Pierre Paul-Hus

[Firearms Act, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question, but I admit that I do not remember the 45 amendments. Was it a Liberal amendment or a Conservative one? I believe she said it was one of ours, but it was not. Thus, I cannot answer because, unfortunately, I do not remember that amendment.

[Firearms Act, June 18th, 2018]

moved:

Motion No. 1

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 1.

Motion No. 2

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 3.

Motion No. 3

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 4.

Motion No. 4

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 5.

Motion No. 5

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 6.

Motion No. 6

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 7.

Motion No. 7

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 8.

Motion No. 8

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 9.

Motion No. 9

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 10.

Motion No. 10

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 11.

Motion No. 11

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 12.

Motion No. 12

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 13.

Motion No. 13

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 14.

Motion No. 14

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 15.

Motion No. 15

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 16.

Motion No. 16

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 17.

Motion No. 17

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 18.

Motion No. 18

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 19.

Motion No. 19

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 20.

Motion No. 20

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 21.

Motion No. 21

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 23.

Motion No. 22

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 24.

Motion No. 23

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 25.

Motion No. 24

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 26.

Motion No. 25

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 27.

Motion No. 26

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 28.

Motion No. 27

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 29.

Motion No. 28

Bill C-71 be amended by deleting Clause 30.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-71 at report stage.

In my opinion, Bill C-71 is like a bad play. Let me explain. First, with regard to parliamentary work, the government shut down debate at second reading. What is more, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security asked that it be allowed a sufficient number of meetings and witnesses, but the number of meetings was cut short. From the start, the government did not want to debate Bill C-71; it just wanted to impose the bill on us.

This bill was introduced for marketing purposes. We saw the government doing just that. The Liberals told themselves that they would introduce a bill on firearms to win votes and to get the Conservatives all worked up and drive them crazy. Well, we decided not to get all worked up. We have been smart about this. We looked at what was happening and we saw that it was not working.

Ultimately, Liberals in rural ridings are only hurting themselves. Those people are not fools. Canadians are not fools. Law-abiding Canadians can see that this bill plays politics by targeting the wrong people. It targets hunters and sport shooters while giving street gangs and real criminals a free pass. The Liberals tried to impress, but they ended up shooting themselves in the foot, no pun intended.

This also marks the return of a version of the gun registry, which was abolished a few years back. The Liberals resurrected a very insidious approach, in the form of reference numbers and records that gun retailers have to keep. When a retailer closes, the government takes possession of that information. Reference numbers are kept forever. The Liberals say there is no registry, they swear they are telling the truth, but all the elements are there. In a moment, I am going to talk about the amendments we proposed to fix these problems. All our amendments were rejected.

In order for us, the members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, to do our job properly, we asked for at least seven meetings. We conducted an analysis and examined what had been done by the minister's much-vaunted committee. Incidentally, the Liberals provided a long list of witnesses they said they had consulted, yet those people said they had never been consulted, despite appearing on the list. That is another problem the minister needs to consider.

We, the members of the committee, determined we needed seven meetings to do our job properly. The Conservatives had a list of 21 witnesses representing a variety of perspectives, from firearms advocates to civil rights defenders. There was a little bit of everything. We wanted to do a good job, but the Liberals cut the number of meetings down to four and limited us to seven witnesses. We had to make some tough choices. The Liberals raced through the study of the bill. We were hoping to get things done so everyone would be happy, but it did not work. The government was in a mad rush to get it over with, because constituents in rural Liberal ridings were getting on their case, and rightly so.

The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness created a committee to discuss guns and street gangs. As I said at the beginning of my speech, all the focus is on hunting weapons instead of street gangs. I do not know what happened between the minister's consultations and the tabling of Bill C-71, but the bill contains absolutely no mention of street gangs. This has yet to be cleared up. It is a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes. Maybe one day we will find a solution.

When the minister introduced the bill, he wanted to scare people. He spoke about the serious problem of the rise in crimes committed with firearms in Canada. What he did not say was that the Liberals were using 2013 as their reference year. In the past 10 years, 2013 was the year with the fewest crimes in Canada. He spoke about a surge in crime, but the crime rate was returning to its usual levels. They used the 2013 statistics to indicate that there was an surge in gun crimes and that something had to be done about it. However, crimes are not committed by hunters and sport shooters, but by street gangs. Nevertheless, there is nothing about that.

The other serious problem, as I pointed out at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, concerns first nations. As much as the Liberal government cares about all issues that affect first nations, it did not consult them and is now to some extent ignoring the problem. In committee, a representative from Saskatchewan told us that first nations would not abide by Bill C-71, first, because it is unconstitutional, and second, because guns are traditionally handed down from generation to generation. Canada's first nations are saying that Bill C-71 does not apply to them and that they will go to court to have it declared unconstitutional if the government tries to impose it.

