freely and to receive and communicate information or ideas without interference from public authorities is also important. We must not go to the other extreme, where people would no longer feel comfortable conversing and exchanging views on the Internet. As parliamentarians, we must find the best possible balance between these two fundamental rights, namely the right to privacy and the right to security.

I also want to stress the importance of prevention in an effective strategy against cybercrime.

Little is said here about prevention, but the government's strategy must necessarily be based on a multi-pronged approach. It must involve both the private and the public sectors.

How can we better protect our young people who communicate on the Internet? How can we better protect people who conduct financial transactions on the Internet? How can we ensure that the system is safe for people? How can we teach people to be careful? How can we convince our young people to avoid contacts that may sometimes be harmful to them and threaten their physical and mental well-being?

Here, in the House of Commons, we can put in place means to better protect Internet users. It is important to give the public, and particularly younger people, the tools and the means to protect themselves against cybercrime. A great deal of information must be provided on this issue. We must get people and entrepreneurs to adopt safe computer practices and to invest in prevention.

Currently, Internet users are often careless. Many people turn on their computer and enter important information on the Internet, without worrying enough about possible consequences. We must change this mentality. In order to do so, we must inform the public of the dangers related to the use of Internet services. We must promote public awareness and, of course, we must provide tools to better use a technology that is now very much part of people's lives.

In conclusion, we are going to support this legislation, but with some reservations.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé for his comments on this bill. They were clear and simple, to ensure that the people listening at home can understand the purpose of this bill.

I think that the people who are listening to today's debate at home are wondering what impact this will have on their privacy. Does the government want to go further? Does the government want to invade their privacy even more? That is what people are wondering. And it is not just the public wondering whether the government wants to interfere in their private lives.

Even Canada's Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, has concerns and has expressed them. I would like to know what my colleague thinks was behind this comment by the commissioner:

Privacy is a critical element of a free society and there can be no real freedom without it.

Canada is currently on a dangerous path towards a surveillance society.

This is what the public understands. They understand that there could be more surveillance of any aspect of their private life. She went on to say:

We are beginning to think of more and more everyday situations in terms of “risk” and the previously exceptional collection and use of personal information are becoming normal.

In conclusion, I would like to know what my colleague thinks about the fact that the commissioner does not fully support this bill, because she believes that we are currently on a slippery slope with respect to surveillance. I would like to hear what my colleague thinks about the Privacy Commissioner's views on surveillance.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his excellent question. He has always been very dedicated to representing the people in his riding in all every area of activity, whether it be industry or the Internet. I would like to congratulate him for his efforts.

To answer his question, this bill makes it possible to seize transmission data, that is, data relating to the persons with whom and devices with which a person has communicated, after obtaining a warrant based merely on reasonable grounds to suspect.

So then it is possible to get all of the information disclosed on the Internet, simply when a police officer suspects that some information put there might be criminal. That requires a level of justification that, in our view, is not very stringent. And yet knowledge of all the sites and people with whom a person communicates often discloses private things, such as their social networks, their areas of interest in terms of their future, their career, and their professional activities. This information is confidential. Often, it may be a matter of concern to the public of Quebec. If a person has not committed crimes, and someone, based on a suspicion, can see all of the communications transmitted to other people through an activity on the Internet, there is a degree of danger in that regard. That is our concern.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Madam Speaker, like the Ligue des droits et libertés, I am concerned about wrongful seizures.

In the bill, we see that even without a warrant, and based solely on suspicion, a supplier of products could be asked to preserve all of their communications. That is a matter of considerable concern, because we know that in the past there have been abuses committed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police against people who, like me, hoped to have a country one day. It is of great concern to me to see things like that included in a bill. We could not be certain that our rights would be preserved and respected.

I hope the bill will go to committee and be amended. It is very important to preserve these rights and freedoms.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Laval for her excellent question. She has indeed been fighting for many years to have a country. With her, we carry on that struggle here in the House. She is very dedicated to that cause.

I would reply to her that this bill, as she said in her comments, offers only limited and virtually non-existent protections against wrongful warrantless seizures. The authorities could obtain your subscriber data, even though the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act recognizes that that information is private.

Here is another example. With a warrant, and based on suspicion, an officer will be able to ask a service provider to preserve the content of all your communications for a virtually unlimited time. That is like asking the post office to photocopy all the letters someone sends by mail. This presents a danger. I agree with my colleague from Laval. In committee, the Bloc Québécois will pay careful attention to these questions. The battle against cybercrime is important, but so is protecting individual citizens.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech. There has been a lot of talk over the last two hours about the importance of maintaining a balance between the right to privacy and the right to safety. The Ligue des droits et libertés says that the trend toward the undue surveillance of our communications could result in a certain amount of self-censorship and could undermine freedom of speech and thought.

