My name is Brenda McPhail, and I am the director of the privacy, technology and surveillance project at the CCLA.
In the green paper, on page 6, it's noted that the Canadian Charter of Rights and freedoms “establishes a minimum standard of conduct by governments in Canada”, and further notes—and we were thrilled to see this—that the minimum standards may be inadequate in some cases to establish public trust in matters of national security. We completely agree, which is why, when we gather here to discuss the problematic aspects of the Anti-terrorism Act of 2015, the biggest problem of all is that there are a number of specific places in the act in which it arguably fails to comply with Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Our colleague Tom Henheffer appeared before you this afternoon, and the CCLA has joined with the CJFE in launching a charter challenge to former Bill C-51, which is, as you mentioned, currently on hold while we wait to see the results of these consultations.
We have five particular areas of concern. We're troubled by the tone of the green paper, which frankly seems to be trying to justify many of the problematic aspects of the bill, particularly in relation to information sharing, which our Privacy Commissioner has now amplified as being of concern; by IRPA amendments to reduce information to special advocates in security certificate cases; by new powers for CSIS; and by inadequate safeguards around the no-fly list. In addition, even though we acknowledge and very much appreciate the government's statement that it will ensure that all CSIS activities will comply with the charter, you actually still ask in the green paper whether people think the act should be amended to make it clear that CSIS warrants can never violate the charter.
One of your witnesses said this afternoon, in response to a question about problems in Bill C-51, that we didn't need to worry about it, because those problems would be challenged in court and that's the place where they'd be solved. Respectfully, and despite the fact that the CCLA does a great deal of our advocacy work in courts, we'd much rather see a charter-compliant bill from the outset, as improved by this government with advice from your committee.
Here's our question today. In addition to taking into account the public feedback received in this consultation process, is this committee and our government committed to a genuine and thorough legal review of the act with attention to charter issues, and, if so, precisely how is that going to happen and how will it be made public?