Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the freedom-loving residents of Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke to speak to Bill C-2, the Liberals' so-called strong borders act.
Conservatives will always support secure borders, the rule of law and the protection of Canadian sovereignty, but we must ensure those who enter our country do so legally, safely and with respect for our values. We support measures that protect Canadians from illegal drug trafficking, human smuggling and organized crime. We support reforms that streamline immigration processes and ensure fairness in our asylum system.
What we will not support are the measures that target law-abiding Canadians. We do not support criminalizing the use of cash. We do not support the warrantless surveillance of Canadians' Internet activity. We do not support giving law enforcement the power to search Canadians' mail without judicial oversight. These are not border issues; these are surveillance measures. These are control measures, and they have no place in a free and democratic society.
In many ways, this bill is an admission of failure by the Liberal government. It has allowed crime and chaos to run rampant. The government claims this bill is about going after international gangs that push fentanyl on Canadians, yet it includes no mandatory prison time for traffickers. There are no new mandatory prison times for gangsters who use guns. This bill proves that the Liberals can swap out their leaders but keep the ideology.
Thanks in part to the Liberals' new censorship law, many Canadians have no idea that the Prime Minister is seeking to ban cash transactions. The Liberals want to make it a criminal offence for businesses, professionals and charities to accept cash payments of $10,000 or more in a single transaction or a series of related transactions. This is not a targeted measure against money laundering. It is a blanket restriction that affects law-abiding citizens. It treats legitimate transactions as suspicious simply because they involve physical currency. It forces Canadians into digital payment systems that are traceable, surveilled, controlled and hackable.
Using cash is not a crime. It is a legal form of payment. It is a tool for privacy, autonomy and financial freedom. Criminalizing its use sets a dangerous precedent. Today it is $10,000. Tomorrow it could be $5,000, then $1,000 and eventually nothing. This is a slippery slope toward a cashless society where every transaction is monitored and every citizen is tracked.
We must ask who benefits from this. It is not ordinary Canadians, not small businesses and not charities. The beneficiaries are governments, banks and corporations that profit from data collection and digital control.
Conservatives believe in financial freedom. We believe Canadians should have the right to use cash for legal transactions without fear of prosecution. We oppose this provision and call for its removal from the bill.
I know that many government members were first elected in 2015. They have never sat in opposition. As we all learned from the Liberals' caucus turmoil last year, this is very much a top-down party. I raise this because this bill resurrects the so-called lawful access measures, which grant the government access to Canadians' Internet data without a warrant. This is not the first time the “securitycrats” have tried to bring this into law. They tried to get us to pass it in 2012, when we were a majority government. Fortunately, we had a prime minister who respected and listened to his caucus colleagues. That is why we withdrew the bill.
It is no surprise that fresh off an election, while the Liberal ministers are still trying to find the bathrooms and staff up their offices, the “securitycrats” would slip this in. They want law enforcement to have the power to demand data such as IP addresses, usernames, device identifiers and service usage history based on a mere suspicion standard. This is not on reasonable grounds or probable cause, but just suspicion.
While many actors across the aisle were not here during the last debate on so-called lawful access, my biggest fan, the member for Winnipeg North, was. Here is a great question he raised during that debate:
...the vast majority of the public, and individuals who are watching, are very curious as to the degree that law enforcement officers, or any others who might be designated through the minister, might have to access their history on websites and the content of emails. The minister makes reference that this does not change what is in place today.
Could the minister assure those who are listening to the debate that the government does not, in any fashion whatsoever, allow for any sort of invasion of privacy without some form of a judicial court warrant to enable police to do so?
I am sorry. I am not a great mimic. Even if the Liberal ministers cannot speak honestly about their opposition to these parts of the bill here in the House, I hope they find the courage to do so in caucus.
Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure. That clear wording is why police require reasonable grounds to obtain a warrant. Anything short of that will invite abuse. The problem is in defining “reasonable”. It is why people who are trying to defend their homes are being thrown into jail instead of the armed intruders.
This is not about border security. This is about giving the state unchecked power to monitor Canadians' digital lives. This is the natural precursor for the Internet censorship bill that the Prime Minister has pledged to reintroduce. Warrantless access to Internet data, combined with the vast digital safety bureaucracy the Liberals envision, would make the communists who control China blush.
The only thing that could make this worse is if the government had access to technology that could sift through vast amounts of data quickly and tease out surprising connections. Wait. It does. The Liberals brag about it all the time. That is why they have contracts with U.S. company Palantir. In 2012, when we last debated so-called lawful access, that kind of technology was science fiction. Now it is scientific fact. Canadians do not want Liberal AI spying on them. These snooping sections of the bill must be deleted when it reaches committee.
The Internet is an integral part of 21st-century society. We can see in China that despite vast state surveillance, citizens tolerate the lack of privacy for the convenience of using the Internet for shopping, school or socializing. However, that is not the case with the mail and Canada Post. The Liberals plan to allow police to search the mail without a warrant. That fact would be a decapitating blow to the zombie corporation we refer to as Canada Post.
Not only would this obviously violate section 8 of the charter, but it would also infringe on section 3, the right to vote. Nothing would undermine the confidence of mail-in ballots faster than Liberals giving themselves the power to open mail. For Canadians living overseas, there are no alternatives to voting by mail. If the state can inspect someone's ballot, then their right to vote has been infringed. The mere threat of ballot inspections would be enough for unsavoury actors to pressure overseas voters. Those unsavoury actors would not just be rogue partisans, but foreign agents seeking to undermine our democracy.
Meanwhile, the fentanyl dealers will switch to FedEx, UPS or drones. Two years ago, correctional officials in B.C. intercepted a pigeon with a tiny backpack filled with drugs. Drug dealers are using Canada Post because it is cheap and easy. Allowing warrantless searches might stop the dealers from using the mail, but it would not stop the dealing and the distribution of drugs. What it would do is stop regular Canadians from trusting the mail, and given the decline in trust and confidence we have seen across democratic countries, this bill would do too little to help and too much to hurt.
Canadians want to have confidence in their government. They want to know that it is tackling security. They want criminals in jail and our border under control, but we cannot have trust in a government that gives itself the power to spy on its citizens without a warrant based on reasonable grounds. It is checks and balances on state power that instill trust. It is still the competent execution of those powers that builds confidence. Conservatives call on this government to remove the sections where trust is undermined.