Debates of Sept. 18th, 2017

Customs Act

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments.

My question is about the dangers associated with the fact that more and more information is shared with foreign countries and governments. When confidential information about Canadians is shared with these foreign countries and governments, our government no longer has any control over its protection. Furthermore, Canadians have no recourse in case of a breach of the information system of a foreign country. As a result, Canadians could find themselves at the mercy of ill intentioned persons.

Does my colleague share the concern of many Canadians about the fact that we are sharing more and more information with foreign governments, in this case, the United States, on the travel history of our constituents? Information on entry into and departure from the United States, and even potentially on entry to and departure from other countries, will be handed over to the Americans.

Does my colleague share the concern over the potential for this information to be compromised, since it will be handed over to a foreign government and there can be no recourse whatsoever for Canadians should anything happen?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are certainly a lot of issues being advanced, and he has raised an important one, the privacy and the sharing of information beyond the partner in the United States. I may seem like I am picking on my friend the Minister of Public Safety, but I will continue his question from February 2011. Back then, he expressed the same concern as my friend from Sherbrooke. He said, “On the question of privacy, what additional personal information will Canadians be required to disclose and what are the guarantees against cases of abuse like Maher Arar?”, That, of course, happened under their watch. He went on to say, “Before surrendering Canadian borders, sovereignty and privacy, will the government bring full details of any proposed agreement before Parliament for debate and approval?” That is essentially what I am asking for now, and I think it is what my friend is asking for.

We have seen nothing since this was tabled in June of last year. There is some debate today, and I appreciate that my colleagues here are participating in this debate. However, we have not heard from the government as to how it is going to handle this with respect to information sharing. It has yet to solve the no-fly list, particularly kids on the no-fly list who are stuck on it because of a name duplication. If we think allowing that system to stay broken keeps us safe, there are a number of issues already with respect to travel between Canada and the U.S. that are not being addressed by the government. By going to a common entry-exit system, it is only more complicated.

During the course of my remarks, I asked to see how Canadian priorities were being advanced at the same time that we are responding to a key American priority. I would also like to see a detailed plan on these privacy elements, on this information sharing, on how the minister is going to fix the no-fly issue for children, veterans, and other Canadians, and on what timeline.

As I said, I am in a position where I support the beyond the border initiative, and I know that most of my colleagues on this side of the House do, until the NDP. It is the detail. So far, we have not heard this from the Prime Minister. We saw a lot of photos from that state dinner, but I have not seen Canadian interests being advanced, and that is what we want to see.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I hope my hon. friend from Durham will allow me to briefly correct a misinterpretation, which is often repeated, of the impact of the U.S. State Department environmental impact statement on Keystone, to which he referred. It was very specific and price related as to whether having Keystone pipeline approved would expand greenhouse gases from the oil sands or not. It depended on whether those expansions would have happened anyway because they were profitable, which only happens when the price of a barrel of oil is over $80 a barrel. When it is below that, as it had been bouncing around when Barack Obama disapproved it, the U.S. State Department advice would have been that this would expand greenhouse gases because the pipeline itself is not infrastructure and the expansion of the oil sands would not have gone ahead regardless. Therefore, it was a price-dependent issue.

I want to ask the member a specific question on Bill C-21. I do not think he mentioned this part, but I am concerned about an amendment that would add a new section 94. It says:

Every person who is leaving Canada shall, if requested to do so by an officer, present themselves to an officer and answer truthfully any questions asked by an officer in the performance of their duties under this or any other Act of Parliament.

It sounds to me that it is suspiciously like an opportunity for a fishing expedition and keeping someone there unreasonably. I wonder if he would agree with me that this section might be better amended with words like “reasonable questions relevant to travellers”, or something that keeps it from being abused.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is good to hear from my friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands. I want to compliment her on her eloquent remarks today remembering our friend Arnold Chan. She is also very crafty to work Keystone XL into the clarification that she is providing to the House. Certainly the price of oil is very determinant on markets, but a lot of the invested costs of these resource development projects are billions of dollars, so they are planned to ride through the fluctuation. She certainly knows we disagree on that issue.

