JUST Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA JUSTICE ET DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, October 24, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Andy Scott (Fredericton, Lib.)): I'd like to call the thirty-second meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to order. Today we'll be considering Bill C-36, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Official Secrets Act, the Canada Evidence Act, the Proceeds of Crime Act, and other acts, and to enact measures respecting the registration of charities in order to combat terrorism.

I apologize for racing to get to our distinguished guest, Mr. Wilkinson, but we understand our time together will be limited, and members of the committee, Mr. Wilkinson, are very anxious to hear from you.

By way of introduction, Professor Paul Wilkinson is a founder member of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence and the author of many works in the area, particularly Terrorism and the Liberal State in 1977. He's a past director of the London-based Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and Terrorism, and was most recently appointed special adviser to Lord Lloyd, the chair of a government commission charged with formulating Britain's anti-terrorism legislation.

I would advise our guest that the committee has just begun to undertake its work in reviewing this legislation. It was tabled in the House last Monday. To date we've heard from the minister, we've heard from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we've heard from our intelligence service, CSIS, and we are very grateful for the opportunity to hear from you. I understand you appeared before the Senate this morning.

I think I'm going to do a bit of business while you have an opportunity to nourish yourself—we would want you to be in good health when you make your presentation. So, members of the committee, let me tell you what we're going to be talking about in business after we hear from Mr. Wilkinson and have a chance to put questions.

First, on the schedule concerning the balance of our review of Bill C-36, we've been able to accommodate all the witnesses who have been brought forward by all parties. We still need to have a discussion about attorneys general from the provinces, which we will have later, but even accommodating that, we can have all our witnesses heard before the Remembrance Day break. It will require that we use one Tuesday evening, and we've agreed to that already, and it will also require that we use two Thursday afternoons. That was the last choice that everybody identified as to when they would sit, but again, for those who can't be available transcripts will be there. So I think that would be a reasonable way to proceed, with your concurrence of course.

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In the event that members chose to do so, we'd have a whole week to look at amendments, if we are so convinced of the need for amendment. If the government decides it may want to bring amendments forward itself, it also gives the government a week to prepare to do that. That would see the minister coming back with officials, as she suggested she would, after the break, and then during the course of that week we would do clause-by-clause. That will also allow us to meet our commitment to the House to finish Bill C-15B by the end of November. It's a heavy load, but we already have told Canadians, on this subject, that we intend to do some heavy lifting, so I think we're doing that now. That's what I would hope to propose, and we'll have more discussion on that after we've heard from our distinguished guest.

So with that slight modification in the agenda, Mr. Wilkinson, we'd love to hear from you.

Mr.Paul Wilkinson (Individual Presentation): Thank you, Chairman and ladies and gentlemen. It is a great privilege to be with you and to join in your discussions of Bill C-36. I should just say a little about my background in this subject.

I am Professor of International Relations, as you know, at St. Andrews University, but my research field for over 30 years has been the study of terrorism, particularly the problems of the democratic and international response to terrorist violence. The institute I have the privilege of directing in St. Andrews is an independent academic institute. It is, therefore, based on open-source materials, of which we have a rich variety, and members would be very welcome to get in touch with us if they feel that we may have some documentation on a particular group or a particular area of the world that might be useful, and we'd be only too happy to welcome you to the centre. We have some very lively researchers from all over the world working in the centre, and we'd be delighted to welcome you, so please do take us up on that invitation.

I should start by just mentioning briefly how I see the strategic implications of the atrocities of September 11 for international peace and security, then going on to talk about some of the implications of that for Canada's position and Canada's legislation as I see it, as an outside academic observer.

It is clear that we have crossed a terrible watershed through the horrific events of September 11. We now clearly face a strategic threat internationally. I think in the past, certainly when I came into the field in the late sixties and early seventies, it was regarded as very much a special interest of countries that had a particular problem within their own territory, a law and order problem, rather than a strategic problem. Now we face atrocities in which over five and a half thousand people lost their lives, the largest individual act of mass terrorism by any terrorist group in the history of modern terrorism, with more people killed in one day than have been killed in 35 years of terrorism over the entire area of western Europe. That includes Northern Ireland, the Basque region of Spain, spilling over into the rest of Spain, Corsica, the Italian violence of the seventies and early eighties, Germany, the groups that are active inside France in the mainland fringe territory, and the deaths in that whole area are fewer than the total of those who lost their lives in the atrocities in America.

