During the recent federal elections, there was very little discussion of national security and anti-terrorism laws, and none of it related to its impact on human rights and civil liberties.
On the eve of the opening of the 43rd parliament, though, there is an urgent need for action on several fronts, including:
Growing state surveillance;
Ongoing complicity in torture;
Secret evidence undermining the right to a fair trial and due process;
The continued use of the secret and rights-violating No Fly List;
The refusal to reform Canada’s flawed Extradition Act; and
Countering racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and all other forms of hate.
Today the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group sent the following open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, copied to all party leaders, outlining where the government must take action.
Hassan Diab, a Canadian university professor and father, was extradited to France based on weak, confusing evidence, where he spent more than three years in prison, without charge or trial. He is thankfully free and back in Canada, but justice hasn’t been served. Dr. Diab deserves answers and we need changes to Canada’s broken extradition act. The only solution is a full, independent, public inquiry.
… we have a small favour to ask. Here at ICLMG, we are working very hard to protect and promote human rights and civil liberties in the context of the so-called “war on terror” in Canada. We do not receive any financial support from any federal, provincial or municipal governments or political parties. You can become our patron on Patreon and get rewards in exchange for your support. You can give as little as $1/month (that’s only $12/year!) and you can unsubscribe at any time. Any donations will go a long way to support our work.You can also make a one-time donation or donate monthly via Paypal by clicking on the button below. On the fence about giving? Check out our Achievements and Gains since we were created in 2002. Thank you for your generosity!
A good way to know what will be a party’s position on national security in the next Parliament, is to know how they have acted on that topic in the past. On this page, you’ll find:
Votes on national security legislation from 2015 to 2019
These votes are the votes in the House of Commons at 3rd reading for the bills to be adopted and sent to the Senate, unless specified otherwise.
Laws/Parties
Liberals
CPC
NDP
Greens
Bloc
C-6, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act
The act repealed the two-tiered citizenship regime created by Bill C-24 that discriminated against dual nationals.
This act amends the Citizenship Act to remove the grounds for the revocation of Canadian citizenship that relate to national security. Those grounds were introduced by the Harper government with Bill C-24. They effectively created a two-tiered citizenship regime that discriminates against dual nationals, whether born abroad or in Canada, and naturalized citizens. These Canadians had more limited citizenship rights compared to other Canadians, simply because they or their parents or ancestors were born in another country. Source 1 & source 2 The vote at third reading consisted of a motion for unanimous support to move forward on several bills, including C-6 to go to Senate. The motion passed but we don’t know who was present during that vote. Here is the breakdown for the vote at 2nd reading.
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
C-21, An Act to amend the Customs Act
This act authorizes the Canada Border Services Agency to collect, from US border agents, personal information on all persons who are leaving or have left Canada. It also allows this information to be kept for 15 years.
The kind of data collected ties a person to their movement across borders and can therefore paint a very specific and revealing portrait, especially if and when it is combined with other information collected by government agencies (telecommunications data, employment records, health records, government benefits, etc.) For example, this type of data could be added in bulk to CSIS datasets introduced with Bill C-59, creating a massive archive of the travels of Canadians who are not direct subjects of national security investigations. Source Vote at 2nd reading (the vote at 3rd reading was not counted).
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
C-22, An Act to establish the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians
Additional review mechanisms to our national security apparatus are welcome, however this one includes several shortcomings.
This act establishes the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and sets out its composition and mandate. Its shortcomings are the following:
+ The Minister responsible for a department that the Committee wishes to review can refuse to provide information or refuse to be reviewed altogether if they determine that it would be “injurious to national security”. That decision is final and cannot be appealed in courts by the Committee.
+ The Committee’s reports are submitted to the Prime Minister, and not Parliament. The Prime Minister also has the power to censor reports.
+ The Government appoints the members to oversee… the Government.
+ Members cannot rely on their parliamentary privilege for protection if they disclose information in the House.
