Joe Comartin

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, March 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, one of the other questions, if I can add to the list, is, why do we not have a clear, in writing, binding agreement that says if this information is going to be shared, it is not to be shared with anybody other than the United States?

At committee, we saw some of the examples of the abuse. We have situations where we are passing on information as to where we are travelling, what hotels we are staying at, what tours we are taking. There are all sorts of information where corrupt or anti-democratic governments are quite prepared to use violence against their citizenry to use that information to track if we are having meetings. Let me use Colombia as an example. If I am going to Colombia to meet with some of the labour movements there who are generally targeted by that government and by the paramilitaries, and that information is passed on to the government, it certainly can be leaked and often is leaked to the paramilitaries. So, the people I am meeting with are now in danger. I could go on with any number of other examples.

So that, again, is a pre-condition. If we are going to share this information with our closest ally, our closest ally has to absolutely guarantee, with no exemptions, that this information stays in its country, within its services, and is not passed on to other countries.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, March 1st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I must admit that I rise with some concern having to follow the eloquence and passion of the member for Winnipeg Centre and now the member for Timmins—James Bay. They are always a little intimidating to follow because of their eloquence and oratorical skills, quite frankly.

The member for Timmins—James Bay is suggesting intelligence, and I am going to take issue with him on that, not with regard to the member for Winnipeg Centre but for the member for Timmins—James Bay. The eloquence and oratorical skills are clearly there, which are skills that are sorely lacking in the House in many ways.

This is the second time this week I have spoken to this bill. I spoke yesterday on the same bill, but at that time I was specifically speaking to the contents of the bill. I will come back to that in a few minutes, but I want to address some comments on the reason I am allowed to speak the second time, as have so many of my caucus members, which we would not have been allowed to do according to the rules of the House but for a typical bullying manoeuvre by the government. What it did was this. Late yesterday afternoon it brought a motion to the House, which certainly is within its rights to do, which had in effect the purpose of shortening debate on the bill. That was moved yesterday by the House leader, but what that did was re-open the debate.

We are allowed not only to speak against why debate should be continued. We are also allowed to explain the significance and importance of Bill C-42 to the Canadian people and their basic rights which are fundamental to the democracy that is Canada. Quite frankly, it is ironic. Had the Conservatives not brought that motion, the debate probably would have ended sooner simply because we would have run out of time in terms of the number of speakers we had who wanted to speak to this.

I want to make the point very clearly that our caucus is utterly opposed to this bill because of the breaches of privacy and also because of fundamental rights that will be affected very negatively by this law if previous patterns in the United States follow. Our caucus is absolutely opposed to the bill. A large number of caucus members have insisted on being given their opportunity to speak to the bill to express the reasons why they and their constituents are opposed to it.

To some extent, I have to thank the Conservatives for giving us this opportunity to speak more. Yesterday I was limited to 10 minutes, with five minutes of questions and comments. I am getting a second chance because our time for the 20 minute speeches had lapsed.

This is a criticism of both the government and the Liberal official opposition. Both parties have stood in the House at various times, both at second reading and again at third reading, and argued that we had to pass this because it was being demanded by the United States. This is particularly true of the Liberals but also of the Conservatives, that they have tried to somehow rationalize their support for the bill on the basis that we know there is potential for problems. Both sides of the House, the government party and the official opposition, have, in their more honest moments, admitted that. There is real potential for abuse to the Canadian citizenry. We hear repeatedly the line, “We will take care of that down the road”. That is grossly irresponsible on the part of any parliamentarian. We are talking about basic privacy rights and also the high risk to other fundamental rights, human rights and civil liberties.

There is no reason to believe that it will not happen given the history of the U.S. no-fly list and the way the Americans have abused both their own citizenry and some of ours in the past. There is no reason to believe that it will not occur again.

What is happening here, if this bill goes ahead, is we are exposing many more thousands of Canadian citizens and residents to their names ending up on that no-fly list and the process being used against them.

One of the real problems with this legislation is the regime in the United States that deals with the no-fly list. We know, and this came up at committee repeatedly, that the no-fly list in the United States is full of errors. We always hear of the reality of the now deceased Ted Kennedy's name being on it. The former interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Bill Graham, was on the no-fly list. We have heard from my colleague from Winnipeg Centre that he is on the list.

