Bill C-353

Foreign Hostage Takers Accountability Act

An Act to provide for the imposition of restrictive measures against foreign hostage takers and those who practice arbitrary detention in state-to-state relations and to make related amendments to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

This enactment authorizes the Government of Canada to take restrictive measures against foreign nationals, foreign states and foreign entities that engage in hostage taking or arbitrary detention in state-to-state relations of Canadians or eligible protected persons outside Canada. It also requires the Minister of Foreign Affairs to provide assistance to the families of such hostages and detained individuals and to establish and implement programs to encourage cooperation for the release of such Canadians and eligible protected persons. Finally, this enactment makes related amendments to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act .

The House resumed from December 1, 2023, consideration of the motion that Bill C-353, An Act to provide for the imposition of restrictive measures against foreign hostage takers and those who practice arbitrary detention in state-to-state relations and to make related amendments to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Foreign Hostage Takers Accountability Act

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Madam Speaker, let me begin tonight's discussion by saying that I appreciate the Conservative member of Parliament for Thornhill's interest in some very important international issues that are raised in this bill, Bill C-353.

As the Minister of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly said, we find ourselves amidst an international security crisis. This is evident in the events unfolding around the world, which have direct impact on Canadians' day-to-day lives. Among other things, the brutal, illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine by Putin is wreaking havoc on global food and fuel prices. In the midst of that, the Conservatives have been equivocal.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas is having devastating humanitarian impacts and is inflaming tensions at home. Again, the Conservatives have been equivocal. A race for resources critical to reducing carbon pollution and to addressing the existential threat of climate change are leading to coups and conflicts across the world, including in Africa. Again, the Conservatives have been worse than equivocal. Populism, autocratic regimes, political instability and extremist leaders are driving waves of irregular migration. The Conservatives have been have a blind eye toward that.

We have been kept safe at home for generations due to a system of rules and institutions, the international rules-based order, following in the legacy of great leaders like Lester B. Pearson, Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney, and that is why the Minister of Foreign Affairs has made our government's foreign policy priorities clear. We will stand up for our values every day, protecting Canadians and their interests while defending our sovereignty, and at the same time, we will be pragmatic and will engage with a broad and diverse set of other countries to address these challenges and to work toward a more stable and secure world.

Turning to the proposal at hand, at first glance, the principles underpinning this bill, Bill C-353, seem commendable. A core responsibility of any government is to protect Canadians and to keep them safe, whether at home or abroad. Our objective in hostage situations is always to protect the lives of those who are in danger. Canada should be a leader in fighting for a world free of arbitrary detention as an instrument of political pressure or for leverage between states, yet once one gives this Conservative bill a careful read, concerns become very evident. However well-intentioned this proposal is, the bill has major problems. It would actually make it more dangerous for Canadians to live and to travel abroad. This bill would conflate arbitrary detention and hostage-taking. There are different approaches and different issues that are required for each of these situations.

Bill C-353 would also fail to make the critical distinction between terrorists and criminal hostage-taking. The motivations, pressure points and risks, including of torture or death, vary greatly. Complex situations require sophisticated responses. Each case is unique and requires a response that is tailored to the situation so that we can maximize the likelihood that the victim will return home safely to be reunited with their family and loved ones. One size does not fit all, and that kind of mandate would simply hamper the work of the safety and security of Canadians abroad who may find themselves in trouble.

For example, sanctioning criminal groups for hostage-taking would make ransom payments by families illegal, hindering families' abilities to resolve cases quickly and privately. This bill would also mandate the sharing of information with families or with Parliament, which could undermine efforts to resolve cases safely. Family dynamics can also be complex, particularly when privacy is concerned. We Canadians have the right to decide for ourselves when personal information is to be shared, particularly in situations of vulnerability. This bill, Bill C-353, would dismiss the rights of the victims who may or may not want sensitive and even traumatizing information shared with their loved ones or with others. Sharing details of the victims' circumstances, which often include distressing information, can lead to undue distress for families and loved ones. It also risks increasing the chance that they could make rash or emotionally motivated decisions that put their loved ones in greater danger.

