Murray Rankin

[Points of Order, March 22nd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it has come to my attention that the hon. member for Don Valley East has been taking pictures in the House of the opposition and tweeting them. I have evidence before me to that effect. That is an entirely inappropriate action and contrary to the rules of this place.

[Privilege, March 22nd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the New Democratic Party, I wish to associate ourselves with the remarks by the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent.

I believe you will say, Mr. Speaker, that there has never been a precedent of this kind in this place, where some government members have received a budget document in advance of others. Therefore, it is a breach of my privilege and our privilege as parliamentarians. This cannot be allowed to occur.

[National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, March 20th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I join with my colleague from the Conservative Party, the official opposition, in registering serious concern about the government's actions today.

The experts we have talked to on security and intelligence issues are frustrated by the fact that these amendments, done at the last moment at report stage, weaken the oversight that is available. That we would proceed with only government support for such a critical initiative on national security and intelligence is a matter that should disappoint all Canadians. This is the government's sole response to the controversial Bill C-51, which the Liberal government, while in opposition, supported. They agree that these amendments would weaken the job parliamentarians would be asked to do.

Why is the government not willing to allow time for all parties to try to seek consensus on this bill? My colleagues and I are standing ready to work with the hon. House leader and with these experts. Why is the government refusing to work with us?

[Supreme Court Act, March 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I am so pleased to rise in support of Bill C-203, an act to amend the Supreme Court Act. I salute my colleague from Drummond for his tireless work in this regard, following in the footsteps of, I dare say, the famous Yvon Godin, who was passionate about this in many Parliaments in the past.

I want to talk about what the bill would and would not do. The bill does not even require technically functional bilingualism. All it requires is that a justice understands the other official language without the assistance of an interpreter.

I congratulate the Liberals sincerely for their current policy, which requires functional bilingualism as a condition. When former prime minister Kim Campbell was asked to chair the advisory board that led to the appointment of our first justice from Newfoundland and Labrador, I was pleased to see that process in action. The committee could only consider those who were functionally bilingual, and Mr. Justice Rowe demonstrated that aptitude very clearly.

This issue has long been championed by the New Democratic Party. We introduced similar bills in 2008, 2010, and 2014. This is our fourth time trying to see this legislation pass. Each iteration of the bill has aimed to promote positive measures to protect official languages through legislation.

The government representative today quite properly pointed out, with pride, that the functional bilingualism requirement was merely a matter of policy, and perhaps with unintended arrogance said that was fine so long as the Liberals were in power. Things change even in Canada. Sometimes we have other governments and therefore no longer would this be something we could point to with the pride that the Liberals obviously take in the initiative they passed in the last while. The policy is good, but it does not mean it will necessarily be in force in the future.

It was also pointed out by our colleagues opposite that the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Nadon judgment was somehow an excuse, dare I say a smokescreen, for not proceeding with legislation. I point out that Professor Sébastien Grammond of the University of Ottawa has written persuasively, at least to this lawyer, that if we have requirements, as we do for number of years at the bar before eligibility for appointment, there is no reason why we cannot have requirements for language proficiency for that appointment.

We are talking about six people in Canada. Three of those judges are required by law, for understandable excellent constitutionally relevant reasons, to come from the province of Quebec where there is a civil law system. I can assume that three of those nine will speak both languages or certainly be proficient in the French language. There has never been a justice on the Supreme Court who only spoke French. The six left of the nine are all the people we are talking about.

I taught law at the University of Victoria for over 12 years, the farthest west one can get in our country. I can assure the House that students understand the reality of the country. They understand, since bilingualism and biculturalism a generation ago, that we have a commitment as Canadians to respect each other's official languages. That is why we have an Official Languages Act and a commissioner. It is high time we have our courts at the highest level reflect that reality as well.

I had many students whose first language was Punjabi or Mandarin. Some even spoke indigenous languages. They understand that in this day and age, being one of those six people drawn from predominantly English speaking provinces, that speaking the other official language is not exactly a radical step in 2017.

