Mr. Speaker, we have before us Bill S-205, whose purpose is to include suicide bombing in the definition of a terrorist act. We support this bill because we are very concerned about the safety and protection of all citizens and suicide attacks on civilians are considered barbaric acts that are contrary to the values of Quebec society and the general respect for life. A number of suicide bombings have been carried out just recently in various parts of the world, and we think legislation should be passed.
This is obviously a very serious matter of great concern. When people see bills like this one legislating on suicide bombings, they may be tempted to smile a little and wonder what can possibly be done. Is the government going to impose minimum sentences on suicide bombers, or even the death penalty? Of course not. We are not talking here about people who succeed in these attacks. We are talking instead about all the activities that surround them. As soon as something is considered a terrorist activity, a serious of legal tools become available that can be used, for example, to get at the funding of the activity, the act of conspiring to commit these attacks, or encouraging someone to commit these attacks or failing to discourage them. A whole array of things can be done all around the possible perpetrators of suicide bombings, even though nothing can be done about the bombers themselves once they have carried out their attack.
This is a bill that we will support. If I am not mistaken, there is unanimous support for it in the House. I do not think there will be any objections. It is a clear, simple bill. There is a main clause dealing with the definition. I want to take advantage of this opportunity to point out how easily we can achieve results in the House without prolonging the debate when legislation is introduced that is simple and has consensus support, with no poison pills. I do not think that there will be many parties today that will try to prolong the debate indefinitely.
The government should learn from the debate this evening and proceed, for example, with measures like the one the Bloc Québécois is proposing to abolish conditional release for white collar criminals after they have served one-sixth of their sentence.
All the parties say they agree. We have introduced a bill. It is ready. It has been drafted. We have asked for unanimous consent of all the parties to pass it at all stages. This bill could already be in the Senate. But no, the Conservative government does not want that. For partisan reasons, it wants to delay this sort of proposal by the Bloc Québécois. It wants to present other proposals like the ones we debated earlier today.
We are anxious to see what will happen with this proposal to abolish parole for white collar criminals who have served one-sixth of their sentence. The Conservatives will likely put it in a bill with a poison pill. They will likely combine it with another measure they know we do not support, in order to make political hay.
I believe that the government should stop doing this sort of thing. It should learn from the bill before us and introduce simple bills that everyone can agree on, so that we can proceed quickly, without a poison pill. Once we have done that, we can tackle the issues on which there is less consensus.
That is what I have to say about this bill. I hope the government will see that good bills on which the parties agree can be passed quickly in this House.
