House of Commons Hansard #127 of the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was information.
The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken
I am sure all hon. members are dying to hear the comments from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons on this matter when he is prepared. I am sure their patience will be exhibited plainly as we await those comments.
Julian Fantino Conservative Vaughan, ON
moved that Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act, be read the third time and passed.
Strengthening Aviation Security ActGovernment Orders
Fort McMurray—Athabasca Alberta
Conservative
Brian Jean ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to sponsor Bill C-42 for third reading.
I want to preface my remarks with the observation that our government appreciates the importance of the legislation before us today. Along with our government, I want to personally thank the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, which heard testimony from a wide range of witnesses including Canada's Privacy Commissioner. I also thank many of the members who are in the House today for their hard work on the bill in seeing it come to fruition.
I have followed the debate in the House as well as at committee with a great deal of interest. I believe we have arrived at the appropriate balance between protecting our security while also protecting the civil liberties and privacy rights of Canadians, which is a balance that our government has been committed to achieving since first elected in 2006.
I am sure all hon. members would agree that the debates so far have engaged comments from a number of organizations, media outlets and individual Canadians, and it is good to have that debate. Some of these comments have been very helpful and have influenced some of the helpful amendments agreed to at the committee stage.
Some comments shared at the committees were, however, less helpful and may, in some cases, have generated some confusion. We certainly do not want Canadians or our counterparts in the United States to be confused. I therefore appreciate the opportunity to set the record straight on a number of fronts and to clarify what Bill C-42 would and would not do.
First and foremost, Bill C-42 will in essence do what was done by the previous Liberal Government of Canada in 2001 as part of our country's response to the tragic events of September 11. It will amend section 4.83 of the Aeronautics Act so Canadian airline companies will be able to comply with enhanced aviation security measures that have been introduced by the United States strictly in relation to its sovereignty rights.
In 2001 the then Liberal government amended the Aeronautics Act so Canadian airline companies could provide the U.S. government with passenger information for all flights scheduled to land in that country.
Bill C-42 proposes to amend the exact same section of the Aeronautics Act so Canadian airline companies can provide the U.S. with information for flights that overfly U.S. airspace on their way to destinations such as Mexico and the Caribbean. This is in accordance with the U.S. government's secure flight final rule, which was published in 2008 in response to the recommendations of the 9/11 commission and the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act passed in 2004. Indeed, this directly applies to keeping the United States secure and keeping Canadians secure.
As all members already know, there are obvious security reasons why this is very necessary and why this government has moved forward with this initiative. As the final rule itself notes, flights which overfly the United States have the potential to cause harm due to their proximity to locations that may be potential terrorist targets, such as major metropolitan areas and critical infrastructure in the United States.
All countries in this world, including Canada, have the right under international law to determine who enters their borders, including who enters their airspace. Our counterparts to the south of the border have the legal right and obligation under international law to know who comes into their country, whether by land, air or sea. Canada has the same right and this Conservative government will do whatever it takes to enforce and protect Canadians and our legal rights of sovereignty of state. That point was put forward by the then Liberal transport minister in 2001 to pass the original amendments to the Aeronautics Act, which I would like to point out was accomplished in less than one month, and this holds true today.
As I said, the truth of the matter is international law recognizes a state's right to regulate aircraft entering its territory.
The Chicago convention to which Canada is a signatory requires compliance with:
The laws and regulations of each Contracting [state] relating to the admission to or departure from its territory of aircraft engaged in international air navigation, or to the operation and navigation of such aircraft while within its territory.
The legal basis for requiring passenger information for all flights which fly over U.S. airspace is therefore very secure in international law and domestic law and the rights of sovereign states. This point was stressed by many witnesses during committee hearings.
What would Bill C-42 do? The bill would allow Canada to comply with international and U.S. law and it would provide Canadian airline companies with continued access to southern destinations without forcing them to fly around U.S. airspace. Imagine how expensive and difficult it would be or how many hours of additional travel it would be for Canadians travelling to southern destinations or even through Canada itself from point to point. In some cases, Canadian aircraft do overfly U.S. airspace.
The bill proposes to build on a number of initiatives already under way with our international partners to further improve aviation security, because this is a global issue.
Let me now turn my attention to what Bill C-42 would not do, or what it would not require Canadian travellers to do. Most Canadians watching today will be interested in this part.
I heard a discussion during committee deliberations related to the impact on airlines if the bill was not passed. If Bill C-42 does not pass, it could result in a devastating impact on airline companies in Canada, potentially killing jobs from coast to coast and jeopardizing the financial security of hard-working Canadian families in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, right across the country. This Conservative government will not let that happen.
