House of Commons Hansard #200 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was security.

Topics

Customs ActGovernment Orders

11:45 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

Mr. Speaker, it feels like I am defending the bill. The principle is very clear; it is about the transfer of information to ensure that both countries are properly linked and have some basic information on people who are travelling from Canada to the United States as well as on Americans, as the minister mentioned in his speech on the bill. This is basic information that already exists, that is, personal information about each American or Canadian. This information is simple. This is simply about managing movements in and out of the country. It also allows us to have better control over what goes on at our borders.

Customs ActGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

NDP

Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC

Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to join the minister in expressing my condolences to the family of our esteemed colleague Arnold Chan. His death was a great loss to everyone in the House, regardless of their party. We stand in solidarity with the Liberal caucus and Mr. Chan's constituents, family, and friends at this difficult time.

We are here today to talk about Bill C-21, which the government introduced in June 2016. The government is very enthusiastic about this bill. It is now September, and we are finally talking about it, so we can see how enthusiastic the government is about this bill. Perhaps the purpose of the bill is to pander to the Americans during the NAFTA negotiations. Who knows.

It is important to understand the context here. The minister, in answer to my question, and the member for Laurentides—Labelle in his comments talked about the bill as though it was a piece of stand-alone legislation, when in actual fact it is part of an information-sharing agreement between the Canadian and American governments. We can look at the measures set out in the bill, but they are part of a broader agreement and broader operational practices that are beginning to be implemented for our services at the border.

Things are very different now, and if we take a big-picture view of border issues, Canadians are clearly concerned. The same issues come up over and over. Take cellphones, for example. There is a glaring lack of protection when it comes to cellphone searches and what we call the briefcase law. People surrender a certain degree of privacy at the border. That interpretation of the law is fine if we are talking about someone seeing our unmentionables in a suitcase, but a cellphone that contains vast amounts of information about an individual is something else entirely. That is just one of the concerns we have about the border.

Things have changed now that Donald Trump is in office. In recent months, there has been discrimination at the border. Everyone knows that. The minister says that, statistically, fewer Canadians are being turned away at the border than in previous years. That is not an acceptable answer when people are being subjected to degrading treatment by U.S. border officers who ask them questions about their religious beliefs, their country of origin, and the colour of their skin.

This context is extremely important for understanding where our concerns for this bill are coming from. The minister tells us not to worry, that it is basic information that will be shared, information that is found on page 2 of one's passport. In reality, subclause 92(1) of the bill states that:

the Agency may collect, from a prescribed source, in the prescribed circumstances, within the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner...

It goes on to describe what the Agency is authorized to do. The key phrase I want to draw to the attention of the House is “the Agency may”. It is left to the discretion of border services whether to keep the information or not. At a place like customs, where discrimination is on the rise because people are judged by their destination and their origins, this is quite problematic. This could lead to increased profiling. God knows that there is too much of that already at the border.

Let me go back to the agreement that led to this bill.

The entry/exit program is only just beginning and will grow. Despite the enthusiasm that Liberals and Conservatives might have for it, we are going down a very slippery slope here. Before we continue, someone needs to put on the brakes because what we are seeing here is further integration at the border. That might seem great if all that we are considering is efficiencies, but we want to consider people's rights at the border, but that is lacking in the conversations that are happening.

Where does it end? When we talk about the context that I described with regard to cellphones and the lack of legislation as to what people's rights are when they are asked to unlock their cellphones and provide that information, and when it comes to the profiling that is happening at the border, that also applies to what new tools we have brought into place. The current U.S. President has floated the idea of using biometrics at the border. Will that end up becoming part of this kind of entry/exit agreement on top of the biographical information that would be provided? We do not have answers to these questions.

The fact of the matter is that any information that is being collected and shared will lead us down a path that we have seen before, because, quite frankly, as I said in my question to the minister, some of the most egregious human rights violations that Canada has been a part of, even if by proxy, have happened because of the sharing of information. That is something we are doing more and more in a post-Bill C-51 world, which, by the way, was a bill that the Liberals supported. That is the reality that we have to take into account when we consider increasing the amount of information we are sharing. It is not only biographical information, but also about where people are going to and coming from. While that might seem fine for someone who is not being profiled at the border, there are certainly many law-abiding Canadians who know what the experience is like, who because of where they are going to or where they are originally from; because they might be dual citizens and because of the country from where other citizenship is from; because of the colour of their skin and their religious beliefs, suddenly that basic biographical information being collected and shared with the U.S. government takes on a whole different context despite the fact they are law-abiding Canadians. That is very troubling, and even more so when I hear the minister talk about the fight against radicalization.

Certainly it goes without saying that we all agree that radicalization is an issue that needs to be tackled. Here, I would add that we are still waiting to hear more about what the government is going to do with its grassroots approach to taking on the fight against radicalization. We have not heard much about that in a little while, but that is a sidebar.

The reality is that when I hear things like that and the Conservative member who just spoke, and this bogeyman that is raised of how we are going to go after terrorism, there is a code there and we know what that leads to at the border and the treatment that people go through afterward. That is not something we want to see happen. Sure, we can have faith in our CBSA officers, the men and women who do extraordinary work despite limited resources because of successive Liberal and Conservative governments, but we are also looking at what the U.S. is going to do with that information. That is where the danger lies.