What are we to do, then? The Liberals introduced a bill that does not address the issue of street gangs and that indigenous people are going to disregard. The only ones left are the hunters and sport shooters, who will once more be subject to stricter gun controls, which are already the strictest in the world.

The first nations issue is not a partisan matter, but it is very troubling. When we return in the fall, we need to clarify that, because the fact that indigenous peoples are not concerned about Bill C-71 and are not following the rules is problematic. We cannot have one type of security for one group of individuals and another type for other groups. We must all be on equal footing.

Our committee meetings to ask witnesses questions were limited, but we still did our work. We brought forward 45 amendments to Bill C-71. We took our work seriously. I will list a few of them, so that Canadians can see that they were reasonable.

First of all, we addressed the issue of firearms classification. It is currently the government that determines which firearms are restricted or prohibited, but Bill C-71 puts that entirely in the hands of the RCMP. We proposed an amendment that would give the minister the authority to change the classification of firearms based on recommendations from the manufacturer and the RCMP. Thus, we are proposing that the RCMP and the manufacturers still do their jobs, but that the government retain the power to make certain decisions to prevent the RCMP from making all the decisions, without the government being able to intervene.

Then, there are the chief firearms officers, who will be able to visit the premises of firearms retailers and check their records without a warrant. The government can therefore enter into the place of business of law-abiding retailers with no particular reason other than they sell arms. I believe this needs justification and a warrant.

Now, I want to talk about the date. Today is June 18, and on June 30, a list of 20 prohibited firearms will come into force, even though the bill is still being debated in the House. The firearms that will be prohibited are currently restricted. We are not even at third reading, and the Senate has not yet studied it. We asked the government not to set a fixed date and to implement the act once the bill passes, but the government rejected this legitimate amendment.

As for the list of firearms, the RCMP will now decide which firearms are prohibited, but the bill lists the firearms that will be prohibited. The government lists the firearms in the bill, even though it says that the RCMP will draw that list sometime in the future. This makes no sense. We proposed another amendment to fix this.

Lastly, I want to talk about the reference number that will be required for a transaction. This number will be retained and recorded. This government is therefore creating a registry, no matter what it claims.

No matter what the government said, it is bringing back some form of registry through the backdoor.

[National Security Act, 2017, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his question about cybersecurity. Just recently, a week or two ago, the Minister of Defence, accompanied by the Minister of Public Safety, made a public announcement about some new strategies. The strategy is a rehash of a Conservative strategy from 2013. It also misunderstands Canada's needs, which are significant, given everything that is currently going on with China and Russia. I hope the government will take the necessary steps to ensure that it is very effective with regard to cybersecurity. Right now, there are 200,000 Chinese hackers working ceaselessly to exploit flaws in security systems around the world. That is a lot of people.

[National Security Act, 2017, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. That is part of what I was saying about the omnibus Bill C-59. It has nine separate parts. Some parts are more administrative, and others are more related to the operational side of things. That is what makes this whole business more complicated. A year ago, we were asked to study this bill and work on it. It was a struggle for us to figure out how to make our work relevant. Our recommendations did include some amendments that were more operational and some that were more administrative, but that was because the bill itself was crafted that way.

[National Security Act, 2017, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. I will come back to the very current example of Abu Huzaifa. We learned about him and what he did from an interview he gave to the New York Times. People from CSIS quickly descended on Toronto to question him and he laughed in their faces. How is it that an individual like him, who engaged in jihad, who admitted to killing people, who has committed known atrocities, came back to Toronto and gave an interview to The New York Times?

When we talk about opportunities for obtaining intelligence, it is for that type of individual. We do not want to harm the average, hard-working Canadian who minds their own business. It is because of people like Abu Huzaifa that we want to be sure to have the tools we need to be able to intervene on time. CSIS does intelligence work and has the means. I understand that it is not the same as police work. The police has its own job, but CSIS has to act on this type of situation quickly with the means that we gave them at the time.

[National Security Act, 2017, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I would never, ever, question the work being done by our CSIS and RCMP security officers. They are qualified professionals. There should not be any question about that. I will not allow it. What we are asking for is for these agencies to have the freedom to work effectively, since at the end of the day, it is the safety of Canadians that is at stake.

Yes, individual freedoms are important. I agree with everyone on that. We are playing around with words here, and words are important in a bill. I do not want a changed word to increase the risk of an attack because our officers were not able to intervene in time, all because the government wanted to play politics with the words. As the minister mentioned earlier, we need to find a balance between rights and security. We thought there was a balance, but the government thinks a change is needed. We simply have different ideas of what a balance means, but we are all focused on keeping Canadians safe.