As the National Airline Council of Canada noted in committee hearings:
—being denied access to U.S. airspace for overflight would be an unmitigated disaster for Canadian air carriers and our passengers...undermine the economic strength of the industry.
No one could be more clearer than that. This bill needs to be passed.
Bill C-42 has economic as well as security implications that would be very critical to our country if it did not pass.
Some suggestions were made during committee hearings that compliance with the U.S. secure flight program would force Canadians to give the U.S. government personal information such as race, religion or ethnic identifiers. The testimony from these people is pretty scary. In other words, there were suggestions that Bill C-42 might result in passengers being forced to give the United States information that could be used for racial profiling. That is wrong. That will not happen under this government's watch.
The U.S. final rule is very specific as well. It stipulates that airline companies must provide the U.S. government with a passenger name, date of birth, gender, redress number and certain passport and itinerary information only if it is available.
For passport information the final rule is very specific and states that air carriers must transmit to the Transportation Security Administration, the TSA, the passport number, the country of issuance and expiration date of the passport. Itinerary information includes non-personal information such as flight number, departure time and arrival time.
The fully itemized list is on page 64,024 of the final rule for those hon. members who do not believe me and who want to check it out for themselves and want the source of this information. I encourage members of the NDP to look at the rule so they can quit fearmongering and scaring Canadians because it is not helping the debate at all.
Nowhere in the final rule is there any mention of any requirement for airline companies to provide information such as race or religion. Quite frankly, this government and the Prime Minister would not stand for it. Nor is there a requirement to provide information such as addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, frequent flyer numbers or meal or seat preference.
The second thing Bill C-42 would not do is force Canadian airline companies to provide the United States government with access to large amounts of passenger information which is personal or private in nature.
As U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson outlined in his recent letter to the committee, the only personal identifiable information being shared is name, gender, date of birth and, if available, a passport number. I thank the ambassador for that letter. It was very helpful indeed.
Let us move on to another issue to further provide clarity.
During committee hearings, I heard that Bill C-42 would require Canadian airline companies to pass along passenger information which could then be matched not only against the no-fly and selectee lists, but also arbitrarily and indiscriminately forwarded, for example, to police or immigration officials.
Again, the final rule, the U.S. rule, is very specific. It is laid out in black and white. It says that the purpose of collecting passenger information is to guard against possible aviation and national security threats. That is it. It is very clear. In fact, the Canadian government has asked for and received written assurances from the United States administration that passenger information will not be forwarded to other agencies except in extremely limited circumstances and then only for an aviation or national security purpose.
In his recent letter to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, Ambassador Jacobson states:
Secure flight information is not shared widely for law enforcement or for immigration purposes--
The letter went on to say:
Any information shared is limited to an individual or limited group of individuals for a specific investigative purpose related to terrorism or national security.
The ambassador points out in his letter that since the inception of the secure flight program, the transportation security administration has provided information about a traveller to federal law enforcement officials on only three occasions “to further a terrorism or national security investigation”.
How many people travel in our country or in North America? Hundreds of millions of people every year. Since its inception only three people have had that information passed on. This is after hundreds of millions of passengers have flown under the secure flight program.
Our government is committed to work with our international partners to help strengthen aviation security and to help strengthen the security of all Canadians to keep them safe. That is clearly our job and we are doing that job. We are committed to protecting the safety and security of Canadians and to crack down on terrorists wherever they may be, wherever they may live and wherever they may hide.
However, we are also committed to upholding the values and the beliefs which have made this the great country it is today. I believe even the NDP and the Bloc would agree with that.
We need to stay safe but we also need to uphold and strengthen the vital cornerstones of our way of life, such as due process, the rule of law and the preservation of individual civil liberties as well as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and privacy rights. However, it is a balance. We will protect these rights. We will uphold these Canadian values. Bill C-42 does exactly that.
I also note the amendment to Bill C-42, supported by the government, that will mandate a review of the legislation after three years. That is not a bad idea. It is certainly one that the government thinks has some positive aspects to it and one that it will support.
I also want to highlight the amendment supported by the government that stipulates in the act that passenger information will not be passed to any government other than the United States government for overflight purposes.
Parliamentary approval, meaning that everyone in this place has to approve, is required should another country request passenger information for any overflights. There will also be a mandated review of these particular pieces of legislation.
Bill C-42 is very necessary. I think every Canadian agrees it is necessary. It is vitally important to our national airline carriers, the Canadian public and to our tourism industry.