Could my colleague explain once again how important the discussion will be in committee and how important it will be to debate such things as the powers conferred on the police? What powers should be conferred on the police and what powers would be excessive? Could my colleague explain once again how important this issue is and how important the discussion in committee will be in this regard?

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Saint-Lambert shares the concern of all Bloc members who have addressed the House. The right to privacy is also very important, as she pointed out.

I gave a few examples. This bill would give judges the ability, for instance, to order the preservation of computer data if they had reasonable grounds to suspect that someone had broken the law of a foreign country. This provision does not require any similarity between the foreign law and Canadian law. Could this provision enable authorities in countries where abortion is a crime, for example, to get the evidence they need to convict a woman who had an abortion in Canada? This question must be asked. These are issues that the Bloc will obviously raise when the bill is sent to committee for study because confidentiality is important to people who surf the Internet.

We agree that cybercrime must be controlled. It is growing all the time in various guises, whether economic and social crime, violent crime or cyber-bullying. These are all crimes committed on the Internet and we have to protect ourselves against them while also protecting the confidentiality of people who surf the Web.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-46 today.

At the outset, I note a quieter tone in the House today than when the debate began on this bill yesterday. We had a number of attack dogs from the government's side getting up and accusing members of the opposition, particularly the Liberal opposition, defenceless though it was, of trying to initiate an election, a $300 million waste of time, and blaming the Liberals for the fact that somehow this bill was finally getting debate when in fact this bill, in its previous incarnations, had been around for a number of years now, actually going into past Parliaments.

I thought it was something that the government should refrain from doing because the reality is that it is this government that actually passed legislation for fixed election dates some two or three years ago and then went about ignoring its own legislation. Just shortly after it passed the legislation, it desperately looked for ways to circumvent its own laws and called an election one year ahead of schedule last year, causing that same $300 million useless expense that it is blaming the Liberals for right now.

Given that today we are in a much calmer environment here, this is an example of all three parties working together and I believe this is yet another bill that the government is going to see action on. The NDP will be supporting this bill to get it to committee and I would say that as with any bill, there are questions about particular parts of the bill, interpretations of the bill, and those are issues that we will deal with at committee.

I firmly believe, after having a number of years in elected office, that it is always better, if possible, to support a bill at second reading to get it to committee, provided that one is voting for the principle of the bill at second reading. It has to be, in my view, a pretty bad bill not to get support at second reading.

When the bill gets to committee, that is the time to look at the clauses of the bill on a clause by clause basis, try to make amendments and changes that we want, and then at that point, when it comes back to the House, decide whether or not we can support the amended bill.

With regard to the general concept and the general principles involved in this bill, there is no question that this bill is one that merits support and that should be passed to committee.

Bill C-46 is an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. The bill sets out to provide police with updated powers to investigate, execute warrants, and charge individuals who are using digital technology to commit crimes. Specifically, the bill addresses gaps in the Criminal Code dealing with search warrants and production orders to permit police to obtain transmission data, which include text messages, files and photographs from telephones.

As well, Bill C-46 proposes to broaden the scope of warrants to allow tracking warrants, which would permit police to remotely activate existing tracking devices found in certain types of technology such as cellphones and tracking devices in some cars, and would also continue to permit the police to install a separate device that would allow for tracking. One of the members from the Bloc, earlier this morning, talked about criminal gangs stealing expensive cars, that those cars could be tracked overseas and recovered through this legislation.

In addition, the bill would create a new preservation order that would require a telecommunications service provider to safeguard and not delete its data related to a specific communication or a subscriber when police believe that data will assist in an investigation.

The bill proposes modifications to the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, and it widens the scope of assistance that Canada could provide to other countries in fighting cybercrime. Amendments to the Competition Act would provide the Competition Bureau and police with adequate tools to investigate computer-related crime.

Finally, Bill C-46 proposes the creation of two new Criminal Code offences. A new offence would be created to prohibit anyone from using a computer system such as the Internet to agree or make arrangements with another person for the purpose of sexually exploiting a child. Currently, the Criminal Code prohibits anyone from using the Internet to communicate directly with a child for the purpose of facilitating child sexual exploitation, but it does not prohibit people from agreeing or making arrangements with another person to sexually exploit a child.

As well, a new offence would be created making it a Criminal Code violation for possessing a computer virus for the purpose of committing mischief.

New Democrats agree that we must be tougher on crime and we should be certainly tougher on Internet-based crime and that in fact we should have a zero tolerance for child pornography.

Canadians also need to know that when they use the Internet or they use email what their privacy rights are.

The bill appears to reintroduce warrantless searches which would allow police to conduct searches without proper oversight. We are already hearing serious warnings from people like the Privacy Commissioner. I asked one or two questions about that this morning and she has some very important observations about this area. That is something, once again, that we are going to have to deal with at the committee stage.