I have been involved in a number of these cases doing consular affairs. Our objective in hostage-taking cases is to protect the lives of the hostages, and putting details into the public domain can affect the safety of hostages. Public communications relating to hostages could potentially prolong the ordeal, further endangering their lives. As it is impossible to know what a hostage has told captors to protect themselves, the emergence of details to the contrary could heighten any danger that they are in. Furthermore, exposing government's efforts to negotiate release would allow the captors to gain critical information regarding negotiation tactics as well as oftentimes sensitive government operating procedures.

A third issue is that the bill, Bill C-353, is largely unnecessary. Many of its proposed provisions reflect legislation and policies that our government has already put in place. We already have the strictest and the most robust sanctions regime in the world, which allows for the application of sanctions in the event of growths in systematic human rights violations. For example, we have used these tools, updated as recently as last year, to sanction Hamas leaders involved in the horrific October 7 terrorist attack against Israel. Similarly, our Criminal Code already prohibits dealing with terrorists and authorizes the freezing of assets. Consular officials also already share information with victims' families. However, there is an appropriate and necessary discretion to tailor what, how much and when to share in these circumstances.

A fourth concern that Bill C-353 raises is the various and diplomatic challenges it presents. The bill proposes the seizure of foreign government property in Canada, which is in direct conflict with international law and could expose Canada to legal action and even reprisals. What is more, expanding consular services to permanent residents, while perhaps laudable because we have human beings' lives at stake, other loosely defined eligible individuals would expose the Government of Canada to legal and diplomatic risks.

We are a signatory to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and we hold that clearly. It outlines our responsibilities as well as other countries' responsibilities, and we need to fall in line with the Vienna Convention. Under this convention, countries do not have obligations to share information about non-Canadians with us, and we do not want to risk that quid pro quo being a problem for Canadians.

At best, we would be reliant on diplomatic goodwill. At worst, hostile states could perceive our efforts as interference, increasing the potential of harm faced by the Canadian victim or by any victim. This could even become an irritant with our allies in the event our interventions on behalf of one of their citizens who has Canadian permanent residency is at odds with their own attempts to resolve the situation. It is the responsibility of a government to maintain the protection of its citizens and to appeal for their well-being, and we respect that.

Finally, we are concerned that the Conservative bill, Bill C-353, would propose giving cash and preferential immigration treatment to terrorist groups like Hamas. Let me unpack that for a minute. The bill would actually give an ability to support groups like Hamas to try to solicit information leading to the release of people they have in captivity. This is more than worrisome.

The MP for Thornhill has said in the house recently that, “There is a reason that Canada has a long-standing policy of not negotiating with terrorists. It is that it rewards barbarism, and worse that it provides an incentive for that barbarism to continue and even escalate.” I could not agree more.

Providing cash to terrorists and criminal organizations could flood our consular officials and security agencies with volumes of false and misleading information, and it is not in the best interests of Canadians. The bill's proposal that Canada offer cash and preferential immigration treatment to bad actors, such as gangs and terrorist organizations like Hamas, could provided an incentive to take Canadians hostage so that they could be leveraged as a source of revenue. Again, the bill, Bill C-353, actually increases the likelihood that Canadians could be kidnapped.

In a global security crisis, we want to keep all Canadians safe. We have launched the arbitrary detention initiative. Country after country is signing on to that. We have modernized our consular operations bureau. We have appointed a senior official for hostage affairs. We will continue to do that work with 70 other countries and the European Union, which are part of it and which have endorsed Canada's declaration on arbitrary detention. It serves as a deterrent by raising the cost that such activity incurs.

We have also taken steps to ensure better support to victims by engaging international experts and NGOs, to improve our communications with, and support for, victims and to increase post-detention care.

In closing, our government does not support this bill. This bill, Bill C-353, would send cash to Boko Haram, Hamas, other terrorist organizations and criminal organizations. We will continue to look at it. We will continue to operate in good faith. We want to keep Canadians safe.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am glad to be joining this debate with respect to Bill C-353, the foreign hostage takers accountability act.

Again, it is always an honour and a privilege to rise in the House and speak not only on behalf of my constituents, but also on behalf of a lot of friends of mine from the Middle East: Kurds, Persians and a lot of Chaldeans and Arab-Iraqis and Turks, whom I know are dissidents who live in our country. Many of them had the experience of being imprisoned or detained unlawfully by a group and some of them, unfortunately, by terrorist organizations operating in the Rojava region of Syria. In one case I know of, it was a journalist who was unlawfully detained in her own country at the time. Now, thankfully, she is in Canada, and she is a Canadian citizen here, and an author. I always refer to her as the “Robert Fife of Turkey” because she was the one who broke the story that the Turkish government was allowing arms, money and weapons to flow to ISIS organizations. She was unlawfully detained. She eventually became a Canadian citizen, here in Canada.