I know that all hon. members understand how important it is for Canada to continue to work with our international partners to further strengthen aviation security, so all members of the House and all Canadians can travel the world in safety and comfort with an expectation that our privacy rights, our persons and our families are going to be protected and kept safe.
I therefore urge all hon. members to give speedy passage to Bill C-42, as we did nearly 10 years ago for the previous Liberal legislation to amend the Aeronautics Act. This would ensure that Canadian airline companies can continue to access destinations such as Cuba, Mexico and South America in the most cost-effective and efficient way possible.
In conclusion, I want to thank the Liberal members who helped so much on the bill as we arrived at some good compromises. As well, I want to thank the Bloc members and I especially want to thank the NDP who have not, up to this point, filibustered anything and who have actually had some contributions which I would consider valuable.
We will see what happens later on, but I encourage all members to pass the bill so that we can move forward with the safety and security of Canadians in an efficient and cost-effective way for Canadians.
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his kind comments about the co-operation on this bill by the opposition.
I would like to mention a statement made in the House in answer to a question by the Minister of Public Safety. He was talking about Bill C-42 and he said:
For our part, we have worked closely with the Americans to ensure this is implemented in a way that recognizes our security interests and the privacy concerns of Canadians.
Now it is up to the Liberal-led coalition to stop playing politics and support this needed bill.
Given what he said about our co-operation, it sounds like the last comment by the Minister of Public Safety is something taken out of one of the crime bill folders or something of that nature.
There is a clear contradiction. Does the parliamentary secretary agree with the statement that the Liberal-led coalition should stop playing politics and support this needed bill?
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his help in relation to getting the bill passed. He was very helpful, indeed. The member sees the need for this piece of legislation and I thank him for that.
Our expectation at all times, for the most part, is that the NDP will filibuster and waste everybody's time, and the Liberals will oppose everything we do. In this case, they saw the light and I appreciate them seeing the light and for not playing politics.
As is so important, we know that in a minority government we cannot get anything passed without the help of the opposition parties, in some cases all of them and in some cases one or two of them. I would appreciate the NDP coming on board to help us out with this legislation. If they do so without filibustering, I would thank them doubly.
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Mr. Speaker, the bill has gone through a long process. One might ask why that is. The privacy and rights of Canadians are probably the most important issues we deal with in the House.
The parliamentary secretary said there was a lot of confusion created at the committee by various people.
I would like to point out that when the Minister of Public Safety spoke to us about the bill, he emphasized that this particular information would not be used in the United States for any other purpose. Since then we have had countless amounts of information including from the ambassador, as my hon. colleague pointed out. In his letter he said that this information would not be “shared widely for law enforcement or for immigration purposes”. Certainly that is not a denial of the use of it for those purposes. It says they would not use everyone's name and information for those purposes. Quite clearly, the minister himself created that confusion.
The parliamentary secretary said that in negotiations if we could have convinced the U.S. we had proper security in Canada it has the ability within its laws to provide a full exemption for Canadian information on overflights. The parliamentary secretary said it would cost billions of dollars to accomplish the extra security required to get up to the standards of the U.S.
Where did the parliamentary secretary get the information to say that the costs to create a security system that would match up to the United States would be immense?
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Mr. Speaker, it is like the NDP to suck and blow at the same time. On one part the members want us to stay away from the U.S. as much as possible and now they want us to integrate exactly the same security measures that the U.S. has.
This government is a Canadian government for the Canadian people. We are not going to take lessons from the NDP to make us more Americanized.
We are going to have a made in Canada solution and that is what this is. It is a made in Canada solution to protect our sovereignty and respect the sovereignty of our neighbours to the south.
The member for Western Arctic is my neighbour from my constituency to the north. His constituency is north of the oil sands. He is a hard-working member. He has been on my committee for some time and I appreciate his work. I wish he could get his priorities more in line with the priorities of Canadians because his are skewed. As long as he looks for those black helicopters and wears tinfoil hats that are so popular in the NDP, he is going to be dissuaded from the realities of life.
In this case, the reality is the information on three people out of probably a billion or more has been passed on to U.S. law enforcement agencies. Three people out of a billion. I would take those odds any time.
Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Mr. Speaker, the government and the member simply rolled over for the Americans.
In any normal negotiation if the Americans were asking for us for information, it would be logical to say that reciprocity would be in order.
As the numbers indicate, there are 2,000 American flights over Canadian air space every day, but only 100 Canadian flights over the United States airspace every day. That would indicate the Americans have a lot to lose in this negotiation. I could see them backing off.