I am in fact a little disappointed. I know she listens to the debate and participates very well. I did mention section 94 and quoted it at the beginning of my speech. Both of us being Dalhousie law graduates, which we talk about a lot, we get into the fine details of things. I would like to at least have the government explain the immense breadth of that amendment. There might very well be good reason for it. Certainly including all acts of Parliament makes it very broad. The concern she is raising I raised at the beginning of my remarks, which is the concern about lack of transparency on this. It was tabled well over a year ago and there has been minimal debate. We now have NAFTA renegotiations under way. We do not see Canadian interests being advanced, and I would like the government to advance them.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to welcome you and all my colleagues back to the House of Commons. I realize that there are lots of priorities my constituents would like to see us discussing today. One, of course, would be the proposed changes to taxes for farmers and small business people. However, I will limit my comments and presentation to Bill C-21, because there is an example I wanted to talk about that would have been dealt with, possibly successfully, had this legislation been passed earlier.

We are going to support Bill C-21. It is a good piece of legislation. It is necessary, as we look beyond our borders and our agreements to try to make the border thinner, that we have the proper mechanisms and tools in place to do that. We have to make sure that our border security officers, on both sides, have the proper data and are reading consistent data in a format to make proper decisions.

One of the concerns I have is not about the legislation itself but about the implementation of the legislation. I want to make sure that the government actually gives it the funding it deserves and that the border security guards actually have the computers they need to do the work they have to do. For example, border guards are using antiquated equipment. They do not have proper computers. They do not have proper personnel. Their staffing levels are low. We are seeing long lineups, and in that situation, they are dealing with angry and frustrated people. They are making decisions without having that data and information at their fingertips. I want to make sure that the proper funding and resources are in place for our border security officers to actually do their jobs properly.

The other thing is cybersecurity. I want to make sure that the data they are gathering on Canadians as they go across the border or leave the country is properly protected. I also want to make sure that any of the departments using that data safeguard it, whether it is to prevent employment insurance fraud or welfare fraud or any other type of fraud. We have Canadians, claiming to be in Canada, who are collecting benefits and are not actually in Canada. I want to make sure that our government puts in place the proper safeguards to prevent that information from being hacked. That is private information and should not be generally available to anyone. Those are some of the concerns I have about the bill.

I want to move on to what I wanted to talk about. A friend of mine met a lady and got married. She was not a Canadian. They had a child. A couple of years later, they went through a nasty divorce, and I mean nasty in the worst sense. A court order from the judge basically said that this lady was not allowed to take the child out of the country. They took away their Canadian passports. She proceeded to get a passport in her native country for herself and for the child. She ignored the court order and took the child out of the country. She kidnapped the child, and my friend has not seen his child in seven years. If we had had legislation like this in place, I would like to think it would have caught her. It would have allowed this father to actually spend some time with his child. Now he has not spent any time with his child. He knows where she is but has no contact with her and has no ability to reach out to her to do the things fathers like to do with their kids. If we had had proper legislation in place seven years ago, this could have been prevented.

We see many examples where sharing information has been a benefit to both Canadians and Americans. There was a terrorist attack just a few years ago that was thwarted after the FBI shared information with the RCMP and Canadian security forces. It prevented people from being killed. We have many examples of when we all benefit when we have information in front of us and use it wisely, both in Canada and the U.S. Therefore, we should not be scared to see this type of legislation move forward, because it is in our best interest and for our personal security to make sure that these things happen.

I remember trying to help my friend Bill get his daughter back and all the roadblocks he faced. It tells us that once that happens, it is too late. We cannot turn the clock back. We cannot change it. There is no mechanism to go back and make it right.

Therefore, let us make sure, as we move forward with a piece of legislation like this, that we actually put together a proper implementation program to make sure that not only do we have a good piece of legislation but that it is implemented properly and used and resourced properly so it can be effective and the results are what was intended.

My speech today will be relatively short. However, having listened to all my colleagues in the House today on both the Liberal and Conservative sides, I would say they have done a good job presenting the different aspects of this bill. I compliment them for doing that. However, I want to give examples of what could happen when we get legislation right and what could happen when we do not have proper legislation in place.