We also have some concerns that the stakeholders have to be properly consulted. I know that at committee we dealt with another bill a few months ago, the charities bill, which is a bill that had been through several incarnations, and through several parliaments. We are still finding that only a small number of charities actually even know that the bill exists.

It seems hard to believe that if the government is doing its job that it would not be sending out letters to thousands of charities across the country telling them that such a bill is before the House and it is in their particular interest to make representations and get involved in the process. I think that is the sort of problem that we all face that we can only dig down so far with legislation. We only have so much time to do the consultations and sometimes it is hard to shake out and stir up the stakeholders to get them involved. However, that is something that we definitely want to do on this bill.

We think it is very important to modernize these laws. It is not only this law that needs modernization. There are many laws that we have on the books which go back to the horse and buggy days. We have to upgrade and update these laws to get them into the computer age. That fact is that even in five or ten years the technology can change so much that we are basically playing catch up. That is what I find as a legislator that we seem to be always playing catch up from a legislative point of view.

We need to get tough on criminals like Internet predators while still allowing ordinary Canadians privacy when sending e-mails to friends and family.

The previous Bloc member asked a question just minutes ago about that very point. It is a very difficult balance between the privacy issues, protecting people's privacy and certainly having the public protected. That is the exercise that we have to deal with at this particular time.

New Democrats agree that we must be tougher on crime, tough on Internet-based crime and have zero tolerance for child pornography. We support modernizing our laws to ensure that cellphones and the Internet are not a haven for criminal activity. We want to work with the government to ensure that these changes are done right.

Now that the Internet is in place, particularly since 1995, criminals adapt very quickly. If they can get away with frauds and scams by using the Internet and do it in an offshore place where there are really no laws against what they are doing, or they can hide and not suffer the consequences, then they will do that. We need to adapt to these changes by giving our police forces the tools they need to catch up to the criminals and stop them before they get away with their crimes. We in the NDP are very interested in combatting cybercrime.

We are pleased with a number of provisions in the bill and one is the creation of a new Criminal Code offence to prohibit people from agreeing or making arrangements with another person to sexually exploit a child. Another one is the creation of a new Criminal Code offence for possessing a computer virus for the purpose of committing mischief.

As I indicated before, much of the bill is taken up with amendments to definitions of various terms to reflect modern technologies. We have not seen any compelling evidence yet that the current definitions impede police in their investigations but we are certainly not opposed to getting the updated language in there to reflect the realities of today.

I mentioned before that the Privacy Commissioner had some opinions about the legislation. She has called for assurances that any legislative proposals on surveillance be minimally intrusive. She has called for a limit on the use of new powers and ensure that appropriate legal thresholds remain in place for court authorizations. She also has asked that the draft regulations be reviewed publicly before coming into force and that we include effective oversight. I am not exactly certain what she has in mind there but oversight, in any type of government legislation, is good.

We only need to look at the lack of oversight in the eHealth file, which started out as, and still is, a very positive and solid idea, but 10 years after the start of the eHealth programs, not only in the federal government but in the provincial Governments of Ontario, there is absolutely nothing to show for it. I could even go back further to the Manitoba government before 1999 where it spent $50 million on an eHealth program and yet, at the end of the day, there was absolutely nothing to show for it.

The federal government feels that 16% of Canadians will have electronic health files by perhaps 2010. The cost is about $1.6 billion and that $1.6 billion was supposed to cover the whole country. I must ask a rhetorical question. How do these programs get out of control? I have always been a very big supporter of e-government files, d eHealth files and e-commerce files. In fact, when the legislation was introduced in Manitoba in 2000, the most comprehensive e-commerce legislation in the country, I was the MLA in charge of putting it all together.

At that time, we were trying to promote e-commerce but people were reluctant to buy things online. It was just the very beginning of the process. I remember getting a piece of consumer legislation in that legislation, which I think, to this day, only exists in Manitoba, and that was the requirement that if someone bought a product or service online and, as the consumer, did not get that product or service, then the credit card company was responsible for reimbursing the consumer. That was peculiar to Canada at the time but I took it from one of two or three American states that had that legislation at the time. Ten years ago, we put that piece of consumer legislation and several others dealing with electronic commerce into an omnibus bill dealing with electronic commerce to promote the idea.

However, at the time we could never have even comprehended what in fact would happen over those ensuring years. As a matter of fact, we had the best government-secured system in the country in terms of security. Our people were so good that when they left the Manitoba government we were paying them maybe $100,000 a year, which we thought was excessive. However, one of them went to work for the Bank of Montreal and I think his salary was $300,000 a year. He lived in Toronto anyway, so he made $300,000 a year and simply walked to work, as opposed to flying back and forth to Manitoba every week for $100,000. That is just to show members how important Internet security actually became at about that time.