To their credit, the Liberals understood that with their policy of functional bilingualism. For reasons I cannot fathom, they somehow are afraid to put that commitment into law. That is all this bill would do. I could even argue that the bill does not go as far as the Liberals' current policy. Their current policy requires functional bilingualism, which to me connotes being able to speak and understand the other language. All Bill C-203 would do is require that a judge understand both official languages without the assistance of an interpreter. It seems to me a necessary first step to do this, and the Liberals reluctance is quite frankly disturbing.

It has also been said that somehow this is inconsistent with the rights of indigenous people. We can certainly ensure at committee that there is no such intent or effect in the law. This law would confirm that indigenous rights that are guaranteed under section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982 remain in full force and effect and are in no way derogated by the legislation that would be enacted should the bill proceed.

I do not believe therefore that there is a practical problem with a bill of this sort. My colleague from Drummond made reference to a number of organizations that have supported this over the years. I did not hear the Canadian Bar Association protest when the Liberals brought in a functional bilingualism requirement. It is a fait accompli in the 21st century that people would understand this reality of our country.

It is particularly relevant for Canadians who are members of language minority communities that they feel comfortable using the official language of their choice before our highest court of the land. Professor Grammond and Mark Power captured this conundrum in a paper they provided to the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations at Queen's University. They wrote, “Francophone litigants before the Supreme Court face a challenge that is not shared by their Anglophone counterparts: to attempt to persuade judges who do not understand the language in which arguments are presented.”

It is crucial that the Supreme Court serve all Canadians, and that they believe their arguments were truly understood by the justice who heard them. It is not acceptable that they would argue that they lost a particular case on the basis that they were not truly understood. That cannot be right in a country committed to bilingualism and biculturalism, such as ours. That cannot be just. We all feel when we lose a case in the court that it must be because we were not understood. I understand that argument. However, that a number of senior scholars and lawyers would go in print and say they are concerned about this should be of concern to all Canadians.

The time has come for us to essentially go beyond policy and do what has been sought so many times in previous parliaments, by Mr. Godin, and now by the member for Drummond. It is something that the late Jack Layton, leader of the NDP, was passionate about and made many speeches about. It is something that has been the subject of resolutions at conventions in our party, and of course in platform commitments we have made over the years.

It is time for the government to re-evaluate its position, not hide behind a smokescreen of a Supreme Court decision, and decide that it truly is committed to bilingualism at the highest level of our courts so justice can truly be done for all Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

[Supreme Court Act, March 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague and friend from Drummond for his passionate speech.

I understood him to say that the Liberals have twice supported a bill of this sort. It is, of course, long been a policy of the NDP, which he alluded to in his remarks.

I am proud that I was involved when we appointed Mr. Justice Rowe of the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal to be our first Supreme Court judge from that province. The member also said the requirement that the Liberals imposed upon him, albeit by policy, was that he be functionally bilingual, and of course they demonstrated that clearly during the appointment process.

Why could it be that the Liberals, with this policy that we support requiring functional bilingualism as a condition for appointment to the Supreme Court, might be reluctant to follow-through on the support that they have provided to similar bills in the past?

[National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, March 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the member referred to Professor Wesley Wark who, along with three other experts, on January 27 of this year, wrote as follows in The Globe and Mail:

What united us was a concern that the government, in pursuing a laudable objective, had simply gone too far in restricting access by the Committee to secret information and in attempting to control the kind of reporting it could do.

He goes on to support the committee recommendations that, of course, we supported, as well.

A Liberal bill a few years back, Bill C-622, allowed the committee, in its oversight capacity, to subpoena witnesses and documents and get the information it thought it would require. That was supported by the current Prime Minister, the current public safety minister, the future chair of this committee, and many other current cabinet ministers. Does the member think they were wrong?

[National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, March 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and member of the justice committee for his thoughtful speech.

I wonder if he could comment on the government's assertion we have heard over and over today that it is a good first step, it will be reviewed in three years, and we should be satisfied with the bill, notwithstanding that five of the eight MPs now, contrary to what I think I heard, are government members of Parliament, and the Liberals have another senator they have agreed they want to put on there. The chair would be appointed by the Prime Minister, not as it happens in England, or elsewhere where the committee chooses who its chair will be.

