Brian Fitzpatrick

[Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act, October 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Robertson is a gentleman in Ottawa who spent quite a few decades as the privy council president. This past winter he said that our system of government had evolved into a form of elected dictatorship and that cabinet had become nothing more than a focus group. I am concerned that there be a separation between the powers of the police and the state, especially given the comments made by a very respected person in this town and one whose opinion I respect.

I just wonder whether we should not really be focused on separating the power between the dictatorship and the police force and make sure they work in an arm's length relationship.

I would ask my colleague from Medicine Hat if he has any such concerns.

[Agriculture, October 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the policies of the government are killing rural Canada. Prairie grain producers are experiencing an income disaster. What is the government's response? It responds with programs fat with government administration and very lean on results.

The government's policies are killing rural transportation systems. The useless firearms registration law is wasting hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars while treating farmers as criminals. The Liberals with their cruelty to animals agenda have now joined the animal rights fanatics in their harassment of Canadian farmers.

Farmers need relief from the burdens of excessive government regulation, taxation and harassment. When will the government realize that the war is against terrorism and not against Canadian farmers?

[Anti-Terrorism Legislation, October 19th, 2001]

Talk about bluster, Mr. Speaker. The anti-terrorism bill proposes many changes that would restrict the civil liberties of law-abiding Canadian citizens.

Why is the government focusing more on policing law-abiding citizens within Canada than stopping terrorists and dangerous people from getting into the country in the first place?

[Anti-Terrorism Legislation, October 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the anti-terrorism legislation has big holes in it when it comes to extraditing and deporting people who pose a threat to Canadian society.

Why is the government more concerned about the civil rights of terrorists, criminals and dangerous people than the civil rights of law-abiding Canadian citizens?

[Anti-terrorism Act, October 17th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, the anti-terrorist legislation is a substantive, complex piece of legislation which attempts to balance two very important interests: the interests of security and the interests of our liberty and openness. This is not an easy task. CA members will be proceeding in committee with their ears and eyes open and their minds cognizant of the task at hand. As the bill proceeds into committee, it is also incumbent upon all members of the House to realize the seriousness of this task and to do the balancing that is required.

There are many things we should be cautious of as we move in this direction. Clearly, in the interests of security, we are going to have to modify some of the liberties and freedoms and we are going to be transferring more power to the state. Any time we transfer power from the people, the individuals in our society, to the state, we should be cautious. I think everyone remembers what Lord Acton said a while back in British history, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It was true then and it is true today.

Although corruption and abuse of powers exist in democracies, they are far less a problem than in those societies dominated by authoritarian regimes. It is clear we will not make our society purer, safer or less corrupt by simply granting more powers to the state.

When looking at this legislation, we have to take a serious look at a thing called unintended consequences and to limit that possibility. For example, trade unions may be a bit apprehensive of this sort of legislation. The power of a strike can have a disrupting effect on the economy and society and we can get into problems in that area.

There are activists on both sides of the fence, right and left, who are not in terrorist groups. They are strongly trying to advocate their positions in a democratic society. In these times it is very easy for people to include more than terrorists in the ambit of terrorism.

We have to understand another point, too. One of the objectives of the other side in this war on terrorism is to attack our open and free society. If our methods of fighting back have the effect of destroying our openness and our freedom, I wonder what we have achieved.

What is the proper balance between these two competing interests? I do not think there is an absolute answer but I am going to raise some considerations which I think we should be looking at.

There is nothing called an absolute right in this world. There is no such thing. Freedoms and individual freedoms have always been tempered by public good and the freedoms of other people in our society. One need look no further than the famous U.S. supreme court decision of Justice Holmes where he stated that freedom of speech stops when a person stands up in a crowded theatre and yells “fire”. That type of reasoning is what we have to be looking at in our war against terrorism, what that balance is.

Much is said about rights. Much is said about the charter of rights. Section 7 of the charter identifies two rights that we have as individuals in the country, the right to life and the right to security of the person. Obviously terrorists have no respect for either of those. In order to protect those two rights we may have to moderate or compromise some of the other rights that we take for granted.

We must be concerned with unintended consequences and guard against them. Section 183 leaves a lot of discretion to the government to decide what is a terrorist organization and what is not. I think the decision will be made behind closed doors. There will not be a lot of accountability on it. There will be a lot of leeway in that area. There are people who are concerned that groups that are terrorist groups may not be classified as such for political reasons. That is one side of the sword. The other side of the sword is that groups that are not terrorists may be identified as such for political or other reasons. These are concerns.