There are countless such examples, and if what we just heard from the parliamentary secretary were true, that all of this great work is happening and that it is functioning, then Huseyin Celil, who has been unlawfully detained in the PRC since 2006, would not be there; he would be safely in Canada as a Canadian citizen and would be allowed here with his family members and with his kids. Huseyin Celil has been in prison, like I said, since 2006. He was renditioned as a Canadian citizen out of Uzbekistan to the PRC and was falsely accused of a number of charges.

I believe that the main benefit of Bill C-353, and I want to thank the member for Thornhill for having tabled such legislation, is that it would be a way to dissuade and to deter organizations. The bill would take what is policy, some regulations, some ideas and some behaviour, by what the parliamentary secretary said, and would put it into legislation and would make it functional and usable in law so that family members would know that this would actually happen.

The bill, Bill C-353, is supported by a great number of organizations across the country. There are so many examples that we can point to of Canadians who have been unlawfully detained overseas or who have been imprisoned by terrorist organization, and what they are doing is just not working as well as it should. Therefore, to me, this is an improvement. It would not wipe out what the government has already started doing. In fact, much of that is referred to in the preamble of this private member's bill. It is a recognition that there are activities, and there are things going on, but we could do so much better. We could do more for Canadians, typically of dual citizenship.

I will say that as a Canadian of dual citizenship, I deeply care about this. I happen to be from a country that today is a democratic republic and has all the rights afforded to all types of citizens, but that was not the case pre-1989. I was born in a country that was a communist country at the time, and there were no equal rights for people. There was martial law for six years. There is a reason that my family is here and that we were allowed to leave during that same martial law. In that case, there would have been unlawful detention of dual citizens as well.

I want to focus on a few other Canadians because there is another recent case, as of 2021, of one young lady who disappeared in Tehran. Her name is Behnoush Bahraminia. She is a dual citizen of Canada and had been a Vancouver resident since 2013. She disappeared in Tehran on November 6, 2021. As a dual citizen of Canada and a young lady, her parents are still very worried as to her whereabouts. They have sufficient information, which they have shared in media reports in the past, that they believe she is being unlawfully detained by the Islamic regime in Tehran. We often refer to the IRGC as a terrorist organization. In fact, the House has twice now pronounced itself as labelling the IRGC as a terrorist organization. The government's position is that the Islamic regime is a state sponsor of terror. With the little bit of Farsi that I do know, Sepah-e Pasdaran should be listed as a terrorist organization. I just wanted to speak up on behalf of Behnoush.

I also want to speak up on behalf of Zahra Kazemi. Very famously, she was murdered in Evin prison. She was a Canadian, a Montrealer no less. She was perhaps a professor or taught as an instructor at the same university I used to go to, Concordia University. She was murdered in Evin prison. The police chief at the time of her murder, who gave excuses on national television in Iran, now lives in Canada, unfortunately. I know it is quite a surprise, but he does.

In that particular case, again, it is an example of regimes overseas that feel there is no accountability. They are never held accountable for their actions. That is why a piece of legislation like this is necessary.

The other one I wanted to mention, because the member for Thornhill mentioned it before as well, is the case of Saeed Malekpour, a Canadian permanent resident who, while visiting his ill father, was also arrested, again in Iran, and then was subject to the death penalty. In Farsi they call it hokm-e ‘edam, which is very commonly spoken about, because it is so common in Iran for political opponents of the regime, regardless of whether they are foreign nationals, dual citizens or citizens of the Islamic republic, to be subjected to the death penalty almost on the whims of these courts. These are, of course, not legitimate judges with deep legal educations. These are typically members of the IRGC, or these are kangaroo courts that really do not care about the rules.

If the government labels the Islamic regime, the Islamic government of Tehran, as a terror organization, then rules like this would formalize how we treat them when they unlawfully detain or arrest our citizens. This is how we should treat this regime. This is not a friendly regime to us.

