Matthew Dubé

[Customs Act, September 18th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

Despite what the Liberals and the Conservatives might say, just because the NDP stands up for Canadians' rights and privacy does not mean that we do not take the government's responsibility for ensuring public safety seriously.

Let us look at the current state of affairs. Take CSIS or the RCMP for example. They already have legal mechanisms and agreements in place with their U.S. counterparts for sharing information in the context of a criminal investigation, for example. The same problem comes up every time. We saw that in the debate on Bill C-51. We are told that these changes need to be made in order to ensure Canadians' safety. However, existing legislation does that already. In the meantime, the government proposes signing agreements that would make the border more seamless and allow more information to be shared, which threatens the rights and privacy of Canadians.

This creates a situation where information is exchanged with the American government, which does not seem to take seriously its responsibility to store and use that information appropriately. This is taking place within a context of profiling regarding people's country of origin or religious beliefs, despite the fact that legal provisions are already in place.

We in the NDP might be open to another proposal. However, the fact remains that, for us, any exchange of information that happens with no accountability and no mechanism to protect the rights of Canadians is unacceptable.

The time has come for the accountability, review and oversight mechanisms used by our national security agencies to take into account any and all exchanges of information that happen freely, not only here in Canada, between government agencies, but also with other governments, including the American government.

[Customs Act, September 18th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to join the minister in expressing my condolences to the family of our esteemed colleague Arnold Chan. His death was a great loss to everyone in the House, regardless of their party. We stand in solidarity with the Liberal caucus and Mr. Chan's constituents, family, and friends at this difficult time.

We are here today to talk about Bill C-21, which the government introduced in June 2016. The government is very enthusiastic about this bill. It is now September, and we are finally talking about it, so we can see how enthusiastic the government is about this bill. Perhaps the purpose of the bill is to pander to the Americans during the NAFTA negotiations. Who knows.

It is important to understand the context here. The minister, in answer to my question, and the member for Laurentides—Labelle in his comments talked about the bill as though it was a piece of stand-alone legislation, when in actual fact it is part of an information-sharing agreement between the Canadian and American governments. We can look at the measures set out in the bill, but they are part of a broader agreement and broader operational practices that are beginning to be implemented for our services at the border.

Things are very different now, and if we take a big-picture view of border issues, Canadians are clearly concerned. The same issues come up over and over. Take cellphones, for example. There is a glaring lack of protection when it comes to cellphone searches and what we call the briefcase law. People surrender a certain degree of privacy at the border. That interpretation of the law is fine if we are talking about someone seeing our unmentionables in a suitcase, but a cellphone that contains vast amounts of information about an individual is something else entirely. That is just one of the concerns we have about the border.

Things have changed now that Donald Trump is in office. In recent months, there has been discrimination at the border. Everyone knows that. The minister says that, statistically, fewer Canadians are being turned away at the border than in previous years. That is not an acceptable answer when people are being subjected to degrading treatment by U.S. border officers who ask them questions about their religious beliefs, their country of origin, and the colour of their skin.

This context is extremely important for understanding where our concerns for this bill are coming from. The minister tells us not to worry, that it is basic information that will be shared, information that is found on page 2 of one's passport. In reality, subclause 92(1) of the bill states that:

the Agency may collect, from a prescribed source, in the prescribed circumstances, within the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner...

It goes on to describe what the Agency is authorized to do. The key phrase I want to draw to the attention of the House is “the Agency may”. It is left to the discretion of border services whether to keep the information or not. At a place like customs, where discrimination is on the rise because people are judged by their destination and their origins, this is quite problematic. This could lead to increased profiling. God knows that there is too much of that already at the border.

Let me go back to the agreement that led to this bill.

The entry/exit program is only just beginning and will grow. Despite the enthusiasm that Liberals and Conservatives might have for it, we are going down a very slippery slope here. Before we continue, someone needs to put on the brakes because what we are seeing here is further integration at the border. That might seem great if all that we are considering is efficiencies, but we want to consider people's rights at the border, but that is lacking in the conversations that are happening.

Where does it end? When we talk about the context that I described with regard to cellphones and the lack of legislation as to what people's rights are when they are asked to unlock their cellphones and provide that information, and when it comes to the profiling that is happening at the border, that also applies to what new tools we have brought into place. The current U.S. President has floated the idea of using biometrics at the border. Will that end up becoming part of this kind of entry/exit agreement on top of the biographical information that would be provided? We do not have answers to these questions.