President Trump has signed an executive order explicitly stating that persons who are not U.S. citizens are now excluded from the protections offered by United States privacy legislation.

That is extremely dangerous, considering that the Canadian government is rushing to partner with the U.S. government to increase the amount of information it shares with the Americans.

Given that the President of the United States says he may consider torture acceptable and given that Canada has a ministerial directive in place allowing for information to be shared with countries that engage in torture, we are facing a big problem. I am not saying that this is exactly what the bill says, but the upshot of this bill is that we will be sharing more and more information.

It is a very slippery slope, since we keep sharing more and more information with other countries, including the United States. Even though the U.S. is an ally, the statements coming from the current administration are cause for concern and make the idea of sharing information about public safety and national security extremely troubling.

In a post-C-51 world, the accountability procedures are wholly inadequate. Let us look at the facts. An article published by the Toronto Star in August said the following:

CBSA has quietly started receiving and sharing some information with the U.S. government.

That means some information sharing was already allowed even without this bill being passed. The bill will just settle things for good.

The risk is that this may be done more covertly, without proactive transparency. At the end of the article, it says that Canada Border Services Agency plans to update the privacy assessment once the bill comes into force.

It is far from reassuring that we are talking about doing another privacy impact assessment after the bill is adopted. In that spirit, the role we have as parliamentarians is to protect Canadian safety, but also their rights, and their right to privacy more specifically. As far as this bill is concerned, we should look at how much is left up to regulation in the bill. For example, under “Regulations”, the bill states:

The Governor in Council may make regulations for the purposes of this section, including regulations

(a) prescribing the information that must be given under paragraph (1)(a);

(b) respecting the conveyances in relation to which information must be given under subsection (1);

(c) prescribing the persons or classes of persons who must give the information under subsection (1);

(d) respecting the circumstances in which the information must be given under subsection (1); and

(e) respecting the time within which and the manner in which the information must be given under subsection (1).

Those are all things that the Governor in Council can do through regulations. That essentially means, for the people listening at home, that those are things that the minister can decide to do all on his own, without a proper vote in the House of Commons on a piece of legislation. That is extremely troubling. If we go back to the debate on Bill C-23, which is the sister legislation in the context of this more integrated border with the U.S., in committee, I asked public safety officials which regulations would be changed, as that bill also opened the door to all of the regulatory changes that could potentially change the scope of the bill. That certainly concerned New Democrats. I will give the Liberals credit. They got back to us and provided a list of regulations that may change, but the list was not exhaustive.

As parliamentarians voting on a bill and trying to protect Canadians' rights in the context of sharing more of their information with the American government, especially under the current circumstances or regime, if I can use that term, it is extremely troubling that there is so much latitude allowed for regulatory changes. We certainly understand that there is a place for regulatory changes in the way that our government functions, but when it comes time to prescribe what information is shared, who is sharing it, and how they are sharing it, which is the core of the issue with this bill, that cannot be left out of the accountability process, which obviously includes debate in the House and study at committee.

When I was in Washington with the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, I learned about some new tools, such as digital fingerprinting and facial recognition, that the U.S. may begin using at its border. Those things are still in development, but they are getting to the point that the U.S. government will be looking to deploy them.

The minister is trying to reassure us by saying that he is in constant contact with his American counterpart, but people at Homeland Security envision using exactly those kinds of tools in the context of this information sharing agreement. We could very well see a higher level of integration. In the statement on greater integration of border operations that came out of the meeting between the Prime Minister and President Trump in Washington, they talked about the possibility of our border officials hosting American border officials.

Forget about all of the problems that co-locating two agencies from two different countries could cause, if only in terms of collective agreements and working conditions. Let us just talk about training. The minister took the time to point out that officials would be trained to protect Canadians' privacy and would always act in accordance with the law. I am not questioning the work that is going to be done, but when we debated Bill C-23, which would allow American officials on Canadian soil, we asked Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness officials what the plan was for delivering that training while ensuring respect for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, privacy laws, and even Bill C-23 itself, and we were not remotely satisfied with the answers.

The minister can be as reassuring as he wants, but it takes more than that. We need something tangible that truly outlines the process that will be put in place for protecting people's privacy. Even if the process is clearly spelled out to us, in an agreement like this with a bill like this, given the way in which Canadians' information will be shared with the U.S. government the minister must admit that the information will not enjoy the same protection in American hands, even if we have the best men and women working as Canadian border officers and the best legislation in place and if we are making every effort to protect people's privacy.

The minister can reassure us all he wants, but, as he so often says, the Americans can do what they want. That is reason alone to not only oppose the bill, but, as I said, to also rethink the agreement.

As I have said time and again, we are seeing a troubling tendency with the new information related to the public safety file globally, whether it is the Justice Noël decision related to illegal collection of metadata by CSIS; the Privacy Commissioner reporting last week that the RCMP has illegally obtained information from cellular phones six times in the last year; racial profiling at the Canada-U.S. border; people being asked to unlock their cell phones and provide social media passwords at the border, without clear legislation in that sense; or whether it is the fact that two years in we still have not seen any changes to Bill C-51. We finally tabled a bill in the dying days of the last sitting of the House, which does not go nearly far enough.

