cover image: Full submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee

Full submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee

5 Jun 2024

Part 2 of Bill C-70 adds related new provisions to the federal Security of Information Act (proposed in the Bill to be changed to the “Foreign Interference and Security of Information Act” (FISIA)) containing the offences for actually undertaking secret influence activities that relate to the offences set out in the FITAA for failing to register and disclose influence activities. [...] Given the federal government has the power under the Constitution in the areas of defence, national security and foreign relations, it should assert its power to apply the provisions of the FITAA and FISIA to provinces and municipalities (and, again, territories). [...] This raises the question why the Commissioner of Lobbying is not empowered to impose AMPs on violators of the Lobbying Act and the federal Ethics Commissioner is not empowered to impose AMPs on violators of the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons (“MP Code”) nor for violations of almost all of the key provisions in the Conflict of Interest Act. [...] The appointment process for the Commissioner must be made independent and non-partisan, and the Commissioner must be required to issue a public ruling on every situation the Commissioner reviews, with reasons, and any member of the public must be allowed to challenge any decision of the Commissioner in court. [...] Under subsections 5(1), 6(3) and 6.1(1) of the RCMP Act the RCMP Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner and the Commanding Officer of each Division of the RCMP, all of which head up the police force that currently enforces these type of provisions in these laws, along with the director of FINTRAC, are all appointed by the federal Cabinet alone (no consu.

Authors

Duff Conacher

Related Organizations

House of Commons
Library of Parliament
Pages
17
Published in
Canada

Table of Contents