[National Security Act, 2017, June 18th, 2018]

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

On June 20, 2017, almost a year ago to the day, the minister introduced Bill C-59 in the House. Shortly after that, he said that, instead of bringing it back for second reading, it would be sent straight to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security so the committee could strengthen and improve it. Opposition members thought that was fantastic. We thought there would be no need for political games for once. Since this bill is about national security, we thought we could work together to ensure that Bill C-59 works for Canadians. When it comes to security, there is no room for partisanship.

Unfortunately, the opposition soon realized that it was indeed a political game. The work we were asked to do was essentially pointless. I will have more to say about that later.

The government introduced Bill C-71, the firearms bill, in much the same way. It said it would sever the gun-crime connection, but this bill does not even go there. The government is targeting hunters and sport shooters, but that is another story.

Getting back to Bill C-59, we were invited to propose amendments. We worked very hard. We got a lot of work done in just under nine months. We really took the time to go through this 250-page omnibus bill. We Conservatives proposed 45 specific amendments that we thought were important to improve Bill C-59, as the minister had asked us to do. In the end, none of our amendments were accepted by the committee or the government. Once again, we were asked to do a certain job, but then our work was dismissed, even though everything we proposed made a lot of sense.

The problem with Bill C-59, as far as we are concerned, is that it limits the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's ability to reduce terrorist threats. It also limits the ability of government departments to share data among themselves to protect national security. It removes the offence of advocating and promoting terrorist offences in general. Finally, it raises the threshold for obtaining a terrorism peace bond and recognizance with conditions. One thing has been clear to us from the beginning. Changing just two words in a 250-page document can sometimes make all the difference. What we found is that it will be harder for everyone to step in and address a threat.

The minister does indeed have a lot of experience. I think he has good intentions and truly wants this to work, but there is a prime minister above him who has a completely different vision and approach. Here we are, caught in a bind, with changes to our National Security Act that ultimately do nothing to enhance our security.

Our allies around the world, especially those in Europe, have suffered attacks. Bill C-51 was introduced in 2014, in response to the attacks carried out here, in Canada. Right now, we do not see any measures that would prevent someone from returning to the Islamic State. This is a problem. Our act is still in force, and we are having a hard time dealing with Abu Huzaifa, in Toronto. The government is looking for ways to arrest him—if that is what it truly wants to do—and now it is going to pass a law that will make things even harder for our security services. We are having a hard time with this.

Then there is the whole issue of radicalization. Instead of cracking down on it, the government is trying to put up barriers to preventing it. The funny thing is that at the time, when they were in the opposition, the current Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and Prime Minister both voted with the government in favour of Bill C-51. There was a lot of political manoeuvring, and during the campaign, the Liberals said that they would address Bill C-51, a bill they had supported. At the time, it was good, effective counter-terrorism legislation. However, the Liberals listened to lobby groups and said during the campaign that they would amend it.

I understand the world of politics, being a part of it. However, there are certain issues on which we should set politics aside in the interest of national security. Our allies, the Five Eyes countries are working to enhance their security and to be more effective.

The message we want to get across is that adding more red tape to our structures makes them less operationally effective. I have a really hard time with that.

Let me share some examples of amendments we proposed to Bill C-59. We proposed an amendment requiring the minister to table in Parliament a clear description of the way the various organizations would work together, namely, the NSIC, CSE, CSIS, the new committee of parliamentarians, as well as the powers and duties of the minister.

In our meetings with experts, we noticed that people had a hard time understanding who does what and who speaks to whom. We therefore drafted an amendment that called on the minister to provide a breakdown of the duties that would be clear to everyone. The answer was no. The 45 amendments we are talking about were not all ideological in nature, but rather down to earth. The amendments were rejected.

It was the Conservative government that introduced Bill C-51 when it was in office. Before the bill was passed, the mandate of CSIS prevented it from engaging in any disruption activities. For example, CSIS could not approach the parents of a radicalized youth and encourage them to dissuade their child from travelling to a war zone or conducting attacks here in Canada. After Bill C-51 was passed, CSIS was able to engage in some threat disruption activities without a warrant and in others with a warrant. Threat disruption refers to efforts to stop terrorist attacks while they are still in the planning stages.

Threat disruption activities not requiring a warrant are understood to be any activities that are not contrary to Canadian laws. Threat disruption activities requiring a warrant currently include any activity that would infringe on an individual's privacy or other rights and any activity that contravenes Canada's laws. Any threat disruption activities that would cause bodily harm, violate sexual integrity, or obstruct justice are specifically prohibited.

Under Bill C-51, warrants were not required for activities that were not against Canadian law. Bill C-51 was balanced. No one could ask to intervene if it was against the law to do so. When there was justification, that worked, but if a warrant was required, one was applied for.