It is a troubling tendency we are seeing that is undermining the confidence and trust that Canadians have in their national security agencies and in the approach that successive Conservative/Liberal governments have had. There is a lack of understanding that rights and security are not a zero-sum game, and that the word “balance” implies that there is sacrificing of part of one or the other. We need to do both. Unfortunately, that is not the report card that the government can have.

We look at a bill like this, at these kinds of agreements more broadly, as we decide to share more and more information with a U.S. government that is being led by a president who has opened the door to the use of torture, and has removed privacy protections on information, not only for his own citizens but even more importantly for non-Americans. For Canadians, in that specific context the government cannot ignore it. Whether it is trying to fast-track this bill that was tabled in the House in June 2016, maybe to make nice for NAFTA negotiations, the fact is, it is about time that the government started to hit the brakes on this willy-nilly sharing of information.

I want to end on one piece. If the government is so proud of this agreement, if it really thinks it is doing the right thing, I have one question to ask. Unfortunately, I will not get to ask it, so I will ask it rhetorically. Why is it that on the first day back in the House of Commons, after a great summer of work that we all spent in our constituencies, that we are hardly going to hear any Liberal speakers? The minister has spoken, and there will maybe be a handful more speakers. However, it is mostly New Democrats and Conservatives who will be carrying the debate.

Maybe my Conservative friends can tell me what is so great about this bill, because, sadly, I do not think I am going to hear about it from the Liberals. They have certainly not made the case for it. The “just trust me” approach by the minister is not good enough when it comes to protecting Canadians' rights and privacy.

Customs ActGovernment Orders

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC

Mr. Speaker, I also express my sadness on the passing of our esteemed colleague, Arnold Chan.

I was listening carefully to the debate by the hon. member on the other side of the House. The hon. member mentioned that it is our duty to protect the safety of Canadians. I have not heard a single thing about how this bill does not protect the safety of Canadians.

I have had the opportunity to travel across the globe. All major countries have a system in place to help monitor the exit of travellers. We did not have a mechanism in place. I am proud that this minister is putting that mechanism in place to protect the safety of Canadians.

I would like to ask the hon. member if he would agree that this bill improves the safety of Canadians and if he would be able to support this.

Customs ActGovernment Orders

12:10 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

Despite what the Liberals and the Conservatives might say, just because the NDP stands up for Canadians' rights and privacy does not mean that we do not take the government's responsibility for ensuring public safety seriously.

Let us look at the current state of affairs. Take CSIS or the RCMP for example. They already have legal mechanisms and agreements in place with their U.S. counterparts for sharing information in the context of a criminal investigation, for example. The same problem comes up every time. We saw that in the debate on Bill C-51. We are told that these changes need to be made in order to ensure Canadians' safety. However, existing legislation does that already. In the meantime, the government proposes signing agreements that would make the border more seamless and allow more information to be shared, which threatens the rights and privacy of Canadians.

This creates a situation where information is exchanged with the American government, which does not seem to take seriously its responsibility to store and use that information appropriately. This is taking place within a context of profiling regarding people's country of origin or religious beliefs, despite the fact that legal provisions are already in place.

We in the NDP might be open to another proposal. However, the fact remains that, for us, any exchange of information that happens with no accountability and no mechanism to protect the rights of Canadians is unacceptable.

The time has come for the accountability, review and oversight mechanisms used by our national security agencies to take into account any and all exchanges of information that happen freely, not only here in Canada, between government agencies, but also with other governments, including the American government.

Customs ActGovernment Orders

12:10 p.m.

Liberal

Filomena Tassi Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the member and other members who have spoken in the House this morning for expressing condolences with respect to our beloved Arnold Chan. As a new MP, Arnold was a perfect role model for me. He will be sorely missed, and today will be a sombre day in this House. I am thankful to all who have expressed their condolences.

As Arnold would like me to do, I will return to what we are debating today in the House, which is Bill C-21. We are talking about disclosing who comes in and out of Canada so that we have a better idea as to whether someone is leaving the country. The information being shared is that which appears on the second page of the passport: name, date of birth, citizenship, date of issue, and date of expiry. In terms of safety, it is reasonable for us to know who is leaving the country.

The member was referring to us giving the U.S. information. Actually, the U.S. is giving us information on who is leaving Canada. This already applies to to foreign nationals and permanent residents. With this legislation, that will now apply to Canadian citizens. This is the sharing of information about people leaving the country.

It already applies to certain groups but does not apply to Canadian citizens. Does the member not believe that it is important for the safety for our country to know who is leaving Canada and when they are leaving?

Customs ActGovernment Orders

12:15 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's words about her late colleague. Certainly he will be missed by all of us. On that we can certainly agree.

On a lighter note, and with the member being from Hamilton, I would like to thank her city for the warm welcome we received there this weekend when the NDP caucus was in town.

On a more serious note, and to my colleague's question, as I said in my remarks, the fact is that this bill does not exist in a vacuum. It is part of a larger agreement between the Canadian government and the U.S. government to start sharing more information. It is only a first step in a larger program that is going to be rolled out over the next few years.