+ The Committee’s recommendations are not binding. Source 1 & source 2
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
C-23, Preclearance Act, 2016 Preclearance areas in US and Canada allow for people and goods to go through customs before boarding transportation to the other country, rather than at destination, for expediency reasons. There are, however, several issues with this legislation including: the granting of sweeping civil or criminal immunity to US preclearance officers; losing the right to withdraw from preclearance without further questioning; and US officers being allowed to proceed with a strip search even if a Canadian officer declines to carry it out.
This act implements the Agreement on Land, Rail, Marine, and Air Transport Preclearance between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America (the Agreement), done in Washington on March 16, 2015, to provide for the preclearance in each country of travelers and goods bound for the other country. The issues with the legislation are the following:
+ The Department of Homeland Security will have undue influence over the security clearance of Canadian workers.
+ The Agreement was reached without parliamentarian input or approval. Government MPs then argued that they could not amend the law, as it would go against the agreement. This is a violation of Canadian sovereignty, and particularly of the Parliament.
+ The granting of sweeping civil or criminal immunity to US preclearance officers.
+ Losing the right to withdraw from preclearance without further questioning.
+ US officers being allowed to proceed with a strip search even if a Canadian officer declines to carry it out. Source 1 & source 2
Yes
Yes
No
No
Didn’t vote
C-59, the National Security Act, 2017 Among many other things, the act introduced important albeit flawed oversight and review mechanisms, legislated huge mass surveillance powers, created dangerous cyber hacking powers, and gave immunity to CSIS agents for actions or omissions that would otherwise be crimes.
The National Security Act, 2017 (formerly Bill C-59) received royal assent in June 2019. The Liberal government has touted it as being a “fix” for the previous government’s dangerous Bill C-51 (the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015). But while it brings some improvements, C-59:
+ Continues to allow CSIS to engage in secret and dangerous threat disruption powers;
+ Maintains the secretive No Fly List, which violates due process and has never been proven to be effective;
+ Preserves overly-broad information sharing rules that infringe on privacy, free expression and the right to dissent;
+ Improves on review of national security activities by creating the overarching National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, but falls far short by allowing the weakest aspects of current national security review bodies to persist in the new agency;
+ Grants sweeping new surveillance powers to both the CSE and CSIS, including the collection of metadata, vaguely defined “publicly available information,” and the incredibly broad category of “unselected information” (which essentially means any information);
+ Introduces new powers to give CSIS agents or designated individuals immunity for committing crimes in the line of their work;
+ Fails to prohibit the use and sharing, in all circumstances, of information linked to mistreatment and torture;
+ Allows the CSE to engage in broad and powerful new “active cyber operations” with little oversight, creating the risk of retaliation as well as attacks from leaked new cyber-weapons. Source + More info on CSIS breaking the law
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No
C-98, An Act to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and the Canada Border Services Agency Act – NOT ADOPTED This act amends the RCMP Act to rename the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP as the Public Complaints and Review Commission, and amends the CBSA Act to grant to that new Commission powers to conduct a review of the activities of the CBSA and to investigate complaints concerning the conduct of any CBSA officers or employees.
At second reading, a motion to pass and refer the bill to committee for study was agreed to on division. There was no recorded vote so we don’t know which MPs and parties opposed it. At third reading, it was ordered by unanimous consent that Bill C-98 be deemed to have been concurred in at the report stage, and deemed read a third time and passed. Following that, Parliament rose for the summer recess and was then dissolved for the election; therefore, the bill died. Source 1 & source 2
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
S-205, An Act to amend the Canada Border Services Agency Act – NOT ADOPTED Introduced in the Senate in December 2015, it aimed to create an Inspector General of the CBSA whose mandate is to receive and consider complaints about the Agency. It passed third reading in the Senate but was never read in the House of Commons.
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale testified at the Senate Committee studying the bill and said that the government couldn’t support the bill because it was conducting a national security consultation and wanted to see its results before moving forward with a bill creating an independent review mechanism for CBSA. The consultation ended in December 2016. The government finally introduced such a bill – C-98 (see above) – in May 2019. The bill of course died when Parliament rose for the summer recess not long after it was introduced and was then dissolved for the election, leaving CBSA without an independent review mechanism. Source 1 & source 2