At present, Bill C-59 limits the threat reduction activities of CSIS to the specific measures listed in the bill. CSIS cannot employ these measures without a warrant. At present CSIS requires a warrant for these actions, which I will describe. First, a warrant is required to amend, remove, replace, destroy, disrupt, or degrade a communication or means of communication. Second, a warrant is also required to modify, remove, replace, destroy, degrade, or provide or interfere with the use or delivery of all or part of something, including files, documents, goods, components, and equipment.

The work was therefore complicated by the privacy objectives of Canadians. Bill C-51 created a privacy problem. Through careful analysis and comparison, it eventually became clear that the work CSIS was requesting was not in fact a privacy intrusion, as was believed. Even the privacy commissioners and witnesses did not analyze the situation the same way we are seeing now.

Bill C-51 made it easier to secure peace bonds in terrorism cases. Before Bill C-51, the legal threshold for police to secure a peace bond was that a person had to fear that another person will commit a terrorism offence.

Under Bill C-51, a peace bond could be issued if there were reasonable grounds to fear that a person might commit a terrorism offence. It is important to note that Bill C-59 maintains the lower of the two thresholds by using “may”. However, Bill C-59 raises the threshold from “is likely” to “is necessary”.

Earlier when I mentioned the two words that changed out of the 250 pages, I was referring to changing “is likely” to “is necessary”. These two words make all the difference for preventing a terrorist activity, in order to secure a peace bond.

It would be very difficult to prove that a peace bond, with certain conditions, is what is needed to prevent an act of terrorism. This would be almost as complex as laying charges under the Criminal Code. What we want, however, is to get information to be able to act quickly to prevent terrorist acts.

We therefore proposed an amendment to the bill calling for a recognizance order to be issued if a peace officer believes that such an order is likely to prevent terrorist activities. The Liberals are proposing replacing the word “likely” with the words “is necessary”. We proposed an amendment to eliminate that part of the bill, but it was refused. That is the main component of Bill C-59 with respect to managing national security.

Bill C-59 has nine parts. My NDP colleague wanted to split the bill, and I thought that was a very good idea, since things often get mixed up in the end. We are debating Bill C-59 here, but some parts are more administrative in nature, while others have to do with young people. Certain aspects need not be considered together. We believe that the administrative parts could have been included in other bills, while the more sensitive parts that really concern national security could have been dealt with publicly and separately.

Finally, the public and the media are listening to us, and Bill C-59 is an omnibus bill with so many elements that we cannot oppose it without also opposing some aspects that we support. For example, we are not against reorganizing the Communications Security Establishment. Some things could be changed, but we are not opposed to that.

We supported many of the bill's elements. On balance, however, it contains some legislation that is too sensitive and that we cannot support because it touches on fundamental issues. In our view, by tinkering with this, security operations will become very bureaucratic and communications will become difficult, despite the fact the the main goal was to simplify things and streamline operations.

The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security heard from 36 witnesses, and several of them raised this concern. The people who work in the field every day said that it complicated their lives and that this bill would not simplify things. A huge structure that looks good on paper was put in place, but from an operational point of view, things have not been simplified.

Ultimately, national security is what matters to the government and to the opposition. I would have liked the amendments that we considered important to be accepted. Even some administrative amendments were rejected. We believe that there is a lack of good faith on the part of the government on this file. One year ago, we were asked to work hard and that is what we did. The government did not listen to us and that is very disappointing.

[National Security Act, 2017, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the minister said that 36 witnesses appeared before the committee during its months-long study. One of them was Richard Fadden, the former national security advisor to the former and current prime ministers.

Mr. Fadden said that Bill C-59 was problematic because it was harder to understand and manage than the Income Tax Act. He said that the transfer of information seemed especially complicated.

Can the minister comment on Mr. Fadden's remarks? Does he agree with him? Is there still time to change things?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 18th, 2018]

With regard to individuals who have illegally crossed the border, since December 1, 2016, and are now seeking asylum: (a) what is the current wait time for receiving an Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) hearing; (b) how many such individuals have failed to appear at their scheduled IRB hearing; (c) how many such individuals have been deported; (d) what is the number of such individuals who have crossed the border, broken down by country of origin; (e) how many such individuals were deported for (i) national security reasons, (ii) terrorism charges, (iii) public safety reasons; (f) what is the breakdown of (e) by (i) individuals deported upon initial screening, (ii) individuals deported at a later date; (g) how many such individuals have been detained or incarcerated; and (h) how many such individuals are currently under a deportation order?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 18th, 2018]

With regard to illegal border crossings by individuals: (a) does the government believe it is illegal to cross the border at any place other than a port of entry; (b) does the matter of illegal border crossings fall under the jurisdiction of the RCMP or the Canada Border Services Agency; and (c) which agency or police force is responsible for apprehending individuals who have illegally crossed the border, broken down by geographic area?