I will be supporting this bill. I look forward to seeing it move through the House and committee. I also look forward to the Liberal government's properly implementing this bill. If it does, Canadians will be the beneficiaries of this piece of legislation.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to use this opportunity to apologize to my friend from Durham because I missed the beginning of his speech where he did a very clear job in speaking to how section 94 is overbroad.

Also, I thank my colleague for raising the issue of tracking the movement of children in and out of Canada. I had a constituent who was trying to use the international convention for returning children who have been abducted outside of custodial agreements, to which Canada is a member. It is not easy. I had a constituent who was dealing with the U.S. I would have thought that it would honour the orders of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, but I can say from experience that the state of Vermont thinks that orders from the Supreme Court of British Columbia matter as much as a toy in a Cracker Jack box. It is really difficult.

Tracking the movement of children is another aspect of this. Therefore, I would like to give my colleague an opportunity to say how he would see this act improved, because the bill, as written, would create a record for the movement of children.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it comes back to the implementation of the act and what the government does with it. We now have the tools in front of us for border security officers to do the job. However, if they do not have the proper computers, funding, and staffing levels, and it becomes part of a pile of paper that they have to thumb through every day to find out what is in it, the legislation will not be effective. We currently have amazing technology in this world. New apps are created every day in North America. We see new products and features coming forward. If we embrace and utilize this technology to focus on the issues before us, we will have results. That is why I am encouraging the government to put the appropriate resources in place to get the results we require.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his support for this bill. It allows for an atmosphere in which we can debate some of the more subtle things and, possibly, the law of unintended consequences with respect to this. He gave a good example of how this law could possibly track the movements of an estranged spouse in the kidnapping of a child. This information would be given at the border or the point of purchase of a ticket. I am not sure where, when or how, and it is reasonable to consider that this information would be shared with foreign governments, sub-national governments, and agencies.

As the law of unintended consequences applies in all matters, I would suggest a couple of examples. For instance, it is very difficult for people to have their name removed from the no-fly list. Also, Nexus was to be a means by which people who have already done their interviews with the RCMP go through the border at a rapid pace, but is something else. The member and I share that line at the Ottawa airport every Thursday or Friday. With respect to the law of unintended consequences, are there concerns at this point that this information could be used in a manner that would make it difficult for the citizens we are most concerned about?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I understand the member's concerns. However, if the officials involved have the proper resources in place, when accidents do happen they can address them, rather than having them sit on someone's desk for three months, six months, or nine months and subject to a bureaucratic process to fix them. Putting the proper resources in place, such as funding, staffing, and having a process to fix any bugs relatively quickly, would ensure that the legislation would do what it is intended to do.

The other concern I have is with respect to cybersecurity. As the member said, we are possibly sharing this information with other countries or other departments. What assurance do we have that they are protecting that information for Canadians? I want to make sure that the government has the proper safeguards and vetting processes in place to ensure those countries and departments have the proper cybersecurity. We want to ensure that information is secured properly and efficiently. We do not want to see any mistakes made. If we do this right, the number of mistakes will be limited to a few.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be back in this place this fall. As the first day back, I feel like we should have the Welcome Back, Kotter song playing in the background.

Like many others, I would like to express my sincere sympathies to Arnold Chan's family and to the members of the Liberal caucus for their loss of a colleague. I think all members of Parliament feel the loss, but they will certainly feel it much more over there. Our best wishes to all those who are feeling that today.

I am also pleased to participate in this debate today on the second reading of Bill C-21, an act to amend the Customs Act. I have enjoyed the debate today. We will be supporting the bill. However, as stated by the questioner from Toronto, there are unintended consequences of which we need to be aware. The devil is in the details. How would some of these regulations be met?

The bill would amend the Customs Act to authorize the Canada Border Services Agency to collect biographical information on all travellers, including snowbirds, and Canadian citizens as they leave for Florida or Arizona. In that regard, the CBSA has a discretionary authority. The agency may collect this information if it wishes, but it is not required to do so. The act authorizes officers to require goods exported from Canada to be reported. The duty to report exports will also empower Canada's border security agency to examine the goods that are exported.

Bill C-21 would also give two exemptions concerning the exportation of goods. Goods on board a conveyance, such as a ship, a truck, or some transportation vehicle, that enter and then leave Canadian waters do not have to be reported. Goods on board a conveyance that proceeds from one place to another inside Canada do not need to be declared.