More specifically, proposed subsection 93(1) of the bill, “Information given to the Agency”, states:

(a) in relation to the conveyance or its travel route, the last place inside Canada from which it departed, regardless of whether the persons boarded the conveyance at that place, the date and time of that departure and any prescribed information

It goes on to talk about “the type of travel document that identifies the person,” and “the name of the country or organization that issued the travel document”.

Let us think about things like that. Say we have a Canadian citizen who is a dual citizen. This is a hypothetical example. Hypotheses are never very safe in politics, but for the sake of debate, let us use one. It is someone from a country that is a target of Mr. Trump's travel ban who uses his or her passport from that country to travel. Now we are sharing information with the U.S., telling it where that document is from and things like that. We are going down that rabbit hole, down that slippery slope. With all this profiling we are seeing based on religious beliefs or country of origin, that is where we start opening Pandora's box.

I have said a few times in my remarks that if we want to go down this path with these agreements with other countries, all the mechanisms that require the accountability of these agencies have to catch up, and they have not, whether it was Bill C-51 or the bills tabled by the government. We are not going in the right direction at all with regard to protecting Canadians' rights and privacy.

Customs ActGovernment Orders

12:15 p.m.

NDP

Pierre-Luc Dusseault NDP Sherbrooke, QC

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to see you again as a new session of Parliament begins.

I want to thank my colleague, because it is refreshing to see a member who has the courage to rise in the House to protect the privacy of Canadians. Listening to the debate today, it seems to me that most members are blinded by the word “security” and can no longer make a distinction between the privacy of Canadians and the importance of protecting our country.

Would my colleague agree that the direction we have been taking in recent decades will eventually lead to Canadians losing basically any right to privacy they once had? The government will know about every trip taken by Canadians and know everywhere they have gone in the past year. Part of the motivation behind this definitely has to do with social programs. The Liberals did not even try to hide that earlier. Indeed, the minister said that Service Canada would have access to that information to administer the EI program.

Does my colleague think this is heading in a dangerous direction, that it seems as though Canadians will soon lose all right to privacy and that the government will know everything about their day-to-day activities?

Customs ActGovernment Orders

12:15 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC

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

That is exactly what is happening. I remember what the Conservative member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound often said when he was asking witnesses questions in committee. He often said that he was prepared to sacrifice some of his privacy for the sake of national security and that he was not too worried about it.

That is easy to say when one is not the victim of discrimination. Once again, I am hearing the Liberals reassure us that we are talking about the basic information that is found on page 2 of one's passport. However, the problem with information sharing, when we create opportunities for privacy violations and we share more and more information within the various government agencies in Canada and with other foreign governments, in this case the U.S. government, is that it becomes possible for officials to sometimes jump to erroneous conclusions based on that small amount of information.

Information such as a person's country of origin, date of birth, or even gender may seem inconsequential, but that may be all it takes in the hands of a discriminatory government agency. When discrimination is involved, even basic information can lead to unfortunate consequences. That is why we need to take the responsibility to protect that information very seriously, and we do not believe that the Liberals or the Conservatives are doing that.

Customs ActGovernment Orders

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be back in the House of Commons and in this chamber to be able to speak to and debate important pieces of legislation, as we are doing here today on Bill C-21.

I know I speak for all of us when I say, with a very heavy heart, that I am very saddened that one of our colleagues, the member for Scarborough—Agincourt, Arnold Chan, has passed away and I send condolences to his wife, Jean, and their three kids.

I will be splitting my time today with the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge.

I will be supporting Bill C-21, an act to amend the Customs Act, because it is really about safety and security for Canadians. It is about respect for our laws and accountability and ensuring that we keep a safe and smart border.

In simple terms, the proposed changes would provide the Canada Border Services Agency with the legislative authority to collect basic exit information on all travellers leaving Canada. In so doing, these changes would further advance two of the government's most important priorities: ensuring Canada's national security and its economic prosperity.

As hon. members well know, the women and men of the CBSA play a critical role in keeping our borders secure and in facilitating the flow of legitimate trade and travel. They are highly trained professionals on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. At the same time, no matter how well we train our border services officers, and regardless of how vigilant they are, we must recognize that they cannot be fully effective in the performance of their duties if they are not equipped with the tools they need to do the job, the job we expect of them.

That is what the bill is about, ensuring that Canada's border services officers have the tools they need, namely, more complete and more accurate information about who is crossing our borders and when they are doing so.

Today, on entry into our country, this information collection and exchange happens for approximately 80,000 travellers a day, with no impact on their travel experience. While this information is useful, it does not provide a complete picture, because while entry data is collected for all travellers, exit data is collected only for people who are not Canadian citizens who leave the country by land. This creates a number of problems. For example, with no means of identifying precisely who is exiting our country, we cannot know if wanted individuals are fleeing Canada to escape prosecution, if an abducted child who is the subject of an Amber alert is being snuck out of the country, or if a radicalized individual is leaving Canada to participate in terrorist activities abroad.

Bill C-21 would ensure that Canada, like most of our allies, knows when someone leaves the country. It is pretty straightforward. It is pretty standard around the world. This is a big step toward safer and more successful border management.