The fact of the matter is that any information that is being collected and shared will lead us down a path that we have seen before, because, quite frankly, as I said in my question for the minister, some of the most egregious human rights violations that Canada has been a part of, even if by proxy, have happened because of the sharing of information. That is something we are doing more and more in a post-Bill C-51 world, which, by the way, was a bill that the Liberals supported. That is the reality that we have to take into account when we consider increasing the amount of information we are sharing. It is not only biographical information, but also about where people are going to and coming from. While that might seem fine for someone who is not being profiled at the border, there are certainly many law-abiding Canadians who know what the experience is like, who because of where they are going to or where they are originally from; because they might be dual citizens and because of the country from where other citizenship is from; because of the colour of their skin and their religious beliefs, suddenly that basic biographical information being collected and shared with the U.S. government takes on a whole different context despite the fact they are law-abiding Canadians. That is very troubling, and even more so when I hear the minister talk about the fight against radicalization.

Certainly it goes without saying that we all agree that radicalization is an issue that needs to be tackled. Here, I would add that we are still waiting to hear more about what the government is going to do with its grassroots approach to taking on the fight against radicalization. We have not heard much about that in a little while, but that is a sidebar.

The reality is that when I hear things like that and the Conservative member who just spoke, and this bogeyman that is raised of how we are going to go after terrorism, there is a code there and we know what that leads to at the border and the treatment that people go through afterward. That is not something we want to see happen. Sure, we can have faith in our CBSA officers, the men and women who do extraordinary work despite limited resources because of successive Liberal and Conservative governments, but we are also looking at what the U.S. is going to do with that information. That is where the danger lies.

President Trump has signed an executive order explicitly stating that persons who are not U.S. citizens are now excluded from the protections offered by United States privacy legislation.

That is extremely dangerous, considering that the Canadian government is rushing to partner with the U.S. government to increase the amount of information it shares with the Americans.

Given that the President of the United States says he may consider torture acceptable and given that Canada has a ministerial directive in place allowing for information to be shared with countries that engage in torture, we are facing a big problem. I am not saying that this is exactly what the bill says, but the upshot of this bill is that we will be sharing more and more information.

It is a very slippery slope, since we keep sharing more and more information with other countries, including the United States. Even though the U.S. is an ally, the statements coming from the current administration are cause for concern and make the idea of sharing information about public safety and national security extremely troubling.

In a post-C-51 world, the accountability procedures are wholly inadequate. Let us look at the facts. An article published by the Toronto Star in August said the following:

CBSA has quietly started receiving and sharing some information with the U.S. government.

That means some information sharing was already allowed even without this bill being passed. The bill will just settle things for good.

The risk is that this may be done more covertly, without proactive transparency. At the end of the article, it says that Canada Border Services Agency plans to update the privacy assessment once the bill comes into force.

It is far from reassuring that we are talking about doing another privacy impact assessment after the bill is adopted. In that spirit, the role we have as parliamentarians is to protect Canadian safety, but also their rights, and their right to privacy more specifically. As far as this bill is concerned, we should look at how much is left up to regulation in the bill. For example, under “Regulations”, the bill states:

The Governor in Council may make regulations for the purposes of this section, including regulations

(a) prescribing the information that must be given under paragraph (1)(a);

(b) respecting the conveyances in relation to which information must be given under subsection (1);

(c) prescribing the persons or classes of persons who must give the information under subsection (1);

(d) respecting the circumstances in which the information must be given under subsection (1); and

(e) respecting the time within which and the manner in which the information must be given under subsection (1).

Those are all things that the Governor in Council can do through regulations. That essentially means, for the people listening at home, that those are things that the minister can decide to do all on his own, without a proper vote in the House of Commons on a piece of legislation. That is extremely troubling. If we go back to the debate on Bill C-23, which is the sister legislation in the context of this more integrated border with the U.S., in committee, I asked public safety officials which regulations would be changed, as that bill also opened the door to all of the regulatory changes that could potentially change the scope of the bill. That certainly concerned New Democrats. I will give the Liberals credit. They got back to us and provided a list of regulations that may change, but the list was not exhaustive.

