Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-19.
One of the most difficult balances we have in dealing with public safety is the balance between collective security on the one hand and individual freedoms and individual civil liberties on the other. It is a difficult balance, particularly in the wake of the events of 9/11, with which we have been challenged, not just our country, but countries in all parts of the world as they have tried to manage a process of ensuring the safety of the general population while at the same time making sure that terrorism does not undermine the very freedoms that define our society.
We have these two balancing interests. On the one hand the government makes the point, and it is well made, that there can be extenuating circumstances, situations where collective security is put in deep peril, where there is an impending terrorist threat that demands immediate action, where police need to be given every tool at their disposal to get answers and to prevent disaster from happening. Canadians would expect nothing less than that.
On the other hand there is an equally important assurance that needs to be made that those tools, those exceptional powers, would only be used in the most extreme circumstances. They would only be used in examples where there was an imminent threat and something that presented a serious risk to public security and public safety and that these powers would not be abused. In this regard, oversight becomes exceptionally important. As a Parliament, we need to look regularly upon this and ensure that the proper balance has been struck.
As we have seen western democracies struggle with this balance, this pull in both directions, we have seen errors made on both sides. There have been some states that have clearly gone too far and have jeopardized individual freedoms far too much for very little gain in terms of public safety. On the other hand there are those that have not taken action, have not given law enforcement officials and those on the front lines stopping terror the tools they need to do their job. That is where we are with this particular bill.
When the government first introduced its legislation after the sunset clause had been completed, it was clear that was greatly deficient. There were a number of problems. The Senate studied it. The Liberal senators did an enormous amount of work, along with others, but it was led particularly by the Liberals in the Senate. They tried to rebalance the bill, to make sure that those two competing priorities were met. I think they did an excellent job in that regard.
I will go over exactly what we are talking about and give an analysis of some of the reasons, at this point, we as a party certainly will be supporting sending the bill to committee. However, because of the sensitive nature of it and the balancing that is required, we will have a lot of work once it gets to committee.
It is important to note that investigative hearing provisions in the Criminal Code allow authorities to compel the testimony of an individual without the right to decline to answer questions on the grounds of self-incrimination. The intent would be to call on those on the periphery of an alleged plot who may have vital information, rather than the core suspects who would have an overwhelming incentive to lie or to protect themselves.
The preventive arrest provisions in the Criminal Code allow police to arrest and hold an individual, in some cases without warrant, provided the police have reasonable grounds to believe the arrest will prevent future terrorist activity.
After 9/11 the Liberal government passed the Anti-terrorism Act, a package of measures, including Criminal Code amendments, to combat terrorism and terrorist activity. The act attempted to balance those measures with respect to the Canadian values of fairness and human rights.
Two new powers in the act, investigative hearings and preventive arrest, were considered sufficiently intrusive and extraordinary that a specific five-year sunset clause was applied to them. The sunset clause was a Liberal caucus priority to ensure that oversight, as I mentioned before is so important, was had.
In October 2006 a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security recommended extending the sunset clause while also amending the Criminal Code to restrict the scope and application of investigative hearings and preventive arrests.
The sunset clauses came due on March 1, 2007. The government introduced a motion to extend the provisions for a further five years, but in February 2007, the Liberal opposition, as well as the Bloc and the NDP, voted to allow the clauses on investigative hearings and preventive arrests contained in the original Anti-terrorism Act, brought forward in the immediate aftermath of September 11, to sunset.
At the time, the Liberal opposition offered to work with the Conservative government to find reasonable and effective improvements in the anti-terrorism laws of Canada to strike an appropriate balance between safety and protection of rights.
After the defeat of the clauses, the government introduced legislation in October 2007 that would have brought back the two clauses with additional safeguards. It required law enforcement officers to satisfy a judge that they had used every other method to get the information that they needed. It also required the attorney general and the minister of public safety and emergency preparedness to report to Parliament on a yearly basis explaining their opinion as to whether or not these provisions should be further extended.
In October 2007, upon the introduction of Bill C-3, on security certificates, and Bill S-3, on investigative hearings and preventive arrest, both the Liberal critic and the Liberal leader in the Senate indicated their support for both pieces of legislation. Bill C-3 eventually did become law. Bill S-3 did not make it through the House before the 2008 election because the government failed to call the bill for debate.
I want to talk about Bill S-3 and some of the changes that were made by the Senate that I think started to move the bill back into a better balance between those two priorities.
Bill S-3 included improvements to the code's terrorism regime, such as an increased emphasis on the need for a judge to be satisfied law enforcement has taken all reasonable steps to obtain information by other legal means prior to resorting to an investigative hearing; the ability for any person ordered to attend an investigative hearing to retain and instruct counsel; new reporting requirements for the attorney general and the minister of public safety who must now both submit annual reports which not only list the uses of these provisions, but also provide an opinion supported by reasons as to whether these powers needed to be maintained; the flexibility to have any provincial court judge hear a case regarding a preventive arrest; and a five-year end date unless both houses of Parliament resolve to extend the provisions further.
The former minister of public safety encouraged the Senate special committee on anti-terrorism to continue studying Bill S-3 and related issues even after reporting back to the Senate. The committee suggested key amendments to the bill that were included in the final version passed by the Senate in March 2008. The most significant of these amendments mandated a comprehensive parliamentary committee review at the fifth anniversary of the bill's coming into force.
With all of these things having been said and that balance being moved more toward where it needs to be, we on this side of the House are prepared to see the bill go to committee where obviously it is going to need a lot more work. There are a couple of points I would like to address now for consideration and which we will want to talk about at committee.
We want to ensure there is strong parliamentary oversight. One of the questions I asked the parliamentary secretary not so long ago was the possibility of ensuring that we have a review by both houses of Parliament, not just one. That is something we can work on in a collaborative fashion in committee. The last time the bill was reviewed, the Senate had a lot of important additions to make and important observations that otherwise would have been missed.
The second thing we could discuss at committee is the possibility of the frequency of the review, whether or not three years would be possible as opposed to five years. If we approach it with the philosophy of trying to ensure we have the appropriate amount of oversight, those who are concerned that these powers might in some way be misused would have their fears assuaged.
I do feel the legislation as it stands now has a significant number of safeguards. I think we could consider further ones. However, it is imperative that our law enforcement officers and officials have the tools they need to act in a preventive way against potential terrorist threats in this country. By having sufficient oversight and by taking the proper time to study the bill at committee after it leaves this House, we can strike that appropriate balance and move forward in a productive way.