Let me be clear that the actions of the terrorists violate a lot of existing laws. The entire criminal code must have been violated by the actions in New York and Washington, so there are laws in place. In the House very often we think the solution to problems is to pass more laws and regulations and that will win the war, but that is something we have to be careful of. It is going to take more than laws to win this war.

It is quite apparent to anyone who looks at the situation that holes in the immigration system and the security systems are largely responsible for some of these problems. The U.S. has spent something like $10 billion on immigration and security systems, however 19 hijackers and hundreds of others moved freely in and out of North America monitoring their subjects, studying up on them and even getting the training they did and no one seemed to know what was going on. The intelligence agency was literally caught with its pants down.

Somewhere along the line in this politically correct age someone said it was not right to send spies and informants into groups. Back in the 1950s and 1960s when intelligence agencies did these sorts of things we would have been aware of the threat and the danger of these groups and would have been better prepared. It is incumbent upon us to focus on the target and marshal our resources and aim them right at the target rather than shooting off in all sorts of directions.

More intrusive laws may be the answer. However the immigration system is an area where we have to close loopholes and do things a lot differently. We are going to have to hire more people. We will have to have more resources. We are going to have to use information a lot better.

I recall in the House last February or March when we were dealing with the Amodeo situation. Mr. Amodeo had moved in and out of the country 17 times, if I recall correctly. Three ministers responded. The solicitor general basically said he does not monitor what is going on in his department and the RCMP does not co-ordinate its activities with the immigration department. The immigration minister said her people do not communicate with the RCMP. This thing went around and around.

In fact when Amodeo's wife came into the country the immigration minister even said that we do not ask questions about their marital status or their husbands because that would violate some right that she thought was important. This has to stop.

Buck passing is not going to win the war against terrorism. The buck stops in this House. We have to get our act together, quit protecting our turf and our territory and quit passing things around in a circle. Somebody has to take responsibility.

[Anti-Terrorism Legislation, October 16th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the U.S. anti-terrorism legislation provides compensation and safeguards for the victims of terrorism. The government's bill appears to totally omit those provisions.

Why have the government and the Minister of Justice chosen to ignore this very important issue?

[Anti-Terrorism Legislation, October 16th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the British anti-terrorism law provides for compensation to citizens who are victims of terrorism. The government's proposed bill omits these important provisions.

Why does the justice minister want the innocent to suffer in our war against terrorism?

[Supply, October 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the government has been for the last three or four months. David Harris, former head of CSIS, has said we have major problems in the intelligence area. I think everyone in the House respects former general Lewis MacKenzie who has made a lot of disturbing comments about the state of our military and our defence. We do not need to take judicial notice of the fact that our military is in pretty sad shape. When I see what we are sending over to this combat arrangement I am quite embarrassed about it. We have 1960 Leopard tanks. We have--

[Supply, October 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have any objections to walls getting knocked down and committees working together for a common purpose. That is only common sense. However I made the point that we are getting into health areas. If there is a terrorist attack with anthrax the Minister of Health will get involved. If nuclear material or other things get into the situation we could have environmental repercussions.

I do not know where to stop or where to start. I seriously think we will need to consider a minister of homeland defence to co-ordinate activities and make sure we get a total co-ordinated effort.

In terms of the Sea Kings, I will mention another point since the member raised it. The former chief of staff would not fly on a Sea King while his troops were stationed in East Timor. He would not do it. He decided this on the basis that they were not safe. However I am not the person responsible for equipping our armed forces.

In terms of secrecy and so on, I accept that in this conflict the government should hold some things back. I was amazed to open the Globe and Mail today and see on the front page that the Department of Transport has announced to the whole country that it has not put baggage checking equipment on our airplanes. I find that disturbing. On the front page of a newspaper we are telling every terrorist in the country that we have a hole in our transportation security system.

The government will not answer questions in the House because of secrecy and security yet the Department of Transport leaks information on the front page of a national paper telling everyone we will not have baggage checking security until next spring. I find that amazing.

[Supply, October 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this matter. We were talking about the age of cars. Under the Liberal government we cannot really afford Porsches. It reminds me of the Cuban situation where they are driving 1957 Plymouths and so on.

