John Bryden

[Canadian Charter Of Rights And Freedoms, October 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot support the motion, although I see where it is coming from and I certainly agree that the charter as it exists has created a great amount of work for the courts, which has taken away from Parliament to some degree.

The motion as it stands confuses the principle of rights and freedoms with that of behaviour. When we say "responsibility" we are talking about how people should deport themselves as citizens. I submit that the motion would have made much more sense if it had suggested a charter of responsibilities for perhaps the Citizenship Act which is currently under review.

However even then I would find myself in difficulty supporting such a motion. One of the basic freedoms we have as Canadians is the freedom to do nothing. We have the freedom not to be strong, to be individuals who may be seen as weak. We are nevertheless individuals who deserve not to be penalized because we are less strong than others. That is the reason we need a charter that deals with the rights of individuals.

I had a great deal of difficulty during the recent hearings on the renewal of the Citizenship Act. I have to go back in time also to the Canada clause of the Charlottetown accord. In that particular latter instance a document purported to tell me as a Canadian whom and what I should respect. It said that I had to respect minorities, people because of gender, and people for various other reasons.

I submit that as a Canadian I do not have to be told things like that. As a Canadian and someone who would automatically know because of the way I have lived I would know that everyone in the country should be treated equally. I would think this is a fundamental matter.

When we talk about responsibilities we are beginning to impose our own rules of behaviour on other people. The hon. member opposite during his remarks cited, for example, that it should be the responsibility of every Canadian to report lawbreakers, to inform the authorities whenever someone is deemed

to be doing something that is against some law or regulation. We had an instance of that about 60 years ago and that was the type of rule that existed in Nazi Germany. I believe Stalin resorted to that as well.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I want to direct one remark to the member for Guelph-Wellington. The good news I heard in her remarks was that these changes will eliminate much of the duplication of services between the federal government and the provinces.

Would the member agree that this will eliminate one of the primary sources of friction between the federal government and the provinces, and that provinces like Alberta and Quebec, for example, should be very happy?

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the English translation of my colleague's remarks in which he was saying that MPs should be consulted and informed on the awarding of government contracts in their ridings. I trust that was a correct translation.

I have no difficulty with the idea of being informed. However, if it is a matter of consultation, does the member opposite not see a danger that it will be perceived that politicians, MPs, are interfering with what should be an open process and putting political weight on what should be a completely non-partisan question?

[Supply, September 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. colleague.

Sometimes separatists say that after separation the new Quebec can still retain a shared currency with the rest of Canada and even a shared citizenship, which is somewhat contradictory in my view.

Does the member feel that the new, separate Quebec should also expect to share CSIS and the Communications Security Establishment?

[Supply, September 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member commented on the public's lack of trust. I submit to him that we do not help the public's confidence or trust when we engage in major, shall we say, witch-hunts based on unsubstantiated allegations as in this case and as occurred many times in case of the previous Parliament. When the House is drawn into debate and people make allegations across the floor without proper evidence we erode the public's trust.

On his other comments, I cannot forecast what a review committee or the people reviewing the matter ought to do until they see the evidence. They will make their own decisions.

[Supply, September 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. I think it was a very good one indeed.

The reason Canada has been perceived in this way-and I think it is a very serious problem-is that perhaps not enough money has been invested in CSIS in the past. Perhaps CSIS has not had the support it deserves. I am aware that there was a major investment in CSIS just recently. A new CSIS building has just gone up south of the city here. I think progress is being made.

I do not think a royal commission, if I may say to my colleague, is the way to go in getting to the root of his particular concern which I share. I think this should be the subject matter of the appropriate parliamentary committee.

[Supply, September 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly think that the examination of this issue should go wherever the parliamentary committee deems it ought to go and call whatever witnesses the committee thinks appropriate.

I do point out that there is an enormous assumption of dishonesty here. Is my colleague opposite suggesting that the previous government was so corrupt, and it would be corruption, that it actually could politicize CSIS and do what he said? Otherwise, unless that assumption is made there is no reason, no motive to believe that this Mr. Bristow did infiltrate the Reform Party.

I submit that the apparent lack of motive makes it enormously probable that this did not happen.

[Supply, September 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I stand corrected on that. I will read the headline because it is not relevant to display it: "CSIS spied on metro Somalis". The gist of the story, based on a leaked document, was that CSIS did have agents engaged in some undercover work in connection with the Somali community because it feared that there were some violent elements in this community that were a threat.

Certainly with the very recent history of the problems in Somalia, we would all agree that CSIS had legitimate cause for concern. We would probably also agree that its wanting to get information from the Somali community in this case was proper.

