News from ICLMG

National Security Info Card 2015-2019

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The act repealed the two-tiered citizenship regime created by Bill C-24 that discriminated against dual nationals.
Read more

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.
Read more

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.
Read more

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.
Read more

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.
Read more

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.
Read more

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.
Read more

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

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RELEASE: Coalition Calls On Federal Leaders to Commit to Defending Civil Liberties in 2019 Federal Election

For immediate release

Coalition Calls On Federal Leaders to Commit to Defending Civil Liberties in 2019 Federal Election

OTTAWA (Sept. 25, 2019) – Federal leaders and their parties must do more to show their commitment to defending civil liberties in Canada, particularly from the impact of national security and anti-terrorism laws, says a national coalition of 46 organizations.

“Despite pressing concerns, we have heard very little from Canada’s political leaders about what they will do to address issues like mass surveillance, political and religious profiling, Canada’s complicity in torture, or secret watch lists – all implemented in the name of ‘national security’,” said Tim McSorley, national coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group. The ICLMG was founded shortly after the adoption of Canada’s first Anti-Terrorism Act in 2001 to serve as a watchdog on the effects anti-terrorism laws and the “War on Terror” have on civil liberties in Canada.

Since then, the coalition has observed a troubling trend of “national security creep”: ever expanding powers for Canada’s secretive national security agencies, with a clear impact on the civil liberties of people in Canada, as well as internationally.

To combat this trend, the ICLMG has written to party leaders, laying out ten commitments they could make today in order to ensure civil liberties in Canada are strengthened and promoted heading into the next parliament. These asks are:

  1. Stop and effectively outlaw all mass surveillance.
  2. Stop the surveillance, profiling and harassment of Indigenous people, Muslim communities and environmental defenders.
  3. End all deportations to torture, including Mohamed Harkat’s, and abolish security certificates.
  4. Launch an independent and public inquiry into the case of Hassan Diab and the Extradition Act.
  5. Fix the many problems created by the National Security Act, 2017 (Bill C-59), and address the ongoing issues it perpetuated.
  6. Abolish the No-Fly List and the Terrorist Entities List.
  7. Ensure justice and full redress for victims of torture.
  8. Bring home Canadian citizens being detained in Syria.
  9. Suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States.
  10. Address Islamophobia, xenophobia, hate, racism, gendered and domestic violence, unemployment, poverty and more to create a better society for all.

A more detailed list, with explanations of each ask along with sources, is available at iclmg.ca/election-2019.

The coalition is also asking the public to weigh in by writing to the candidates in their riding, using an online emailing tool on the ICLMG’s website at iclmg.ca/act-election-2019.

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Contact:
Tim McSorley, National Coordinator, ICLMG
(613) 241-5298

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