Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity today to speak to Bill C-3, clearly a piece of legislation that is extremely important to all of us as parliamentarians but also very important for Canada.
It is an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, certificates and special advocates. Listening to my colleague from Burnaby and knowing how passionately he feels about this, I recognize and recall from some time past his opposition to these kinds of things. I must say I applaud his commitment but look at it from a very different point of view.
This bill that is before us will amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to create the role of special advocate.
The very core role of the special advocate would be to protect the interests of the subject of a security certificate by challenging the public safety minister's claim to the confidentiality of information, as well as its relevance and the weight of the evidence, something that is important. We have been clearly pointing out that there were areas in the previous legislation that needed to be improved and this is a good beginning.
The special advocate may also make written and oral submissions to the court and cross-examine government witnesses. These responsibilities would have to be performed within closed court proceedings. It is quite similar to the British system, as my colleague from Burnaby pointed out.
The special advocate's responsibility though is to protect individuals interests in proceedings where evidence is heard in the absence of the public, and of the persons and their counsel. Clearly, these are areas of new jurisdiction for our country, but areas that have been necessary for us to go to make sure that Canadians in Canada are protected.
The bill also provides that any individuals detained under the certificate regime must have their detention reviewed by a judge of the Federal Court within 48 hours of the detention beginning. That is also a very important aspect of the legislation, to ensure that the adequate evidence is also there, and people are not just randomly held, as some people would like us to believe.
Any persons who are still detained six months after the conclusion of the first review may apply for another review of the very reasons for their continued detention. It is another avenue where it is not just a closed door. They will have an opportunity to provide evidence and to defend themselves.
The bill permits a challenge to the Federal Court of Appeal of reasonableness, and I think that is a key word throughout this legislation, of a security certificate, or the results of a review of a person's detention, or the release, should that happen, under conditions.
Again, as my colleague from Burnaby pointed out, some of those conditions may not be the best, but we are always having to keep in mind the safety of our country and security of Canadians, providing the appeal judge certifies that a serious question of general importance is involved.
It also permits a peace officer to arrest and detain persons who are subject to a security certificate if the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the persons have contravened or are about to contravene their conditions of release. That is a very important part of this legislation as well because people will be given the opportunity, under certain conditions, to have a degree of freedom, but if for some reason or another a police officer or someone else has reason to believe that they may flee, then they may need take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the individuals in question are where they needed to be.
Bill C-3 also enables the minister to apply for the non-disclosure of confidential information during a judicial review of a decision made under the act, and gives the judge discretion to appoint a special advocate to protect the interests of the person concerned.
Just to give some background to the many Canadians who are watching this debate, or we would like to think are watching this debate, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously on February 23 that the process for determining the reasonableness of security certificates violates section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, hence the reason that we are currently dealing with this legislation.
I always believe that the more time we take to review something the better the legislation will come out and clearly the Supreme Court has point out some areas that needed to be looked at and reviewed. I believe, at the end of the day, it will only make it that much better, that much stronger, and that much more effective piece of legislation.
We also know that none of us want to see innocent people have their rights abused in Canada. I think that by the time the committee finishes studying the legislation, when it comes back to the House, it will be that much more effective, keeping in mind some of the comments that some of my colleagues have raised about their concerns about abuse of the process.
The Supreme Court was quite clear. The government does require a mechanism to remove individuals from Canada who pose a threat to national security. That clearly was a large part of that legislation that was introduced initially, that there did need to be some sort of mechanism so that people could be removed. I believe Canadians want that ability to do that.
However, the system as it is currently must be reformed. The court had particular concerns with respect to secrecy of the judicial review system which prevents individuals from knowing the case against them and hence impairs their ability to effectively challenge the government's case.
I think we can say that it was not just the court that had concerns about that particular area of it. It certainly goes against a lot of things that we believe in in Canada and keeping the secrecy issue is a very difficult thing.
It is all about a balance of being able to protect our country and to respect our security issues. At the same time we cannot disregard the fact that we have a charter in our country and we have human rights that we respect. We want to make sure that things are done properly and that we do not have to hide in shame because we did not do something properly when it comes to something as important as international or security issues.
We on this side of the House, as the official opposition, welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court on the security certificates in February which provided Parliament a year to address the issue. That year will soon be up and it is only now starting to be dealt with.
It is very unfortunate that the government took so long to come forward with replacement legislation that Parliament now may be rushed to ensure that legislation is in place before the one year timeline expires in February 2008. Add on to that, this is an important piece of legislation. We dealt with it before under strenuous difficult times. It is important that we do this right and that we make sure that we are going to maintain the safety our country, as well as not abusing human rights and stepping on other people's rights.
The Supreme Court agreed that the protection of Canada's national security and related intelligence sources does constitute a pressing and substantial objective, but it also found that the non-disclosure of evidence at certificate hearings is a significant infringement on the rights of the accused. I believe most Canadians and most of us as parliamentarians will have to admit that we had some concerns in that very area. Finding the right balance is the challenge.
In other words, the government must choose a less intrusive alternative, notably the use of a special advocate to act on behalf of the named persons while still protecting Canada's national security. I go back to the issue of a balance and how that important that balance is for all of us.
The immigration security certificate procedure still allows suspected terrorists as well as refugees and landed immigrants accused of human rights violations or serious criminality to be detained and deported from Canada. The safety of Canadians and Canada is a priority I know for all of us as parliamentarians.
The Liberal party will support the bill at second reading, voting in favour of sending the bill to committee for an in-depth study. We will take the time to study the new bill, to make the necessary improvements at the committee stage, and hopefully we will still be able to not be too far off from the timeline that we have been given to get this done.
It will mean a lot of work by a lot of parliamentarians in the House very quickly in order to ensure that we are following all of the obligations that Canada has when it comes to fighting terrorism. It is something that is extremely important for all of us and we want to ensure that we have covered all the bases that are necessary.
We do not want to have legislation that does not meet all of the requirements and that again would be challenged in the Supreme Court and possibly struck down. I think as we move forward to committee now many of us will work on this legislation to ensure that there is that balance that all Canadians will want to see.