The bill would amend section 159 of the Customs Act to make it an offence to smuggle or attempt to smuggle goods out of Canada. It includes whether the attempt to remove goods from Canada has been done clandestinely or not. It includes any goods that are subject to duties. It also includes goods that are prohibited from being exported or goods that are controlled or regulated.

The Conservative Party wants to support Bill C-21. The legislation addresses a long-standing priority for our party in maintaining stronger border security for Canada. It also acknowledges that abuse occurs in the export industry and it works toward ensuring that entitlement programs designed for exporters are not abused. The former Conservative government treated Canada's border security very seriously. With Bill C-21, Canadians can see that the current government is building on and following through on work that was done in the former parliament. I commend the government for that.

Bill C-21 will have benefits for many diverse communities across Canada's economy and our labour force. This initiative is good news for hard-working taxpayers as it will cut down on employment insurance and benefit cheats. The provisions of Bill C-21 that spell out the exchange of traveller information will support Canada's law enforcement and national security operations. The benefits of this program may include the strengthening of Canada's immigration and border management, national security, law enforcement, and program integrity in Canada.

The ability to inspect goods exiting Canada will also deter criminals from smuggling illegal and controlled goods out of our country. This legislation has the potential to save an estimated $20 million a year from those who are unduly receiving entitlement programs while they are not even in Canada.

Bill C-21 is part of the beyond the border action plan, which was jointly declared in 2011 by then prime minister Stephen Harper and then president Barack Obama.

The beyond the borders action plan establishes a long-term partnership respecting perimeter security for both our countries. The joint declaration set out the following key areas of co-operation between the United States and Canada: addressing threats early; trade facilitation, economic growth, and jobs; integrated cross-border law enforcement; and critical infrastructure and cyber security.

According to the action plan, the information-sharing initiative, also known as the entry-exit initiative, was to be implemented by June 30, 2014, under the original timeline. The current Prime Minister announced the agreement with the United States to fully implement the system to exchange basic biographical information in March 2016, following his first official visit to the United States.

According to the Liberal government, the entry-exit initiative will respond to the outbound movement of known high-risk travellers and their goods prior to their actual departure from Canada by air. This will be an effective measure in Bill C-21. It will help our nation deal with fugitives from justice, registered sex offenders, human smuggling and drug smugglers, exporters of illicit goods, and more.

It has already been talked about today, but parents and other family members will be pleased that we will now be better equipped to respond more effectively in times of very sensitive situations. This includes what we have talked about here in the House today, Amber Alerts and helping find abducted children and runaways. My colleague from Prince Albert told us the story of his friend to which that had happened.

The changes proposed in Bill C-21 will prevent the illegal export of controlled, regulated, or prohibited goods from Canada and would bolster Canada's trade reputation. We are taking measures to help our customers overseas and in the United States and we are saying that we are working hard to control goods leaving our country.

I chair the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. In the fall of 2016, our Auditor General report included a chapter auditing the beyond the borders action plan. The Auditor General reported on the performance of this initiative by the Canadian and the American governments. We know that this has been a very successful initiative.

We also learned at committee from witnesses appearing on behalf of the various federal government departments that are tasked with implementing the beyond the borders action plan that it was a very massive undertaking. We need to be aware that in an undertaking that is already massive, we are adding more information and certain expectations around that information.

The cross-border action plan has many moving parts. It has been a very difficult action plan to develop and deploy, yet we heard about successes. We heard public servants' strong commitment to ensuring that the goals are met. We heard that everyone is confident in success, and as I have said, we already know of this success.

The recommendations by the Auditor General were, as always, accepted by all departments. Every one of the Auditor General's recommendations was agreed to. Our committee found that the public servants who work every day to protect our borders are serious about their work and willing to improve their reporting, cost forecasting, performance indicators, and communication among responsible departments and agencies. It was encouraging to hear the testimony of these public servants.

There are problems, however, and some of them are larger and more difficult than others. Throughout the questioning by members of Parliament from all sides, we heard acknowledgements of the difficulties and real plans to overcome them. All parties agreed to our request to have progress reports. There were pledges by specific witnesses to complete certain tasks in specific time frames and report the progress to our committee, but again, with every little bit of data that was collected, there were difficulties around passing that data on to the proper channels.

