Charlie Angus

[Privacy, May 2nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is, they left over one million Canadians vulnerable to fraud artists, and the minister has no plan. Thanks to Conservative mismanagement, more and more Canadians have been left open to this kind of fraud and lost information. Some departments are seeing breaches every 48 hours. Instead of coming clean with Canadians, they sat on 90% of the breaches.

The minister could not keep track of $3 billion. He cannot keep the private information of seniors safe. Where is a third-party manager to help him do his job?

[Privacy, April 30th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, this government seems to think that losing the privacy data of one million Canadian seniors and students is an ideological debate. The New Democrats say it has to do with bad management.

Now, 99.9% of the breaches happened under the government's watch. We are talking about its mismanagement of personal data. It is not good enough that the minister says he is now going to meet with the Privacy Commissioner. He should have been meeting with the Privacy Commissioner when the breaches happened.

Getting caught is not an action plan. Where is his commitment to the million-plus Canadians who had their data lost, stolen or hacked? What happened to the plan?

[Privacy, April 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it took the New Democratic investigation into his incompetence, and he is going to hold the meeting.

When he bragged about creating open government, he did not tell Canadians it was open for fraudsters and cyberthieves. The extent of this breach is staggering. More than one million Canadians have had their data lost or stolen, and in only 13% of the cases has he come clean with the Privacy Commissioner, which means that he has left Canadians in the dark about their information being stolen. It is not good enough in an age of cyberfraud and identity theft. Will the minister come clean with Canadians and tell them who has been affected, how much data has been lost and why they have been left high and dry by the minister?

[Privacy, April 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is pretty clear that the minister does not seem capable of protecting the privacy information of Canadians. The extent of these breaches is staggering. They are losing Canadians' personal data almost every 48 hours.

When Canadian seniors file their taxes online, they should not have to worry that their SIN number, their address and their financial information is going to be lost or hacked. So will he agree to the New Democrats' proposal that he turn over these cases to the Privacy Commissioner and then come clean with the more than one million Canadians who have had their data lost, hacked or stolen?

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. This is a very important debate because the one thing we all share in the House is an abhorrence of the senseless and cruel violence we saw in Boston and elsewhere. We know where the Conservatives are coming from. Their agenda has always been clear.

The issue I have is that earlier I heard the Liberals compare Bill S-7 to Bill C-55. For the last two days, the Liberals have been saying that if the police ask for tools, we should give them the tools. One of the problems with that is there has to be judicial oversight. When we look at Bill C-30, which the Conservatives brought forward and was a widespread bill to allow all manner of intrusions into people's online private interests without warrant, based on the supposition or desire of a police authority, we see Canadians rejected it because it was an unnecessary tool, yet the government came back with Bill C-55, which narrowly defined wiretap provisions under judicial authority.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why he thinks the Liberals think it is okay to have judicial authority and review on wiretaps but allow people and their relatives to be held without warrant without any kind of oversight provisions that we consider important.

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague, and he talked about how certain groups are targeted because of violent acts that have happened.

In my family, and I come from a family that is orange and green at a time when there was such division and hatred, the one thing that brought both sides together was their horror at the sectarian killings that were happening in Ireland. I remember my grandmothers talking about what happened to the people in Ireland and England who were caught up in the sweep. At the time, it was popular to just arrest people and suspend the rule of law. It was seen as okay. Our Liberal colleagues talked about it today. It was popular to suspend civil liberties in Quebec, and therefore that made it right.

We look at the cases, and they always say it is to get the bad guys, but the question is, what happens when they get the innocent, as my colleague said about Maher Arar? I would like to point out the story in England, where Annie Maguire and seven members of her family were put away for 15 years on anti-terrorism charges, and they were innocent.

It is incumbent upon parliamentarians to ensure that the rule of law remains the basis while we are protecting citizens from terrorist activity. I would like to ask my hon. colleague what he thinks about the problems of so-called preventive arrest without charge.