Members will recall that there were viruses afloat in those days that crippled the British government. The B.C. government was down for a day or two. I think Manitoba was the only government that we were aware of that withstood all of these cyber attacks. I used to get printouts and reports, certainly not a daily basis but any time I wanted them, which would show how many attacks the government would have.

I think any of the members of the government can talk to their online people and can get that information themselves. They can go back and ask how secure our government's system is. They can ask about the number of attacks, the type of attacks and where they are coming from. I think they might be surprised to see those results. They might be positively surprised now because those attacks may be dropping. I have not followed the file as much as I did in the past years.

When Reg Alcock was here he was a big champion of e-government and pushed the file. He obviously lost track of that eHealth file somewhere because it is not producing the results that he would have hoped for. However, his heart and his head were in the right place. He certainly pushed Prime Minister Martin on that whole e-government file. I would guess that the file has been essentially forgotten under the Conservative government. It is just a guess at this point, but my guess is that the Conservatives have gone for simply retrenchment and have taken out no real new initiative since Reg left that particular file. I checked into the secured channel just about a year and a half ago and they were basically retooling the whole concept.

The government has a duty to get its systems and services online as quickly as possible and make them transactional so that people can get proper service. In Manitoba, we have student aid applications online. We did not want students driving 100 miles to Winnipeg to stand in line at the student aid branch for an hour to fill out an application and then drive all the way home again, so we put the application online.

All government services should be put on line. Not only should the government have the applications on line, but it should make them transactional so people can pay for the service with their credit card and have a much happier experience dealing with the government than having to wait in line at government offices. This is something that I do not hear much from the government on and I think we should be looking at that. I intend to ask more questions about that in the future.

What sort of oversight will we have on the bill? I sure hope it is a better oversight than what we had on the eHealth file and other files where there were boondoggles in the government.

I think the five year parliamentary review that was suggested by the Privacy Commissioner is a good idea. However, I need to know whether there will be a review after five years, which is a great idea, or even a sunset clause after five years given the great changes in technology that could happen over a period like that.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Official Languages]

Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague opposite for taking the time to speak to this issue. However, I must say that I was very disappointed yesterday to hear the member criticize the government for the tone that was injected.

I want to remind the member of something that one of his own colleagues said, the member for Winnipeg Centre, when we were discussing the comments of a member of the Liberal opposition. The member for Winnipeg Centre compared the government's push toward tough on crime legislation to the plight of African Americans during the 1960s who were suppressed and targeted by racists. I could not believe my ears that this would come from an NDP member in my home town, but he suggested that the government's tough on crime legislation was actually designed to put more aboriginal people, my family, my cousins, my aunts and my uncles, behind bars. It was atrocious and scandalous.

I believe it is important to address comments like that made by NDP members in the House, which is why we stood so strong against what was said.

The other thing I heard the member say is that he believes there should be tough legislation on things like child pornography. Members of his own party voted against the human trafficking bill. Some members of his party decided they would not support protecting Canadian children and women.

I am sorry but I need to ask the member a question. How are we to believe him when he stands before us and says that he believes we need to get tough on crime and yet his party takes actions not to protect our children, women and aboriginal people? How can he stand before us and say that he cares about tough on crime legislation?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member certainly took us on a trip to various subjects.

The reality is that we in the NDP have said, over and over again, that we believe that being smart on crime is better than being what she calls tough on crime. We only use the example of minimum sentences. They have been tried in the United States, which now has a lot of rich prison owners because the prisons were turned over to private entrepreneurs.

Governor Schwarzenegger in California must now release thousands of people on early parole because he cannot afford to keep them any more as the state has run out of money. The crime rate in the United States is way higher than it is in Canada. That is an example of ideology trumping smartness. We need to deal with issues that actually work.

Winnipeg actually got some action on auto theft by establishing immobilizer programs for cars. A task force was set up within the police service to chase down car thieves, get them off the streets and put them in jail. Car thefts went down to the point, although we are not there yet, where one day this year there were no car thefts at all. To me, that is smart on crime, I do not know how many times we need to say that but the hon. member for Saint Boniface, obviously, does not get the concept.

The government should be looking around the world to see what works. Why is the incarceration rate in Sweden only 77 per 100,000, 177 per 100,000 in Canada and 700 per 100,000 in the United States? She is looking the wrong way. She should be looking to Sweden and not the United States. It is not that the United States does not have some good features but let us pick some good features of the U.S. system that actually show results and work.

However, those people are blinded. They have their blinders on and they create their crime bills based on what they do for their polling results. When they get great polling results, they bring in more of these types of bills. They do not care whether they work or not, it depends on what they do for their polls.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois has always been in favour of facilitating the work of police officers, when it does not infringe on basic rights, as one of the best ways to fight crime. We also think that increasing the likelihood of getting caught has a much more dissuasive effect that increasing the punishment, which can often seem pretty remote and abstract to fraudsters.

