Mr. Speaker, as someone who worked for a year as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and sits on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, I am eager to talk about a bill as important as Bill C-59. This bill is especially important to me because Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, one of the unfortunate victims of the attack in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, lived in Sainte-Julie.
In my opinion, Bill C-59 is the greatest reform to Canada's national security framework since the creation of CSIS in 1984. It is therefore completely appropriate to refer the bill to committee prior to second reading. The main upside of that option is that it will allow us to work on the bill before it is passed in principle, giving us more flexibility in crafting the legislation. It will also give the opposition parties a chance to propose amendments that reflect their values and their vision of national security in Canada.
I have great esteem for my fellow members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. By discussing the bill in committee before it is passed in principle, we will be able to have an in-depth debate. I believe that my colleagues and I will discuss it fully, provided that they want to participate in the discussion, of course. Everyone wins in a process like this.
Last year, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security undertook a study on Canada's national security framework. The committee members began the study in September 2016 and concluded it in April 2017. The committee heard from 138 witnesses and received 39 submissions. It also travelled to five major Canadian cities to hear concerns from Canadians across the country.
This study is part of a larger process. The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness launched a parallel national public consultation with the release of a green paper. We received more than 75,000 responses online or by email to this consultation. That is a historic number of people consulted on a government bill. On a personal note, I had the opportunity to lead more than a dozen of these consultations in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada. We heard all kinds of different responses, but it is important for Canadians to be involved, and they showed interest throughout the consultations. We took responses into account and considered them during the drafting of Bill C-59.
When this exhaustive process was completed, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security published the report entitled “Protecting Canadians and their Rights: A New Road Map for Canada's National Security”. Public Safety Canada also published a report entitled “What We Learned”. This led to Bill C-59, which the minister tabled in the House in June 2017.
After spending the summer discussing the bill and familiarizing ourselves with it, it is now time to debate it. I would like to quote the Canadian Bar Association:
Promising public safety as an exchange for sacrificing individual liberties and democratic safeguards is not, in our view, justifiable or realistic. Both are essential and complementary in a free and democratic society.
As mentioned by the member for Oakville North—Burlington, this quote is found at the very beginning of the introduction to the report “Protecting Canadians and their Rights”. In my opinion, the members of the committee sought to strike a balance between these considerations in this report.
I want to emphasize that striking a balance between security and rights and freedoms is vital to establishing a new national security framework. The National Security and Intelligence Committee for Parliamentarians will soon begin its work and Canada will no longer be the only Five Eyes country that does not have parliamentary oversight of intelligence activities.
With Bill C-59 that is before us, we will address other gaps, primarily by creating the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, which will review all 17 federal agencies with a national security mandate.
This enables Canada to fill a significant gap with respect to our partners. The government will create an intelligence commissioner, who will oversee the legality of the authorizations given to CSIS and the CSE. Furthermore, Bill C-59 will amend the Communications Security Establishment Act to give the CSE its own legislative framework and modernize our approach to cybercrimes.
In addition to these advances, the bill addresses CSIS's disruption powers and will provide a data collection framework for CSIS. The Secure Air Travel Act will be amended to address problems with false positives. The Security of Canada Information Sharing Act will be amended to specify the nature of information transmitted among government agencies.
Lastly, the government will address several calls to amend the Criminal Code to re-examine terrorist-related offences and recognizance with conditions. I will share with the House the fact that I myself was once a privileged member of the intelligence community. A number of things spring to my mind. The very nature of information and information sharing is paramount, especially in times like these, in 2017, when security is increasingly precarious. We live in one of the most beautiful countries that is committed to defending rights and freedoms, and we cannot compromise one at the expense of the other.
It is important to redefine the role of CSIS. Let us talk about metadata. As my colleague from Drummond said, the law was very clear. The court's ruling was very clear. My colleague said earlier that it is not the men and women of CSIS who somehow handicapped the procedures that landed them in court and got them an unfavourable ruling. It was the law. It is quite clear that the reality of information sharing and the nature of the levels of information that have to be managed in today's society call for a modernization of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act. That is precisely what Bill C-59 is trying to address.
It is crucial to act in an informed manner and to have concrete operations with full knowledge of the facts. This full knowledge is based on better information and better information sharing, according to the rule of law and the regulations. There are 17 different agencies. The organization that will oversee those 17 agencies will not only guarantee Canadians that the rules surrounding information and privacy are being followed, but it will also bring us up to par and put us on the cutting edge of technology like our partners, to ensure that the latest security requirements are met.
Let us talk about screening for passengers on the no-fly list. There are no children on the no-fly list. Is that clear? There are no children under the age of 18 on the no-fly list. Opposition members need to stop fearmongering. We understand that sometimes more than one person can have the same name, but it is a question of properly identifying individuals to ensure that the right person is prohibited from flying.
Past problems have been addressed. Past problems have been shared with the department and measures have been taken. As the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness announced this morning, measures have been put in place to deal with this sort of problem, from both an operational and a technological perspective. I think that, rather than coming to a complete standstill, starting from scratch, and finding ourselves back in medieval times, we need to modernize our situation. Bill C-59 is the answer.