Information & Ethics committee  I admit that I may talk to people who tend to already be interested in this issue, but certainly I've talked to people who aren't. However, I saw a coming together of Canadians on Bill C-51 and a concern about the scope of information sharing that I hadn't seen before in recent

Information & Ethics committee  I would agree with what my two colleagues said, and I wish to underscore the serious civil liberties concerns here. Not only are we concerned about how the lawyers of various agencies might be interpreting things or what charter rights are engaged, including sections 11 and 13, b

Information & Ethics committee  I suppose that I would have to provide the same answer that I gave a bit earlier, which is that we asked the question when Bill C-51 came out: why was this necessary? We had existing laws in place already. We have never received an appropriate answer, and I don't know why. I do

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you so much for the question. I suppose I would go back to section 2 of the act. The definition of any activity that undermines the security of Canada is so overbroad that now we have a legislatively prescribed definition that's just opened it so wide that any information

Information & Ethics committee  I think having a parliamentary committee would be a welcome move in Canada, but it is not a substitute for an independent reviewer of national security issues, so the two have to work together. Second, I think that Bill C-22 has ineffectual review, because at the end of the day t

Information & Ethics committee  I defer to Professor Forcese on this. I would say that I agree with him and just add that—this might be radical—I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel. We definitely need to have a consolidated definition. When I say that we don't need to reinvent the wheel, this is someth

Information & Ethics committee  I have an idealistic and a practical response to that. My idealistic response would be yes, that would have been great, and that's what we argued for when we had hearings on Bill C-51. My concern, though, is that we have an act in place now that's been operational for over a year

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. CCLA has always taken the position that we didn't know why Bill C-51 was needed. We knew that we had had these tragic events. We all agreed that they were tragic, but we did not know what the gaps were in the October 2014 existing laws that Bill C-51 was remedying. Wh

Information & Ethics committee  I completely agree with that, and I think I said in my comments at the outset that the current mandate of the Privacy Commissioner, while extremely laudable, means that he is constrained, and there is only so much that he can do. To change that mandate would have other implicatio

Information & Ethics committee  I think that I would probably share what I heard Professor Forcese say at the outset. We were very concerned when the word “lawful” existed, but then we were also concerned when it was withdrawn, because of the implications. At first we welcomed it, but then we were concerned abo

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you for the question. I would absolutely say that more needs to be done, and obviously my two fellow witnesses are experts on talking about what can be done. In short, as I've mentioned, we've called for an integrated review. A review would be different from oversight, a

Information & Ethics committee  This is not just a plug, but based on your question, we have released just this week, with our international partners, a report on information sharing and surveillance. The CCLA has included a chapter in that report on the Re (X) case. The other partners who have written include

Information & Ethics committee  The U.S. is part of the Five Eyes.

Information & Ethics committee  I completely agree with Professor Roach. I would just add that in addition to the mandatory sharing, as recommended by Justice Major, the principles of necessity and proportionality exist to allow for sharing when it's precisely that: when it's necessary.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I completely agree. I would also point out that after the 9/11 attacks, the international community recognized that this needed to be done. In Canada, as Professor Forcese has just said, we have a certain place. We are a net recipient of this information, and it's importan