My colleague seems to share that view. He said just a while ago, and I would like to hear him again on this, that as technology develops, cybercrime is increasing and will continue to do so. He said he would be interested in reviewing the Criminal Code more often in this respect. He also said it was important to keep the public informed about what is in the bill. I would appreciate it if he could expand on this.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I missed the first part of the member's question, but I certainly got the second part of it. It seems to me that in technology, we are dealing with an ever-increasing rate of change. Years ago, the Pony Express was replaced by the telegraph system and the telegraph system was replaced by telephones. Those changes took place over 50 to 100 years, but computer changes are happening in a much smaller timeframe. The Internet has been around for quite a long time, but it was not until 1995 that people started getting their first emails. That was the case for me. Until then, a computer was just a computer. Before 1983, there were not really any PCs around. The use of the Internet did not start until 1995 and beyond.

Think of the explosion in the computer world. A company as huge as Microsoft dominated that particular sector of the market and was outsmarted by the people at Google. When a company like Microsoft cannot keep ahead of the curve, how are we supposed to do it?

Trying to keep ahead of these people is part of the problem we face as legislators.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have a couple of questions and I hope my colleague can answer both.

He alluded in his speech to the possibility of having a five-year review or perhaps sunsetting this legislation. I would like him to expand on that because I think he had more to say in that regard,

He made indirect reference to some notable boondoggles, namely e-health and secure channel. I wonder if he would be able to explain why the government is not making any particular progress in terms of e-government.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, those are two very good questions. Regarding the whole issue of the five-year parliamentary review, I am not certain what form the review would take. The suggestion was that we put the minister in charge of it, but we know that ministers can take forever to get something like that done. Maybe there is a more impartial way in which the review could take place.

The sunset clause is of particular interest, because at that point, the law would expire and there would be no other option but to reintroduce it and start from scratch. I would have to defer to the legal beagles, and there are a lot of them in the House, to tell me whether that would work. Either option is good. I think that the member is on the right track.

In terms of the boondoggles, I am not holding any one government responsible for them. We have seen boondoggles under Liberal governments and Conservative governments. I am trying to get to the bottom of how it happened. With all the brain power involved in the project in the first place, how did the project get out of control? That is what I am really interested in finding out and I think that the Auditor General's report will probably tell us a lot.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to address Bill C-46 on investigations and the Internet.

This is an interesting bill for a very specific reason. For the past little while, the government side has been introducing legislation to deal with crime, cybercrime and new technology used by criminals. One can think, for instance, of the identity theft bill, which the Bloc Québécois supports, and Bill C-46, which the Bloc Québécois will also be supporting. I will outline later our reasons for supporting this bill, but I will also mention the contraindications to this bill; it is a matter of dosage.

I must say that what is being proposed by the government side is interesting for a change. We can sense a desire to modernize, which is something of a novelty on the part of a Reform-Conservative Party. They should normally be acting like dinosaurs, but all of a sudden, we can see an increased effort to try and modernize some pieces of legislation. The problem is that subtlety is not their forte. Complications might happen, which they may not know what to do about. Hence the importance of thorough debate.

We cannot pass a bill as important as this one that quickly. A few short days are not enough to conclude debate, close the matter and immediately pass the bill. We will need time to examine the bill and consider its consequences. If this bill can be referred to the Standing Committee on Justice or the Standing Committee on Public Safety, for example, we will have to take the time to speak with witnesses and see whether some valuable amendments could be made.

I will confess that the Bloc is supporting this bill because of its importance and because of the fact that, increasingly, the world is turning to the Internet. More and more banking is done on the Internet, which could attract fraudsters to the net. There is another major problem, that of pedophilia. There is the risk of having to deal with the exploitation of minors and children. That sort of thing happens on the Internet. At least, with new legislation, there will be new equipment to go after sexual offenders, these predators—if I can put it that way—and catch them as quickly as possible and clean up the Internet a little.

We are all aware of the meteoric rise in the use of the Internet since the mid-1990s. Its use is constantly growing. I provided a couple of examples about pedophilia on the Internet, which can be and is misused. There is Internet fraud as well. I will establish a link with what we were debating last week regarding identity theft. With the arrival of sites such as Facebook, more and more information is available on the Internet. It can of course be improperly used. With this bill, we will at least have the means to deal with this sort of crime all the more vigorously.

On the subject of problems, we must not go to the other extreme. It is in this regard that I have some fears about the Conservatives, and perhaps more about the Reform and Alliance wing of the Conservatives. It would be easy to get carried away with this bill. The Ligue des droits et libertés in Quebec has expressed serious concerns regarding this bill, since confidential information obtained on people could be misused. The league says the government has to be transparent and the private life of people has to be protected.