The point being is that it is obvious that those people do not pose, in any way, a threat to the United States, and certainly are not a terrorist threat. In many other ways they may pose a threat to some of the policies of the United States, but that is okay in a democracy. People are allowed to have that voice.

The problem is people like that, and many more, get their names on the no-fly list and there is essentially no way of getting their name off. There is no way for it to happen. For the average person, the process does not exist. If those names came off the list, if Mr. Graham's name came off, or if Mr. Kennedy's came off, it was because there was some political person somewhere who said that it was really dumb and that maybe those names should be taken off, and then some official somewhere was directed to get their names off the list. We have no idea how that happens.

As I said in my speech yesterday, I have been working for the better part of a year on behalf of a prominent citizen in the Windsor area. It is going to be extremely damaging if it ever comes out that his name is on that list. I can say with absolute honesty and frankness that I have tried every single angle, including political routes, and have had no luck in getting his name off the list. We cannot even figure out who is ultimately going to be able to do that.

We have had other cases. The member for Vancouver East had one three, four or five years ago. It was for someone who was from Ontario, but who was on the west coast. It dealt with flying into the United States on business and then flying home. When this person gets to the airport in Vancouver, he is told, “Sorry, you're not allowed on the plane. Your name is on the list”. There was no explanation as to which list it was at that time. We subsequently learned, quite frankly from information from one of the clerks at the desk, that it was the U.S. no-fly list.

He has not been able to get his name off this list. So any flights that he takes now in Canada, he has to be sure that he is not in any way going through U.S. airspace because he will not be allowed on the plane.

It is a system that is rife with abuse. It is a system that is also grossly inefficient. It does not work. That is the bottom line. Yet, we are being told here, both by the Conservatives and the Liberals, “You have to vote for this because our American neighbours who we all know are great negotiators are saying that is the only way we are going to allow you to fly through our airspace”.

It is interesting in that regard. That threat has been outstanding. It was supposed to be in effect at the end of December, if this bill did not go through, and all flights flying through U.S. airspace would be cut off. Here we are at March 1 and our planes are still flying.

We have to continue to call the Americans' bluff and say that we are not going to do this, that if they clean up their list and implement some meaningful protections within that system, so that people whose names get on the list erroneously can get them off in an efficient, quick way, then we will negotiate with them as to whether we are going to allow this information. But before that, this bill should be voted down.

[Privilege, March 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, as indicated in the letter I sent to you earlier today, I stand in this House to raise a question of privilege both for myself, as an individual member of Parliament, and for all other members of Parliament as well.

My question of privilege arises from the estimates tabled today in the House by the Treasury Board President. In an article by reporter, David Akin, who is part of the parliamentary bureau and the QMI Agency, that appeared on a web site earlier than the time the estimates were tabled in this House, it is clear that Mr. Akin had specific knowledge of what was in those estimates.

I would draw your attention specifically to the fact that in both the written article and in what was up on Mr. Akin's blog on his site as of 9 o'clock this morning, the estimates not being tabled in this House until after 10 o'clock this morning, Mr. Akin says:

The government's spending plan, to be tabled today, shows that the [Prime Minister] plans to write cheques for at least $250.8 billion in 2011-2012.

On page 7 of the main estimates that were tabled today, in the table titled “Comparison of Main Estimates”, it says that the total net expenditures of the Government of Canada for 2011-12 is estimated to be $250.8 billion, which is exactly the same figure that Mr. Akin had in his article before the estimates were tabled here.

Mr. Akin has a number of postings on Twitter, a social media network, and one was posted about an hour before 10 o'clock this morning, before the House was sitting and before the estimates were tabled. The posting reads, “Govt will table spending plan for FY 2010 today: Total $250 billion, about $10 billion less than this year”.

With the facts I have provided in two different formats, there is no doubt that the journalist had knowledge of what was in the estimates before they were tabled in this House.

Mr. Speaker, on the issue of our privileges as members of Parliament, you have ruled on a number of occasions that, both individually and collectively, we have an absolute right to expect the government of the day to provide information, whether it be on a bill or, as in this case, the estimates, to this House before they are provided any place else.

