Marc Garneau

[Colonel Bernard Finestone, February 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honour the life of the late Colonel Bernard (BJ) Finestone of Westmount, Quebec, who passed away in 2013.

BJ, an honorary colonel of the B.C. Dragoons, was decorated for his service as an officer and a tank squadron leader during World War II.

After the war, at home in Montreal, he was ever mindful of the challenges that maintaining a democratic way of life present. As such, he readily put his training and experiences to work wherever and whenever he saw they were needed. In Quebec and in British Columbia, he regularly met with soldiers serving in the Canadian Forces. Security was of utmost concern to BJ.

In uniform or out, he served his country, community and family with distinction.

Canadians are forever grateful for the steadfastness shown by Colonel Finestone in defence of the values of freedom. I am honoured today to pay tribute to his life of service to Canada.

[Fair Elections Act, February 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I found my hon. colleague's speech quite revealing. It seemed that he was using the opportunity to in some way defend himself against the letter written by the Chief Electoral Officer.

I am not sure why he believes that taking the commissioner of elections out of the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer and putting him under the ministry of justice is suddenly going to change the situation he has described. The reality is that when elections occur, there are rules. The Chief Electoral Officer was ensuring that everyone followed those rules, and he had cause to be concerned that those rules had not been followed and was perfectly within his authority to send a letter to the Speaker.

What is really required are the teeth that my colleague is talking about. That is where the government has singularly failed to come up with the kind of legislation we need. What matters is not moving the commissioner out of the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, but giving him more teeth.

What are those teeth he is talking about?

[The Budget, February 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we know that this government is obsessed with eliminating the huge deficit that it itself created. However, middle-class families are still struggling under the Conservatives. Household debt has gone up 75% in the eight long years under the Conservative government. The national debt is almost 100% of our GDP and families owe $1.64 for every dollar they earn. Why is this government planning another budget that will do nothing for middle-class families?

[The Budget, February 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we know that the government created a big deficit and is now obsessed with eliminating it. However, middle-class households are struggling right now. In fact, household debt has increased 75% in the eight years the government has been in power. It is now almost 100% of GDP. Families owe $1.64 for every $1 they earn.

In light of this, is the government really planning to table a budget that would do nothing for middle-class families?

[The Budget, February 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the IMF predicts that Canada's economic growth rate will be lower than the combined growth rate of the G7 in the next four years.

The last time this happened for four consecutive years was under the Mulroney Conservatives. The IMF also says that the government has some flexibility in how it makes investments if it really wants to improve the economy. Given all the challenges facing the middle class, will this government really table a budget that contains no new investments?

[The Budget, February 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, in the last budget, the Conservatives announced a bogus job program that does not exist. They have wasted millions of dollars on pointless ads, slashed services to veterans and increased taxes for the middle class, small businesses and credit unions. They have also increased tariffs on consumer goods. That budget resulted in the worst job creation record since the recession. Economic growth has been slowing down for the past three years.

Will the government take a different approach this time?

[Business of Supply, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to understand why my hon. colleague thinks that the Conservatives are not going to support what we are talking about today. They did back in 2005. They recognized that parliamentary oversight would be a good thing.

In fact, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, more recently in talking about the long form census questionnaire, said that he was so concerned about the privacy of Canadians that he felt government had absolutely no business knowing how many bathrooms one had in one's house, which was one of the questions on the long form census. That certainly led me to believe that the Conservative government actually cared about the privacy of individuals, enough to actually kill the long form census.

I am curious as to the member's thoughts on why the government is now suddenly no longer so concerned about the privacy of individuals, because metadata tells us where one is calling from, who one is calling and how often. It is very privacy-invasive information.

[Business of Supply, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. I do not know the specifics of the decision made in 2005. However, the Liberal government was in power that year and the other parties all agreed to create that parliamentary committee.

This parliamentary committee should be created in order to understand what metadata is and to determine whether this is really a breach of Canadians' privacy, among other things.

In some circumstances, the minister has the authority to have Canadians closely monitored for security reasons. Once again, it is important that we have a parliamentary committee, not just to monitor CSEC's activities, but also to be aware of the minister's decisions and determine whether he is acting responsibly when he authorizes an exception to the prescribed rules.

[Business of Supply, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I recommend that the parliamentary secretary read Bill C-551. We are not talking about a partisan parliamentary committee but a committee composed of members from all parties, both MPs and senators. If the bill goes forward, we are certainly open in committee to looking at what the optimal structure of this would be. This is not another standing committee; this is a special committee. These people would be very carefully chosen and held to secrecy for life. This is a very important and delicate undertaking they would be doing.

I am sure the other countries in the Five Eyes are very proud and happy with the work being done by their respective agencies. Nevertheless, they have felt the need to have additional oversight, and that is not calling into question any aspect of the competence of the organizations themselves. It is just to ensure on an ongoing, proactive basis that CSEC, CSIS, and the RCMP are sticking within their mandates so that we can be sure they are doing their job while also respecting the law.

[Business of Supply, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House to talk about the extremely important motion on the privacy of Canadian citizens.

