OTTAWA (CP) - Prime Minister Jean Chretien told his caucus Wednesday he plans to fast-track the government's newly redrafted anti-terrorism legislation and pass it before the Commons rises in June for the summer break. Concerns remain, however, both inside and outside Liberal ranks over the impact of the revised bill, now called C-55, or Public Security Act.
The bill was introduced in the Commons on Monday after an earlier draft, Bill C-42, was quietly scrapped under the weight of heavy internal Liberal criticism.
"We have listened to parliamentarians, we have listened to Canadians," Transport Minister David Collenette said Wednesday as the Commons began two days of debate on the legislation.
"This bill is worthy of support of all members of this House."
But lingering resentment remains, caucus sources said, because Liberal MPs were given no say in the look of the replacement bill.
Chretien made it clear Wednesday to his fractious caucus that unlike Bill C-55's predecessor introduced last November, the new bill will be rushed through the Commons within weeks.
The prime minister also brushed off opposition questions about the constitutionality of the legislation, saying citizens could challenge the bill's more contentious provisions in court.
"If the bill is not valid, (Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe) has no reason to be worried, the courts will certainly reject it," Chretien said in the Commons.
Duceppe and Conservative Leader Joe Clark both attacked elements of the proposed military security zones that can be established under the new law. Clark called the provision "drive-by martial law."
But it was federal privacy commissioner George Radwanski who made the most pointed critique Wednesday.
Bill C-55 would allow police to scan all domestic and international airline passenger lists, a power Radwanski said could lead to totalitarian-style travel checkpoints.
Section 4.82 gives the RCMP and the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service unrestricted access to the personal information of all air travellers.
Included is the right to collar any passenger with an outstanding warrant for an offence that is punishable by five years or more in jail.
The provision actually expands on the discarded bill by extending police screening powers beyond terrorist acts to general criminality.
Solicitor General Lawrence MacAulay defended the new powers Wednesday.
He said the provision gives "tools to the police and security intelligence agencies to make sure that they're aware of individuals like murderers or whatever that could be entering the country and then we'd be able to arrest them."
Radwanski, in a news release, argued that law-abiding citizens should be alarmed because air travel identification is not that detailed.
"Significant numbers" of passengers will likely be detained or arrested simply because they share a name similar to someone with an outstanding arrest warrant, he said.
Moreover, there's no reason the provision couldn't be expanded to train and bus passengers and people who rent cars.
The result, said Radwanski, would be "similar to those that exist in totalitarian societies where police routinely board trains or establish roadblocks to check identification papers in search of anyone of interest to the state."
The privacy commissioner's concerns got a receptive ear from some Liberals.
John McKay, chairman of the Ontario caucus, said the police power is wide open to "function creep."
"You go from terrorism to organized crime to ordinary criminality to invasion of privacy of Canadians who are otherwise law-abiding," McKay said in an interview.
"Police, being police, will use it for the low-hanging fruit."
Another Liberal, John Bryden, dismissed Radwanski as a bit of crank.
"I think he takes too extreme a stand, too often," said Bryden, before adding his own criticism of Bill C-55.
The legislation allows some cabinet ministers to issue interim orders that override existing laws for up to one year.
Bryden said that extraordinary power appears to mirror the federal Emergencies Act. MPs should examine interim orders "very, very carefully," he said, to see if they instead belong in the Emergencies Act, "where there are better parliamentary safeguards."
Last fall, critics helped push the government to amend its first piece of anti-terrorism legislation, Bill C-36, and backbenchers flexed more muscle on the followup Bill C-42.
This latest legislative attempt to tighten national security could also face some changes, said McKay.
"I expect that there will be some haggling."
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