Expanding our collection of exit information would offer a range of benefits. For instance, with access to exit information from airline passenger manifests prepared up to 72 hours in advance, the CBSA and its law enforcement partners would have a new capacity to respond to the outbound movement of known high-risk travellers and goods prior to their actual departure from Canada, and they would become aware very quickly if such a traveller crossed by land into the United States.

In a contemporary environment, where criminal activity frequently crosses international boundaries, I am especially encouraged by how this legislation would help combat human trafficking and exploitation.

There are a great many things we are already doing to pursue the perpetrators and rescue the victims of human trafficking. Other legislation is before the House, such as Bill C-38, which would give police and prosecutors important new tools to facilitate human trafficking investigations and prosecutions. The government has been partnering since last year with major financial institutions to track financial transactions related to human trafficking. Millions of dollars are being invested through the national crime prevention strategy to support programs in communities across the country that help people exit exploitative situations. Fifty-three law enforcement partners across nine provinces participated in the most recent operation, Northern Spotlight, which identifies and helps people who are being exploited or who are at risk of exploitation. However, if Canadian authorities do not know when a human trafficking suspect or victim is leaving the country, that is a significant blind spot for investigators.

With Bill C-21 in place, law enforcement would be better able to work with international partners to locate traffickers and their victims and to identify travel patterns, human smuggling destinations, and implicated criminal entities. This would help investigators break up a human trafficking operation and help prosecutors secure convictions in court.

As well as being very useful for criminal investigations, knowing who has left Canada and when would help immigration officials identify people who have remained in the country beyond their authorized periods of stay. It would also help protect the integrity of benefit programs with residency requirements by allowing officials who administer those programs to make eligibility decisions on the basis of information that is more reliable and complete.

To be clear, everyone collecting benefits in accordance with the law would continue to receive them. For example, this would not affect snowbirds collecting old age security, because anyone who has lived in Canada as an adult for 20 years can collect OAS, regardless of where a person lives. It would not have any impact on medicare eligibility, because the information would only be used at the federal level. I am sure that all Canadians want to know that eligibility requirements for benefit programs are being respected, and the bill would help ensure that they are.

Also, Bill C-21 would address a problem highlighted by the Auditor General in the fall 2015 report. At that time, the Auditor General found that the Canada Border Services Agency, “did not fully have what it needed to carry out its enforcement priorities” related to the export of controlled or illegal goods. He recommended strengthening CBSA's export authorities, information, practices, and controls to better protect Canada and its allies, fight organized crime, and meet its international obligations.

Bill C-21 is a major advance in that direction. It would give Canadian border services officers authorities with regard to the export of goods similar to the authorities they have when goods are imported into Canada. It would make it an offence, under the Customs Act, to smuggle prohibited or controlled goods out of the country.

We will achieve the advantages I have outlined, and my examples are by no means an exhaustive list, without any additional burden or requirements imposed on travellers. Under Bill C-21, people would continue to simply show their passports when crossing the border. Their basic information, such as name, date of birth, and nationality, would be collected, just as it is now, at land ports of entry for all travellers entering the U.S. from Canada and all travellers entering Canada from the United States. Each country would share that information with the other. In other words, when people told the U.S. that they were coming in, the U.S. would let Canada know that they had left. For travellers leaving Canada by air, the same basic biographic information would be obtained through electronic passenger manifests received directly from air carriers. Information collected in this way would not be shared with the U.S.

I emphasize that these changes would not be felt by travellers. They would, however, strengthen our border security and integrity and thereby improve the security of Canada as a whole.

At its core, Bill C-21 is about keeping Canadians safe and about having a border that is secure and efficient. Given the extent to which our prosperity relies on the movement of people and goods across the border, Canada must be a world leader when it comes to border security. At the moment, when it comes to maintaining awareness about who and what is leaving our country, we are at the back of the pack. The measures proposed in Bill C-21 would serve to align Canada with international partners that have implemented, or a are in the process of implementing, such systems, such as New Zealand, Australia, the U.K., the European Union, and the United States. We need to keep pace, and we need to ensure that the women and men of the Canada Border Services Agency have the tools they need to carry out the vital work we expect of them.

I urge all hon. members to join me in supporting this important bill.

Customs ActGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am curious to know the member's opinion on how this legislation would affect those individuals who are entering Canada now at unofficial border crossings in both Quebec and Manitoba.

Customs ActGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON

Mr. Speaker, that is an important question. We do not condone in any way anyone entering Canada illegally. Those who have crossed the border as asylum seekers may have circumvented the third country agreement that we have with the United States, but they will have to go through due process if they are seeking refugee status, and those who do not meet the very high test we have for refugees will be sent back.

Customs ActGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

NDP

Pierre-Luc Dusseault NDP Sherbrooke, QC

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

I will return to what I was saying earlier about privacy. I am concerned about the path we have been on these past few years. Canadians enjoy less privacy with each passing year, because their government, be it federal, provincial or municipal, has more and more information about their private lives, their lifestyles, and their travel habits, which we are talking about today.