As parliamentarians voting on a bill and trying to protect Canadians' rights in the context of sharing more of their information with the American government, especially under the current circumstances or regime, if I can use that term, it is extremely troubling that there is so much latitude allowed for regulatory changes. We certainly understand that there is a place for regulatory changes in the way that our government functions, but when it comes time to prescribe what information is shared, who is sharing it, and how they are sharing it, which is the core of the issue with this bill, that cannot be left out of the accountability process, which obviously includes debate in the House and study at committee.

When I was in Washington with the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, I learned about some new tools, such as digital fingerprinting and facial recognition, that the U.S. may begin using at its border. Those things are still in development, but they are getting to the point that the U.S. government will be looking to deploy them.

The minister is trying to reassure us by saying that he is in constant contact with his American counterpart, but people at Homeland Security envision using exactly those kinds of tools in the context of this information sharing agreement. We could very well see a higher level of integration. In the statement on greater integration of border operations that came out of the meeting between the Prime Minister and President Trump in Washington, they talked about the possibility of our border officials hosting American border officials.

Forget about all of the problems that co-locating two agencies from two different countries could cause, if only in terms of collective agreements and working conditions. Let us just talk about training. The minister took the time to point out that officials would be trained to protect Canadians' privacy and would always act in accordance with the law. I am not questioning the work that is going to be done, but when we debated Bill C-23, which would allow American officials on Canadian soil, we asked Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness officials what the plan was for delivering that training while ensuring respect for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, privacy laws, and even Bill C-23 itself, and we were not remotely satisfied with the answers.

The minister can be as reassuring as he wants, but it takes more than that. We need something tangible that truly outlines the process that will be put in place for protecting people's privacy. Even if the process is clearly spelled out to us, in an agreement like this with a bill like this, given the way in which Canadians' information will be shared with the U.S. government the minister must admit that the information will not enjoy the same protection in American hands, even if we have the best men and women working as Canadian border officers and the best legislation in place and if we are making every effort to protect people's privacy.

The minister can reassure us all he wants, but, as he so often says, the Americans can do what they want. That is reason alone to not only oppose the bill, but, as I said, to also rethink the agreement.

As I have said time and again, we are seeing a troubling tendency with the new information related to the public safety file globally, whether it is the Justice Noël decision related to illegal collection of metadata by CSIS; the Privacy Commissioner reporting last week that the RCMP has illegally obtained information from cellular phones six times in the last year; racial profiling at the Canada-U.S. border; people being asked to unlock their cellphones and provide social media passwords at the border, without clear legislation in that sense; or whether it is the fact that two years in we still have not seen any changes to Bill C-51. We finally tabled a bill in the dying days of the last sitting of the House, which does not go nearly far enough.

It is a troubling tendency we are seeing that is undermining the confidence and trust that Canadians have in their national security agencies and in the approach that successive Conservative/Liberal governments have had. There is a lack of understanding that rights and security are not a zero-sum game, and that the word “balance” implies that there is sacrificing of part of one or the other. We need to do both. Unfortunately, that is not the report card that the government can have.

We look at a bill like this, at these kinds of agreements more broadly, as we decide to share more and more information with a U.S. government that is being led by a president who has opened the door to the use of torture, and has removed privacy protections on information, not only for his own citizens but even more importantly for non-Americans. For Canadians, in that specific context the government cannot ignore it. Whether it is trying to fast-track this bill that was tabled in the House in June 2016, maybe to make nice for NAFTA negotiations, the fact is, it is about time that the government started to hit the brakes on this willy-nilly sharing of information.

I want to end on one piece. If the government is so proud of this agreement, if it really thinks it is doing the right thing, I have one question to ask. Unfortunately, I will not get to ask it, so I will ask it rhetorically. Why is it that on the first day back in the House of Commons, after a great summer of work that we all spent in our constituencies, that we are hardly going to hear any Liberal speakers? The minister has spoken, and there will maybe be a handful more speakers. However, it is mostly New Democrats and Conservatives who will be carrying the debate.

Maybe my Conservative friends can tell me what is so great about this bill, because, sadly, I do not think I am going to hear about it from the Liberals. They have certainly not made the case for it. The “just trust me” approach by the minister is not good enough when it comes to protecting Canadians' rights and privacy.

[Customs Act, September 18th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, during the Conservative government's last term in office, 1,200 border services jobs were eliminated. What is more, from 2013 to 2015, border services received incomplete information regarding passengers on over 3,000 flights. We will come back to those cuts and the impact that they have had on national security, given the Conservatives' hypocrisy on this issue.