So already there is a problem with this bill, which will have to be debated in committee. Witnesses will have to be heard and serious work must be done, as the Bloc has done each time in legal matters. To echo what my NDP colleague said earlier, we in the Bloc have always been smart on crime. I think we have one of the best critics on the subject in our colleague, the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. He was minister of public security in Quebec for many years and it was he who fought the hardest against crime, among other things. The Hell's Angels at the time, are an example.

All of the knowledge and intellect of the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin could shed fantastic light in committee, where witnesses could be called and amendments worked out. This bill is consistent, but needs fine tuning. I am known to be a perfectionist. We will have to make improvements in committee.

I have been listening to my other colleagues’ speeches since the beginning of the day. I am not just a perfectionist, I also have a good ear and am a good listener. One of the areas that could be tackled most easily with this bill is cyberpedophilia. Unfortunately, people do not use the Internet only for good purposes. I was surprised recently when I read statistics about Internet usage. Nearly 90% of Internet sites and Internet pages are related to pornography. This is shocking. Obviously cyberpedophiles have no qualms about using the Internet to distribute child pornography files. We have a duty to combat this vigorously, to make sure that we eliminate this atrocity to the extent possible; we are all in agreement. This is the example that came up most often in the case of this bill.

My colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue has done just as good a job as my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin when it comes to justice and public safety issues. He was just saying that we could put chips in cars. Very often, when a car is stolen, it is broken down into parts that are sent to the four corners of the world, and this makes tracing a difficult task. It is very hard to find the car or the parts intact.

At least, we are seeing modernization of some laws, as I was just saying. This is no longer the era of highway robbery and of trains being derailed so the cars could be robbed. The Jesse James's of this world belong to the past. But it was a somewhat more romantic era, if I may say so. Nonetheless, we are seeing bandits making wide use of the Internet, in our day, to achieve their ends. Bank thefts are becoming increasingly complex. These people have an extraordinary ability to reinvent themselves. I have always been told that government reacts rather than acting, but it is clear that the government has finally decided to act, and to introduce this bill.

As I said, it will be extremely important to move this debate to committee so we can examine all facets of the bill. My fear is that the Conservatives want to pass it too quickly. We have seen this in far too many justice-related files. They say they are tough on crime. I will not say what I think of this tough on crime analogy, but in some cases we can very clearly see that it is completely bizarre.

Just now, my colleague drew comparisons with the United States. In particular, I am thinking of the minimum sentences the Conservatives are trying to shove down the opposition parties’ throats. We can see that the American Republicans have tried such sentences, and where it has got them.

Bill C-46 amends the Criminal Code. Among other things creates a new concept called “transmission data,” which would extend to all means of telecommunication the investigative powers that are currently restricted to data associated with telephones.

As I said, this is no longer the era of mere telephone wiretapping. We have to look at all information exchanged on the Internet. I will draw a parallel. I certainly would not want to get involved in the election about to be held at the municipal level in Quebec, but when there is collusion, we often see that the Internet has been used to exchange information about price fixing.

It is apparent, therefore, that these kinds of dishonest, fraudulent conversations are not carried out solely on the telephone any more or in dark little rooms. We have reached the point now where people can easily commit fraud from their offices over the Internet.

This bill also creates, therefore, the power to compel the production of data relating to the transmission of communications; it creates the power to require the production of data on the location from which individuals operate; it creates the power to make preservation demands and orders to compel the preservation of electronic evidence; it allows for warrants to be issued, subject of course to legal thresholds appropriate to the interests at stake; and it makes it possible to track transactions, individuals and things. The police will be able to remotely activate tracking devices. These are exactly the kind of things that can become problematic and should be considered in the implementation of the bill.

As I have been saying and as the Ligue des droits et libertés said, we must be careful that the government itself does not use the legislation at some point for the wrong reasons. Far be it from me to suggest that the government might currently have some nefarious ideas. We have seen, though, what they are sometimes capable of. The bill will also create a new offence with a maximum punishment of ten years in prison for the use of computer systems like the Internet to agree or arrange with another person to commit a sexual offence against a child.

The bill also amends the Competition Act—this is ironic because it is precisely what I was just talking about in regard to the collusion on Montreal Island—to make applicable for certain provisions of the act the new provisions being added to the Criminal Code respecting demands and orders for the preservation of computer data and orders for the production of documents relating to the transmission of communications or financial data.

Finally, the bill amends the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to make some of the new investigative powers being added to the Criminal Code available to Canadian authorities executing incoming requests for assistance and to allow the Commissioner of Competition to execute search warrants under the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.

As I said, the Bloc Québécois is in principle in favour of Bill C-46, whose purpose is to enable police forces to adapt their investigative techniques to contemporary technological realities, such as the widespread use of cellphones and the Internet.

