This bill is from the 41st Parliament, 1st session, which ended in September 2013.
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.
This enactment amends the Criminal Code to create four new offences relating to nuclear terrorism in order to implement the Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other S-9s:
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am curious specifically about the member's riding. Chalk River has spent nuclear fuel that it will be transporting back to the U.S. under an agreement we reached the last time Mr. Obama was here, I believe, or around that time. There have been concerns raised about the safety of transporting it like that and the risk of somebody trying to intervene and steal it.
As this is weapons-grade fuel, I am wondering what the reaction has been in the member's riding.
Raymond Côté NDP Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hamilton East—Stoney Creek very much for his question. I particularly thank him for bringing up that point of view.
Among the five federal ridings in Quebec CIty, the Beauport—Limoilou riding has the distinctive feature of containing three of the five major hospitals in the region. Hospitals are potential threats because they still make significant use of radioactive material and there are safety standards related to the use of such material.
The government's massive cuts to health and other transfers to the provinces could threaten the management of this risk. Not to mention that all this radioactive material could be diverted for use in poisoning large numbers of people. It might not kill them, but it could pose a threat and frighten people, thereby paralyzing public authorities, governments and average citizens. This could be petty crime, and not just far-reaching and large-scale terrorist crime.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the last question.
The member made reference to the medical use of isotopes. We need to recognize that within Canada we do use nuclear materials. Hydro is one company or organization, and there are other stakeholders out there. Our provincial governments are somewhat involved in terms of the monitoring that takes place.
My question to the member is this. Can he provide his thoughts on the importance of the Government of Canada developing a plan because of the threat of potential local terrorist activities? Also, how important is it that it takes stock of or knows of the potential targets in Canada? What is it doing to minimize the potential threat of terrorist actions, even here in Canada, underlining the importance of working with the different stakeholders in particular and different levels of government?
Raymond Côté NDP Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Winnipeg North for his question, which I find fairly ironic. Like him, I agree on the importance of having a plan, but what good is it if we do not have all the means to implement it?
I find it ironic coming from a member of a party that, back in the day of the Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin governments, made massive cuts in transfers to the provinces. In other words, he is from a party that shovelled its deficit onto the backs of the provinces, thereby weakening, for lack of resources, the capacity of the provinces and related institutions, including health and higher education institutions, to manage and secure sites and to implement some kind of plan.
Yes, we need a detailed plan, but without the resources to implement the plan, it has no more actual value than a bill that cannot be implemented for lack of resources.
Nuclear Terrorism ActGovernment Orders
Ajax—Pickering Ontario
Conservative
Chris Alexander ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence
Mr. Speaker, I am always pleased to ask my hon. colleague from Beauport—Limoilou a question.
Given that this is the second day that we are studying this bill at third reading stage and that neither he nor his NDP colleagues have given any reason why we should not take action to ensure nuclear safety, why does the hon. member believe that we should wait some more before taking action and passing this bill?
This bill will allow Canada to fulfill some very important national obligations and address a very urgent global challenge. We have yet to see an act of nuclear terrorism, but without the measures proposed in this bill, Canada is exposed to certain risks.
Raymond Côté NDP Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for his question.
I will answer in another way. I hope he took the time to listen to my speech. After passing Bill S-9 relatively quickly, we will have to implement it and meet our international obligations. However, Bill S-9 will not be enough. I hope that the member was listening carefully.
Will the government implement measures to ensure that Bill S-9 is not just a document that is not worth the paper it is written on? We have to be able to secure sites and have adequate police resources to deal with this famous terrorist threat. Above all, the provinces must be able to use radioactive material in a safe manner.
Nuclear Terrorism ActGovernment Orders
The Acting Speaker Barry Devolin
It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.
The House resumed from March 28 consideration of the motion that Bill S-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, be read the third time and passed.
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Mr. Speaker, the New Democratic Party believes that we must seriously address the issue of nuclear security and comply with our international obligation in order to better co-operate with other countries on a counterterrorism strategy.