I am focusing most of my commentary on Iran because I have so many people I have come to know all across the country. I want to speak on their behalf, whether they are Baloch, Kurdish from Rojhelat, Persians, Azerbaijanis or the Arabs in the very deep southwest corner in Khuzestan and other provinces, who are continuously persecuted by a regime that took over in 1979. Many governments have come to know them as state sponsors of terror. After all, this is the same regime that arms and trains Hamas. This is the same regime that arms, trains and protects Hezbollah in Syria. This is the same regime that arms, trains and helps the other Hezbollah, in Syria, among other organizations that they support on the ground. This is why so often in the news there are IRGC generals and officers who die in air strikes, whether from drones or from jets, because they are operating freely in Syria, whether in Rojava, nearer to Damascus or nearer to the Turkish-Syrian border.

This is also the same regime that operates freely and has backed the Houthis in the civil war in Yemen. They have backed them perpetually. Now, the Houthis are attacking international shipping. This type of legislation targets regimes like the Islamic regime in Iran.

I will also remind members that this is a regime that, for decades now, has been killing its political opponents, even in Europe. There are people like Qazi Muhammad, who was murdered in Iran, but there are many others whom they target, sometimes using diplomatic immunity for this type of purpose. Sometimes they use rendition as a tool to get back these people; and sometimes, as has happened now, they target Canadian permanent residents and Canadian citizens.

There are many human rights activists who have come to Canada and found a safe place of refuge here, who continue to fight for human rights in Iran, who are the target of this regime. Most famously in North America, although she is not a Canadian citizen, I think of Masih Alinejad, who was targeted by the regime to be renditioned back to Iran to face hokm-e ‘edam, the death penalty.

I do have a Yiddish proverb, because I am speaking of Iran, which had a historically large Jewish community. It is not Yiddish in source, though. It is this: I hope what I have spoken here is that my eyes have spoken what I have seen. It is very important to me that we reflect on this particular issue. There are many diaspora groups in Canada who self-censor, who worry. They are afraid that a regime like Iran's is not held responsible when it takes hostages and when it picks on families. People are sometimes terrified of travelling back to Iran to go to a funeral or to go to a marriage. Even though they may have come here as economic immigrants, become Canadian citizens and joined our family, they are worried what the Islamic regime would do to them in a hostage-taking exercise like that.

It is a terrorist regime. It has terrorist organizations that are part of this large octopus of terrorism. Sometimes that image is seen in caricatures of the government. Legislation like Bill C-353, holding them accountable for hostage-taking, is absolutely necessary. It formalizes a lot of what the government has been doing and does a lot more.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am grateful to my colleague. We work together on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and I enjoy working with him a lot.

I prepared a short speech tonight. I hope people are ready. It is probably one of the best speeches I will ever give in the House.

When it comes to international relations, it is hard to look away, especially considering all the headlines that Canada has been making in recent months, if not years, but sadly, not always for the right reasons.

Since the Prime Minister presumptuously declared in 2015 that “Canada is back”, the country's image has been inconsistent at best, much to the consternation of the Bloc Québécois, I would add. Stuck as it is in the confines of a Canadian province, the Quebec nation is forced to endure the federal government's bungling.

The Bloc Québécois would like to see Canada make better diplomatic decisions. One thing is certain. I have every reason to believe that a sovereign Quebec would do better than Canada when it comes to diplomacy. I would even venture to say that it would do much better. While Canada’s international relations serve its oil interests, Quebec could make a distinct commitment to responsible nations to truly fight climate change. Quebec could also be given full authority to make its immigration policies as generous as possible, taking into account its integration capacity, and obtain a seat at the United Nations.

At the risk of repeating myself, the Bloc Québécois would like to see Canada make better diplomatic decisions. Canada's relationship with China has been on a roller coaster ride ever since Canada arrested Huawei's deputy chair and China arrested the two Michaels in retaliation. It took months of pressure from the Bloc Québécois and its parliamentarians to finally set up an independent public commission of inquiry into China's interference in the Canadian electoral process.

With Bill C‑353, the Conservatives claim to want to protect Canadians being used by foreign states as hostages through baseless accusations. Obviously, not to name them, this refers to the situation of the two Michaels and the saga around the deputy chair of Huawei. In fact, this type of bill would never have prevented their arrest.

Bill C‑353 was introduced by the Conservative member for Thornhill. According to my colleague, the bill “would strengthen Canada's ability to deter, minimize and resolve instances of hostage-taking by increasing governmental power to levy sanctions, by establishing a family liaison office and by providing incentives for foreign co-operation.”