Does my colleague give any thought to Canadians' privacy when he studies a bill like this? Does he realize that this is yet another step on this increasingly perilous path, the one that brings governments to know more and more about people's habits and movements?

Does the member see a problem there at all?

Customs ActGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON

Mr. Speaker, the member may have heard me say in my remarks that the information to be shared at the border is what is found on the second page of any of our passports. We are talking about the name of the individual, nationality, and age. This is the information that is being shared.

What I have heard from Canadians is that they expect respect and accountability when it comes to our customs and duties, our laws, and when it comes to ensuring the integrity of our social system programs. All of that is something I find Canadians value dearly. They want to ensure the integrity of those programs and make sure they are accountable.

We are also keeping in line with our partners from around the world in providing the tools to the CBSA that it requires. The Auditor General spoke of the gap that exists today, such that the CBSA women and men are not able to do the job we have empowered them to do to keep us safe. Safety is paramount to the citizens of Mississauga East—Cooksville, as I am sure it would be to the citizens of the member's riding.

Customs ActGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

This past weekend, Mr. Speaker, an Amber Alert was issued in the Laurentian region when Louka Fredette and his father went missing.

If they had crossed the American border, we would never have known. If the bill before us was law, however, we would have that information.

Does my colleague believe that to be an important change?

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12:35 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for that very important and very emotional and heart-rending question, because I know that when we all see an amber alert go up, as the member said just happened in his area, we are all vigilant. We all want to ensure that we can bring that child back to safety. These amendments to the legislation would enable someone who tried to abduct a child across the border to be caught very quickly, because that information would be shared.

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12:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

Usually at this time we would continue with questions and comments, but that time has expired. We always want to leave enough time for the next hon. member who is speaking to take his seat and continue.

We will now resume debate with the hon. member for Vaughan—Woodbridge.

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12:35 p.m.

Liberal

Francesco Sorbara Liberal Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is great to be back here in the House to do the nation's work.

I would be remiss if I did not take two seconds to pay tribute to my colleague and friend from Scarborough—Agincourt who sadly is no longer with us today. My sincerest condolences to his children and family. He will be deeply missed. I will miss having breakfast with him at the Marriott, which is where we stay and where I got to develop a friendship with the hon. member. God rest his soul and God bless.

I am pleased to support the legislative provisions in Bill C-21 that would amend the Customs Act to authorize the Canada Border Services Agency to collect personal information on all persons leaving the country.

We all understand the importance of obtaining basic biographical information on people arriving in Canada. Who are they? Where are they from? How long do they intend to stay? These are all basic security questions. That said, it is just as useful to keep track of people leaving the country, and on that front, Canada lags far behind.

While most every other country collects basic information on travellers on their way in and out of the country, Canada only collects data on a small subset of people leaving the country. That means that we can never really know who is in our country. We know someone has come into Canada but cannot know for certain if they have left.

At this time, since we lack the means to precisely identify every person leaving our country, we have no way of knowing whether dangerous individuals are leaving Canada to evade justice. We also have no way of knowing whether, for example, we are wasting the immigration department's valuable resources trying to track down a person who was ordered to leave Canada but who may already have left of their own accord. The fact that we do not collect exit data also limits our ability to react swiftly to Amber alerts or suspected abductions.

This is a blatant and unacceptable security gap, one that many of our international partners have already rectified. We need to catch up. To be clear, we are not talking about collecting reams of personal information about people leaving Canada. We are talking about the “basic” biographical data that appear on page 2 of a person's passport, meaning their name, date of birth, citizenship, and gender, the type of travel document, the document number, and the name of the country that issued the document.

The only other information that would be collected would be the location and time of departure, and flight number in the case of people leaving by air. In other words, this is the same information that travellers voluntarily provide when they enter Canada or any other country. That is all. No new information would be collected. Of note, no biometric data, such as photographs or fingerprints, would be collected or exchanged as part of the entry-exit initiative, and travellers will not notice a difference.

This is how it would work: for people crossing the Canada-U.S. border by land, border officers in the country they enter will simply send that passport information and departure details back to the country they just left. In this way, one country's entry is the other country's exit and vice versa. The exchange of information in the land mode would occur on a near real-time basis following a traveller's entry into either country, usually within fifteen minutes.

The exchange would take place through an existing secure electronic channel between Canada and the U.S., the same channel that is used to transfer information between Canada and the United States under the NEXUS, FAST, and enhanced drivers' licence programs.

For air travellers, no new exchange of information between nations would be required. The information comes directly from airline passenger manifests. To obtain an exit record in the air mode, for example, the CBSA would receive electronic passenger manifests directly from air carriers with information on all passengers scheduled to depart Canada aboard outbound international flights. This information would be received up to 72 hours prior to departure to facilitate the identification of known high-risk travellers attempting to leave Canada by air.

That is a key point for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it will help Canadian authorities recognize when someone drawn to violent extremism is preparing to leave the country and stop them from travelling abroad to participate in terrorist activity.

In fact, Bill C-21 will help border officials to deal with a number of threats that they currently lack the tools to address.

The CBSA is our first line of defence against threats originating overseas. It uses a system called lookouts to identify persons or shipments that may pose a threat to Canada. Lookouts are based on information in the CBSA’s possession or that may come from sources including the RCMP, CSIS, immigration officials, and local or international law enforcement. While the lookouts system is effective for identifying inbound threats, the absence of exit information means that it is not effective for identifying outbound threats.