We have crossed the threshold, therefore, into the era of mass terrorism, and we see a group that is actually hell-bent upon killing large numbers of people, indeed, if you read their statements and propaganda, as many Americans and American allies as possible. That really does rather outdate the very famous comment of a colleague of mine who helped to pioneer the study of terrorism in the United States, Brian Jenkins, that terrorists want a lot of people watching, not a lot of people dead.

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What I think we have seen in the case of the American atrocities is a group that really does have no compunction about massive lethality, and so we are a major step closer to the use of weapons of mass destruction by a terrorist group. We do not yet know enough about the anthrax that is being used in the United States and has turned up in some other countries, for example, in Argentina. We don't yet know whether is part of the al-Qaeda network's efforts or whether it is something being done by some other group or groups or by a rogue state. There is a great debate about that. However, in the information we already have about the acts carried out by the bin Laden al-Qaeda network we can certainly see that if they had access to a means of dispersing chemical, nuclear, or biological weapons, there is no reason to think they would be in any way deterred from doing it by moral constraints. The only thing that will deter them, in my view, is firm action by the global community, the concerted efforts of the international community to suppress this threat to international human rights and international security and well-being.

In addition to the terrible impact on the lives of the families who have lost loved ones in the atrocities, one of the major effects has been to damage the American economy and the global economy, not just the aviation industry, which has obviously been particularly hard hit, and the tourism industry, but the overall well-being of the world economy and the prospects for growth and economic development in parts of the world where such development is desperately needed. We have to remember that this has a global impact.

It is also clear that the kind of terrorism we've seen in the September 11 attacks not only is showing the globalization of terrorism in its impact on the whole international system, with the formulation of a coalition against terror, the current fighting in Afghanistan itself, but also we see that it's partly the effect of the globalization of terrorist organization. The al-Qaeda is quintessentially a transnational organization, which is why in my comments to the media or in my lectures since September 11 I've been emphasizing that looking to the military action in Afghanistan as the panacea, as the sole means of ending this evil campaign, is to show a misunderstanding of the nature of the phenomenon.

It may, in fact, if it succeeds in capturing bin Laden, severely disrupt and weaken the al-Qaeda network, but it doesn't mean that one has ended the threat from the tentacles of the network, which, as we're now discovering through the belated intensive efforts of intelligence agencies and police in so many countries, is spread over at least two dozen countries. While those tentacles still exist, while there are still operatives at large, still support networks in countries, including Canada, there is a continuing danger of further attacks, and it would be dishonest of me to try to reassure you by saying, we have seen the worst, it's all over, we're not going to see any more attacks. I do not see any evidence that we can rest on our laurels and say the actions that have been taken so far by criminal justice investigators, by the intelligence community, by the military in the Afghanistan area are going to be sufficient to create a kind of immunity to further attacks.

It may concern you to know that I have flown many thousands of miles over recent weeks visiting conferences and lectures, including in Athens, which, as you know, has traditionally had quite a serious terrorism problem internally. I discovered that on all the aircraft I flew on it was possible to move easily into the cockpit, there was no barrier to anyone doing that. I could have had a weapon, as the airport security measures I went through were grossly inadequate, and I could certainly have seized control of an aircraft.

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When one remembers that suicide hijacking was the means used by these people to create such carnage, it does worry me that there is still such a slow response by our aviation authorities in all our major aviation countries, including Canada, I'm sorry to say. Certainly, it takes time to get the airport security situation right on the ground. It's more complex, it requires lots of training and better people, in some cases, to do the job, as the United States is finding with its discussion of the way airport security is actually implemented. But in-flight security doesn't take so long to put right in respect of the basic precautions against suicide hijacking. You can put a firewall into aircraft, you can make sure the people in the passenger compartment cannot actually enter the cockpit, you can put sky marshals on to make sure the hijackers don't get away with trying to kill or injure members of the passenger crew and cabin crew. Those measures are not being taken rapidly enough, though I know some airlines are introducing them.

I would like to make the point to this committee, because I'm sure you have influence in making these points to your Canadian aviation authorities and to the government. I think it's urgent for governments to recognize that this loophole, which the al-Qaeda network exploited with such terrible consequences, still exists, and it's time we took much better care of civil aviation, because in the hands of terrorists an airliner can become a flying bomb that can kill hundreds of thousands of people.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Wilkinson.

We have the Canadian Alliance party, the Bloc Québécois, the Democrats, the Democratic Reform Alliance, and the Liberal party. The way it works is that each of these parties will have five minutes to have a discussion. The opposition has been generous in giving up a couple of minutes each, so that we could get more questions in.