Bill C-21 will help Canada identify individuals who do not leave Canada at the end of their authorized period of stay, i.e., visa overstays. The bill includes measures that will provide decision-makers with an accurate picture of an individual's travel history. Decision-makers include border security agents, stakeholders in any industry, and more. This will bring integrity back to our standards, but again, the devil is in the details when we are dealing with our own privacy information.

In conclusion, I think that Bill C-21 is a step in the right direction, but there are many questions that remain unanswered, the question of unintended consequences, and the question of cybersecurity and what other countries do with the information that we have. I look forward to the remainder of this debate. I want to learn more about this bill and the government's answers to some of those questions. For now, our party supports Bill C-21 generally and in theory.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Sherbrooke.

I appreciate this opportunity to speak to the concerns that have come to the fore with Bill C-21, an act to amend the Customs Act. My riding of Windsor—Tecumseh is strategically located for astute observation on this bill, and is located a stone's throw from the United States border. As a cross-border community, many of us regularly cross the border to Detroit, for a multitude of reasons. We have family ties, and business and employment ties, as befits our trading-nation relationship, and we enjoy taking in games from professional league sports, with the Tigers, Red Wings, Lions, and Pistons about a half-hour away, more or less, depending on the venue.

I am greatly concerned about the potential consequences of this legislation. With Bill C-21, Canadians would have more of their personal information collected, not by U.S. border agents but by Canadian authorities, and shared with U.S. border agents. This bill would allow Canadian and U.S. authorities to electronically exchange biographic information on people departing and arriving in each other's country. Indeed, it seems that Bill C-21's primary purpose is to introduce the legislative requirement to collect biometric data for all persons exiting Canada. Yes, that is right. Canada would be doing to each and every one of its citizens what the United States presently does to its non-citizens.

Information collected would be the same as the information that the Canada Border Services Agency already collects for Canadians returning to Canada. It would be gathered by the CBSA at every border crossing, including land, sea, and air. However, the thing is that the Canada Border Services Agency was never required to collect information on those exiting Canada, as that is the responsibility of border authorities of the country being entered into. There is the very real concern that Canadian authorities are being asked by a foreign government to hand over personal information of Canadians. Frankly, that is not something that should be the responsibility of the Canada Border Services Agency. Our border agency's sole purpose is to protect Canada, not to hand over Canadian information to foreign authorities.

The United States is a large and powerful and, I should add, well-resourced nation. Americans can take care of their own responsibilities on their side of the border, and we should let them. New Democrats take the personal information and privacy concerns of Canadians very seriously. We only wish that the governing party of this country did so. The Liberals must not ignore recommendations of a wide variety of experts and the very real concerns of Canadians. Acting on security concerns and ensuring a strong and effective Canada–U.S. border must not infringe on the preservation of Canadians' rights and freedoms. Information gathered by the CBSA should not be shared with agencies outside of Canada unless under extenuating circumstances. In such circumstances where information must be shared, existing mechanisms are already in place between Canadian law enforcement agencies and their counterparts in other countries.

As I have mentioned, as a local cross-border community, we see issues in the local news every night regarding such sharing of information. In light of the Trump administration's recent troubling actions, such as issuing discriminatory immigration executive orders and suspending the privacy rights of non-Americans, this initiative more than ever threatens the basic rights of Canadian travellers.

New Democrats understand the importance of maintaining a fluid land border crossing with the United States, our number one trading partner. Without providing additional security for Canadians, this bill could mean longer delays at the borders.

Another point of concern in this bill is its potential to penalize business people who travel regularly across borders. Those who may spend a reasonable period of time outside of Canada could potentially be snagged in various legal issues, limiting benefits to them.

As this bill would amend the Customs Act, I would like to make due note on some of the matters that affect goods crossing the border. In subsection 95(1), Bill C-21 would change practices on the reporting of goods travelling across the border so that all exported goods would be reported at any time without a specific need to prescribe such reporting. Goods already on conveyance leave and then re-enter Canadian jurisdiction while proceeding directly from one location within Canada to another location within Canada. That means an officer could order the goods covered by exemptions to be subjected to reporting.