More specifically, the purpose of the bill is, first, “to enable the Government of Canada to take restrictive measures against foreign nationals, foreign states and foreign entities that engage in hostage taking or arbitrary detention in state-to-state relations of Canadian nationals”; second, “to ensure that families of such hostages and detained individuals receive timely information and assistance”; and third, “to encourage individuals to cooperate with the Government of Canada to secure the release of such hostages and detained individuals.”

In general, the Bloc Québécois supports the principle of Bill C‑353, which is to seek ways to fight against arbitrary detentions. That is why the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C‑353 at second reading so that it can be studied in committee.

However, we believe that in its current form, Bill C‑353 is unworkable and could lead to abuses. It is therefore crucial that we study it and propose amendments, which is entirely understandable.

Bill C‑353 attempts to provide a legislative solution to an extremely complex problem that requires thorough consideration. While many of the bill's provisions look good on paper, in reality many of them could have a negative effect. Bill C‑353 is too broad and lacks appropriate judicial oversight. It grants sweeping powers to the minister without any real judicial checks and balances to prevent potential abuses by the Canadian government.

Despite a number of shortcomings that can and should be corrected, I must point out that Bill C‑353 relies on co-operation in trying to obtain information leading to the release of hostages. In my opinion, co-operation is critical in matters involving security and, above all, human lives.

I never miss an opportunity to stress the importance of collaboration in the House. If, at times, my colleagues from the other parties and I have a difference of opinion, I always prefer to seek common ground and collaborate as best I can instead of engaging in partisanship.

In politics, there are issues where partisanship certainly has no place, including when it comes to human rights or, as we say in Quebec, international human rights, in addition to security issues for the families. That is all part of it.

That is why the Bloc Québécois will support the bill at second reading. The Bloc will collaborate fully to improve the bill in committee for the good of hostages and arbitrarily detained individuals, and their families. To reiterate, we are referring the bill to committee because we support the bill in principle. We will vote and we think that it is a good idea to study the bill in committee. However, we must ensure that the study in committee goes well. We will need to make sure that there is no parliamentary obstruction to prevent the bill from going forward.

I think I said it: If human life and human rights were at issue, it would be a bit crazy to see a committee obstruct parliamentary business and get nothing done. I really hope that all my colleagues in the House will look at this bill, with its pros and cons, and see that the principle is very pertinent and that, among other things, human life is the focal point of this bill, as I was saying.

I am asking all my colleagues not only to support the principle of this bill, but also to ensure that, when it is studied at committee, we will work together, co-operate and, above all, avoid bickering over fundamental rights like human rights, the right to life and the right to security.

My colleagues are surely exhausted after hearing everything I have just said. I will conclude by thanking the member for Thornhill for bringing this bill before the House.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Madam Speaker, I caught the end of the brilliant speech given by my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean.

Like him, I support the principle of the bill before us, which was introduced by the member for Thornhill. We want to see it pass in principle, because I think it is well intentioned.

This bill seeks to fix a number of the problems noted in the past in hostage-taking situations. In principle, we welcome the initiative of our colleague from Thornhill. However, when we look at the various provisions of the bill, as my colleague mentioned a moment ago, we see that there are problems with enforcement. In the end, this could turn out to be a bad idea masquerading as a good one.

What matters to us is that the bill pass in principle so that it can be referred to committee and we can make the necessary amendments to try to improve it.

What is the problem? The problem is that we are biting off more than we can chew, as the saying goes. This bill seeks to resolve all sorts of problems by using the same blanket approach. However, not every situation is the same, similar or comparable, so we need different ways of resolving them. In that sense, I think that we need to avoid taking a one-size-fits-all approach. We need to avoid saying that we have a miracle solution that will apply in all cases. Unfortunately, that is what we have with this bill: a formula or framework that would have us solve the problem by applying the same process to every situation.

I am going to give a few examples to show that not all cases are the same, and that is why we need to be able to apply different measures to different cases.