Just to headline this, Mr. Speaker, I will quote you on a couple of occasions when you have said this more explicitly. The basic concept is that if we are to do our jobs and we are to perform our responsibilities as members of Parliament, we need to be able to respond to inquiries based on the knowledge that is tabled in this House, whether those come from the media, from particular sectors of the economy, society or individual constituents. We need to be in a position to present responses but we cannot do that if material is getting out into the public, in this case in the form of a journalist, without us seeing that in advance. We have no ability to respond and in fact we cannot do our jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I want to draw your attention to at least two decisions that you made in the past on this topic. A question of privilege was raised on October 27, 2009 by the Bloc member for Joliette concerning the Minister of Public Safety giving out material in the form of a bill. It was clear that the information, once tabled in the House so that the rest of us could see it as members of Parliament, had gotten out to members of the media in advance by at least 24 hours and perhaps as much as 48 hours in that case. That involved the bill to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

After hearing arguments from a number of members of Parliament, other than on the government side, claiming that their privileges had been breached, you said this, Mr. Speaker, as you were drawing your conclusion and rendering your recommendation. You were talking about where the convention came from and why we have this privilege as members of Parliament and you said this near the end of your decision:

The purpose of the convention is also to ensure that members are not impeded in their work by being denied information that others have been given.

You were very clear and explicit, Mr. Speaker. The minister had argued that very little time had elapsed in terms of the bill being put on notice and tabled in the House and you said you recognized that, but went on to say that was not the issue. The issue was the ability of members of Parliament having that information so that we could do our job. By not doing that and giving it out in advance to the media in that case, you were clearly making the determination that a prima facie case had been made for privilege.

Mr. Speaker, in that case your decision in that regard and the recommendation from the member who had moved the motion was to send it to the proper committee and you in fact ordered that. You went on to say:

To deny to members information concerning business that is about to come before the House--

Which is the same that we have with the estimates:

—while at the same time providing such information to media that will likely be questioning members about that business, is a situation that the Chair cannot condone.

When the committee reported, it said this:

The Committee believes that the protocol of the Department of Justice whereby no briefings or briefing materials should be provided with respect to a bill on notice until its introduction in the House of Commons should be adopted as a standard policy by all government departments. We believe that such a policy is respectful of the House of Commons and its members. It recognizes the legislative role of Parliament, and is consistent with parliamentary privilege and the conventions of Parliament.

That decision was in the spring of 2001.

One of the arguments will be, I will anticipate, that was about a bill and whether the convention also applies to the estimates. I want to draw to the House's attention in that regard and argue by analogy that it is the same as what we have here. This was a decision by Speaker Jerome on July 25, 1975, on page 7940 of Hansard.

The factual situation in that case was that a newspaper had printed an article alleging that there had been a leak of the budget, that a member of Parliament had given that information to a business person, presumably the concept being that the business person benefited financially. The issue that came before the House on a motion of privilege was that the member of Parliament first denied he had done that, claimed privilege on the basis that the article had, in effect, slandered him and asked that the matter be sent to committee so it could be investigated, in effect his mechanism for clearing his name.

Speaker Jerome in that case said yes, the leak in itself, which is what we have here with information being given, is in the form of a leak to Mr. Akin. The very fact of that is what creates the privilege.

Speaker Jerome said this, noting that the member stood in his place and denied the accuracy of the article:

Therefore, what is at issue is an alleged use of a national newspaper to accuse, falsely, a member of a misuse of his privileges as a member of this House.

He went on to say:

Certainly there has been a disposition on all sides of the House to say that, if there is a suggestion that such a thing has taken place, it is a fundamental interference with the rights of every member of the House of Commons to operate freely and perform his functions freely. If that question exists in general terms--and in the circumstances which are before me I can scarcely decide otherwise--I cannot see in any way that the Chair ought to interpose itself, from a procedural point of view, and prevent the House having an opportunity to take a decision in respect of the matter. I do stress, that it is, in the final analysis, a decision of this House--

As it would be here.

--which will say whether or not the matter goes to the committee on privileges and elections where the matters that have been discussed and raised by almost all members who have participated can be dealt with.