In a global threat environment, with dangerous individuals leaving or trying to leave peaceful, stable democracies to join extremist organizations, collecting reliable exit information has never been more vital to support Canada’s national security. We must equip the Canada Border Services Agency with the statutory authority to collect the same information on outbound travellers that it does on inbound ones. With the passage of these legislative amendments, CBSA’s lookouts system will be strengthened, allowing the Agency to notify partners if and when a known risk intends to leave, or has just left, Canada. This information closes the loop on an individual’s travel history, and fills a gap which has been exploited by persons trying to avoid the law.

As a final note, it is important to recognize the care that has been taken to ensure this initiative is designed to respect and in fact comply fully with Canada’s privacy laws and obligations. The communication and collaboration between the CBSA and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada in the design and implementation of the Entry/Exit initiative has been extensive, productive and instructive in terms of protecting privacy rights.

There is no question this bill will enhance the security of Canada and its allies. I urge my colleagues to support its swift passage, and ensure the women and men of the CBSA have the resources they need to do their job of securing the border and facilitating bilateral trade and the free movement of legitimate travellers.

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12:45 p.m.

Conservative

Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON

Mr. Speaker, before I ask my question to my hon. colleague, I would like to say on behalf of my colleagues and the constituents of Kitchener—Conestoga that we extend our sympathies and condolences to the Chang family, and also to my colleagues on the other side of the House. We certainly share in their grief as we journey through this difficult valley.

I do not think it is a secret that we will be supporting this bill, including the aspects of increasing the safety and security of all Canadians. With the current reality of many individuals crossing our borders at so-called unofficial entry points, I think this question needs to be asked. How would this legislation affect those areas such as Manitoba and Quebec, where we are seeing many immigrants coming into Canada at these unofficial entry points?

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12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Francesco Sorbara Liberal Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Kitchener—Conestoga for the comments he made in reference to the hon. member who, sadly, is no longer with us.

In terms of these amendments to Bill C-21, the bill strengthens our border security. It would take us in a step that we need to go in terms, not only of knowing people coming into our country—we do—but also when they are leaving. That can only further improve the information that is available to authorities, and also our knowledge that people are coming for the right reasons and that they leave at the time they say they will leave.

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12:45 p.m.

NDP

Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by extending my most sincere condolences to Arnold Chan's family and friends. He left us much too soon and will be missed. Next I would like to congratulate my colleague on delivering his speech in French.

We just spent nearly three months in our ridings. All summer long, I talked to my constituents in Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. I talked to professionals who travel to the United States regularly on business, people who vacation there, and retirees who live there part-time.

In light of everything I have heard since we first started talking about this bill, what I would like to know on behalf of my Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot constituents is whether we, as citizens, are getting adequate information. People cross the border in good faith, but are they truly informed that their privacy can be violated? Do they truly understand that, once they are in the United States, they have little or no protection when it comes to their personal information and privacy?

That is the question on my mind. I would like my colleague to comment on that.

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12:50 p.m.

Liberal

Francesco Sorbara Liberal Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON

Mr. Speaker, that was my first speech in French in the House, so I am a little nervous.

As for the member's concerns related to civil liberties or the use of information, obviously those concerns are taken fully into account with these amendments and in Bill C-21, such that Canadians going for their winter holiday in Florida from Quebec or Ontario, or anywhere else, would know that their information is guarded and is secure, and that it is not anything that would impinge on their civil liberties.

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12:50 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. friend across the way from Vaughan—Woodbridge, who is part of our party.

The trade zone in the EU follows something similar to this, and I wonder whether the member could comment on the importance of having free movement of people across borders in trade jurisdictions such as we have in North America as compared to the EU.

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12:50 p.m.

Liberal

Francesco Sorbara Liberal Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON

Mr. Speaker, for an economy that is so interlinked as is the one with Canada and the United States, any issues that could threaten or add to border thickening are not good. Bill C-21 would allow for some reversal of that if that is the situation. It would allow for a greater movement of people and goods, and for a greater feeling of security between the two countries.

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12:50 p.m.

Conservative

Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is good to be back in the House joining colleagues from all parties to debate the issues that are important to Canadians.

First, I want to take time to remember the member for Scarborough—Agincourt, Mr. Arnold Chan. I extend the most sincere condolences on behalf of my riding of Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, as well as members on this side of the House, to his family and colleagues opposite. In the little time I had to know him, he was a remarkable gentleman. He will be missed. May God rest his soul.

I will be splitting my time this afternoon with the member for Oxford.

I am pleased to rise today to speak to government Bill C-21, an act to amend the Customs Act. I would like to believe that all members of the House understand the importance of trade for Canada's economic prosperity and ultimately the quality of life and opportunity for today and into the future. This bill is in line with priorities that I hear from my constituents about their economic and safety concerns. Those are boosting jobs and opportunity, reducing regulatory burdens on honest and hard-working Canadians, safe and effective borders, and supporting Canadians who play by the rules and respect the rule of law.