I want to talk about Bill C-21, which is now before us. Obviously, the Conservatives' track record on privacy leaves much to be desired, particularly considering the passage of Bill C-51 and all of the resulting privacy breaches that occurred as a result of information sharing.

I would like to know how my colleague can support an initiative that will make it possible to share more information with the United States government, when the current President has signed an order under which American privacy laws no longer apply to non-U.S. citizens. It will be difficult to move forward with this bill given Canadians' current lack of confidence in the information-sharing system established by the Conservative government and the fact that the proper safeguards are not in place.

[Customs Act, September 18th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his speech.

Some of the most egregious human rights violations Canada has, unfortunately by proxy, been a part of have often had to do with information sharing. One particular case, the most infamous, is the Maher Arar case. When we look at Bill C-21, the minister might say that it is only what is on page 2 of one's passport. What he is forgetting to talk about is the fact that this information is then being handed over to the U.S. government in a context where executive orders have been adopted, removing privacy protections from the information that is not of an American citizen.

I want to understand why the minister thinks we can start sharing exit information with our American counterparts in that context, especially given some of the discrimination that has been going on at the border lately.

[Preclearance Act, 2016, June 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his kind words. He is praising me while the government is criticizing me.

This is very important. As I said, it is not as though we were debating a bill on a free trade agreement. This bill is on an agreement that was negotiated by the previous government. The Liberals tried to get out of it by saying that it was not their fault and that they had to make do. As I said in my speech, they could have simply renegotiated the agreement. There is no hope of renegotiating it with the current president because we know how that will go. Nonetheless, they had a year to work with another president with whom they had a positive relationship. They could have considered this possibility at the time.

That being said, it is also important to remember that, in March 2016, when the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness was in Washington with the Prime Minister, they reiterated their support for this agreement. Let us stop blaming the previous government. The Liberals have to take responsibility for the fact that they are party to a bad agreement that violates Canadians' rights and freedoms, particularly with regard to American officers on Canadian soil. They need to take responsibility for that.

They support the bill. If they were not so lazy, as my colleague said, and if they really wanted to protect Canadians' right and freedoms, they would go back to the Americans and tell them that they will not go along with this measure. That is certainly what we would have done.

[Preclearance Act, 2016, June 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, given that my colleague is also a lawyer, I will take her word for it as well, with pleasure. I was pleased to support many of her amendments. Many NDP amendments, if not quite identical, sought to accomplish the same goals. I want to thank her, in particular, for some of the amendments she proposed to change the language to protect permanent residents from some of these egregious powers. They could be particularly victimized in the event that they chose to withdraw from the preclearance zone. As MPs working with many permanent residents on the path to citizenship, we would not want these overarching powers for Americans to threaten their ability to get citizenship.

More specifically, to the notion of how things are perceived by an American officer versus a Canadian one, an issue with this bill is what would be considered reasonable suspicion. With some of the horror stories we have heard in the news lately, when even groups like the Girl Guides of Canada do not want to travel to the U.S. anymore because of how they might be treated at the border, we know that the threshold for reasonable suspicion is very different for an American officer than for a Canadian one. That is the problem when it comes to these kinds of situations. That is why my colleague and I proposed the amendments we did.

People may choose to withdraw from the preclearance zone because, for example, they refuse to answer a question like, “Why do you go to that mosque?” That is obviously a question that is purely racist in intent. When a question like that is posed, and a person says he or she will go home and not be treated that way, as the bill stands right now, that could be considered reasonable suspicion, which would lead to the detention measures, and so forth, in the bill. That is not something New Democrats are going to accept.

[Preclearance Act, 2016, June 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about the issue of cellphones. I had the opportunity to sit in on the ethics committee just last week when it was doing a study of privacy at the border. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, and even their American counterpart, the ACLU, were talking about how critical this issue is. The two Canadian associations represented on that panel both raised the issue of the language in Bill C-23 with regard to preclearance and the consequences that can have, given a future presidential executive order that might come down relating to the search of cellphones.

The fact is, the parliamentary secretary, on a media panel we did when the bill was first debated in the House, said that we need not worry because there is an internal departmental directive. I am sorry, but I am not going to protect Canadians' rights with an internal departmental directive. I want it to happen in the legislation that is tabled in the House of Commons. This leads us to another debate, which is the fact that we need to update our laws based on how we treat cellphones at the border, but that is a whole other discussion in and of itself.