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, what is really important to state for Canadians who are concerned, as we all are, about potentially dangerous people, whether they are politicized radicals, have a religious attitude or just want to cause chaotic harm to people, is that under the Criminal Code a person can already be ordered to appear before a judge if there is concern, and the judge can hold the person and deny bail if he or she believes the individual poses a threat. What is different about Bill S-7 is that a judge can detain a person for 24 hours without cause, detain the person just on the perception or the feeling of a police officer that the person may be engaged in terrorism.

New Democrats put forward amendments to try to clarify what would give law enforcement officers that ability. What is a terrorist? Are we talking about violence? What is it? The government refused to work with us on clarifying it because it said it wanted a wide sweep of powers. I find that concerning, because we saw that widespread civil rights abuses happened at the G20 against people who were just exercising their democratic rights, and now we see how people who oppose the pipelines are called eco-terrorists.

The government said it wanted a wide sweep. I would like to ask my hon. colleague why he thinks the Liberal Party, which has wrapped itself in the flag of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, has refused to come forward with even a single amendment to at least clarify and basically protect the rights of Canadian citizens. If that party believes in the charter, why is it not standing up for it?

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for the excellent history he provided on what happened to the people in Quebec during the dark days of the FLQ, when Pierre Laporte was brutally murdered and James Cross was kidnapped. I was astounded to hear the Liberals say that it was right because treating the entire francophone population in Quebec as a threat and detaining people without warrant or trial was popular, and since it was popular, it therefore made it right.

This is the same attitude the Liberals took post-9/11, when Maher Arar was dragged off to Syria and tortured. At the time, nobody except New Democrats was saying that this man may be innocent. We did not know all the facts at the time, but we said that this man deserved the rule of law. We were right, just as we were right for opposing the War Measures Act at the time, because it is not about what is popular. Politicians should not give in to the fear of the day. They should stand for the principle of protecting civil liberties while making sure that police have the tools they need to go after criminals.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why, in light of legislation that strips away basic fundamental freedoms Canadians have fought for, the Liberal Party has done nothing in terms of amendments or attempts to improve this bill to ensure that innocent people are not arrested.

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, like all Canadians and members of the House, regardless of their politics, we have such anger and frustration when we hear of, for example, the VIA Rail plot. Whether it is true or it is not, people would harm innocent people. We want the full weight of the law to be brought against people who would create the kind of chaos that was created in Boston. What we are seeing with Bill S-7 is what the Conservative government called a wide sweep of measures and this is what Canadians need to understand: terrorism is a fundamental assault on the rights of a democratic society, but we do not counter terrorism by engaging in an assault on the basic rights of the rule of law.

New Democrats brought forward numerous amendments to attempt to clarify the provisions. Unfortunately, the Liberals brought zero amendments. I would like to ask my hon. colleague why he thinks it is that the Liberals did not even bother to try to fix the bill, to try and work with us to ensure that basic civil liberties are not undermined in the pursuit of terrorists.

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. Again, all of us are so offended by senseless violence and the effect it has on our society. One of the most poisonous effects is that it creates an impression that the basic rule of law and basic rights need to be done away with.

We saw this in 2001 with the horrific time after 9/11, when rendition, torture, arrest without a warrant and detention without charge were considered to be what was needed for the 21st century. At that time in Canada, we had a young engineer who was just coming home from work, Maher Arar, and he was arrested and sent through rendition to torture in Syria. That happened under the former Liberal government. At the time, Mr. Arar was considered to be the price to be paid for democratic freedom. The man was being tortured and he was completely innocent. Now, we realize that his rights were completely abused.

At the same time, the Liberal government brought in two very controversial measures. One was the ability to detain someone without charge. The other was to force those individuals before a judge without their being able to protect themselves. The Liberals knew it was so contentious that they agreed to a sunset clause, because it was to be for a limited period of time. Now, we see that the government is bringing it back in the wake of the horrific killings in Boston and that the Liberal Party is supporting it. The Liberals told Canadians they would sunset it, but now we see them hiding on the coattails of the Conservatives, bringing back the same provisions that were proven unnecessary and a major affront to Canadians back in 2001 and 2002. They could still lead to further incidents. We have not seen this party understand the implications of what happened to Mr. Arar.

We need to ensure that innocent people are not caught up in what they are calling, under this bill, the need for the wide sweep.