Mr. Speaker, first of all, let us look at what is really happening.
Just because the NDP does not blindly follow the dictates of the Conservative Party does not mean that we are in favour of insecurity and letting the terrorist movement do whatever it wants. We want to combat the terrorist threat and do so in an effective manner, not make terrorists our allies.
I had an internationally recognized strategy teacher, Professor Garant. He said that terrorism has an incestuous relationship with the media. Terrorism scares people, and the media and politicians avidly repeat the message that it sends and make the threat seem bigger than it really is. This is the same problem that arose in the debate between Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Tommy Douglas on the invocation of the War Measures Act in October 1970.
Bill C-51 seeks to make permanent the measures that that legislation sought to impose in October 1970. Under the War Measures Act, 400 Canadians were imprisoned for absolutely no reason. No charges were laid against them. Tens of thousands of Canadians had their rights restricted. For what? For nothing.
The FLQ, which was a real threat, was dismantled by a classic police operation. The police did not use any special laws or illegal means; they simply did their police surveillance work to look for and find the suspects. The FLQ was dismantled. I want to stress that the special laws served absolutely no purpose.
Why was the War Measures Act invoked? A minister said it was outrageous that thousands of FLQ members were preparing to overthrow the government, as though here in Canada the Islamic State were preparing to invade with tens of thousands of big bad Muslims. Well, no. It is not true.
Two unfortunate events unfolded. The first involved a young man whose father begged the authorities to commit his son for psychiatric reasons. The young man did not have a gun. He used a motor vehicle and a knife. Everyone around him knew how he was and therefore removed any chance for him to use a firearm. The second event involved a young addict who wanted to go to prison for detoxification treatment.
Now, the government wants to deprive us of our rights because of those two incidents. However, everyone is saying that the new laws in Bill C-51 never would have prevented those two unfortunate incidents from happening. That speaks volumes.
The famous sentence uttered by the then Liberal prime minister was “Just watch me”. Well, we are watching the Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and we see that he has an image, but not much more than that. There is no substance to his message, and when we try to listen to what he says we are dismayed that there is nothing there.
Later on there was the debate on the charter, which was a protection. In the debate between Ed Broadbent and Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Ed Broadbent said that economic rights needed to be replaced by human rights. Thank goodness that debate took place. We would be at a disadvantage today if it had not occurred.
Claude Ryan, a man of common sense, said that the charter was there to protect citizens from the worst and most dangerous abuses, those of the state, and he was right.
I remind members that 1,000 aboriginal women—not two—are currently missing in Canada. That is a big number, yet there is still no special legislation. However, we are not asking for special legislation. We are asking for an inquiry into why the police have failed to prevent these crimes and whether there are any social programs in which we could invest to combat this problem. Unfortunately, there is absolutely nothing. We are so used to seeing first nations people being systematically dismissed that it has almost become routine. It is hardly newsworthy.
However, when two Canadians die, it is a whole other story. It is unfortunate, but at some point it needs to be said. How can this government make a big issue out of two sad events that need to be addressed, yet it does absolutely nothing to find 1,000 missing women? It does not care. It is just looking for media coverage. It has an incestuous relationship with the media.
Furthermore, organized crime is still a problem. Attempts to settle scores among criminals—and sometimes their victims—account for about 100 murders in Canada every year. About 5,000 people fall victim to illicit drugs every year. For example, there are people who sell low-quality heroin in Montreal. It is hard to get accurate data, since there are always a number of suicides, but thousands of Canadians still die.
What does this government do? It withdraws police personnel tasked with combatting organized crime and assigns them to combatting terrorist activities, which have so far been far less effective than organized crime. In fact, organized crime causes much more harm in Canada.
A majority of experts—even those from the government—agree with us and believe that this is not good legislation, that it will not combat terrorism and that it will not pass the charter test. That will make this law illegal. The government is currently batting zero at the Supreme Court. All of its laws have been deemed ultra vires. Unbelievable.
Even though 48 witnesses, including jurists and former prime ministers, told them that they would get in trouble again with this, they say the Supreme Court will side with them this time. When it comes to credibility, I am more inclined to trust all of the experts, prime ministers and eminent jurists who say that the government will get in trouble than I am to trust the government's legal opinion, which is not worth much.
Don Quixote tilted at windmills believing they were giants. Well, my distinguished Conservative Party colleagues have the mental age of Don Quixote. Once again, they are inventing giants and trying to fight them.
Clearly you do not like what I am telling you, but here is something even better: the vast majority of Canadians agree with me and reject your position.
Polls indicated that you had 85% support, but now that Canadians realize you are attacking their rights, they are withdrawing their support.