Regarding the specific question as to the actual remedies that exist, charter rights and Canadian law are mentioned in the bill as applying, but if we cannot take the person committing the offence to court because of other parts of the bill, then we have no legal remedy. What good are those protections if we cannot actually have them upheld in court and have any sort of consequence on the American officer, in this case, committing the offence? It is not just me who is saying that, but it is what, among others, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, told us in committee with regard to how the State Immunity Act plays out in this legislation.

Members do not have look to New Democrats, but they need to look to committee testimony from the independent witnesses and experts who specifically told us that this would be an issue. As I said, even my Conservative counterpart agreed with me. The Conservative public safety critic said that there would be no remedy, and he is a lawyer, so we can take his word for it, too.

[Preclearance Act, 2016, June 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, if I were a member of the government, and saw how things were going in the Senate and the position the Liberals have put themselves in, I suppose I would be stirring around in the House in the same way.

We realize that the Liberals have said they are disappointed in withdrawing from Paris, and they remain completely silent on the matter of Trump's travel ban, which was outright discrimination, and flew in the face of everything we should stand for as Canadians. This is exactly what we have here with this agreement.

Once again, we see Liberal MPs in committee saying, “It is too bad. That is what the agreement is, and we have to live with it.” No, we as New Democrats refuse to just live with it. We will not accept creating loopholes in legislation just for economic gain, which we acknowledge preclearance can bring, just to give all these extra powers that just simply are not necessary.

If preclearance, as it happens today, right now, before the adoption of this legislation, is so great, as the government tells us, I keep asking the same question that I asked at the outset of my speech. Why do the Americans need all these new powers? I guess the answer would be simply because they asked for them. That is not justification enough for creating a situation where American officers can limit Canadians' rights on Canadian soil. We will not accept that.

I want to wrap up by saying that we proposed a number of amendments in committee that would have added the necessary legal protection. We even wanted to change the word “sex” to “gender” to protect transgender people.

I remember that, on the day of the photo with the pride flag and the Prime Minister in front of Parliament, everyone was running up for a picture, as usual. The government was too chicken to agree to that change so the language of the bill would be in sync with the times, open, and inclusive. They are happy to do photo ops, but they refuse to protect transgender Canadians in the legislation, and yet they go on about walking the talk.

We proposed amendments that would have guaranteed protections for Canadians. A strip search would be conducted only by a Canadian agent on Canadian soil. The government rejected that. We also proposed amendments to ensure clearer language, for instance regarding something the bill calls “lawful authority”. This is important considering how the bill is currently drafted. In fact, “lawful authority” could be an executive order. It could be the kind of executive order that states that all travellers, whether they are Canadian from Canada or from anywhere else in the world, who enter the United States must unlock their cellphone and social networks. This could be unconstitutional and yet this bill leaves the door wide open to that.

Once again, that is completely unacceptable.

We see the uncertainly with regard to the cavalier way in which the current U.S. administration treats cellphones at the border, for example. A Canadian from Vancouver was turned away at the Washington state border because American agents went through his cellphone. When they realized his sexual orientation, they were afraid he was going to the U.S. to be a sex worker.

Who is to say we will not see that kind of thing happen on Canadian soil? It is very possible with the way the bill is drafted.

In closing, I want to reiterate that when it comes to free trade agreements or any other agreement to be negotiated with the United States, Europe, or any other country we might deal with, we in the NDP will never agree to sacrificing the rights and freedoms of Canadians, especially on Canadian soil, let alone for an administration like the current American administration. That is non-negotiable.

We recognize the economic benefits of preclearance and the convenience of it under the current regime. However, there is nothing to justify negotiating an agreement that gives the big end of the stick, in fact the only stick, to American agents, on Canadian soil, to breach the rights of Canadians. We will never will stand for that.

[Preclearance Act, 2016, June 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-23 today. Since the last time this came up in the House, we have gone through the committee review process, and I would now like to share some of my thoughts.

I would like to begin, though, by reiterating why we, New Democrats, are opposed to Bill C-23. First, it grants egregious powers to American officers on Canadian soil. I want to make it clear that we recognize the benefits of preclearance, which is already happening. That is why we have to wonder why expanding a system that is already working very well means giving American officers all of these additional powers. We never did get an answer to that question from the minister or other experts who testified in favour of the bill.