This bill also sets out the reasons for the detention of imported and exported goods that have been reported under section 95, as well as the ability for the minister to direct any detained goods imported or exported under section 95 to be sold upon 30 days' written notice. It is important for us to take heed here.

The new section 94 has already been mentioned. That section 94 of the Customs Act would create an obligation on persons leaving Canada to potentially answer questions by the CBSA officer:

Every person who is leaving Canada shall, if requested to do so by an officer, present themselves to an officer and answer truthfully any questions asked by an officer in the performance of their duties under this or any other Act of Parliament.

This new requirement is likely to be fraught with legal peril. It would seemingly provide the CBSA with the ability to make a determination as to whether an individual is telling the truth. This may mean continuing questioning that could be construed as relevant or irrelevant, also known as a fishing expedition.

A determination of something other than the truth could ensnare the traveller with potential offences under the Customs Act. For example, CBSA officers may assume that individuals have provided false answers, even when responses are the result of simple mistakes. While we can all expect persons to provide truthful answers to our agents, the fact of the matter is that the CBSA would be able to take the position that a person has provided false answers and pursue the individual for committing an offence under the Customs Act. The potential for a Canadian citizen to get caught up in legal proceedings on the basis of an honest mistake increases dramatically.

In the case of extenuating circumstances where such information needs to be shared, for example in a criminal case, as I have already mentioned, the relevant police agencies such as the RCMP and CSIS, as well as law enforcement agencies locally, are already in contact with their international counterparts. In these cases, existing legislation and practices are already applicable.

Canadians are wary of their personal information being shared among government agencies and Canada's foreign partners because of previous acts passed, such as the Harper government's bill, Bill C-51. The current government's plans to collect and share even more personal information without proper independent oversight of our national security agency is of great concern to New Democrats. The authorities given to the CBSA under subsection 92(1) are not mandatory. The CBSA would be given discretionary authority in that it may collect this information if it wishes to do so. This would create the very serious risk of racial and/or religious profiling, when the CBSA decides whether information on a traveller leaving Canada would be collected and shared. With racial profiling already on the increase in the United States, with everyone from rock bands and celebrities being turned away at its border, this is one fire that we in Canada have no business stoking.

It is the responsibility of the government to protect public safety and defend civil liberties—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Questions and comments. The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech and I would really like to hear the conclusion. I happen to think that the situation of a riding located on the American border could enlighten us all on this subject.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was just finishing up. I would like to reiterate that it is the responsibility of the government to protect public safety and to defend civil liberties, and that accountability is fundamental to those.

The government's plan to collect and share even more personal information without proper independent oversight of our national security agencies is reason for us to now answer the urgent need to modernize our Canadian privacy framework as well.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, one concern I had, and I just want to know what the member's thoughts are on this, is about the actual implementation of the agreement and making sure that our border security officers are properly trained and have the resources to do the job. We do not want to see a scenario where all of a sudden, we have all sorts of new technology with no training and no people to run the new technology, which would actually create even more lineups at the border, more backups, more delays in deliveries, and stuff like that.

Could the member explain to this House her concerns about that and what she thinks should be done to make sure that this does not happen?

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am from a cross-border community, so I am well aware of the inadequacies that came from government cuts and reorganizations in the past. We have been subject to that in our area.

The problems we have with the border are fixable problems. I do not want to make that part of this issue with Bill C-21. We are putting the cart before the horse. Before we talk about the smooth implementation of it, there has to be consultation and some tangible changes made to it. That means that the public accountability piece has to be included, and we have to follow and listen to consultations with the law experts in Canada. At this point, this is something I would oppose.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is really important to get an idea of the types of people who are crossing and to expand upon the vulnerabilities in data-sharing.

At the Windsor-Detroit corridor, each day around 10,000 health care professionals travel into the United States: doctors, nurses, radiologists, and other professionals. I would ask the member about the importance of making sure that their privacy is protected.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, being the member of Parliament for the riding next door to mine, he has a heightened awareness of the synergy between the cross-border communities of Windsor and Detroit and also about privacy concerns when we are talking about our own Canada Border Services Agency collecting data.

I would add that besides the privacy concerns for these individuals as they move back and forth and efficiency, we have a new and intangible threat that comes from computers being hacked.