I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Vancouver Quadra. Mr. Speaker, could you also give me a signal when I have only one minute left?

I am particularly pleased to share the floor with my colleague from Vancouver Quadra and my colleague from Malpeque, who spoke earlier. In December, all three of us were at a news conference when this issue came to light in Canada because of Edward Snowden's revelations. There was a possibility that Canada was spying on one of Brazil's ministries.

At that time, we talked about the importance of exercising more effective control over our surveillance agencies to make sure that they stay within their mandates.

I would like to bring up the fundamental point of this debate and the motion we are talking about today. It has to do with something that is very dear to all Canadian citizens, their right to privacy. Canadians care deeply about their privacy and they now have questions about whether it is being respected.

I am delighted that the NDP will support our motion today. I know that the Conservatives claim to care about the privacy of Canadian citizens. I remember when they decided they were going to get rid of the long form questionnaire. I remember in particular a comment by the Minister of Foreign Affairs at that time that the government had no business knowing how many bathrooms someone might have in their house. They claim to be very concerned and, in fact, got rid of the compulsory long form census because they say they respect the privacy of Canadian citizens. I share that belief.

At this point, however, questions are being raised and Canadians, particularly in this age of Wi-Fi and the Internet, have reason to question whether or not their privacy is being respected. Many Canadians come from countries that were authoritarian and know very well what can happen when their privacy is not respected. The Edward Snowden allegations that started a while back and touched on Brazil, the G8, and G20 summits, and more recently the possibility that Wi-Fi traffic is being monitored at a couple of Canadian airports to gather metadata have shaken the confidence of Canadians.

From the outset, the work that CSEC does is critically important for Canada's security. Let there be no doubt about that. One of its roles is to protect us against the possibility of terrorism, especially after 9/11. As a result of that, we expect it to be monitoring certain things. However, at the same time, we want to make sure that CSEC respects privacy and that it never monitors Canadian citizens. That is a very important point, the fact that we must ensure that while it carries out its very important and difficult task, CSEC stays within the bounds of its mandate.

In the end, it all comes down to the issue of the interpretation of this metadata. Many people are hearing for the first time about metadata and are wondering what it is. It sounds rather complicated and I am not exactly sure what it means. Yesterday, the national security advisor, along with the head of CSEC and CSIS, assured Canadians that their privacy was being respected and that there was no monitoring of Canadians. What they did say, however, very clearly, was that they are gathering metadata. In fact, the purpose of the period during which they were looking at Wi-Fi traffic in the two airports was to try to obtain a picture of the kind of traffic that occurs in a busy public space where Wi-Fi exists, as this would help them perform their task.

What is metadata? Metadata, according to Mr. Rigby, the national security advisor, is "data about data". Some people may say it does not sound as if it is very intrusive of their private lives, but let me give the House an important example. If a person is being monitored and we discover that every weekday around 7 o'clock in the evening, he or she phones the same number, that information can be extremely useful in knowing something about that person. We know that every day around 7 o'clock he or she phones a particular number. In addition to that, the identity of the person being called can also be worked out.

Another very good example is where a person phones someone several times in a particular week, with the number happening to belong to an oncologist. So there is a very good possibility that in this particular case the person making the phone call has cancer. That is an extremely personal bit of information. I do not want people to know that I have cancer, if I have it, unless I choose to share that information. I do not want people to know where I am in Canada at any particular time, unless I choose to share that information. I do not want people to know whom I am contacting on the Internet, unless I choose to share that information.

Never mind whether or not the content of my messages or my cellphone calls is not known, the fact that people know that I am phoning or using the Internet to contact particular people at certain times is very private information, and Canadians share the belief that it is private information.

So what do we do about this? We have come up with a very practical suggestion in the Liberal Party. We believe that having one retired judge, who I am sure is working very hard on this, does not cut it. In this particular case, we are calling for the creation of a parliamentary oversight committee, which can proactively look at what is going on within CSEC to ensure that the organization is staying within its mandate.

This idea goes back to 2005. This is not the first time it has been brought up. It was proposed in 2005 and it had the unanimous consent of all the parties, because we recognized the importance of keeping a closer watch over our surveillance agencies.

That unanimous support in fact came from people like the current Minister of Justice and the current Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. It came from you, Mr. Speaker, at that time and from the NDP and the Bloc. It came from people who examined this and recognized its importance.

We have tried, as Liberals, four times through private members' bills to bring this back. Currently, we are hoping that the motion today will be supported by all parties and that the bill being proposed by my colleague from Malpeque will have an opportunity to go forward. Our partners in the Five Eyes have quite clearly signed up to this. We as a Parliament of Canada need to do the same thing.

Let me conclude by quoting my colleague from Malpeque, who put out a press announcement recently to say that there was an urgent need for a parliamentary committee mandated to review the legislative regulatory policy and administrative framework for agencies responsible for national security in Canada. He said:

This proactive oversight of all aspects of national security handled by the federal government will fill a gap addressed by Canada’s major allies long ago—namely providing oversight and accountability for agencies that have functioned in nearly complete secrecy.