I am personally associated with the case of the imprisonment of a dual British and Canadian national, William Sampson, now deceased. Some years ago, he was falsely accused by Saudi Arabia of committing an attack, along with British nationals and a Belgian national. Although he was innocent of the crime, he confessed under torture. This began a legal saga that included mistreatment, among other things. The problem in this particular case was the need to avoid attracting public attention as much as possible. In Saudi Arabia, it is imperative to avoid causing the royal family to lose face. If the royal family decided to be magnanimous toward a westerner who, in the public's mind, was guilty of wrongdoing, the gesture could obviously backfire on the royal family. As we know, the Saudi Arabian regime hinges on a delicate balance between Wahhabi Islamists and the royal family.

This is the kind of specific situation that we need to be able to take into account. We cannot say that we are going to apply same formula everywhere.

Another high-profile case in recent years involved the arbitrary imprisonment of two Canadian citizens. They were known as the two Michaels, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig. Their case was different in that moving it forward required talking it about it as much as possible. At least that is what the members of the two families told us.

In the case of William Sampson, family members were telling us not to talk about it and to keep it as quiet as possible so that the secret negotiations could continue.

There have been different cases of hostage-taking by terrorist groups. There was former ambassador Fowler, who was held hostage for some time. According to public reports, a ransom was paid and he was released.

There is the more recent case of Édith Blais, who, along with her Italian spouse, was taken hostage. Again, there were negotiations involving the Italian government. It appears that, in that case, there may have been a desire to pay the ransom, but in the end the two were able to escape. She has recounted the whole saga in a book.

The circumstances of each of those four cases were very different, and the government cannot necessarily apply the same formula across the board. The government must have some latitude. The odd thing about this bill is that it gives the government a lot of latitude in some cases, maybe too much latitude. Perhaps the judiciary should be more involved. In other cases, the government is not really given any latitude.

For example, there is the idea that we should be open to paying a ransom. There is something extremely dangerous about that idea, because it would be like telling all the terrorist groups in the world that Canadians have a price. What is the price of a Canadian abroad? To what extent will the government be prepared to pay that price to get a hostage released? That said, we must also not get locked into a position where we say that we will never pay a ransom, because otherwise we will find ourselves in a situation where the lives of our fellow Canadians may be in danger.

We therefore need to give the government some latitude. I think that there are a lot of good intentions in this bill, but it seems that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and, as our colleagues say, the devil is in the details. When we look at the details of this bill, we see that there are problems. However, we do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We want an opportunity to study the bill and improve it so that we can do better than we are doing now.

Our colleague from Thornhill put his finger on a problem. It is a fact that Canada's approach to hostage-taking and arbitrary imprisonment is not always the best or most effective, so we should be able to do better. However, I am not sure that the legislation that we have before us will necessarily enable us to respond appropriately to every situation.

Like my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean, I want to tell members of the House that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of the principle of this bill, so that we can examine it in committee and perhaps make amendments that could lead us to pass it at all the remaining stages.

If the required changes are not made, the Bloc Québécois cannot rule out withdrawing its support for this bill. That would be unfortunate because, as my colleague pointed out, it is, objectively speaking, a positive bill that seeks to improve things. It aims to enable us to intervene more effectively to preserve the life, security and health of Canadians and Quebeckers who might be held hostage by terrorist groups or by foreign governments.

That is what opens the door to the debate that I hope will allow us to improve this bill.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be here to talk to Bill C-353.

There are a lot of moments in this place when I think about the specific challenge that we have as legislators. When we look at the human condition and what is happening in the world around us, we have to find a way to create legislation that will hopefully help and be supportive.

I will be supporting this piece of legislation to get it to committee, but I do have some concerns about it. What we need to do, of course, is the important work in committee to make sure that those concerns are addressed. Hopefully, we can see folks work together to make this the best possible bill.

This makes me think of my many years working with the newcomer community in the work that I did before being elected. I remember sitting with people who were facing the terror of having a loved one taken, not knowing what was happening to them and wondering every day whether that would be the day when they hear something that lets them know their loved one is safe. I think most of us cannot imagine what that reality would look like.

I think about the responsibility that someone who becomes an elected member of Parliament has when those things happen. We often have to sit powerless with our constituents and watch things unfold knowing that we are doing everything we can, and we still do not know what the outcome will be.

When I was reading through this particular bill, it really reminded me of a now dear friend from my riding. Her name is Jan. Hers is a completely different circumstance, but it resonates with me given the similarity.