I believe, by analogy, that is the situation we are faced with here. We have had a leak. We have had information, whether intentionally or unintentionally, given to a member of the media. That interferes with our ability to do our job, and in order to be able to respond in an intelligent, meaningful way to any enquiries about the estimates.

So, similar to what Speaker Jerome found, that there was a breach of privilege there, it did go on, as I am sure you may be aware, Mr. Speaker, to the committee for review and decision. I have not been able to find the outcome of that. The point being, in that situation which I argue is very analogous to the situation we have before us today, there was a finding of prima facie breach of privilege.

If you do so find in this case, Mr. Speaker, I would be prepared to move the appropriate motion to have this matter referred to the appropriate committee.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 28th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We still have other individuals who are prepared to speak on this.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 28th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the answer, in short, is no. There does not appear to be any way of being able to get one's name off that list.

As I say, I have this case that I have been working on for over a year. I have explored every angle, both legal and political, as well as administrative behind the scenes, and there does not appear to be any way that one can get one's name off that list.

I think we have had a Federal Court decision that said some similar thing, in terms of other cases. So, it is just not possible to do it and yet, we are prepared to expose more Canadians to that list.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 28th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues were just speculating what that was all about, so I am having some difficulty responding.

I did not get an answer from that member as to whether his government, or his party, and I think he still thinks he is in government. He certainly talks, in terms of responding to questions, as if he were still on the other side of the House, in terms of not answering.

There is absolutely no reason, given the speech that he has made in this House repeatedly and that other members of his party have made in this House repeatedly, attacking this legislation and this kind of approach and attacking the government for being weak in its negotiations. What is it he kept saying? “Just leaving them up in the air”. Why are they voting for this legislation? Are they making the same error as the government? Are they caving in to the bullying tactics of our neighbour, as opposed to standing up for our citizens and saying, “We're not doing that. You're not going to abuse our citizens that way. Here's an alternative route you can go down. We're prepared to look at that. We're prepared to negotiate with you, country to country, but we're not caving in”. As opposed to what they certainly are prepared to do by voting for this, and the government is clearly in favour of.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 28th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am still waiting for the sky to fall. The end of December came, then January and now February 28 and the sky had not fallen. It is so typical, both of the official opposition and the government to fall into that trap. Anytime when dealing with a bully, one pushes back and does not cave. That is what we see happening on this bill.

It is a fairly innocuous bill when looked at initially. It has two sections to it. However, the impact it has on Canadian citizens flying is quite severe. This is not an issue in which we are saying this is what is likely to happen. We know it has already happened. That last member sat at the transport committee, where he heard the evidence from witnesses before the committee who described incidents where the United States had acknowledged the errors on its no-fly list and had also acknowledged the number of times the list had been used improperly.

I will talk about the errors on that list. This is the point we have to understand. What will happen is that more Canadians will end up on that no-fly list. More Canadians will have their ability to fly as they have traditionally, denied. Given the inability of the U.S. to manage the list, I think more Canadians will be in the middle of flights that will end up being diverted. I can give assurance that the list is not any better since then. If anything, it is worse because more names have gone on it. This was done by the electronic privacy information centre. It challenged the integrity of the list. It said that known or suspected terrorists were on this list and that the list remained filled with errors. That was the absolute conclusion to which it came. This is a U.S. government agency making that determination.

If we pass the legislation, and it will be the shame of Parliament if we do it, there will be hundreds if not thousands of additional Canadians being faced with that problem.

It has been difficult for me. I have a file right now of a very well-known individual in the Windsor area, and I will be very careful not to disclose it because the impact on him and his business would be horrendous. However, he and I believe he is on the U.S. no-fly list because of malicious information from a business competitor. I have been working on this file for over a year now. There is absolutely no way of finding out who made the initial allegation, who gave the Americans the information that he was a terrorist. There is no way of finding out how to get more specifics so we know what we are dealing with. The U.S. will not give us any of that. There is no process to get him off the list.

We have heard repeatedly in the House, and in committee in particular, of the abuse that has gone on. There are estimates that there are as many as 500,000 to 1 million names on the list.

Let me use another example of the ineffectiveness of that list. At Christmas a year ago, we had the Detroit underwear bomber incident. He was on the list. The Americans had been advised twice, once by his father and once by another source, that he would take that flight. They do not have the ability to manage that list. It is just horrendous that we are faced with the Kafkaesque type of responses that we get from that government. Yet the Conservative government and both opposition parties in the form of the Bloc and the Liberals are prepared to vote to allow more Canadian names to end up on the list.