Imagine what the American airlines and public would do if they found out they had to provide that information to Canadian authorities in order to fly over Canadian airspace. It would have been dead in the water. The representatives of Congress in the United States would be getting calls from their constituents wanting to know exactly what our demands were and the exemption would have been given immediately. The government, as usual, rolled over for the Americans and said whatever they want, we will give it to them.
These are all secret agreements and we do not know exactly what is being required. We only know based on similar agreements with other jurisdictions, for example, the agreement between the European Union and the United States, there is a different set of requirements.
Clearly, if we are involved in transferring any information involving a PNR, it is information that goes beyond what we should be providing.
The Canadian requirements for use of the PNR in the Canada-E.U. agreement have specific time periods for the disposal of data, and it is not 40 years. It limits the use of the data, limits the individualization of the data and renders the information anonymous. Therefore, security services can do what they want. They can build the profiles they are looking for without attaching it to any one individual. That probably would be acceptable.
We have global standards for international treaties on PNR agreements and Canada is signatory to that. If the government is going to sign an agreement, those are the kinds of provisions to put in the agreement, but the government did not do that.
Why are the Conservatives so poor at negotiating on Canada's behalf?
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Mr. Speaker, I have to laugh at that. The evidence is clear. We heard this in committee. It is very clear. We have received exemptions from the U.S. that are unprecedented. This government has done extremely good work and I give my compliments to the minister in charge of that particular case, because we have received more exemptions than any other country.
However, let us talk about what would happen if that guy were in charge, if the NDP were in charge. The first thing that would happen is that the NDP would close our borders. We would go back to living in caves, back to the stone age. That is the reality of the NDP. It does not want to talk to international partners. It does not want to work with international partners. It just wants to close the borders.
The member proposed a bill of rights. If a plane were late by a couple of hours, passengers would get $25,000. For the rest of my life, I would just travel the Air Canada system and wait to get a couple of $25,000 hits a day. If that guy were in charge, we would not have an airline industry. The reality is that our borders would be closed, we would be living in caves, we would go back to the stone age. We would not manufacture anything because nobody would buy anything as they would have no money. That is the NDP way.
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Mr. Speaker, that is a revelation from the parliamentary secretary. I did not know he necessarily believed in the stone age. This is all new to me and something that is helpful to some of the constituents he apparently represents.
In Parliament we are being asked to vote on an agreement with the United States, which has its own interests as a country, and so be it. However, it is an agreement that the government will not show us. It is an understanding in a set of agreements about our privacy as Canadians and our sovereignty as a country, which the government will not display. We are supposed to trust the government.
How can Canadians trust the current government after selling out to the U.S. so many times?
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. My allergies are acting up; any time I get around the NDP and start hearing its members sucking and blowing, they start to happen. I do not have any Kleenex but this, hopefully, will be my last question.
Speaking of beliefs, I am a Christian. I am very proud of it. I am proud of my belief system, and I respect his belief system in the same way.
However, I will tell members what I do require, and what I think this government has required, from the United States. We have required that the Americans uphold and strengthen the vital cornerstones of our Canadian values, such as due process, the rule of law and the preservation of individuals' civil liberties, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and privacy rights. The NDP will never stand up for those things.
The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken
It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, Status of Women; the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway, Correctional Service of Canada; and the hon. member for St. John's East, National Defence.
Resuming debate. The hon. member for Markham—Unionville.
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to once again speak about Bill C-42. I think that all the parties have shared their positions on this bill with the House.
Today, I would like to comment on some of the statements made by the Conservatives and New Democrats that I believe are incorrect.
I will start with the case of the Minister of Public Safety. I mentioned already to the parliamentary secretary that notwithstanding the fine words of praise by him regarding the healthy co-operation of the opposition, the minister said on Monday in regard to Bill C-42 that:
For our part, we have worked closely with the Americans to ensure this is implemented in a way that recognizes our security interests and the privacy concerns of Canadians.
Now it is up to the Liberal-led coalition to stop playing politics and support this needed bill.
I take exception to that language. As the minister's own colleague, the parliamentary secretary, had made clear, we in the Liberal Party and other parties, I believe, did work constructively from the beginning on this bill to make sure it was passed after an appropriate amount of scrutiny and several important amendments to strengthen the bill.
If I turn now to the New Democrats, in an attempt to scare Canadians about this legislation, they made numerous statements that I do not believe to be factually true. The first point I would like to mention is the statement made by the member for Vancouver Kingsway that this bill would allow the secret negotiation of data transfer with multiple countries. That is absolutely false. That member said in the House:
What information would be forwarded is determined by requirements laid out, and it is fair to say, in hitherto secret agreements with other countries. Details of those agreements have not been released.