These are huge issues that we just cannot dismiss.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member brought up privacy. I think it is very important that we have a proper balance between privacy and the right to have information.

We actually had a situation when we received information from the FBI that prevented a terrorist attack from happening in Ontario. How does the NDP balance that? The NDP says that they are not going to share information because it is Donald Trump, yet the United States shared information with us that prevented a terrorist attack. How does she balance that?

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is happening now because of the mechanisms in place. We have a regime in place now. We have a treaty. We have the exchange of information. Therefore, that is happening right now. The privacy of Canadians is best served when we listen and respect the report from the Privacy Commissioner about that balance. What is missing right now is the accountability, the transparency, and the modernizing of our Privacy Act to reflect this kind of new legislation.

Simply put, the mechanisms are in place right now for the important sharing that people expect there to be for the well-being of Canadians.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to welcome you back to the House along with the rest of my colleagues. I would also like to welcome this session's new pages, who will be with us for the next few months.

I am pleased to speak to a bill that will definitely have an impact on my Sherbrooke constituents. My colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh mentioned that her region is on the border. Sherbrooke, which is in the Eastern Townships, is too. We have three neighbouring states: Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire. The fact that our neighbours to the south are so close to us is part of our everyday reality. Some of our communities even straddle the border. We hear some good stories sometimes about communities where there are houses or libraries right on the border between both countries. A lot of people have dual citizenship because of this.

My constituents are quite concerned about this issue. For one thing, lots of people cross the border, and for another, there is a lot of trade between Sherbrooke and the United States. Many of our businesses depend on the U.S. market. They are very concerned because they are so close and their business depends heavily on what is going on in the United States. That is why trade issues in general are really important to my community, especially now that we are talking about renegotiating the trade agreement between our two countries and Mexico. While I was in Sherbrooke this summer, I heard a lot of people talk about the negotiations under way and the upcoming third round of negotiations with our partners, which will be happening here in Canada. They want to protect their trade with the United States. If possible, they would like to grow that partnership. This issue got a lot of people talking this summer.

The main focus of Bill C-21 is people who are crossing the border. The matter of goods has already been addressed rather thoroughly in Bill C-23. Bill C-21 completes the circle in a way, even though there are a lot of problems with the bill. We are talking here about people, individuals, who are crossing our borders. I am therefore pleased to talk about this issue not only because I live in a border area but also because I care a lot about personal information and privacy, and I am sure that many of my constituents care about this topic too.

From 2012 to 2014, I had the honour of serving as chair of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. I was therefore quite aware of privacy issues. I often had discussions with the Privacy Commissioner. These are the subjects I am most interested in.

What worries me the most about Bill C-21 is the issue of privacy. In Canada, year after year, agreement after agreement, we agree to share more and more information, not only with Canadian governments but also with foreign governments. Information sharing is becoming increasingly common. Of course, it is governed by written agreements. Information sharing is not done randomly, but it is becoming increasingly common. Bill C-21, which we are discussing today, is about sharing even more information with foreign countries, in this case the United States.

There is good reason for Canadians in particular to question the protection of privacy in the United States. I mention this mainly because of the infamous presidential order that was recently signed in the United States and that we have heard so much about over the past few months.

The title of the January 2017 executive order was:

Executive Order 13768, entitled Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States.

The order excluded people who are not citizens or permanent residents of the United States from the protections provided by the Privacy Act regarding personally identifiable information.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Daniel Therrien, invited all federal ministers involved, including the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, probably the minister most involved, who also happens to be this bill's sponsor. He invited federal ministers to ask their American counterparts to tighten the rules around protecting the privacy of Canadians.

In the letter, the commissioner pointed out that Canada should be included in a list of countries targeted by the American Judicial Redress Act. It has to do with rules that exclude non-Americans from the protections provided under the law regarding how federal agencies use personal information. The commissioner indicated that Canadians enjoy certain protections regarding their personal information in the United States, but those protections are relative, since they are based on purly administrative agreements and are not given force of law.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada certainly sounded the alarm in January 2017. Now here we are a few months later, debating Bill C-21. We need to be really cautious about this new order, which allows Americans to shirk their obligation to protect the privacy of Canadians to the same degree that they protect the privacy of Americans, their own citizens.

