Mr. Speaker, first I want to say that I did not expect to speak to such a bill. As you know, I have been a member of this place since 1993, which means that I have some experience as a parliamentarian. This is my third term, and I may even have a fourth one.
As you know, it is never easy in life to classify things. I want to say, however, that I never thought I would have to address such totalitarian and incredibly authoritarian legislation.
I cannot talk about this bill without congratulating my colleague, the hon. member for Argenteuil--Papineau--Mirabel, for the excellent work he did in committee on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois.
Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is that everyone understands the magnitude of the events of September 11. No one in the Bloc Quebecois will deny this, and I am convinced that all members in the House will agree that there are transnational and terrorist forces which threaten the integrity of various political systems and pose a threat to the economy and to civil society. This is a fact.
Having followed those issues for almost a decade, I know that within societies there are forces, like organized crime, which threaten the economy and which work very hard to create an informal, underworld economy.
I could talk for hours about the 36 criminal biker gangs operating within Canada, including the Hells Angels, the Rock Machines, the triads and so on. We are well aware of their area of operation and why there are so many of them in society.
However, we never gave into the temptation— even during the war between criminal biker gangs around 1995—to sideline parliament. What I find despicable in this bill and which should outrage all members of the governing party who have a bit of backbone is the fact that the government wants to fight terrorism by sidelining parliament. That is incredible.
I asked the member for Argenteuil--Papineau--Mirabel if this kind of bill included a review provision. All bills of importance are reviewed after three or five years. In some cases, it can even be after ten years.
For example, this morning—and everyone knows how hectic it is in parliament; we never stop, not even for two minutes—I was attending the meeting of the Standing Committee on Health considering the whole issue of medical technologies and assisted human reproduction. That is no small issue. One couple out of eight has fertility problems. It was a pleasure to work with our colleague.
In this regard, there is a provision for review after three years. The Patent Act provides for review after five years. Same thing in the Bank Act. If this were a good government bill, it would include a five year review provision to assist in the work of committees and parliament in investigating, monitoring and analyzing.
If we pass this bill, we will be stuck with it. Can you understand that? There is no provision calling for a review every three, five or ten years.
It is worrisome, and I am somewhat surprised at the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, who is generally so clever. He is usually very vigilant concerning such matters. With all his wisdom, he would normally have put a stop to such measures. But he did not.
When I was the critic for immigration—those were the days; it is a great issue and I was brilliantly replaced by our colleague from Laval, but I will always look back with nostalgia—I realized that one of the greatest challenges all nations are faced with today all around the world is the traffic in human beings. There is no downplaying this. We know that there is a very important black market for human beings.
We are not minimizing the fact that there are some transnational terrorist forces. Let me givean example. If this bill were to be passed, the minister of defence--I know this expression is taboo these days, but defence ministers are not all one and the same, or should I say they are one and the same--the minister of defence could establish unilaterally, without consulting cabinet for a period of 45 days, and without any consideration for the local communities, the cities, the municipalities or the governments concerned, a controlled access military zone with extremely wide, indefinite and vague geographical references.
It is easy to imagine emergency situations where decisions would have to be made. However, it is impossible to imagine emergency situations where one is not required to consult cabinet or to inform the people involved. Here is a very troubling example of what we find in this bill.
Normally, in society, there is a very good test for the pertinence of opposition comments. If the Bloc Quebecois were the only one to put this argument forward, the following could be said “it is all part of the game when you are in the opposition, it is all about partisanship and that is part and parcel of parliamentary work”. But the list of people criticizing this bill is quite long.
The organization called Amnesty International, which is not suspected of any sovereignist inclination, has a lot of expertise in the area of human rights. It has published a 400 page report in which it wonders what this means for a country like Canada, which prides itself on being a liberal democracy. One had to hear the Prime Minister talk about Canada, with all the eloquence that he is known for, saying that it was “the best country in the world ”. He was saying that—