One minister.
What this means is drive-by martial law. The zone can be established wherever the minister parks a military vehicle. Anyone can be forcibly removed from a military zone. The penalty for contravening a controlled access military zone is a fine or a year in prison.
The minister's designation is not subject to the Statutory Instruments Act. The minister will not have to ensure that the designation is authorized by other statutes, and that it does not breach the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is an extraordinary power, an unlimited power, which the government wants to give the Minister of National Defence. It is a power which could establish martial law anywhere in Canada.
As I have said, this could be in the National Assembly of Quebec, or on the grounds of Alberta's legislative assembly. It could be anywhere at all. This power is in the hands of this government and it will not be subject to the limits set out in the legislation governing the government's activities in other cases.
I raised these matters, not only in the House, but also in a letter some days ago to the Prime Minister. On May 21, I received a letter from the Prime Minister telling me not to worry, to be happy, that there was no problem. Does the House actually believe that a government that would send Alfonso Gagliano to Denmark would abuse its authority over military power? That is the essence of the letter.
Let me quote two or three portions of the letter. He addresses my argument that we do not need this law because we already have the Emergencies Act. The Prime Minister, in his letter dated May 21, said: “The Emergencies Act is a means of last resort”.
Does that not put into a very interesting context the frequency with which the government intends to use the power it would have under Bill C-55? He said the government would use the Emergencies Act as a last resort, and that is not enough. Therefore the government is asking for a power where parliament has no control. It is a power it would use as a first resort, not a last resort, but whenever the mood struck it. It would use this terribly abusive instrument to establish marshal law wherever the Minister of National Defence chose to establish it, or to abuse the other provisions in the bill, without any consultation with his colleagues .
In my time here I cannot remember a more dangerous piece of legislation than the one before us. Everyone who was shocked by the throwing into jail without charge of Canadian citizens under the War Measures Act must remember that this bill would take the Liberal government of the member from Saint-Maurice back exactly to the point and to the power exercised and abused by the government of the late Mr. Trudeau. Mr. Trudeau had the War Measures Act. The present Prime Minister wants it back. The difference was that after the Emergencies Act we in parliament had control to protect the citizens of Canada. This bill takes away that control of parliament. It is a bad and dangerous bill.