So I turn this to Mr. Toews for five minutes.

Mr. Vic Toews (Provencher, Canadian Alliance): Thank you for your presentation. I appreciate the time you spent in coming here to address us on this important issue.

Your comments that we have now crossed a threshold into mass terrorism and that there seems to be a significant psychological and action shift by these terrorist groups, where it's not simply enough just to kill to terrorize, but also to kill so many to terrorize, I think make an important observation. These individuals show no moral restraint, so we can't assume they will act in any predictable way, in the sense of being bound by some type of accepted, at least western democratic, morality.

In view of this threshold's being crossed, I assume you would agree that the need for ongoing anti-terrorist legislation is crucial. We can't simply say that when the fighting is over and a certain terrorist has been captured, we're going to see an end to this, so that the terrorist situation is over. In fact, this will be an ongoing concern that we need to address. Concerns have been raised that the provisions in our anti-terrorist act are extraordinary, and therefore should have a fixed lifespan, in other words, a sunset clause. In view of your advice regarding the ongoing threat of terrorism, would these types of sunset clauses be advisable?

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Second, we're also very concerned, of course, about the impact on civil liberties. Our Privacy Commissioner has advised us that this legislation, in effect, guts his ability to review in confidence ministerial certificates that would deny Canadians access to personal information. I was just wondering if you had any comments on how other western democratic nations dealt with that.

Mr. Paul Wilkinson: Thank you.

In answer to your first question, sir, I think it is clear that we do need strong national anti-terrorism legislation and that it is unwise for us to assume that's only going to be needed for one or two years or three years. I think there have been some over-ambitious estimates of how soon we can deal with this problem of terrorism as a threat to human rights internationally. I can understand why the American President wanted to suggest that things would be so dynamic that we would be able to wrap up terrorism internationally. The war on drugs was a similar rather ambitious agenda, I think.

My feeling is that it will be a great achievement if we can dismantle the al-Qaeda network that has carried out these terrible attacks in America. That should be our first priority, because it is the most dangerous current international terrorist threat, without any doubt. But the assumption that we can do that so quickly that we can wrap it up in a couple of years, that all the network's tentacles will disappear, and that there is then no further terrorism to worry about is, I'm afraid, over-optimistic.

When I came into this field of research over 30 years ago, I did think, in my naivety, that it would be a couple of years work doing some books and papers, and then I'd be able to go into something peaceful, like the study of United Nations development issues, which I was very interested in. But sadly, as I finished my first conference papers and articles, the whole business of attacks on embassies, diplo-napping, which is a thing that broke out on a large scale, particularly in Latin America, the bombing of targets in various countries, and the hijacking of planes for political reasons burgeoned to the point where, in fact, there was a desperate shortage of academics working in this area, and I think that still is the case. In other words, the problem is much more deeply entrenched in our international system than any of us had ever assumed.

I think what is coming out very clearly from the early criminal investigation results into the attacks of September 11 is that none of us, including the West European countries, their intelligence services, their police forces, had any idea how well-organized and numerous these network cells were in our own countries, working within our own boundaries. What I think we haven't caught up with is that even groups that are primarily concerned with winning power in some distant country have used the resources of globalization, international air travel, Internet encrypted communication with their supporters and cells elsewhere, to operate globally, to be able to feed funds from one part of the world to another part of the world with the greatest of ease.

So I think we are facing quite a complex phenomenon, which it would be unrealistic to think we can simply dispose of in a very short period of time. It's a big challenge, the major challenge, in fact, for our intelligence communities and police forces, because of the threat to human rights and well-being that is implicit in mass terrorism, possibly using weapons of mass destruction.

So it's a big problem. We need legislation of the kind that has been drafted and presented in Bill C-36. I've looked carefully at that legislation to see whether it is in some way inherently overwhelming the protections of civil rights and civil liberties, which are so important in our western democratic countries, and I must say I don't see that it is a threat to the fundamental liberties of the ordinary citizen in Canada or anywhere else. It is a threat to the freedom of terrorists to commit terrorism, but I've never regarded that as a fundamental civil right. You may think that is a rather cynical remark, but the fact is that there are some who carry the idea of civil rights to such an extent that they come close to saying you really don't have civil rights unless you're free to go and put a bomb on a plane or free to go and blow up a market square when you feel your cause is justified.