I remember her chasing me down in a change room. One of the fun things about being a politician that I do not think people always hear about is that when we become public figures, sometimes we have the most interesting conversations in the oddest places. Jan's granddaughter was stolen. She was in another country and they were trying everything they could to get her home. It was terrifying for that family, because they did not know if she was safe and she was very young. I remember, in that moment, thinking to myself that if I was a grandmother having this experience, I would also follow somebody into a change room to make a difference for my loved one.

I really appreciate deeply the intention of this bill, but I have some clear questions about providing PR for informants and their dependents. I think we really need to address the issue of exploitation and how we can keep these people safe in those circumstances. It is so important that when people are in a vulnerable state, when they are afraid and when they are stressed by political interference, unlike anything most Canadians ever experience, we keep them as safe as possible.

We need to be talking about sufficient supports for the families of victims. We need to make sure that when they are going through some of these vulnerable times, the supports are there. We may think they are there, but I can promise that a lot of the supports are not. People are left to wrestle with profound agony and pain, and the supports are not there to help them move forward.

We have to look at some of these important things. Which incentive programs would the minister create? Should hostage-taking and arbitrary detention be put together? There are some questions that I definitely have as we go through this process, and I look forward to having meaningful conversations and making sure that we have experts. Again and again in this place, one of the things that I am really grateful for as an MP is that we do not have to be experts. We can have experts come in, walk us through these really challenging things and provide feedback that helps us make really good decisions.

It makes me think of the work that I do in my riding, because one of the things I have been provided with is expertise from my own riding on particular issues. I learn so much from constituents as they guide me with their expertise. In these particular issues that are very complex and far-reaching, we need to make sure that there are no unintended consequences. What we do not want to see, of course, is legislation put in place, some serious unintended consequences happening, and then our being behind the ball trying to get that dealt with.

I think we are all very apprised of what is happening in Israel and in Palestine. There is a lot of agony and pain. It does remind me of my dear friend Mary, who fled Germany during the time of the Holocaust, how she survived and that so many of her family members did not. She told me that she did not believe in God anymore but that she still prayed for peace every day. When I look at the piece of legislation before us, I just think about her intention, what she did to help herself go through such a hard crisis, to lose so much.

I think we all have to remember that when we cannot find solutions that are peaceful, the price is far too high. Part of this, of course, is knowing that there are people who have been taken hostage and that someone is waiting again and again for when they are released, to hear their name. I was reading some articles about some people who have had their loved ones taken in Gaza as hostages. Every time people are released, they are holding their breath, hoping that their loved one's name is on the list. When we look at these things, I think we have to remember that we must do all we can to create peace and that we must do all we can to find safety for all people, and that we should pray for peace unceasingly.

I think the bill needs a bit of work. It needs a little bit of study. I think the experts will be very helpful. We know that there are some good recommendations from the New Democrats that date back to a foreign affairs study in 2018. The report was called “Strengthening the Canadian Consular Service Today and for the Future”. It sought to prove instances of hostage-taking that have not been fully incorporated in the bill. We might be able to look at some of those things and hear from the experts.

Things like creating a mechanism to track the extent to which consular services meet service standards and meaningfully improving communications with families are absolutely key; we need to make sure that families are kept up to date as much as possible. This is the most terrifying period of their lives, most likely, and keeping them informed in a really practical way would make a big difference.

As for the decriminalization of private payment of ransom, I think of the people whom I love the most, and if I had a dollar to pay for their lives, I think I would do it. We need to really bring this back to the humanity.

I will be supporting the bill. New Democrats will be supporting the bill. We will hope to see some really good and strong work in committee to make it a stronger bill, to make sure that there are no unintended consequences that would have a poor impact on people who are facing these realities.

I just want to send my love out to everyone who has ever had this experience or is living through it right now. We have to remember, in all of the work that we do, that humanity is at the core of it. It is hard sometimes, when we are divided, to find our common humanity. I think it is important that we remember how human, how vulnerable and how scared people are, and not silence people but bring together the places where we can be human.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate many of the comments made this evening. I listened very closely to the parliamentary secretary, and a couple of thoughts crossed my mind. Sometimes I think we might be putting the cart ahead of the horse. Members of the Bloc and the NDP say that if the bill goes to committee, they have lots of concerns about what is in the legislation. The parliamentary secretary talked about what we have in place already and how the proposed legislation, Bill C-353, could in fact cause a harmful outcomes for hostages.