I would like to draw another connection. Not only criminals use these kinds of communications but increasingly also terrorists, who use such things as the Internet and cellphones to carry out their plans. We can therefore fight on both fronts.

Facilitating police work, where it does not unduly interfere with fundamental rights, is an avenue the Bloc Québécois has always advocated for fighting crime. This approach has certainly proved itself in Quebec. The Bloc Québécois also thinks that increasing the likelihood of getting caught is a much greater deterrent than increasing the punishments, which often seem pretty remote and abstract.

I must say that when I see criminals, of whatever sort, who are warned that they will get a sentence of 15 or 20 years in prison for something like cocaine trafficking, they do not seem very worried about it because they are focused on what they stand to gain. Criminals may well think it would be pretty good to sell cocaine for a few years for the $10 million or so they would get.

So it is much more a question of increasing police presence and better equipping the police to fight crime. It is this that will really deter criminals rather than simply warning them they will get a 10-year sentence, because no criminal thinks they will be caught until the means are in place to catch them.

However, as I was saying, this bill raises a number of concerns regarding respect of privacy, whereas there has been no justification provided for such infringement. Given the importance of strengthening police powers to fight the most complex forms of organized crime, the Bloc supports the principle behind the bill.

I wish to reiterate my full confidence in my colleagues from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin and Abitibi—Témiscamingue. I am sure that they will do some extraordinary, meticulous and exemplary work in committee to ensure that there are as few intrusions into people's private lives as possible, and that those intrusions are always necessary and very well delineated.

If I am permitted a few minutes, I may perhaps put the whole thing in context and recall to some extent the origins of the spirit of the bill. It all comes from the Convention on Cybercrime, which underlies Bill C-46 and Bill C-47, which we will study a little later. The bill before us draws largely on it. The convention was formulated by the Council of Europe with the active involvement of Canada, the United States, Japan and South Africa.

Under the terms of its preamble, the convention aims to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, inter alia, by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation. It is structured, more specifically, around three regulatory lines, that of harmonization of domestic laws, the establishment of appropriate means in order to facilitate the conduct of investigations and criminal proceedings on electronic networks and, finally, the establishment of a rapid and effective system of international cooperation.

On the subject of cybercrime and the Internet, the letters, www, stand for the World Wide Web. And we know why—because it is truly world wide. So, a criminal can easily be based in South Africa and commit crimes in Canada or Europe. Hence the importance of cooperating multilaterally with other countries to acquire the means and to work together to stop these criminals.

In order to harmonize domestic laws, international conventions on cybercrime set out the offences in four broad categories. First, there are offences relating to the security of networks, namely offences involving confidentiality, integrity, or data or system availability. There are also computer-related offences, namely falsification and fraud and then offences relating to content, namely child pornography, as I was saying earlier. Finally, there are offences relating to infringement of intellectual property and related rights, such as the illegal reproduction of protected works. In the case of offences relating to the dissemination of racist or xenophobic ideas and to trafficking in human beings over the networks, there is an additional protocol.

To facilitate investigations and prosecution in cyberspace, the convention contains a series of provisions that the signatories will have to approve. These provide, among other things, for the preservation, search and seizure, and interception of data stored on a computer system. Finally, to promote international cooperation, signatories will be permitted to act on behalf of others in acquiring electronic evidence. This will not give the signatories the authority to conduct transborder investigations, proceedings or searches, but a network of national contact points will be established to provide constant and immediate assistance with ongoing investigations. This goes to show the value, as I indicated, of multilateral cooperation in that regard.

I gave the example of a criminal who could very well send data—or commit a Criminal Code offence—from South Africa to Canada. The idea of going over there to arrest him is therefore far from our minds, but if we are at least able to provide information to local authorities, send them the data, we will be much more likely to catch him.

So, the cybercrime convention is the result of a lengthy process undertaken in 1995. The document underwent 27 drafts, because of the need to take into account reticence on the part of several consumer associations, warning against the serious danger of breaching privacy.

The Chair is signaling that I am running out of time. That is unfortunate, because I could have gone on for hours. My hon. colleagues will no doubt put very good questions to me, and I will gladly answer them.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague delivered an eloquent speech. I think he did a very good job of explaining the basics of the bill so we all understand. I would like to congratulate him.

I believe that most of those listening will have understood one problem. That problem is suspicion and the fact that a police investigation can be initiated based solely on suspicion.

This bill is not just opening a door, it is opening a very big patio door. Investigating someone based on suspicion alone is very serious business. Any suspicion at all for any reason whatsoever can lead to the investigation of a person who may have nothing at all to do with the reason for suspicion. Broad investigations based on suspicion can be a problem.