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My feeling is that this problem of terrorism is such a challenge to human rights all over the world that we have to now distinguish, but not between clashes of religion or civilization; I think that's a lot of dangerous nonsense that could lead us into terrible wider conflicts. It is basically a clash between those who think terrorism, by its nature, as it involves a deliberate attack on civilians, as we've seen now on a very indiscriminate basis, is a legitimate form of activity and those who think it is never acceptable to do that, that one can always campaign for political changes, for reforms, even for a total change of political system without launching deliberate attacks on the civilian population. And the civilian population in Delhi, in Islamabad, or in Kabul are just as important as the civilian population in New York or Montreal—let's be consistent about this.

The United Nations conventions, which are incorporated, I'm glad to see, in your proposed legislation, do not discriminate between countries or between religious groups or between ethnic groups. It's clear that what they are about is the method or the activity of terrorism, and I think that's what your legislation is about. It's about trying to curb terrorist activity and thereby protect the most fundamental human right, which is the right to life.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Wilkinson.

Madam Venne, for five minutes.

[Translation]

Ms. Pierrette Venne (Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yesterday, a British MP, Mr. Terry Davis, was here and made a presentation to the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He mentioned that the British anti-terrorism legislation was sometimes misused, particularly against demonstrators. He gave the example of Tibetans who were protesting peacefully and were brutally arrested. I'd like to know whether you share that opinion. It's my first question.

The second one has to do with the Terrorism Act 2000 I have here with me. Unfortunately, I don't have the 2001 version. I had it somewhere; however, I can refer to this document, because it says here, in the summary:

[English]

The previous counter-terrorist legislation was subject to annual renewal by Parliament. Under the Act this will in general no longer be the case.

[Translation]

Then it says:

[English]

The main provisions in the Act are to be permanent. There will, however, continue to be an annual report to Parliament on the working of the Act.

[Translation]

I understand that before the 2000 legislation was enacted, there was a vote in the House every year, but that now, it's been decided that it would stand permanently. This is more or less what we are asking for here. Why not put in a sunset clause right now, since it's the first time we contemplate that kind of action, since the circumstances are extraordinary and since special and very extensive powers as well as extraordinary measures are included in this anti-terrorism bill? We'd like to do here as it was done before, as I understand, and have a vote every year about these laws because, before 2000, you could find counter-terrorism measures in several laws.

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Why don't you suggest we do the same thing, since we are just starting and it's the first time we have that type of legislation here?

I certainly realize that terrorism won't stop tomorrow and that it might not be possible to put all this aside in a year, but I believe that, in the meantime, so that people don't panic, it might be wise to proceed that way. I'd like to have your opinion about this.

[English]

Mr. Paul Wilkinson: Thank you very much for those very interesting questions.

First, I'm afraid you were misinformed about protests coming under Terrorism Act 2000. The legislation very specifically is directed at terrorist activity, not at protest, and that has been made clear in the implementation of the act since it was introduced. It became implemented from March of this year, and in numerous demonstrations no use of the terrorism legislation is to be seen. The reason is that there is separate legislation, which has been on the statute book for a very long time, that covers public order, demonstrations, etc. It was never intended that the terrorism legislation would deal with that kind of lawful dissent and protest. So do disabuse yourself of any idea that people who paint statues or engage in anarchist demonstrations in the middle of London against capitalism are somehow going to be regarded as terrorists. That is not the case.

On the issue of the sunset clause, the old Prevention of Terrorism Act was, I think, in many ways a very unsatisfactory piece of legislation. It was introduced in great haste in 1974 after the Birmingham pub bombings by the IRA. Because it was introduced in haste, it had little bits added to it in its life as a piece of legislation, which made it somewhat confusing and, I think, rather less valuable than it should have been as a legislative framework for dealing with terrorism. It was subject to a lot of criticism from all sides in Parliament because of that. However, it had enough support to maintain its existence, because of the high level of violence emanating from the Northern Ireland conflicts and spreading on to the U.K. mainland. That meant that no government felt secure enough to simply scrap the whole thing. They just changed clauses and added sections to it as proposals arose in the course of the evolution of terrorism. For example, international terrorist activity in the U.K. was added in 1985. So the PTA was a rather untidy framework that accumulated further clauses through its life.