What is not proper is the fact that this document was leaked and the story appeared in the newspaper. I do not fault the newspaper because newspapers must run with the information they receive. The fault was the fact that a document was put out that very obviously was designed to or at least would have had some result in damaging a very legitimate operation on the part of CSIS.

That brings us to a very important point which is that we should be deploring in this House the fact that somewhere along the line the system went awry and that an individual in a trusted post was able to collect CSIS documents with the apparent intention of leaking them to the newspapers for whatever reason. We can only be grateful that the Toronto Star actually ran a photograph of one of these leaked documents leading to the person who was leaking them.

I do not want to sound very narrow and rednecked about this, to use that expression, but I really do hope that the government does take some very positive steps-and I hope it has the mechanisms-to prevent civil servants and people in trust from leaking documents of this nature. We must have orderly government, be it in connection with the secrets or intelligence agencies or cabinet confidentiality or whatever. This was a very serious precedent and we should all be concerned.

I believe I have time to move on to another topic which is the issue of accountability that has been raised time and time again and which I believe is the aim of the motion. It is a very important issue. I have heard the speakers on all sides and heard the explanation from my own members on the structure that has been set up to try to make CSIS and the Communications Security Establishment accountable.

In the final analysis, when any agency or any government department is engaged in secret work, as many are-the military, for example, certainly is engaged in secret work; it has to do military testing and that kind of thing-the guarantee of accountability is the quality of the civil servants and the strength of democracy.

We can put the legislative controls in place but nothing is guaranteed because people work of necessity in the shadows. When we are dealing with foreign intelligence or counterintelligence we have to work in the shadows. Despite what has been said I do not really believe that members opposite think we can expose that to parliamentary committee examination. It really is impractical. We would lose all our allies if we did that, at the very least.

It still is a problem. How do we bridge the gap of confidence in the personnel who are engaged in activities that are not immediately seen, that are not laid out before you?

The answer ultimately is having a strong democracy and a strong screening process. The only thing I would add to that, and it is a pet thing with me, is that I would have a very carefully documented accountability.

Over and above what we have heard here, the only way we can control these individuals who must work behind the scenes, is to require them to put their orders always on paper and have this paper record preserved in perpetuity. We have to have a control that will not allow people to destroy records.

I believe when democracy is strong with a strong and dedicated bureaucracy, the control on the bureaucracy for doing the right thing when it has to operate in secrecy is to be answerable to history. When the historian comes along 30 or 40 years later and looks at it and sees that even if the decision was marginal or borderline or questionable, at least he sees the bureaucracy operated in good faith. The vast majority of people in our bureaucracy, certainly in this country, operate in a spirit of good faith and try their very best. This is an important point to bear in mind.

I will conclude by talking about the future of CSIS. This also is at stake in this debate, the fact that the world has changed radically, as we know, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and so forth. This has to and must change the face of counterintelligence.

CSIS is primarily a counterintelligence agency. We must be very clear on that. New threats are spread across the board. We now have situations where very small countries can pose very great threats. We all realize there is a terrific problem now in keeping controls on plutonium. The great stocks of plutonium that exist in the former Soviet Union may pop up in any third world country. I regret to say that the technology for making small bombs is well known. This is a fundamental threat.

Fundamental again is the threat of biological and chemical warfare agents, particularly biological warfare agents. These are the weapons and dangers of very small nations. We have to have a constant and very alert secret service that examines these dangers worldwide. We also have to examine these dangers internally.

We have an open door immigration policy, which I think is wonderful, but we have to understand that with that open door immigration policy we are also open to genuine security threats. It is not just obvious criminals, but the ones that are not obvious, the ones that may be carrying the torch of hatred from the animosities of their homelands which they might employ against other ethnic groups in Canada. We must have a strong organization to look at that.

I have one more thing to say. This pertains to the Communications Security Establishment, which we alluded to before. The world is a global village. The threat now goes beyond just security threats. The threats are also economic and political. We have to be aware of the fact that Canada is a nation that relies enormously on trade.

I see the Minister for International Trade is here. He will agree with me that Canada's future is delicately balanced on our ability to compete worldwide. Not every country competes fairly. Some countries are willing to resort to intelligence gathering in various ways and in other illegal activities, which may affect our ability to trade honestly and adequately.

The role of our intelligence organizations involves making sure Canada is always dealt with fairly. We must have a strong intelligence service that will back us up because the record of history shows, going back to previous centuries and this century, that a nation with a strong intelligence service will use it and use it sometimes, I hate to say, on the weaker. We must be strong in order to compete.