It is, of course, an advisory group to the Prime Minister's Office rather than a committee of Parliament as in other countries. With all of those changes that the Liberals want to bring in today, does the member believe that this is an approach we should accept, that this is good enough for Canada right now?

[National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, March 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, that same Prime Minister was in favour of broader access before but now it has changed.

I want to remind Canadians that this committee is unlike any other. All committees of Parliament have the ability to compel information and get the witnesses they need to do their job, but this one does not. We have to rely on the Prime Minister's Office. It is essentially an advisory committee of parliamentarians, senators and MPs to the Prime Minister . It is very different. The Prime Minister chooses the chair, which he already has. One might wonder why that is a problem. I would point out that England went through same process. Now it is the members of the committee who choose the chair. Germany alternates between an opposition and a government member.

The Liberals did not need to do this. They have hobbled the committee. The member asked what the consequences are. It is the lack of trust that Canadians must have in our security and intelligence services and the excellent work they do to protect us each and every day. We need to have that trust. This committee will not do the job.

[National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, March 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, this is the government's first and only response to date to Bill C-51, which it supported.

Ron Atkey was referenced just a moment ago by the member. However, on January 27, he, along with three other experts, wrote the following in The Globe and Mail:

Should the government choose to force a return to the restrictive original bill, it risks potentially undermining a new and historic Parliamentary ability that it has enthusiastically championed. Failure to reach agreement with Parliament on this issue also imperils non-partisan support for future national-security reforms and changes to other elements of the review system for national security.

It is a shame that for something so central as this, we cannot find common ground, that the government wants to revert to a time before the expert evidence was heard and before the committee did its good work to a time when we had an inadequate bill. The experts supported that. The NDP, for what it is worth, supported the bill as amended by committee. Now the government wants to roll it back and say that we should be happy with a half a loaf. This is not even 20% of a loaf, I am afraid.

[National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, March 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I supported Bill C-22 at second reading because the NDP is firmly committed to finally bringing effective and transparent oversight to our security and intelligence services. I recognized the flaws in the government's first draft, but I had faith that the parties could smooth its rough edges with the help of expert advice at the public safety committee. That faith was rewarded. All parties came together around evidence-based amendments. The bill that emerged from that committee is stronger, now has the endorsement of most experts, and could earn the support of all parties and the trust of Canadians.

That is why it is so very disappointing to see these last-minute proposals. They would roll back the progress made by all parties at committee and, in the words of four leading academic experts, “undermin[e] a new and historic Parliamentary ability”. I am firmly opposed to these proposals. We simply cannot reverse the progress made at committee and reject the evidence that guided it. With each passing day, the government's intransigence looks less like prudence and more like the reflexive rejection of contrary evidence that, sadly, became a hallmark of our last government.

Let me say a word first to the women and men of our security intelligence community, who no doubt are following this debate and wondering how it will affect the critically important work they do for us every day. As a former legal counsel to the Security Intelligence Review Committee, I know that to be effective, we need the trust of Canadians. To support the work, we need an authoritative, security-cleared committee of parliamentarians to bridge the gap between Canadians and their security services. Only when such a committee exists and speaks with authority can we give Canadians not just assurances but proof that their security and their civil liberties are protected.

The first thing we need to set straight about Bill C-22 is the idea that experts support the government's new design. This week, the public safety minister answered my criticism of these regressive amendments with a single brief quotation from a piece that Professor Craig Forcese wrote a year ago entitled “Knee Jerk First Reaction”. What has he said since? In November, Professor Forcese testified at the public safety committee as follows: “I would strongly urge...full access to information”. He warned that anything less would “give the appearance of accountability without the substance”. Calling for three key parts of the bill to be radically amended, he said, “These are all means to deny access to the committee.” He also said, “It is this triple lock on parliamentary reviews that I feel could well make the committee of parliamentarians stumble.”