It would have been due for replacement anyway, and a new act was needed. The British major parties agreed on the setting up of an independent inquiry under Lord Lloyd, a leading High Court judge, to consider the future need for legislation against terrorism in the light of the great improvement in the situation in Northern Ireland, the peace process that started in 1993-94. It was hoped that one could greatly reduce the number of measures that were needed, and that the kind of measures that were needed would be of a less draconian kind. This had widespread support as an exercise. They produced a report in October 1996, and I had the honour of being the research adviser to Lord Lloyd's committee and wrote the second volume of the report, which is on the history of the experience of terrorism in the U.K. and the prospects for future terrorism.

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The report was carefully considered by parliamentarians. A consultation paper was issued, and the final legislation wasn't introduced until the summer of 2000 by the Labour government. It went through the parliamentary process again, with very careful scrutiny and a number of amendments. Lawyers in the House of Lords particularly expert in human rights law made sure that in their minds, it was compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, which is now, as you know, integrated into British law through the Human Rights Act.

So this was a carefully considered piece of legislation. It does not include the kind of knee-jerk reaction types of powers that have been introduced in some previous situations, and I'm glad of that. I don't think it's a good idea to introduce things in the heat of the moment. You have to consider legislation carefully, which is why I appreciate the care with which you and your colleagues in the Senate are considering this current bill.

I do think, as far as the provisions are concerned, they have been very carefully considered. It is sensible, therefore, for those provisions to be subject, as they must be, because they are legislation, to Parliament's decision at some future date that they are no longer necessary. It could be open to Parliament at any time, if it were felt that these were not longer relevant or necessary, to propose that they be scrapped as powers. Our Parliament is certainly constitutionally empowered to do that. However, I do welcome the fact that there will be annual reports on the working of legislation. You may think that is just a placebo to satisfy civil libertarian opinion, but in fact, the reports that were given, particularly in the 1980s, in respect of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, were very critical and proposed a lot of changes in the implementation, as well as the clauses, of the legislation. Many of those criticisms were accepted by government and implemented.

So I do believe that an independent judicial figure or an ombudsman—I don't know quite how you would do it in Canada, but you must have an independent figure who would be entrusted with this kind of role—giving an annual report on the way the legislation works would be a good idea from the point where you reach your three-year trial period with the legislation. As I see it, the review by Parliament will take place three years after the legislation is enacted—that's my understanding of your draft proposals. I think that if you were to try to scrap the legislation before then, without an accompanying end to the problem of global terrorism, it would be a very irresponsible move. You know, in the case of the Air India bombing, how long it has taken the authorities to accumulate a case to bring a judicial process to bear. Clearly, if that were all put at risk by suddenly having a shutter go down that says the legislation is no longer in being, it would be very damaging to the task of combatting terrorism.

So I think one must leave it to the judgment of the Canadian Parliament as to whether, after the review, they get another system of appraisal, perhaps on an annual basis by an independent reviewer, or some other means of annually or biannually reviewing the legislation. But in any case, as they are a democratically elected Parliament, my understanding is that under the Canadian Constitution they could decide that it was no longer necessary to have any of the legislation, to scrap it all or to scrap parts of it. So I don't see really the strength of the argument about a sunset clause, in view of the flexibility of the Canadian Constitution and the responsible record of Canadian legislators. I cannot see Canadian legislators permanently agreeing to something and to renewing something if they find this is no longer needed.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Blaikie for five minutes.

Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): To follow up the sunsetting debate for a minute, having a sunset clause doesn't mean that it will be scrapped. What it means is that if the government wants it to continue, it has to deliberately act to continue it. So there's no assumption built into a sunset clause that legislation will in fact be scrapped. It's simply a matter of forcing the government to either reaffirm the legislation by reenacting it or change it, and that's not something that a parliamentary review imposes on the government. It's not a discipline it imposes on the government.

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I wonder if our guest, Mr. Chairman, could comment on—I don't have time to go into everything—some of the differences between the proposed Canadian legislation and the British legislation, also on what he attributes those differences to. Some would say the Canadian legislation is already different. The officials who briefed us suggested it was already different as a result of the existence of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, so that provisions with respect to intellectual support of terrorism or membership in various organizations, things you find in the British legislation, aren't in the Canadian legislation.

And connecting with that, what do you see as the effect on the British legislation of the European human rights legislation, which I think was passed—or ratified or enacted, whatever the appropriate term is—after this legislation came through? Are any changes contemplated in the British legislation as a result of European human rights enactments?

Mr. Paul Wilkinson: Thank you for those two questions.