The government's main argument, which we heard earlier in the parliamentary secretary's speech, is about the economic benefit of expanding the preclearance process, which would happen in more airports, train stations, and eventually, border crossings.

If that is the only argument in favour of doing this, we need to ask ourselves what justifies these additional powers.

Let us go through some of the powers to be given to American agents, on Canadian soil, through the bill and through the deal that was been signed by the Government of Canada and the U.S. administration.

First, there is the excessive powers of American agents in a situation where a traveller chooses to leave a preclearance zone. The minister assures us this is okay, that it simply has to do with the safety and integrity of these preclearance zones. We have police, CBSA officers, and other forms of security in airports already. Therefore, it is difficult to understand why an American agent would be given the power, on Canadian soil, to question a Canadian who chooses to leave the preclearance zone and, even in some cases, detain that individual under the vague language in the bill.

A Canadian would rightfully say that this seems reasonable, that if someone leaves the preclearance zone, it must be suspicious. That is not the case. We have seen some of the treatment Canadian citizens receive at the border. They are victims of American agents based on their religious beliefs, or the colour of their skin or their country of origin. This was testimony at committee. Who is to say that Canadians of certain origins might decide that an abusive line of questioning is not something they are willing to accept, so they decide to take their bags and go home. That would be sufficient reason to leave the preclearance zone. Unfortunately, under the bill, and under the agreement, that would allow the American officer, on Canadian soil, to potentially go all the way to detain them and interrogate them. We find that unacceptable.

The other very important matter has to do with strip searches, another issue raised by the parliamentary secretary. We can all agree that we give up some of our rights when we go through customs. For instance, we allow our luggage to be searched. Still, I have difficulty understanding why we should allow American agents to search Canadian citizens on Canadian soil.

The bill states that if no Canadian agents are available or willing to do the search, perhaps because they do not consider it necessary, an American agent may do it. The minister justified this by saying that it is nothing to worry about because in the 60 years that preclearance has existed, no Canadian agent has ever been unavailable or unwilling to do a search.

Just because the exception happens to prove the rule in this case does not mean that this legislation safeguards the rights and freedoms of Canadians.

Legislation cannot be drafted on the premise that the exceptions prove the rule. Our legislation must be robust and comprehensive in order to ensure that there are no potential loopholes that would allow the rights of Canadians to be violated on Canadian soil.

The other issue is with regard to the carrying of firearms. The bill, based on reciprocity found in the agreement, would exempt American agents from elements of the Criminal Code that would normally prevent an American agent officer from carrying firearms on Canadian soil.

The minister has assured us that there are memoranda of understanding that it is reciprocity, and that this would only happen in places where Canadian border officers are already carrying firearms. The example the minister gave was at Pearson airport where the Peel Regional Police ensures security. The American agents would not be carrying firearms because Canadian agents do not. It is the local police that ensure the security of the airport.

I asked the minister in committee if he could tell me, given the fact that the bill would specifically create these Criminal Code exemptions, if there was any other legal provision or protection beyond memoranda of understanding, which have no legal authority, and the agreement, that would prevent an American border officer from carrying a firearm. The response received was no response at all. There are no guarantees to say there is any legal remedy for an American officer that might be in said airport, for example, at Pearson, on Canadian soil carrying a firearm. That is not acceptable.

In committee, we identified a number of problems with the process. I asked officials from the Department of Public Safety a question in order to find out what regulatory changes would be made. The government is making regulatory changes to address the cases of people who are exempt from certain procedures. Take, for example, employees who work in a port and who would need access to a preclearance area to do their job every day. They would not be subject to American authority while at work, which is the least we could expect. These are the kinds of exemptions that the regulations would change.

In committee, we debated a bill that makes fundamental changes, yet no one was able to tell us what regulations would be changed. Everyone knows that regulations are not subject to debate in the House because parliamentarians do not vote on them. One fundamental problem with the changes made by the agreement and by Bill C-23 has to do with the minister's discretionary power.

I will give the department credit because it did provide a written answer to my questions. However, in the written answer, the department indicated that it was uncertain which regulations would be affected. We think it is unacceptable that we are not being given a definitive answer on this.

The government's main argument around all these issues around Canadians' rights potentially being violated by American border officers on Canadian soil is not to worry because Canadian law and charter rights apply. That is what the bill says, but what would the bill actually do?