We are dealing with a new type of war against a new, different and formidable enemy. There is no doubt that the enemy is eminently evil. Where should we be going at this stage with this type of war?

Much has been said over the last month and quite frankly a war of words will not win the war. This war will be won by action.

The Progressive Conservative Party understands the need for Canada to co-ordinate this war of action. We do not have the luxury in this war of having departments build their own little empires, barriers and not co-operating.

I heard no end of answers during the last session when we were talking about the Amodeo situation where departments were passing the buck. We cannot afford that. Departments have to work and co-operate, and the gist of the motion is to get everybody working on the same plan and strategy.

However, as soon as I read the intent of the motion I had problems with it because it seems the war involves just about every department of government. Can we ignore the area of immigration and refugees? We have approximately 26,000 people in Canada who are not supposed to be here and are subject to deportation orders. The government does not have the resources to know where they are or how to even track them down and get them out of the country. It is a serious matter.

We have heard about the Ressam situation. It is a very disturbing scenario. We knew he was a dangerous terrorist who was in our country. We decided we could not send him back to his home nation of Algeria because the Canadian way looked at the Algerian legal system and concluded it would not be compassionate. It would not be the Liberal way of dealing with somebody to send a dangerous person back to the country that should be dealing with him.

There is another important area. We are dealing with dangerous people in the war on terrorism. We need a strong and powerful intelligence agency in the country that has the tools and equipment to deal with it. That involves the solicitor general's branch.

Transportation has been the first target of the terrorists either directly or as a means of bringing about terror. How can we keep transportation out of the discussion?

We could refer to a lot of departments. The justice department deals with criminal law. We are talking about an omnibus bill brought forward by the justice minister to deal with acts of terrorism. The more one thinks about it, the more we are talking about every branch of government.

One would think that there are no barriers between government departments in the war on terrorism. However I am quite sure there are many. The Senate had a look at the whole area of terrorism in 1989. It found numerous examples of government departments working at odds with one another.

These obstacles must be eliminated. The barriers must be knocked down. One example is that CSIS had its own legislative definition of a security risk. The immigration department has another definition. Other departments have other definitions. This must stop.

If we brought together all the committees of the House to deal with the matter we would be bringing 301 MPs into the House of Commons to deal with it on an ongoing basis. The motion underscores something that is becoming obvious to me: We need a new special minister whose job is solely to co-ordinate the war on terrorism.

In all fairness, in the war against terrorism a lot of us must set aside our partisan ideology and points of view. There is a report that says the Bruce nuclear reactor does not comply with recognized international safety standards. My reading of the report suggests the reactor is way off the mark. Does that mean we should privatize the existing system as an alternative to public ownership of the Bruce nuclear reactor? Nonsense, that is not the problem. The challenge is to put in a good system and good management and make sure we get the results we want.

We have 26,000 people in the country who should not be here. Many of them are dangerous. They are the product of a poor immigration and refugee system. Should we privatize the immigration system because it has all these flaws?

I am raising these points because I have heard people from other parties suggest that the problems we have at airports are because we have private security people there. They say that making them all public servants would be the solution. That is not the solution. We need quality programs with good management and then we will get the results we want.

Another requirement in the war on terrorism is the need for resources. It is truly shameful to look at the results of years of neglect by the government in terms of our military, our immigration and refugee system and our intelligence community. It is an embarrassment for Canadians to be sending Sea Kings and other military relics into the combat zone. It is shameful that we only have about 250 or 260 special forces people trained to deal with hijacking and terrorist activities. It is even more shameful that a lot of them will be leaving Canada when they are badly needed at home.

To provide the resources without going back into a deficit situation, something I do not think most members want, the government will have to start looking at some of its sacred cows, programs that have limited benefits but use a lot of money. I will quickly list some of these.

First, we have spent $600 million on a gun registration system whose benefits are still arguable. We will spend another $100 million a year to administer the program once it is finally set up.

Second, there are mountains of interest groups who collect money from the government. We went through that last week with one of the ministers and the embarrassment that resulted from that.

Third, HRDC and the Department of Industry still believe welfare capitalism is the way to make the economy grow.

A lot of these sacred cows will have to be put to the side and the funds will have to be used for national security where they are needed.