Toews softens his tone

Minister says many misunderstand bill on online surveillance

OTTAWA – Striking a softer tone after weeks of heated debate – off-line and online – Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said Friday that much of the discussion about the government’s contentious online surveillance bill is driven by misinformation and misunderstanding.

In an op-ed column for Postmedia News, Toews continued to defend his bill, and defended himself against accusations that he didn’t read Bill C-30 before introducing it in the House of Commons earlier this month.

Toews said C-30 “creates no new powers to access” email, web-browsing history or phone calls beyond what already exists in Canadian law.

“Some have accused me of not reading a bill I’ve been involved in shaping for over half a decade. Ironically, when I read most media coverage of C-30, I am struck by just how poorly the bill is understood by many writers,” Toews wrote.

“The government intends to send this legislation directly to committee for a full examination of potential amendments to update our laws while ensuring the privacy of Canadians is respected.”

What those amendments might be are unclear.

Toews’s office didn’t say Friday if the government would propose specific changes.

The comments from Toews came days before Parliament is set to resume after a week off and amid continuing public outcry over C-30.

Results of a public-opinion poll released Friday by Angus Reid suggested that half of Canadians believe the bill is too intrusive, while about the same amount want to see C-30 defeated in the Commons.

The ire over the proposed legislation crosses party lines, according to the survey’s results, with nearly half of Conservatives and the majority of New Democrats and Liberals opposed to the bill’s passage in its current form.

The online survey of 1,011 randomly selected Canadian adults, which took place Thursday and Friday, has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Problems with the bill, according to experts and opposition parties, include provisions that allow police officers to ask for Internet subscribers’ information without a warrant under exceptional circumstances (Section 17), and a section that allows a police officer, with a warrant, to make copies of records made by Internet service providers (Section 34).

“Reading through the bill, it’s obvious how complicated it is,”said Liberal public safety critic Francis Scarpaleggia. “It’s about new technology and what the possibilities are.”

Scarpaleggia said the Liberals want changes made to Section 34 and better oversight than the internal audits and reports to Parliament outlined in the bill, which Scarpaleggia called an “after-thefact” way of ensuring privacy isn’t breached.

The possibility of breaches of civil liberties are high without specific language in the bill to determine how and what data will be used, said Christopher Parsons, an online surveillance expert from the University of Victoria.

“It’s absolutely critical – absolutely critical – that the legislation is clear,” Parsons said.

Parliament also should ask for detailed reports from agencies, such as the RCMP and CSIS, accessing web browsing history, Parsons said, and have a third party conduct reviews rather than the agencies themselves.

The opposition parties will have to wait until at least the first week of March to debate changes to C-30.

The Conservatives need to first schedule a five-hour debate in the House of Commons, after which the bill would go directly to the public safety committee.

There is no specific timeline for the debate to take place, according to a spokesperson for Government House leader Peter Van Loan.