In committee, witness after witness reminded us that, because of the State Immunity Act and how the bill is drafted, there really is no legal remedy. Even the Conservative public safety critic sitting on the committee, the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka, agreed that there is no legal recourse.

Why is that important? The protections accorded to us as Canadians by law and charter, if those rights are violated, what do we need to do? We need to go to court to uphold those rights. If we cannot bring the American officer to court, based on how this bill is drafted, then there is no remedy. Those charter protections are just words on paper and not given force of law and force of our constitutional rights. That is totally unacceptable to us.

A specific argument was raised both in committee and here in the House. The Liberals claimed they were bound by the agreement to enact certain provisions, and that they were sorry if some members did not like it. They added that the agreement was negotiated and signed under the previous Conservative government and under the Obama administration, and not under the current president, and we have to live with it.

It takes courage to say that this is a bad agreement. After the study in committee, where we heard from groups like the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, various associations representing Canadians from countries targeted by President Trump's executive orders, and the Canadian Bar Association, we concluded that it was a bad agreement. It takes courage to tell the Americans that we will not allow the rights of Canadians to be jeopardized because of the presence of American agents on Canadian soil. I think that is the minimum we can do.

The Prime Minister himself actually said that if Canadians are subject to racial profiling or their rights are violated at customs, at least it will happen in Canada where they are protected by Canadian laws and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

What this really tells me is that we currently have a serious problem regarding how American agents are treating Canadian citizens at the border. The situation is completely unacceptable.

The previous government signed the agreement. The former public safety minister, now the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, signed the agreement with his American counterpart, but the Conservatives did not get the bill through the House to set up the legislative measures needed to implement the agreement. I gather from what they said in committee that the Conservatives felt there were problems with the agreement. They may not be as disappointed as us about the loopholes this will create, but even the Conservatives on the committee recognized that it would not be appropriate for an American officer to strip search someone on Canadian soil.

It is about time, when it comes to dealing with the Americans, that we have a government that understands that when we negotiate, we do not just give. We have to get something in return, and in this agreement, beyond the expansion of where preclearance takes place, all we have seen here is the government being really willing to roll over, and give all these new powers to American agents on Canadian soil.

[House of Commons, June 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, without wanting to take up too much time, I would like to add my voice to those of the two leaders who just spoke.

First, I would like to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for overseeing the proceedings in this place that can sometimes be quite noisy. Similarly, I thank the table officers who, as well, must work and concentrate in a sometimes chaotic work environment. I would also like to add my voice to those of my colleagues in thanking Mr. Bosc, who will be leaving us, for all the work that he has done.

I want to thank the government House leader. We certainly do not always agree on everything, but the important thing is that we have managed to come together at the end, and at least as we go off into the sunset in the summer, we are perhaps a bit more serene than we were at the beginning of the sitting.

I echo the same sentiment to the opposition House leader. I know that my colleague from Victoria certainly wanted to pass along his thanks as well for the discussions that, while not always easy, at least have ended on a positive note as we move back to our constituencies for the coming summer months.

I would also like to thank the security officers, hoping that over the next few months, the much-awaited respect that has been requested can be restored. As my colleagues have done, I would also like to thank the support staff who ensure that the House of Commons runs smoothly. While they may not appear on television, the staff make it possible for us to be here, day after day, in a healthy work environment. This of course includes the bus drivers, among others.

We certainly thank the cafeteria staff and those who take care of maintenance all around these beautiful buildings in the precinct, those who provide the mail services, and those involved in all of the work that goes on behind the scenes to make sure that this place is always running on time, as well as the people who make us look good.

Lastly, like my colleagues, I wish to thank the pages, who will be enjoying the summer and moving on to new adventures. As our collective experience has shown, some of them will return to the House of Commons, perhaps as MPs, or in other capacities, working for members or for the House of Commons. In any case, we would like to give them a huge thanks as they embark on their new adventures. On behalf of New Democrats, I wish them all, as well as all of our House of Commons colleagues, a wonderful summer.

I hope they will take that time, as the opposition House leader said, to be with their families. That time is precious. The things in here do not matter in comparison to health, family, and all of those things that we cannot take for granted. I hope they will enjoy that time. Most importantly, I hope they will work hard in their constituency, which is of course why Canadians elected us.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and I wish everyone a happy summer.