The bill before us is unique inasmuch as we usually oppose the introduction of a government bill through the Senate, because an unelected chamber is not the place to begin the legislative process. However, for Bill S-9, one can see a helpful use of Senate time to do the first vetting of legislation that is intended merely to be technical to create compliance with international obligations.
This bill fulfills Canada's treaty obligations under the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, CPPNM, and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, ICSANT. This includes extending international measures beyond protecting against the proliferation of nuclear materials to now include the protection of nuclear facilities. It reinforces Canada's obligation under UN Security Council resolution 1540, from 2004, to take and enforce effective measures to prevent the proliferation of nuclear materials as well as chemical and biological weapons.
In this case, the implementation of the treaty requires amendments to Canadian legislation. The treaty is ratified only when such amendments or new legislation have been passed. To date, Canada has not ratified either the ICSANT or the CPPNM amendments. This is because Canada does not have legislation in place to criminalize the offences outlined in the ICSANT or some of the offences outlined in the CPPNM.
The amendments Bill S-9 introduces into the code represent Canada's efforts to align its domestic legislation with what is required by both conventions. If these amendments become law, Canada will presumably be in a position to ratify both the conventions, something Canada, and other countries, committed to work toward at both the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit, held in Washington, D.C., and the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, Korea.
New Democrats are committed to multilateral diplomacy and international co-operation, especially in areas of great common concern, such as nuclear terrorism. We thus need to work with other leading countries that are ratifying these conventions. Moreover, Canada has agreed to be legally bound by these conventions. It is important to fulfill our international obligations and ratify these conventions through the domestic implementation that Bill S-9 undertakes.
To emphasize the seriousness of nuclear terrorism, I wish to quote from Professor Matthew Bunn, associate professor of public policy, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University.
Dr. Bunn testified before the Senate committee on this particular bill. He said:
The danger of nuclear terrorism remains very real. Government studies in the United States and in other countries have concluded that if terrorists manage to get enough highly enriched uranium or plutonium, they might very well be able to make a crude nuclear bomb capable of incinerating the heart of a major city.
In the case of highly enriched uranium, making such a bomb is basically a matter of slamming two pieces together at high speed. The amounts required are small, and smuggling them is frighteningly easy.
The core of al Qaeda is, as President Obama mentioned the other night, a shadow of its former self, but regional affiliates are metastasizing and some of the key nuclear operatives of al Qaeda remain free today. With at least two terrorist groups having pursued nuclear weapons seriously in the last 20 years, we cannot expect that they will be the last. Moreover, some terrorists have seriously considered sabotaging nuclear power plants, perhaps causing something like what we saw at Fukushima in Japan, or dispersing highly radioactive materials in a so-called “dirty bomb”.
Should terrorists succeed in detonating a nuclear bomb in a major city, the political, economic, and social effects would reverberate throughout the world. Kofi Annan, when he was secretary-general of the United Nations, warned that the economic effects would drive millions of people into poverty and create a second [terrifyingly significant] death toll in the developing world. Fears that terrorists might have another bomb that they might set off somewhere else would be acute. The world would be transformed, and not for the better.
Hence, insecure nuclear material anywhere is really a threat to everyone, everywhere. This is not just an American judgment. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned that nuclear terrorism is one of the most serious threats of our time. Mohamed ElBaradei, while he was head of the IAEA, called it the greatest threat to the world.
Russia's counterterrorism czar, Anatoly Safonov, has warned that they have “firm knowledge” that terrorists have been given specific tasks to acquire nuclear weapons and their components....
Fortunately, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we've made tremendous progress around the world in improving security for both nuclear weapons and the materials needed to make them. No longer are there sites where the essential ingredients of a nuclear bomb are sitting in what you and I would consider the equivalent of a high school gym locker with a padlock that could be snapped with a bolt cutter....
At scores of sites around the world, dramatically improved nuclear security has been put in place. At scores of other sites the weapons-usable nuclear material has been removed entirely, reducing the threat of nuclear theft from those sites to zero. More than 20 countries have eliminated all weapons-usable nuclear material on their soil, and the nuclear security summits have provided new high-level political impetus, which has accelerated this progress.