First, boosting jobs and opportunity are critical. Our economy is highly interwoven with our largest trading partner, the United States. Despite recent political turmoil across our border, our relationship remains strong, and our trade continues as we work out a revised and hopefully mutually beneficial agreement on NAFTA. The start of this bill predates both current administrations and is a testament to the resiliency and efforts of our economic and political relations with our neighbours to the south. Under Prime Minister Harper and President Obama, Canada and the U.S. launched the beyond the border initiative that would work to address threats early, facilitate legitimate trade, integrate joint border enforcement efforts, and ensure appropriate infrastructure on both sides of the border. Under the beyond the border action plan that established a long-term partnership between our countries, Canada and the U.S. sought to deliver enhanced security on both sides of the border and accelerate the flow of legitimate goods and services. Continuing to move this agenda forward increases the ability for legitimate business to quickly and easily move goods across the border, and allows Canadians to move freely and easily through land and air travel.

My riding of Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner spans the majority of southern Alberta's Canada-U.S. border and is home to every border crossing in the province, except for one in Waterton Lakes National Park. These five crossings provide Alberta and Canada with a corridor to over 300 million customers in one of the largest markets in the world, which is critical for all types of industries. Thinning the regulatory burden and moving goods through the border more effectively means profits, jobs, and growth for Canadian farmers, manufacturers, and transportation firms, and it supports local economic growth.

For example, in my riding, there remains a push by local and provincial leaders to improve the crossing at the port of Wild Horse. As the crossing nearest to Medicine Hat, it received a $2-million infrastructure boost in 2015 from the previous government to meet the very things this legislation is setting out: the effective and safe flow of goods and people across our borders while identifying those who are unwilling to abide by the law. I have heard loud and clear from businesses, the chamber of commerce, the Palliser Economic Partnership, and local leaders, all eager to see the border crossing hours expanded year-round as an initial first step. They note that this is an important trade corridor and that it will have huge economic benefits, not only for the local region but all of Alberta and western Saskatchewan.

The ability for goods to move across our border in both directions is part of a $600-billion annual trade between our countries. We know that Canada is the second-largest purchaser of U.S. goods in the world, an important market for them, and that the U.S. is the top consumer for Canadian goods and services. Farmers in my riding gain hundreds of millions of consumers for their products, arguably the best in the world in my opinion, and for most small businesses, their only export market is in the U.S. For time-sensitive products, ensuring that these goods are moved through the border can be the difference between success and failure. That is why the beyond the border initiative is critical to the long-term success of our country and why this bill is important to moving forward with thoughtful debate and appropriate consideration.

An area that continues to be debated is the collection and use of personal information and how that information will be protected and used. It is important for our government to get accurate information about the flow of goods and people across the border, so it can invest in infrastructure and provide the appropriate hours of operation to support economic growth. As an example, in my riding, many local businesses are seeking the expansion of the border operations to support that growth. Having good and timely information about where Canadians are can also help with evacuation efforts. As we saw from the recent challenges in the Caribbean, the government was not sure how many Canadians were in the region. Exit information will not entirely solve this, but it could provide better immediate intelligence to the government in organizing a response to these sorts of issues.

As a former police officer, I know that tracking down offenders, suspects, witnesses, and, sadly, families of victims is an important part of everyday life in that world. Providing information on who enters and leaves the country will support national and local law enforcement finding people quickly, to know if they have left the country and where they might be.

Having good information from our borders for our immigration system seems more important than ever. In various parts of the country, Canada has seen an influx of refugees from numerous countries, legitimate asylum seekers fleeing repressive regimes like ISIS or al Qaeda, where religious freedom is non-existent and those of faith are persecuted for not taking the extremist view that is pushed by militaristic regimes. Supporting those honest and hard-working people joining Canada, and providing them with the necessities to grow in their new country, is important.

We have also seen large numbers of people entering Canada illegally from the U.S. and jumping the line of other refugees and immigrants. It would be helpful to know from the government if any of the bill's measures that are proposed to increase coordination of entry and exit information would do anything to reduce the flow of asylum seekers from arguably the second-freest nation in the world. If programs and resources are diverted from honest, hard-working Canadians and legitimate refugee claimants, all Canadians begin to question how the government is managing taxpayers' money.

This updated tracking information will also make it easier for Canadians and permanent residents who frequently leave the country for work. Our government has been known to request proof of departures and arrival timelines for those who work overseas, something that should be available to it without asking honest Canadians to provide proof of their interactions with Canadian officials. I would seek to know from the government if it can assure us that immigration officials, border guards, and tax officials will ensure that they coordinate and share information appropriately.

In closing, I offer my reserved support, pending some further information from the government, expert witnesses, and officials with respect to how the new powers and information will be managed and safeguarded.

I would like to thank the minister for bringing this legislation forward, which, like much of our important trade work, was started by the previous government. I look forward to working with him and all of my colleagues in this House to advance this legislation.

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1 p.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner for his remarks and for his support of this bill.

As I mentioned to my colleague earlier, I believe that this bill is important, in light of the Amber Alert that took place just outside of my riding a few days ago. Had that person gone across the border, we would still be looking for that person. I wonder if the member has any comments on how important this information is in that context.