That is untrue. The agreements are not secret. I can refer the member to part two of the U.S. Federal Register of October 28, 2008, which sets out the information and states:
For passengers on covered flights, TSA requires covered aircraft operators to request a passenger’s full name, gender, date of birth, and Redress Number (if available)—
It goes on to state that:
—passengers are only required to provide their full name, date of birth, and gender to allow TSA to perform watch list matching.
Airlines will also be required to provide the TSA with itinerary information about flights, but only so that the TSA can prioritize these flights in its matching process.
I would encourage the hon. members on the New Democratic benches to read the final rule so they can have a clear understanding of what the secure flight program actually is.
The member for Vancouver Kingsway was also wrong when he referenced other countries. This was one of the amendments that we made to the bill, which I think made it stronger. Originally, the bill would have allowed other countries to be added, along with the United States, to obtain information about overflights. However, we amended the bill so that only the United States was included. If any other third country wanted to receive this information, the whole thing would have to come back to Parliament and Parliament would have to amend the legislation further. It is totally wrong to talk about countries other than United States, because only the United States is covered in this bill.
Some members of the NDP also mentioned that the data would be held for 40 years. That again is wrong. For 99% of flyers, the data will be held for no more than seven days. If there is a potential match, it would be seven years, and for confirmed matches to the terrorist list, the data could be held for as long as 99 years.
Before I wrap up, I want to touch for a moment on the question of sovereignty. My education is in economics, not political science, but I am fairly certain that the control of U.S. airspace is not a matter of Canadian sovereignty. I can assure members and anyone else who is listening that if the U.S. government attempted to decide the rules for Canadian airspace on the grounds that it was its sovereign right to do so, nobody would be more upset than the NDP. Indeed, I would be as well. Therefore, how can New Democrats demand control of U.S. airspace?
I am not a big fan of this bill, far from it, but I do understand that the U.S. has sovereign control of its airspace. That is a question of international law. It has put these rules in place and Canada must now respond. It is not a pleasant duty, but we have to recognize international law. We are governed by law, and under international law a country has control over its own airspace.
There are important issues, but I want to make sure the record is set straight so that all members of the House and the members of the Senate who will soon receive the bill can debate it with the facts before them, rather than the imagined facts constructed by the NDP.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and I look forward to any questions.
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Mr. Speaker, my colleague did bring up the issue of the regulations that the U.S. has for the information it wants to collect. That is correct.
However, what we are talking about is the agreement between Canada and the U.S. regarding the use of that information, the sharing of that information, the keeping of that information and all of those things. We have had no indication from the government of what those agreements are, how they are held in place, and what kind of surety Canadians have that their information will be used in a correct fashion. In fact, the only information we received at committee was that once this information were given to the United States, it would have the ability under its laws, under the Homeland Security Act, to use the information from foreigners as it saw fit. In fact, its privacy law does not apply to foreigners, so the information collected by foreigners does not apply.
When we talk about handing over the passenger name record, the U.S. government also has the ability, through the Homeland Security Act, to use that number to get all the information held on file and collected in computers in the United States.
Where is the agreement that limits the use of the information that Canadians are passing to the United States?
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, this is not a law that I particularly like, because it does raise concerns about privacy and issues such as those raised by the hon. member. However, for practical purposes, I think we had little choice but to pass the bill, and I think we made three substantial amendments that improved this bill.
I do believe as well that in the U.S. documentation it does state the length of time this information will be held, and it does state the limitations on other U.S. agencies that it will be shared with. The ambassador also gave certain assurances in this regard.
The member may simply say that he does not believe the Americans, but I think we have to have some faith in them, and when the U.S. ambassador makes commitments and commitments are made in U.S. texts, then I think we should believe them.
Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary simply ducked and escaped my question about what efforts the government made with the Americans to look for reciprocity.
The fact of the matter is, there are far more American flights flying over Canadian airspace. A sensible negotiating approach would have been to ask the Americans to provide us with the same information we are providing them. Clearly, if they have some security concerns about airplanes going over their airspace, surely we, who share the continent with them, would have similar concerns and would want to be able to process their information.
Had the government done this, we might have been looking at getting an exemption because of all the blowback the Americans would have received from their airlines and American passengers, because there are 2,000 flights flying over Canada versus only 100 over the United States. I just think that reciprocity would have been something the government would have asked for, if it were negotiating properly.