On the first one, there is a remarkable similarity between the measures that are proposed in your Bill C-36 and Terrorism Act 2000, for example, the listing of terrorist organizations, which is something the U.S. Congress, as you know, has done since 1997, when, incidentally, a number of organizations that found things a little tough for operating as funding organizations for terrorism in America shifted their effort across the border to Canada. There is an argument for saying that if we do toughen up, we only drive the support networks elsewhere and create a problem for other people. But my answer to that would be that we really should expect our international community colleagues and neighbours to strengthen their own legislation in accord with the UN Convention on the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, so that they fill these gaps in their legislation. And then we would have no friendly safe haven in which to raise funds and operate support for terrorist organizations.

As far as the British legislation is concerned, there are some differences in the way your safeguards of review are carried out. I believe in the case of national security certificates that ministers can issue we have a system that is different from yours. Judges can hear cases where people object to that use of national security immunity certificates, and the judge can uphold the case of the complainant, whereupon the minister is forced to disclose. I'm not sure whether there is a mechanism in your judiciary for raising that kind of issue. It doesn't seem to be explained in the bill itself. That may be something that needs looking at.

But that would seem to me a relatively minor difference when one looks at the overall shape of the legislation, the emphasis on suppressing financing, the emphasis on using the legislation not only to deal with organizations that might be considering terrorist acts within Canada, but also to cover the activities of terrorist organizations abroad. I think those aspects are very similar.

And as I said, the listing of designated organizations is a similar measure. I know that has been controversial in Canada. I read some of your press reports only this morning, which seem to indicate that people are unhappy with that. My feeling is that the listing should not be misunderstood. It is not that the legislation only applies to those designated organizations. Any organization, as I understand your proposed terrorism legislation, that engages in terrorist activity or supports terrorist activity could fall foul of this act, whether it's listed or not. It may be added to the list at some later date.

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There is a great advantage to having a list. When you're trying to suppress the financing of terrorism, which is, after all, the lifeblood of buying weapons and purchasing the sorts of services the al-Qaeda network has been able to buy all over the world, it is important that one can actually stop the flow into the terrorist organization. If you don't have a listing, the danger is that you have to try to prove in a court of law that a specific sum of money that passed from a bank in, say, Ottawa to a bank in India or in Pakistan actually was used by a person in that particular country to purchase x number of weapons and explosives. That is an exceedingly difficult thing to prove, whereas if you can show that a designated terrorist organization was involved in both the support network that procured this money and the channelling of the money to a terrorist organization that is a designated organization, you can actually apply the financial measures the UN convention asks us to apply. It streamlines the effectiveness.

I know some organizations will be clever enough to change their names. They've already done that in America. Some of them, as I said, moved across the border. Some moved their activities mainly to Europe. We have seen, as a result of Terrorism Act 2000, some organizations shutting down their major funding activity in London and moving it to places where the legal framework is more lax. I'm sure that will happen, but insofar as we're making it more difficult for them to use our havens of democratic freedom in that way, abusing our freedoms in order to help terrorism, I think we're making a constructive contribution, and therefore I welcome that element in your proposed legislation. The similarities seem to me to far outweigh the differences.

On the second major issue you raise, the question of the sunset clause, review, and so on, I do think it's important that the parliamentarians have the ability and the power to consider any of the individual measures or the entire body of legislation whenever they believe the necessity for that arises. What would worry me about a sunset clause for specific powers is the danger that you then bring the shutter down at just the time when your inquiries are leading to positive judicial action that will be effective in the combatting of terrorism.

We are very good in western countries at thinking that the main objective is to gather information. Of course, we need that information if we are going to capture the cells and bring them to justice. But in a way, the intelligence activity can become an obsessive concern in its own right, that is, once we've got sources, once we've got some information flowing, let's keep the information flowing. Let's not take the rather risky step of bringing that information to a court and trying to make a case that will bring about a successful prosecution. I think we've got to be bolder in that respect. In Britain it's one of the main weaknesses in our history of trying to deal with terrorism that we were always better at collecting information than we were at carrying the thing forward to criminal justice action and successful trial of the people who actually masterminded terrorism. That was a very weak part of our record.

The Chair: Thank you Mr. Wilkinson.

Mr. MacKay for five minutes.

Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC/DR): Thank you Mr. Chair.

Mr. Wilkinson, we're very honoured to have you here with your area of expertise. I'd like to say I wish you further time in this field. I'm afraid you're correct in suggesting that this issue is likely not to go away at any time in the foreseeable future, but your presence is very much appreciated.