Finally, if ever there was a reason against separatism, against the break-up of the country into smaller pieces, it is the expense of running a comprehensive and professional intelligence service.

If we separated, the new piece-a separate Quebec-would have to set up its own intelligence service. It would lose all it has gained from the very fine intelligence services that we have had since the second world war. It would be on its own and it would not have friends. That is a very dangerous situation to be in.

[Supply, September 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am really pleased to speak to this motion. I think there is always a place for this kind of debate. I do not feel this motion is correct. I do feel it is flawed. Nevertheless I think it is always a topic that we on all sides of this House should look at from time to time.

Let me address the motion first and foremost. The word used in the motion is "illegal". A royal commission is to be called because of alleged illegal activities. This appears to rise from allegations in the press, in the media, this is the way we understand events, that would suggest that CSIS has been involved in impropriety that requires an investigation.

I would like to address that because one of the accusations in the press was that the CBC was being spied on by CSIS. I think it was that story more than anything else that fueled the reaction that has led to the debate we have before us and the various studies that are going on as to CSIS activities.

I would like to comment on the story that was in the Toronto Star . I have a document here and I wish to show it. It is relevant. The headline from the Toronto Star states: ``Spy agency kept watch on CBC''. I believe this was a page one story at the time.

Naturally a headline like that is going to cause a lot of concern on all sides of the House and with the public at large. When one examines the actual body of the story that is in question here about the CBC being spied on by CSIS, one discovers that this headline is entirely based on one paragraph in the story. That paragraph reads: "The source reported attempts by Howard Goldenthal, a researcher for the Fifth Estate, a CBC program, to obtain information from the Heritage Front leader Wolfgang Droege about whether members of the Canadian airborne regiment in Somalia had any links with racist groups in Canada.»

It was the Fifth Estate, a CBC program, but it could have just as easily been a CTV program or it could have been an inquiry from the press itself. What we really see here is the informant replying to a legitimate concern that was connected to the possibility that there was racist infiltration of the Canadian airborne regiment.

I think we would all agree that it is legitimate for CSIS to want to examine possibilities such as there may be infiltration of the Canadian forces by a group that represents racist elements. That was the tenor and the content of that particular story. However, the headline was: "Spy agency kept watch on CBC". This is the sort of headline that has probably generated more than anything else this type of public concern.

At issue there is the whole question that we are pursuing something, and I mentioned it to the member for Wild Rose, where a whole debate has been initiated on the basis of allegations and not evidence. I cite that as an example and there are other examples in the media that are basically only allegations that are not supported in any way by fact that we know.

Before we go to a royal commission I stress to the members present that we have to go a little further than allegations that appear in the press.

I would like to go on a bit further. This situation concerns me greatly. We have story that suggests that CSIS had an agent, an undercover person, in an organization that may have sometimes been associated with very right wing activities, and that this agent may have engaged in activities as part of his cover that could be construed as right wing or even racist.

What is the difference between this person, if he really did exist, and a police undercover operation involving a plainclothes person penetrating a drug ring? Surely we would all agree that it is perfectly proper for a police agency in an effort to expose crime, in an effort to ferret out threats to national security or municipal security, if you will, to have an undercover agent and we would expect as part of that cover that the agent would take on the persona of the group he is trying to penetrate.

I will take that a step further. I do not have any background any more than any other member here about what was actually occurring. I submit that if this Grant Bristow was an undercover agent doing a legitimate task for national security and as a result of the leaks to the press has been disrupted in a project that had great value to the security of this nation, then I would say something very unfortunate has occurred.

We should be disparaging of what occurred, not coming down on CSIS on mere allegations. CSIS, because it is a security agency and an agency engaged in secret intelligence, does not have the ability to speak out and simply defend itself without jeopardizing agents like somebody who may be doing an undercover operation.

There is another issue here, the whole question of the leak of the documents that led to the disclosure that CSIS was engaged in certain undercover operations.

The one involving the Heritage Front I do not know what damage is involved and I do not know whether it is true. However, I will draw the House's attention to something everyone seems to forget. There was a first leaked newspaper story in connection with this business. That leaked story resulted in a headline in the Toronto Sun on August 13, 1994, sometime before the Toronto Star headline that I mentioned, and it stated: ``CSIS-

[Supply, September 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very quick question.

The member mentioned in his speech that a parliamentary review must be taken which would cost $25 million because CSIS is accused of breaking the law. The word the hon. member used was accused.

Does the hon. member not think we should wait until there is some evidence before we actually launch such an expensive inquiry rather than going on the basis of an accusation?