The parliamentary secretary says that we could not afford to process the information. How he knows this, I do not know, but it will cost the Americans half a billion dollars in computer systems to handle all of this information that we will be giving them. By extension, we could not afford the computer system to process their information because there would be so much of it. That was his answer.
In direct response to my question, he did not answer it at all. He simply attacked the air passenger bill of rights and misrepresented it. He could not even remember what was in that bill when misrepresenting that part of it and not answering the question.
Maybe the hon. member could fill in some of the missing answers the parliamentary secretary could not give.
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is certainly not my role or function to defend the parliamentary secretary.
We did receive a briefing from transport officials, and it is true that the United States has said that it would not require us to provide this information if we had our own equivalent system that would take that information. According to the transport officials, to develop the same kind of system that the Americans have would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have spent a lot of time downplaying this bill, saying how bad it is, and I get the sense from my Liberal colleague and from them in general that it is some sort of awful necessity. They are going to vote for it, however, even though they do not like it. They are going to vote for it for practical purposes even though they are worried about it.
The fundamental point here is the sovereignty question. How can Canadians protect their own information? How can we protect the privacy of Canadians we represent here in the House of Commons?
The member pointed to one alleviation of concern that we can somehow control what the U.S. will do with this data once it gets it. There is nothing that we have been shown that says that is true. One has to imagine a future where Canada's Parliament will tell Congress that we do not want it to pass on any of our information. We will not even get in the door and my hon. colleague knows that. The Americans have had a slow and serious downgrade in their own civil rights over the last dozen years, certainly since 9/11.
We have to imagine a future where all of the information on passengers on a flight from Vancouver to Toronto, or from Montreal to Halifax, that flies over U.S. airspace will be in the hands of our American colleagues.
The problem that many Canadians will have with this is that the Americans need to know who is on the passenger list a full 24 hours in advance. Some people will want to get on a plane that same day. Can my hon. colleague imagine a future in which Canadians are denied access to a plane not going to the United States but another Canadian destination because the Americans insist on 24 hours notice? That is in the agreement.
I just do not know why the Liberals are so trusting of the Conservatives on such a Canadian fundamental and sacred right as privacy.
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
As usual, Mr. Speaker, the NDP is confused on questions of fact. They talk about giving this information to the Americans on flights that go over American airspace between Toronto and Vancouver. That is false. That information is not required to be given for domestic flights within Canada even if they do pass over the United States.
The second point I would make is that the reason I do not particularly like this law is because I would rather we did not have to give the information to the United States.
What the member keeps forgetting to mention is that under international law, every country has sovereignty over the airspace above it. We could ask for the information. The U.S. could ask for information. The UK could ask for the information. Every country has legal sovereignty over the airspace above it.
We cannot deny that the Americans have the right to request this information. They have the right to deny access to their airspace if we do not comply. This would create huge problems, huge costs, and much inconvenience for millions of Canadians who want to take flights to Mexico or to other places that require flying over U.S. airspace.
That practical reason is the reason why we did in the end support the bill, even though I would be happy if there were no such bill. That is why at the same time we strengthened the bill in three specific ways to alleviate concerns that others, including us, were having.
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have a chance to speak to this bill again because I am deeply concerned about this whole issue.
Clearly, the history of aviation security since 9/11 is one of continual movement toward more authoritarian structures and continual movement toward less privacy for Canadians. This is the movement that took place and we are all part of it. This Parliament has been part of it over the last decade.
I have seen a break in that, though, in the last week where we finally saw some rationality applied to one particular segment of our aviation security. It is not a rationality that is popular with everyone. People are concerned about it. Of course they are.
However, we do see that the dam is starting to break on the whole issue of aviation security and what is actually required by Canadians, by international travellers, what is useful to do, and what is something that makes sense in this age rather than simply a knee-jerk reaction to perceived incidents that may occur.
Why do we not want to support this bill? It is because we do not think the government has done enough to deal with the issue of sharing information with the United States. That is quite clear. We feel that what has happened here is invading Canadians' privacy, invading their rights in a way that we cannot completely understand. We do not know what the impact of this information is. We have not been given assurances. There are no provisions within the bill that outline how this information is to be shared. None of that was part of this bill.
This bill was very simple, a few lines changing the Aeronautics Act. It is a few lines. It is really very limited. With the negotiations that took place and what we heard in committee about the negotiations, there certainly were a number of issues that came to light. One of them was that the U.S. could provide a complete exemption for Canadian flights. If we matched equivalent security, the U.S. would provide that exemption.
Another one was the issue of reciprocity, which we have talked about quite a bit. That was not brought to the table. That was not used as a lever in the negotiations, quite clearly.