It is therefore deeply troubling to see that American federal agencies can treat Canadians' information differently from that of their own citizens. This discrepancy is extremely concerning, as it seems to put our fellow Canadians' data at risk. The worst part is that if this information ends up in the hands of a foreign country, such as the United States, there are very few options for recourse.

If we give information to the Canada Border Services Agency and this bill is passed, the Agency will have to hand over that information to the Americans. The Americans will then have the information in their possession, but it could fall into the wrong hands. These things happen. We have seen many cases of hackers successfully accessing data that is valuable to organized crime groups. Such data is considered extremely valuable because it can sometimes be used to scam ordinary people who think they are doing the right thing by answering phone calls or emails that seem to come from a government agency. This data is highly valuable to scammers. As a result, many Canadians may be alarmed to learn that foreign governments that use different protection systems may be getting access to more and more of their personal data.

I am very concerned about that; it is the main reason for which I must oppose Bill C-21, as several of my NDP colleagues did earlier today. What worries me even more is the fact that this information is now in the hands not only of American federal agencies, whose protective measures are less effective than the ones we have in place in Canada, but also in the hands of a president who made an executive order that is even better known—the one that bans persons who have travelled to certain target countries, mainly in the Middle East.

This raises more concerns about the way this information may be used by the American government, and by its president, who issues directives to his government and to its security agencies.

It is truly worrisome when we see stories like that of my friend Yassine Aber, an athlete at the University of Sherbrooke, who simply wanted to go compete in the United States. I believe this happened last May. Unlike his six or eight colleagues, he was arrested. He was arrested because of his name and he was questioned for a number of hours before being told to go back home.

Some of the questions, referenced already in the House, were on his religion, his parents' religion, places he had travelled to, and on his friends in Sherbrooke. They even searched his phone to access information, photos, and his social networks. It is very worrisome that the government wants to give even more information to the Americans through Bill C-21. We can all agree that the Americans do not seem to make good use of the information they have. They seem to use it only to discriminate based on race, religion, or gender.

My time is up, but I would be pleased to answer my colleagues' questions if they want to know more about why the NDP is against Bill C-21.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sherbrooke for his ever informative comments.

I speak on behalf of the people of Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot whom I represent, whether they are business owners, professionals who have to travel to the U.S. for their work, or individuals, couples, or families who go there on vacation or retire there.

The thing that gets me is how our constituents are informed by the governments, and I mean governments because the former Conservatives were no different than the current Liberals. As we have seen throughout the day, it was our colleagues from the official opposition who defended this bill because too few of our Liberal colleagues stood up to do so.

How are our constituents informed about how their personal information is used by Canadian authorities? What is shared with the U.S. government? How is our personal information used by the U.S. government? How are our constituents informed about these different measures?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for her question.

The problem is that Canadians are ill-informed about the circumstances in which their information is shared. They do not know when local or foreign governments get their information, how long they keep it for and with whom they share it. This goes to the heart of the problem, namely a lack of transparency. As the House is considering this bill, what we ask is to increase transparency in order to ensure data protection, and also to make sure there is accountability, so that we can see tangible protection put in place as time goes by.

Transparency is therefore one of the fundamental aspects of protecting personal information. It allows citizens to know when their personal information has been shared and their right to privacy has been breached, so that they can act accordingly. This is very important and must be done as similar bills are being passed which require increased transparency.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the last part of the speech from my colleague for Sherbrooke, who made a very relevant and informed presentation to explain this bill, which is far from simple for the average person. It is important to explain the implications of the bill. The member gave us the very good example of a citizen from his riding, which he represents very well. That citizen went to see him to explain what he had to live through and what could be the dangerous consequences of the bill. I would like my hon. colleague to share that explanation with us.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

The danger is obvious. There is a risk that the Americans and their President will use this information to discriminate against Canadians who simply want to go to the United States to participate in a sporting event. These Canadians will be refused access to the country for no reason other than an impression the authorities have of them based on the colour of their skin, their parents' country of origin or religion, or even their sexual orientation.

This is a very real danger. It happened to a man from Sherbrooke and it will likely happen more often if we continue in the same direction by giving more and more information to the American authorities and their President, Donald Trump.