What did the other experts say at the committee? The Information Commissioner of Canada rejected cabinet's ability to shut down investigations, saying it turned the committee's mandate into “a mirage”. Craig Forcese, Professor Kent Roach, and Ron Atkey, the founding chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, the Information Commissioner of Canada, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Bar Association, and Parliament's own Interim Committee of Parliamentarians on National Security all recommended lifting restrictions on access to information and giving this committee full access. After all, people get 14 years in jail if they break a secret and leak information. After all, being cleared top secret is not good enough, apparently, for the government. The public safety committee implemented this expert recommendation, but now the government seeks to reverse it.

With that expert testimony in mind, let us consider the government's new proposals. First, the government wants to remove the oversight committee's power to subpoena witnesses and documents. I would remind Canadians that this is a power that is enjoyed by every single statutory standing committee of Parliament, every one of them. It would be truly bizarre if our public safety committee could compel a witness to give testimony on the theory of subpoena powers, but this new top secret cleared committee could not wield the same power to fulfill the national security mandate.

The government's second proposal is to allow cabinet ministers to withhold information from the oversight committee. It is interesting that these two features, full access to information and the power to call witnesses, were proposed in a Liberal bill in 2014, Bill C-622. At that time, the current Prime Minister, the current public safety minister, and nine other members of today's Liberal cabinet voted for exactly what they now oppose.

Third, the government wants to add a senator and another government MP to the committee so that the votes of the government MPs will always outnumber those of non-government MPs.

The government's fourth proposal is to stop the committee from receiving information about all active law enforcement investigations all of the time. As Professor Forcese testified, the 1985 Air India bombing remains an active investigation some 30 years later. A more recent example might be the October 2014 attack on Parliament. In the aftermath of such an attack, would the proposal prevent the intelligence oversight committee from receiving necessary information about investigations?

As with many of the government's proposals on this bill, I do understand the intent. Oversight functions should not inadvertently impede operations, but the solution is a judgment and discussion, not clumsy statutory roadblocks. Remember that the Security Intelligence Review Committee has full access to any information held by CSIS, and yet the heads of both organizations testified that they have no concerns about this arrangement. They resolve issues through negotiation, not legislation. As the founding chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee testified, “Sometimes, as in Bill C-22, there is a tendency to over-legislate”.

However, there is still hope. It is vital for Canadians to understand that Parliament now has a choice between two paths. The first path is to impose these last-minute changes, reverse the work of the all-party committee on public safety, and reject the expert evidence it listened to. The second path is to withdraw these rollbacks, accept the evidence, respect the work of all parties on that committee, and pass the bill we already have. The current bill could still earn the unanimous support of this place and would give Canada a world-class oversight body worthy of the respect of our allies and the trust of Canadians. That is what the government throws away if it insists on undoing the progress made so far.

Let me address one of the government's favourite arguments, and we heard it here today, which is that we must scale back our ambitions and accept minimal progress on the theory that something is better than nothing. In response, I would cite one last piece of expert testimony, and that is the recommendation of the last parliamentary committee to study this issue. In 2004, the Interim Committee of Parliamentarians on National Security recommended the creation of an oversight body with complete access to information. It explained as follows:

Though this arguably goes further than the legislation enacted by some of our allies, it is in line with developing practice.... We strongly believe that a structure which must rely on the gradual evolution and expansion of access, powers, and remit would be inappropriate for Canada.

The British had a committee like this one and in 2013, after public criticism, they completely overhauled that committee, strengthening its powers and its independence. Why do we have to reinvent the wheel?

Since the government seems to insist on such a course, I have one last solution to offer and that is my Motion No. 7 on the Notice Paper, which calls for removing clause 31 from the bill. That is the clause that would block judicial review of a cabinet minister's decision to withhold information or shut down an investigation. If the government insists on hobbling this committee from the start, then the least we can do is remove our restriction whose sole purpose is to prevent the committee's powers from maturing over time. I would ask all members of this place to support that amendment as a counterbalance to the government's proposals here.

In closing, I regret that the government has chosen this course, but I cannot endorse the rejection of good all-party committee work and the rejection of expert evidence. I hope that some members on the government side will join us in opposing these sadly regressive amendments.