Then we talked about the famous exemption that was given. This exemption, domestic to domestic flights, that was provided by the United States for Canadian flights leaving one destination in Canada and going to another was given by the U.S. That raised even more questions about security. Of course, with any flight that goes domestic to domestic, the security requirement for the information is simply a photo id, something that could be forged by the simplest of techniques and which really does not provide the same layer of sophistication in terms of the information that a passport on an international flight provides to any airline that is dealing with a particular passenger.
We saw the U.S. give an exemption for flights that would pass over the United States that had less security on them than international flights. This did not make sense. The exemption did not stand up to rationality. That always brings something into question. When rationality does not apply, what are the reasons?
Did we understand the reason last week when the Prime Minister went down to Washington to work on a perimeter security deal? Was the reason for an exemption on domestic to domestic that we are going to see traveller information shared completely within our countries, between intelligence agencies for the two countries? Is that what is going to happen? How are we going to determine the nature of that information? How are we going to determine how that information is going to be used?
We can see quite clearly that there is no control over the information we are giving out right now. There is none at all. It is simply give the information and let it be.
That information does include the passenger name record. When it includes the passenger name record number, the U.S. government has access to the information on the computers, the Sabre and Galileo servers that are held in the United States. That is information that was also given at committee.
Whatever information airlines have on passengers would be instantaneously accessible to the United States intelligence service through the beauty of computers. The seven day requirement that the information will be taken out after seven days really is quite meaningless in our computer age. There is plenty of time to do whatever we want with that information, the data mining that the European Union was so against, the data profiling was the real harmful thing that could go on with that type of information.
So, we have no recourse and no limitations on the information that we are giving. For Canadians falsely accused of something in the United States, there is no recourse. One of my colleagues talked about that with the existing system. It is not going to get any better. Many witnesses spoke in front of the committee. Many witnesses indicated their disquiet with what was going on here, with the impacts on the invasion of privacy.
We proposed some amendments. I put forward an amendment for a drop dead clause, as we did in the early part of this decade, where with contentious invasions of privacy through things like the Terrorism Act, we put in drop dead clauses. We said if there is a perceived need for information that goes beyond what is normal, if there are considerations that we put on the Canadian population that go beyond what we expect as our basic rights, then let us put a time limit on it.
I put forward that amendment. The support for that amendment was not there from the two opposition parties and that amendment died. That actually has brought us to the point we are here in debating this bill.
In the last days since the Prime Minister's trip to Washington, the Liberal Party adopted two positions on information. One position was that it was going to vote to support the bill. The other being when, publicly in question period, the Liberal leader says things like: “Why is the Prime Minister even contemplating the surrender of Canadian privacy rights to U.S. Homeland Security?”, “What biometric information on Canadians will the Conservatives surrender to the Americans?”, and “When will the Prime Minister tell Canadians and Parliament the truth?”
Yes, we are after those answers, as well, on this particular bill. We wanted to see the agreements. We wanted to understand the safeguards that should be in place for any Canadian information shared with another country.
Did we get it? No.
What do Canadians think? There was an interesting online poll in the Globe and Mail, which is not terribly reliable, but 67,000 responded to that online poll. The question was: “Should Canada and the U.S. collaborate more deeply on surveillance and data-sharing in the name of a so-called North American perimeter? Ninety-two per cent of those respondents said no; 92% of the 67,000 Canadians who had the opportunity to see the poll and to respond to it said no. That is a fairly significant margin of Canadians who are concerned about their personal privacy rights vis-à-vis information.
This is why the Liberal Party right now is quite conflicted on this issue. It is voting for a bill that is not tolerable to Canadian values, for whatever reason, perhaps the perceived threat to the Canadian aviation industry.
Members were told there was a great need to bring the bill forward and get it completed by December 31 of last year so the U.S. would not stop the overflights of Canadian planes. That has not happened yet, and we are still a ways away from completing this bill. The NDP will continue to work on trying to get opposition members to come onside and recognize that the bill does not provide for a safe and secure use of Canadian information.
There are many other issues that tie to the bill. My colleague spoke of one that was really never mentioned, which is the inconvenience of the bill and the information shared according to the 24-hour requirement of the U.S. government for any of these overflights. If, for instance, Mrs. Jones is in Cuba enjoying the sunshine, her husband dies at home or becomes very ill and she has to return very quickly on a flight that day, what will happen to her? Will she be blocked from taking that flight?
This is a very important point. If the government had talked about putting in some reciprocity on the U.S. 2000 flights through Canadian airspace and the U.S. understood it would have to give 24 hours notice for any passenger on that plane, we would quickly be in a much more advantageous negotiation position with the United States.