Mr. Safonov stressed a few more dangerous areas that still exist.
In Pakistan, a small but rapidly growing nuclear stockpile, which is under heavy security, I believe, faces more extreme threats than any other nuclear stockpile in the world, both from heavily armed extremists who might attack from outside and from potential insiders who might help them.
In Russia, which has the world's largest stockpiles of both nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear material dispersed in the largest numbers of buildings and bunkers, the nuclear security measures have dramatically improved, but there are still important weaknesses that a sophisticated theft conspiracy might exploit. And sustainability remains a major concern, as Russia still has neither the strong nuclear security rules effectively in force nor sufficient funds allocated from the federal government to sustain security for the long haul.
At more than 100 research reactors around the world, you still have highly enriched uranium used as fuel or as targets for the production of medical isotopes, and in many of these reactors, security is very minimal. Some of them are on university campuses.
At the moment, unfortunately, the mechanisms for global governance of nuclear security remain weak. No global rules specify how secure a nuclear weapon or a chunk of plutonium or highly enriched uranium ought to be. There are no mechanisms in place to verify that every country that has these materials is securing them responsibly.
Without a doubt, Canada strongly supports the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Canada was, in fact, one of the architects of the CPPNM amendment and the ICSANT, and we are encouraged by the adoption of these two conventions by a significant number of countries. We actively encourage others to follow through on the their commitment to become parties, as Canada is doing.
Bill S-9, once passed and followed by the ratification of the CPPNM amendment as well as the ICSANT, would give credence to Canada's commitment to the strengthening of the global national security architecture. It would provide Canada with additional tools to counter this threat as well as enhance our ability to work with partners to mitigate the consequences, should this threat ever materialize.
We must be vigilant. We must work toward disarmament. We must ensure the safety of our world, our country and our families.
Denis Blanchette NDP Louis-Hébert, QC
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her speech. I am sure the government finds it disconcerting to know that it cannot always say one thing and do another. Could the member talk some more about how the government should change its view on international treaties, so that we can do more and move faster to crack down on these dangerous devices?
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Mr. Speaker, certainly moving expeditiously on this particular piece of legislation is a first step.
However, it is not just nuclear security and the threat of potentially dangerous scenarios we should be cognizant of. Canada has signed a lot of international conventions and a lot of UN conventions. We signed a convention to protect women against inequality, to protect first nations women, to protect first nations rights and to protect children against hunger and poverty, and we have not followed through. It is not just this convention, it is all conventions. I would like to see this Parliament move expeditiously to honour all of our international agreements.
Romeo Saganash NDP Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her excellent speech. She identified a number of essential components of this bill.
However, I would like to hear her thoughts on our role and the influence we used to have on the international stage. We seem to have lost that influence. According to the United Nations charter, the principle of international co-operation is a chief obligation for member states. This government is currently ignoring that obligation.
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Mr. Speaker, my colleague is quite correct. In terms of Canada's lost reputation internationally, we have become something of a pariah in the world community. Our failure to move ahead on our responsibility regarding climate change is just one example. We pulled out of the agreement to address climate change, the Kyoto accord.
Beyond that international reputation is the reality that Canada is a key producer of uranium, the kind of material used for nuclear weapons. We have to show leadership on this. We have benefited from uranium production. In fact, we are a key producer of nuclear reactors. We have to show some positive and responsible, and I think important, leadership in this regard.
Pierre Jacob NDP Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Mr. Speaker, thank you for the wonderful speech.
Why does the party opposite have the terrible habit of using the Senate—which is full of unelected members—to launch the legislative process?
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is a troublesome kind of reality that the current government is so busy losing money, $3.1 billion, and covering up scandals that it does not seem to have the time to do the positive international and domestic work we very much want to happen in this place.
This is an important bill. I am very sorry that it did not come from the government, that it did not come through the House of Commons, because we, as elected members, have an obligation, as I said, to our families, to our country and to the world community. No Senate can do that work.