We have never heard so much about customs in one day. It is no doubt a very interesting subject.

Honourable senators, like my colleague Senator Gold, I rise today to support Bill C-21, An Act to Amend the Customs Act, at second reading and to ask you to send it to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence for detailed study.

I read this bill carefully. I attended the briefing with Canada Border Services Agency officials and I read the analyses prepared by the Library of Parliament and the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group.

Honourable senators, after doing all that, there is no question in my mind that this bill improves our integrated system for protecting the security of North American airspace, as Senators Coyle and Gold indicated.

If this bill is passed, it will enable the Canada Border Services Agency to collect information on people leaving the country, including Canadian citizens, thereby giving effect to another aspect of the 2011 agreement between Prime Minister Harper and President Obama.

I would now like to talk about come of the bill’s other positive effects not related to national security.

Colleagues, several years ago, presiding over a family matter in the Quebec Superior Court, I was very surprised to learn that Canada was one of the few countries in the world that did not collect information on its citizens’ departures from the country, either from those travelling by road through the United States or by plane at a Canadian airport. I was told that if the father — to whom I was proposing to grant custody of the children on weekends and during a few weeks in the summer, on condition that the children did not leave Quebec — decided to leave Canada with his children, the border system would not be able to stop him. The mother feared that he would take advantage of this and bring the children to his country of origin where his entire family lived — a country that was not party to the Hague Convention of October 25, 1980 on international child abduction. In other words, if the children left Canada, it would be impossible to force their return if the father’s family was keeping them in another country.

This sad reality was confirmed by the testimony of Martin Bolduc, Vice President of the Programs Branch of the Canada Border Services Agency, before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, where he said, and I quote:

Even domestically, we’ve had instances of parents phoning the police or CBSA because they feared that their kids were about to take a plane to Turkey or Syria. Our ability to act and prevent such departures is very limited, unless we have very specific information about where and when the departure is to occur. With this, if the bill gets royal assent, we will have the ability to do a query and see if we have somebody scheduled to depart on a particular flight.

If Bill C-21 passes, that could change. CBSA officials told me that rulings that impose restrictions on removing children from Canada can be inputted in their system. The same applies when an AMBER alert is issued. The RCMP could then inform CBSA and ask that a lookout be issued for the missing child. In these circumstances, the CBSA could make sure that proper measures are in place to prevent child abductions.

I think this would be a major improvement over the current system.

The third benefit that I see in this bill is the collection of information which can serve to reinforce the integrity of our social benefits programs and our immigration system.

Indeed, exit data will enable the CBSA agents to be more efficient in their enforcement activities.

For example, a person who has received a removal order may very well leave the country on his or her own volition. Without any record of that individual having left the country, authorities may, however, continue to deploy resources to locate the individual.

In this regard, a 2015 report by the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence stated:

At present, the CBSA’s warrants-database contains information on approximately 44,000 inadmissible individuals who did not comply with removal orders, although the agency is unclear about the number of individuals who are still in Canada . . . .

Bill C-21 offers a solution to this challenge by providing the agency with information on individuals who leave the country — although it does not remedy the challenge posed by those who may have already left Canada.

Moreover, in the absence of exit data, it can be challenging to apply the residency requirements that appear in various social benefits programs and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Think, for example, of Employment Insurance, which requires beneficiaries to remain in Canada at all times, save for some exceptional circumstances.

At the time being, the employment and immigration department agents rely on information provided by beneficiaries to confirm their eligibility. I do not doubt that the majority of beneficiaries provide truthful answers. Nonetheless, I believe it’s beneficial for the department agents to have the ability to confirm that the answers provided are right.

The bill does not add to the existing conditions of admissibility to social benefits programs. Likewise, it does not change the residency requirements for those seeking to maintain their permanent resident status or obtain Canadian citizenship. It simply offers a new tool to ensure the conditions are, in fact, met.

With his very pertinent question to Senator Coyle about the bill at second reading stage, Senator Joyal wondered about the impact the bill would have on mobility rights, set out in section 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Today, I would like to reassure him, and all Canadians, that the bill would not create exit tracking stations at international airports or at the Canada-U.S. border, as is the case in many countries.

The bill authorizes the collection of information about Canadians leaving Canada. For those travelling by plane, the information will be collected directly by the airline then forwarded to the agency. For those crossing the border on land, the information will be collected directly by the officers of the U.S. border security agency upon entering the United States.

In other words, Canadians will only have to comply with existing formalities when entering the United States or taking an international flight. Their freedom of movement will not be impeded.

Finally, I would like to point out that the bill, as amended at third reading stage by the House of Commons, was supported by almost every political party. I believe that indicates a broad consensus on the merits of the general principles of Bill C-21.

For these reasons, honourable senators, I urge you to adopt Bill C-21 at second reading as soon as possible so that it can be sent to committee for a detailed analysis.

Thank you for your attention.