Quite clearly, the government did not think this information was required when it went into the negotiations because it did not want to do this. It said in committee that it did not want to do this. The Minister of Public Safety said, “I didn't want to do this”. If he did not want to do this, then he must understand this is not required for security.
What is it required for? Is this simply more of a knee-jerk reaction to the events of a decade ago and we cannot get our heads out of the sand and recognize that we are in a different time when we can look at security rationally and work with our neighbours to ensure the security we provide is useful, functional and it does not take away the rights of Canadians or Americans?
The NDP wants that. We want security that works for Canadians, not security that takes away the rights of Canadians.
Strengthening Aviation Security ActGovernment Orders
Fort McMurray—Athabasca Alberta
Conservative
Brian Jean ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport
Mr. Speaker, I have several questions for the member.
He said something at the end of his speech about not wanting to take away the security of Canadians. By not passing this law, is it not fair to say that we are actually impeding the ability of the Americans to guard their own sovereign space? The opposite would be true. If we do not respect the rule of law and the Chicago convention in relation to the right of Americans to have sovereignty over their airspace, how can Canada then say that it has a sovereign right over its airspace?
By not passing this law and filibustering, as NDP members seem to be doing, though I am not certain of that, is it not fair to say that they will impede the ability for Canadians to remain secure? It seems to make a lot of sense. If they cannot respect the U.S. law, how will the U.S. respect Canadian law?
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Mr. Speaker, I defer to the perceived logic of my hon. colleague on this issue. I think that the logic may not be particularly well expressed by the member.
At committee, the minister said quite clearly that the government went into this saying this was not a security issue. It did not see the need for the U.S. to have this and that it obviously did not need the information for itself. Its determination, as Canadians, through Canada's security services, said this was not required. However, the U.S, it was required and the government submitted to the demands and that was what happened in the negotiations.
This was the evidence presented to us in committee. If the parliamentary secretary wants to change that evidence, he can come up with something else, but that is what we heard and I will leave it at that.
Paule Brunelle Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Mr. Speaker, the protection of privacy is certainly a key element in any free and democratic society. Each week, we receive warnings on television, from our banks or from our credit card companies about the importance of not giving out our personal information because of the high incidence of fraud.
I would like to ask the hon. member a question. Since September 11, 2001, paranoia has become prevalent, and it seems that the fear of terrorism has led us to take things too far. Under this bill, personal information would be given not only to the United States but also to other countries. Is the hon. member not concerned that giving out this information could lead to situations of abuse and could take us in a direction that is not at all in keeping with our Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Mr. Speaker, I cannot disagree with my colleague in any way. Whenever we, as a country, as a government, provide information to another country where there is no security to that information, where there are no treaties that have been signed that say quite specifically how that information is to be used, then we put the information of our citizens at risk. If the agreement is in a letter, in a form that the government cannot even share with the committee, what is it?
When we saw the letter from the U.S. ambassador, it was hardly comforting when he said, ”This information will not be widely used for other purposes”. What does that mean? Does that mean that 90% of the information will not be used for any other purpose, but 10%, or 99.9% or 0.1% will? This is hardly a thing that confidence is built on.
Julian Fantino ConservativeMinister of State (Seniors)
Mr. Speaker, I was not planning to rise, but I did hear a number of trigger words that piqued my interest.
In my earlier life I also was the chairman of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police aviation security committee and worked widely with police leaders and security executives in this country and internationally, including the United States.
I am afraid that talking about paranoia that emanates from an event that happened 10 years ago is basically putting blinders in front of our reality of today. It is absolutely critical that today we work co-operatively across borders and jurisdictions to ensure the travelling public, especially those who are actually travelling and those involved in the aviation industry, have every reasonable opportunity to be protected from what in fact is an active pursuit of terrorism. It is a reality and it is global in nature. If it is a small compromise to the entrenched rights and entitlements we all have, to be protected from unreasonable abuse or unreasonable sharing of information, it begs to say that we need to ensure we do all we can to make the aviation industry safe.
I do not understand how any of this could be a knee-jerk reaction, certainly not from the world I come from where I can speak directly to the kinds of information, the kinds of investigations and the kinds of issues that not only Canadian security agencies work on and are very concerned about but are equally co-operating and working with our international partners because of this being an international threat.
I just do not think there is a reality happening here when we hear comments that portray what we are trying to do in the interests of Canadians is as a result of paranoia. It is an absolute legitimate responsibility governments have, given rise to the very serious threat that exists today, to engage in these kinds of activities.