Charlie Angus

[Ethics, May 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, every time I hear that Elmer Fudd routine, I know the Conservatives are on the ropes.

To be fair, it was not just Conservatives who were hanging out with Bruce Carson. Dan Gagnier, the senior adviser to the Liberal leader and co-chair of the Liberal Party, was also very chummy with this convicted criminal.

We know that APTN blew the whistle on this affair, but will the Prime Minister tell us when he was first informed about Mr. Carson, his former chief adviser's illegal activities within his department, with his staff, and his office? Will the Prime Minister tell us that?

[Ethics, May 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of being soft on crime, the Prime Minister hired convicted criminal Bruce Carson to be his chief adviser, who now stands charged not just of influence peddling but illegal lobbying in the case of trying to rip off poor first nations that need clean drinking water.

The Prime Minister only called in the cops after the media started asking questions. What was the Prime Minister thinking when he allowed a convicted criminal to slip through all the security checks so that he could be his chief adviser? What was he thinking?

[Justice, May 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised to raise the ethical standards in Ottawa. Instead, he set up this Nixonian-style enemies list that has grown to include the independent officers of Parliament, the Supreme Court Chief Justice, and even Sheila Fraser. Now Justice John Gomery, who helped ferret out Liberal corruption, says he is appalled by the Prime Minister's behaviour toward the Supreme Court.

When will the Prime Minister stop with the vindictive attacks and start paying some respect to eminent Canadians like John Gomery?

[Government Appointments, May 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, let us talk about the Prime Minister's lack of judgment as he undermines public appointments with pork barrel and patronage.

Step forward, Dr. Don Meredith, sitting in the Senate until he is 75, and nobody can fire him. He may be a loyal Conservative, but he is no doctor. He boasts academic credentials from a so-called university that is unaccredited, unregulated, and apparently unable to provide a real phone number. If one calls the unelected Dr. Don's number, well, we do not want to go there.

It would be funny if it were not such a sad commentary on Canadian political life under the Prime Minister. Canadians are tired of the way the Prime Minister has undermined public office. He surrounds himself with dodgy characters and fills patronage appointments while trashing public officials who stand in his way.

Canadians know they can trust a New Democratic government to clean up the mess left behind by Conservative and Liberal patronage appointments.

[Business of Supply, May 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague and I am sort of surprised at his reluctance, given all his talk about oversight, to support this motion, which is about oversight. The person who does oversight for Canadians is the Privacy Commissioner, who has raised the alarm bells.

I would like to also suggest to my hon. colleague that the proposals the government is bringing forward to legalize what has been happening with the 1.2 million requests would actually vastly expand the ability of all manner of people to conduct any manner of fishing expeditions.

I would like to refer to an article in the National Post today, talking about Bill C-13. It says it will take out the caveat of the necessity to actually be investigating a crime when you call up a telecom and want information about an average Canadian. That would be removed. I find it staggering that we would not need to have a reason to investigate someone, that someone would just be able to investigate it and it would be legal.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why he thinks it is okay for the government to vastly expand who can make those calls. It would not just be the RCMP or CSIS now. It would be all manner of public officers. It would include tax agents, sheriffs, reeves, justices of the peace, people who work in the fisheries department, and mayors. I would like to ask my hon. colleague, if he is in a dispute with the mayor in his jurisdiction does he think that the mayor should have the legal right that would be enshrined in Bill C-13? Perhaps they do not read their own legislation. I know they do what they are told over there. A mayor would have the right to call a telecom and ask for the IP information on an average Canadian citizen? Come on.

[Business of Supply, May 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague.

It has been fascinating listening to the Conservatives, because in their upside-down world, they are opening the door to widespread snooping and spying on Canadians but are somehow protecting their privacy.

I ask my hon. colleague about what we are reading in the National Post about the government's supposed fix, Bill C-13. We have been hearing from their tough-on-crime guys. It is all about the police investigation and the importance of investigation. We need to be able to investigate and go after the crooks, the perverts, and the crazy terrorists. However, under Bill C-13, the Conservatives' fix would take out the provision, the caveat, that enforcement agencies would actually have to be doing an investigation. It would no longer be for investigating crime but for anything that would help in “administering any law in Canada”.

It is the ultimate free ride for fishing expeditions, not just for law enforcement but for corporations. Under Bill S-4, corporations could demand information on our Internet use, as could public officers, which include, if we look up the definition, reeves, mayors, and even people who work for the Department of Fisheries, fisheries officers.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why he thinks the government is so intent on changing the law to allow widespread snooping. Is it possibly because this is what the standard practice has become under the Conservatives' watch?

[Business of Supply, May 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, if she is making claims about what I said, she has to retract that. That is a false statement. I would not say it is a lie because I could never say that, but she cannot make false statements.

[Business of Supply, May 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague with interest, and a little surprise. This is a government that seems to be talking out of the both sides of its mouth. It first says it is just basic data that anyone can get in a phone book but that we need to do it immediately to stop all kinds of terrorist threats.

She mentioned ISP numbers and IP addresses and said that is ordinary; it is like looking in a phone book. I would like to quote Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, who I am sure my hon. colleague would agree is a vigilant defender of Canadians' rights. She said that getting government information on an IP address is not like the digital equivalent of using a phone book. She stated:

...customer name and address information ties us to our entire digital life, unlike a stationary street address. Therefore, “subscriber information” is far from the modern day equivalent of a publicly available “phone book”. Rather, it is the key to a much wider, sensitive subset of information.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why this large subset of sensitive information would be opened up under Bill C-13 to so-called public officers, which would include reeves, wardens, fisheries officers, and mayors. Under Bill S-4, this information will also be turned over to corporations that ask for it through telecoms. Then the telecoms would be given blanket immunity not to tell Canadians. Why is it that the government is going to expand who has access to this sensitive subset of information on the private lives of Canadians?

[Privacy, May 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians were spied on 1.2 million times last year, and under the government, it is about to get a lot worse. Under Bill S-4, the Conservatives will now make it legal for corporations to call telecoms and demand an individual's personal information.

Under Bill C-13, peace officers or public officers, who are defined in law as small town reeves, fisheries inspectors and officers and yes, mayors like Rob Ford will now be able to call telecoms and demand our personal information.

It is like a massive fishing expedition. Why has the government declared open season on the private rights of law-abiding Canadian citizens?

[Business of Supply, May 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, what is being debated in the House of Commons is the need to ensure oversight, to protect the rights of Canadians and to ensure the laws are being applied.

That would be a fairly straightforward thing for any normal government to support. Unfortunately, it seems the current government is very threatened by anybody establishing any basic standard of accountability, which is why the Conservatives continually undermine and attack the officers of Parliament.

For the folks back home, the officers of Parliament have the role of protecting the basic rights of Canadians. Therefore, as New Democrats, we have brought forward a motion to ensure that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has the tools to find out, when every 27 seconds somebody is spying on Canadian citizens, what the basis of that is. Why are they snooping and demanding this information?

For the government to not want to give that information out and for the telecoms to refuse to co-operate is very disturbing.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague what he thinks it says about the culture of secrecy and obstruction within the government that it wants to deny the officer of Parliament whose job it is to ensure laws are being applied fairly and being complied with. The government wants to keep her from doing her job of defending the rights of Canadians.