It is not as if there is no alternative. We understand the sovereignty issues facing the United states. However, my riding is surrounded by the United States on three sides, and I am being very blunt on this, and there is a level of paranoia that exists around security in that country. We understand where it comes from, but Canadian government officials and Canadians have to understand how overblown it has become since 9-11. I believe we have a moral responsibility country to country to say to our neighbours that they are wrong and that there are ways to deal with this.

I will go through three points that we should be saying to the Americans before we allow any of this to go forward.

First, they have to clean up their list. That is an absolute precondition.

Second, they have to build in a process to allow individuals whose names have ended up on that list to counter the information that put them on the list. It should be a simple, straightforward and rapid process.

Third, we have to be absolutely clear that this information cannot be shared with other governments. We have seen all too many cases. The Maher Arar case is probably the most notorious case in the world. His information was transferred to another country. We saw the whole rendition process that he was put through and how it ended up. That would happen again at some point in the future with regard to this legislation. The government ended up apologizing to him and paying him $10 million to $12 million. How many more times are we going to have to do that because of passing this kind of legislation?

We also heard repeatedly about the threat from the United States, that if we did not get this bill through by the end of December, that they were going to cut us off and we would not be able to fly through its airspace. That has not happened and there was never any expectation, in our minds anyway, but there was in the minds of the government and I guess the Liberals.

Again, the Americans were very clear that when they were negotiating with us, they would be looking after their interests. I am not saying anything that would insult them. I think they would probably see it as a compliment. They expect one of two things from us. If they are being honest, they expect us to give in all the time. Also, reluctantly, they would respect us if we stood up to them and did not give in because it was wrong.

We should be telling the Americans that requiring us to submit our sovereignty rights to protect our citizens is not going to happen unless those three conditions are met as an absolute minimum. Also, if they are going to go ahead with this, then we should have access to the same information, which we do in other areas.

Why is the government doing this? Other than simply succumbing to that pressure, it is not standing up for our country or its responsibility to protect our citizens. The government simply gives in. There is no other explanation. This bill does not make any sense, looking at it from the perspective of Canadian citizens.

To put ourselves in this proposed position would be a total abdication of our responsibility as parliamentarians. The basic fundamental responsibility we have is to protect the interests of our citizens, their security, privacy and civil liberties. If we pass this bill, we will abdicate our responsibility in all three of those areas.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 28th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I have to claim some confusion. I read parts of the speeches that the member and other Liberals gave at second reading. I have listened to some of their speeches today and earlier at third reading and I am confused.

The member has just done it, as well as others from the Liberal Party. They attack the government on the merits of this bill, but, as far as I know, they still will vote for it, in spite of all of the problems with it and all of the potential risks that it poses to Canadian citizens and residents who at some point may be flying through U.S. airspace.

Could the member perhaps confirm that Liberals will vote for the bill in spite of his speeches and that of other members and if so, why will they vote for it when they know all the problems that will arise out of this bill if it becomes law?

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 28th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I was interested in the position taken by the member from Mississauga that we should not worry about this, we had not negotiated that part of it and that we should pass the legislation anyway.

We have seen the abuse by the Americans of their no-fly list and the number of errors, and this came out at committee. Their no-fly list is still permeated with errors that oftentimes have very negative consequences for the people who are the subject of those errors.

Could the member, who has been here for awhile, talk about the attitude of going ahead, doing this and then waiting to see what the outcome is going to be, as opposed to setting in place what the regulations should be, what the guidelines would be and what the absolute protection would be, in writing, in legislation, on both sides of the border?

[Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, we hear the government claim that it has to run this through rapidly. It prorogued Parliament twice and called an unnecessary election in 2005-06 and introduced all sorts of other crime-related bills, giving no priority to this one.

There is other procedural stuff the government could have done. It could have had a Conservative private member's bill brought forward, or even the Bloc could have done that. Yet here we are at the last minute having to scamper about to try to deal with this.

I wonder if the member could comment on other tactics that could have been used that would have been much more democratic than what we are faced with today.