I believe that, as parliamentarians, we have to eliminate that possibility at the outset. If we give the police the power to investigate anything at all based on suspicion, there will be no end in sight. As I said before, the Privacy Commissioner does not agree with this approach. It opens a huge door. We want the committee to make sure that door does not give the police carte blanche.

I would like my colleague to comment on the notion of suspicion and the tremendous latitude it gives to police.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to answer my colleague's question. When it comes to this issue, we should not simply talk about a patio door, but about a patio door that has been completely smashed in.

We all heard my colleague's question. Is it not nice to be able to exchange views with such brilliant individuals? I do not mean to put him on a pedestal, but this is the kind of thinking that we do in the Bloc Québécois, and it is because we have true debates that the bills and amendments that we propose are much more progressive.

I must admit that I share my colleague's concerns about this issue. This is why we want to refer the bill to a committee. Earlier, I mentioned the excellent work of two other colleagues of mine, namely the hon. members for Abitibi—Témiscamingue and for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. They will be able to propose amendments.

The issue of suspicion was raised. I must say that I am extremely concerned about giving such broad powers to the police. I certainly do not want to disparage the work of police officers. Their work is absolutely exemplary. These people are prepared to give their lives to protect citizens. However, the problem is that the bill does not include any specifics about these powers. An investigation targeting an individual can be launched without any judicial warrant.

There is a very fine line between privacy protection and the power of police to act. We will have to be very serious in dealing with this issue. We cannot be partisan as the Conservatives unfortunately all too often tend to be. In order to have a true discussion, they must set aside their ideology, because we on this side do not have one.

The public also has every reason to be concerned. Considering that the police could act without any valid grounds, merely on the basis of suspicion, it is easy to imagine the problems that this could generate. We are all human beings and human nature being what it is, man will do what man will do. If a police officer, for one reason or another—as we have seen all too often—decided to start checking on an individual who is at his computer or on the telephone for personal reasons, one can imagine the problem that this would cause.

Some police officers could totally lose it—and again we have seen that happen—and begin to investigate any individual, whenever they want.

There is something here that really scares me. We will have to define that fine line and this will be a very complex exercise. However, considering the colleagues that I have with me, and the quality of our debates, I am not at all worried.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Madam Speaker, as always, I am fascinated by the lucidity of my young colleague. However, I think he has kept some of his naïveté, but there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is important for a member of Parliament to keep some degree of naïveté.

I would even push my suspicions a bit further with regard to the drafting and the passing of this bill. We have seen in the past—unfortunately, my colleague is too young to remember—serious wrongdoings on the part of CSIS and the RCMP. And these wrongdoings were not attributable to individuals; they stemmed from mandates given by duly elected politicians.

Right now, with the government we have that puts key people in key positions in all our institutions, I am afraid we are heading toward a state that will not be very interesting. I am even afraid that there will be attempts to prevent people from expressing themselves freely over the Internet. It scares me. I think we must be careful of that.

I want to ask my young colleague if he has the same fears.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, as for my naïveté, I always remember that John F. Kennedy said that in politics, you can lose your illusions, but not your ideals.

With regard to what my colleague from Laval is saying, I would give the example of the Patriot Act, which George Bush introduced in the United States after the September 11 attacks. We saw how that law was misused. It was based on lofty principles and patriotic ideals. The government said that the purpose of the Patriot Act was to protect the people and ensure that no one would ever commit terrorist acts on American soil again. The problem is that we saw how the Republican government used that law. Far too much power was put in the hands of politicians, who used it to further their own personal interests. That is the danger.

I would like to talk about the October crisis of 1970. I am too young to remember it; in fact, I was not even a gleam in my parents' eyes. In a way, the government raided the sovereigntist movement for the simple reason that these people had views that contrasted with those of the federal colonial government. What did the government do? It arrested the leaders of the sovereigntist movement, the union leaders, the business people, the defence lawyers. It arrested everyone who was likely to oppose what the government decided. Then it introduced martial law.

For a government that does not always have good ideas, as the Conservatives have demonstrated, this bill places far too much power in certain people's hands, and that can have an adverse effect. I want to tell my Conservative colleagues that we are not opposed to the bill. We are not opposed to the spirit of the bill. We are opposed to the adverse effects this bill may have. There is a difference. I hope my Conservative colleagues will be able to set aside partisanship and draw the line with us to protect people's privacy.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, earlier I raised the issue of suspicion, as did my colleague.

At the government level, nothing would prevent someone from asking the police to investigate a colleague on the mere strength of suspicions. Things could go even further. If suspicions did exist, police forces could investigate each other such as, for example, CSIS and the RCMP. There would be no end to this. There will be abuse and this is what we want to prevent. If, in committee, we can thoroughly review this issue and see the impact of relying on suspicions and what we want to achieve at the government level, then we may have something concrete.

I wonder if my colleague could elaborate on this.

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Repentigny has about 50 seconds.