To pick up on the issuing of certificates, you eluded to the fact that you do have this ability in Great Britain, but it is subject to judicial review. In the current legislation, the way it's drafted, the reasons the Attorney General, in our legislative example, can give for prohibiting disclosure of information relate to protecting international relations or national defence or security. That's in both the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, and it causes great concern for those two officers of Parliament who have said, essentially, they've been not only marginalized, but completely cut out of the loop, should the minister decide that the information will not be forthcoming. It seems it's a rather broad definition to put forward.

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What would you think of at least making that clause sunsetted?

And there's a more direct and practical question that I have with respect to the necessity, as you see it in your country and in ours, for recruitment of individuals with specific knowledge of culture and language for the purposes of intelligence gathering, both at home and abroad, to help penetrate these organizations, like al-Qaeda. They would be similar to what we've commonly known as informants in the area of organized crime. Is that an area of concentration in Great Britain? Do you see this as an area worldwide where we will be calling upon individuals with this knowledge?

As a corollary to that, there's the need to coordinate all these efforts through departments of immigration, national police forces, military forces, MI6, or CSIS in our case. Is that happening to a large extent at home and abroad, with this need for information sharing generally as an important step in the battle to combat world terrorism?

Mr. Paul Wilkinson: Thank you for those questions.

The first one is particularly difficult to answer, because my knowledge of the internal workings of the Canadian political system is nowhere near as good as you have around this room. But I think I should say two things.

First, we should be aware of the danger of disclosure of sensitive information that could endanger sources of intelligence. There is very little chance of winning this difficult intelligence battle against terrorism that you described in the second part of your question if we don't have a genuine secret intelligence service. In other words, if all they're doing, their methods, and their sources of information are revealed for all to see, you can bet that the terrorists will read that and will change their methods. I often see press reports to make your hair stand on end, telling the terrorists exactly how information was acquired, giving clues about a particular event, how their movements or their links to a terrorist organization were discovered.

Mr. Peter MacKay: I think that probably casts a pall over the information protectors like our commissioners, and our judges to a large extent.

Mr. Paul Wilkinson: I know.

I think myself that in the Canadian case you would need to perhaps utilize the accountability system of CSIS and the intelligence community's control structure within the Canadian government to try to compensate for any lack of an overt system of questioning the use of immunity certificates. But I think national security immunity certificates are in some shape or form an essential part of winning the intelligence battle. It's really a question of how in the Canadian system you find a way of ensuring that it can be monitored and questioned by people who have parliamentary responsibility and accountability. How that can be done, I'm sure, will be something the Canadian Parliament will be able to decide.

On the second question you posed, I fear that like other secret service agencies, the British agencies have been very weak in the collection of human intelligence about al-Qaeda and its affiliated organizations. Although most of the criticisms about intelligence failure immediately after the attacks of September 11 were directed at the Americans, I think what we've seen since is that this is a worldwide problem. This is an organization that has been very clever in hiding its communications, that has used quite sophisticated means of modern communications technology to hide its signals.

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We need, therefore, to use human intelligence, as you rightly emphasize. I agree with that whole emphasis in the second part of your question. We need to recruit people who are going to be credible figures to penetrate the organization at recruit stage, later perhaps turning people who are already in the organization, and getting those who are caught by the authorities in specific countries to turn state's evidence. That is the only way we're going to get the kind of high-quality information about intentions and plans that enables you to actually thwart atrocities before they happen by arresting the group of conspirators and having the information to actually convict them and put them safely out of the way of the public, where they can do no more harm. That is, I think, a standard we need to aim at, a proactive intelligence capability that is capable of dealing with this kind of movement.

In western Europe we are way behind the game. We are only just beginning to realize how extensive these networks were in the western world and how much we have failed to notice in the way of movements of people, the way people were training for this over some years, not just weeks. This was a meticulously planned operation.

One of the things that does amaze you, however, when you think about it, is that a flying school actually accepted someone and continued to keep them as a student when it was clear they wanted to only learn mid-flight manoeuvres. They weren't interested in landings or take-offs. That is the kind of thing where members of the public can help by using their intelligence to see that there's something wrong. The fact that they were paying money for these training courses should not have been in any way a bar to those who were responsible for the flying training telling the authorities there were grounds for suspicion.

We tend to look upon legislation as a panacea, and we know it isn't. It's the way it's implemented. Implementation doesn't just depend on officials, however good, well-informed, committed, and patriotic they are. It does depend on public cooperation as well. In an open society you cannot win the battle against terrorism without a very full-hearted public support of and consent to the measures that are being taken. I think one of the things that will make or break the effectiveness of this Bill C-36 is the degree to which public opinion is prepared to support this and to cooperate with the authorities in passing on information, in helping to capture those people who are committing terrorist activity.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

The last question will go to Mr. McKay.

Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.): If I may, I have three or four questions on the parallels and the differences between the Terrorism Act 2000 and ours.

I wonder whether in Britain there was any discussion with respect to paragraph 1(1)(c):

the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.

This parallels our own. The question is, who cares? What's the point of putting that in? It just becomes one more thing to prove for a crown attorney. Does it really matter, because the issue really is influencing or intimidating? I'd be interested in your thoughts on that.

The second question is with respect to the pros and cons of parliamentary oversight, particularly with the development of lists. I've been taking the view that a lot of the organizations or entities are pretty easy to put on the list. It's the last few that are a bit more problematic. They may be just a collection of cranks.

The third question is with respect to specific clauses that you have in your bill, which obviously there must be some support for, but it strikes me, as a Canadian, as a very curious set of clauses. Subclause 13(1) reads:

A person in a public place commits an offence if he

(a) wears an item of clothing, or

(b) wears, carries or displays an article in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion.

It's an interesting Criminal Code offence. Then there is subclause 12(2):

A person commits an offence if he arranges, manages or assists in arranging or managing a meeting which he knows is

(c) to be addressed by a person who belongs or professes to belong to a proscribed organisation.

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I can see all kinds of instances where a person like myself who arranges meetings for some of my Tamil constituents inadvertently falls into a trap where people from certain organizations may actually be in attendance. I'm curious, therefore, about the thinking on those kinds of clauses as well.

So could you inform me of the arguments that have taken place in Great Britain over things that, frankly, strike one as a bit curious?

Mr. Paul Wilkinson: Thank you.

On the first point about the use of the term ideological—and you will notice the term religious is also inserted there—I think the intention was to ensure that if someone disputed the term political as the basis of their justification for using terror, they would still be covered by the act. One has to remember that in the period since the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which was 1974, the British legislation had to catch up with the fact that in the 1980s you had the mushrooming of groups that at least claimed to be religiously motivated or to have some kind of philosophical justification other than a secular political cause of some sort. The idea of extending the definition in that way was designed to catch that.

On the business of people carrying articles in public places and so on, I think that is very much a reflexion of the continuing problem of violence spilling over from Northern Ireland. We've seen an enormous improvement in that situation, particularly with this breakthrough yesterday, and that is very good news for the peace process. But we have to remember there are some groups that are still opposed to that process, both Loyalist terrorists and the splinter groups on the Republican side. They have traditionally very often used the events of the burial of a comrade or some kind of street demonstration as a cover for terrorist activity. That has led to people being killed. What looks trivial can become very serious in those circumstances, and that, I think, is why it figures in the legislation.

The last point you made, I'm sorry, the last particular feature of the act—

Mr. John McKay: I asked about parliamentary oversight on the creation of lists. I don't think your bill provides for that. For us it's more of a live debate as to whether there should, in fact, be some parliamentary oversight with regard to either the creation of the list or deletion of organizations from the list.

Mr. Paul Wilkinson: In the British case the list will be subject to an appeals procedure. A group that feels it's been unfairly included can bring a case to the Proscription Appeals Board, and if they can show that they were falsely accused of involvement in terrorist support or activity, they would be taken off that list.

Parliament, of course, does have the opportunity to debate the Home Secretary's announcement of any proposed changes in the list. That has already been done. When the first list appeared in February of this year, the opportunity arose for members to question the inclusion of particular groups. I've received some of the correspondence on that, because although we're based on open sources, we have an enormous amount of information about the activity of groups around the world. It is interesting to see that already the process of questioning is in being. I don't think you need fear that parliamentarians will cease to review these matters, even if it is not explicitly mentioned in the act. It is taken for granted that parliamentarians in the British system, as in your system, can query anything in existing legislation or the application of the legislation.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. McKay.

Thank you very much, Professor Wilkinson. We recognize just how busy you've been, and we appreciate very much your giving us this time.

Colleagues, we will be reassembling at 3:30 in one of the TV committee rooms. I would also bring your attention that our meetings on Bill C-15B, which are at 5:30 this evening, will be in 112-N downstairs, so that there's no confusion. We have to move rooms because we couldn't secure the TV committee room for the evening to do Bill C-15B.

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We'll be doing the business that I thought that we might be able to do now at the end of Bill C-15B tonight.

Meeting adjourned.