At the very least, what might have been nice would have been for a standing committee to look at the issue in its entirety and possibly come back to the House with recommendations as to how we might be able to give strength to the legislation and, ultimately, protect all the different interests that were highlighted by my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, who is responsible for public safety and deals with foreign affairs on so many occasions. He has done an outstanding job representing Canadians in many different types of situations.

When I look at the private member's bill before us, those are the types of concerns I have. I do not believe that we should send the bill to committee, based on the arguments that were presented. We need to recognize that we stand up, first and foremost, for Canadian values. We need to protect Canadians and their interests and work with other like-minded countries. We all want a more stable and secure world; that is one of the reasons Canada is working with allied countries in order to deal with some of these very complicated issues. Our laws, through time, are modified and given strength, which reflect our values, what other allied countries are doing and the best practices taking place.

There were a couple of things the parliamentary secretary referred to. One of them is how the bill would mandate the sharing of information. Information is so critically important and can be a deciding factor in many ways in the outcome of a hostage-taking situation. If there were certain legal mandates that compel information, that information could ultimately compromise a negotiation that is taking place. What we are really talking about is the lives of Canadians.

At the end of the day, I do not have any interest in being involved in high-stakes negotiations and having to deal with individuals who have taken hostages. We see this virtually every day on the news lately with regard to Hamas and what is taking place in the Middle East. I hear that if this particular legislation were to pass in the manner it is proposed today, we would be providing incentives for people kidnap or hold people as hostages as a way to derive cash or be given some sort of preferential treatment to come to Canada. That goes against what possibly even the member wanted to be in the legislation.

That is the reason I would say the legislation, on that one aspect in itself, raises a lot of flags, and we should all be concerned. When one talks about providing incentives for someone to ultimately kidnap or about providing information or mandating its being released, when it could ultimately compromise someone's life, I have a difficult time with that.

What I have not heard in any of the discussions and the debates I have listened to is anything that is very clear about how the legislation would help in a way that would not come back to hurt the victims and their families. There is a certain amount of discretion necessary in the releasing of information, as an example. We have to go out of our way to ensure that we are not providing any form of an incentive for people to be kidnapping Canadians or holding them as hostages.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, all the comments over the course of the bill's presentation deserve more than five minutes, and I am glad that I will be able to do that at committee.

It is unfortunate that the member for Don Valley West did not read the bill or simply did not understand it, because none of those arguments are actually in the bill. Therefore, I will not bother with that.

I want to clarify that the bill was put forward not as a critique of the government or its existing policies but as a next step forward in the natural evolutionary development of laws that are necessary in the terrifying new reality of this world. This is something we are going to face, and the bill would sharpen existing mechanisms to meet the moment in our own country. In many cases, laws evolve from generalized existing provisions, which often fall short in contending with the evolution of the problem, to become more targeted. That is exactly what the bill would do.

Sometimes, our laws have been a product of motions or other declaratory statements that, to be effective, eventually had to find their way into specific laws. As a case in point, prior to 2001, there was no crime related to terrorist activity in our Criminal Code. However, in 2001, Canada passed the ATA, which recognized a whole new series of provisions related to terrorism, which would become one of the greatest challenges in our lifetime. Similarly, international law had only developed its own specialized terrorism provisions over the last decades, which it did for the same reasons: Terrorism had evolved, and the existing frameworks needed to be specifically recalibrated to address the enormity of the threat.

Oftentimes, when these newly targeted provisions are introduced, the question inevitably arises of whether they are really needed. The question came up here a couple of times. However, the House has often adopted a targeted approach to current problems as a first step in a long process of legislative development. In my opinion, it has done so correctly. This is actually what we do here. Therefore, whether we are dealing with terrorism, sexual assault, minority rights or drunk driving, our system has only benefited from more targeted legislation, which ensures that there is better prevention, deterrence and punishment.

Bill C-353 is actually premised on new hostage-related initiatives that are currently being undertaken by our government in an effort to improve Canada's capacity for dealing with the ravages of hostage diplomacy. This has, frankly, upended international world order, specifically, in the last number of months. It was the current government that actually took the step in launching the declaration. The bill before us would strengthen that and sharpen those tools. It would give the senior official for hostage affairs, a lead in consular services who is now concerned with this, more tools in order to do her job, or maybe his job in the future.

The bill would go a step further. It would legislate and impose consequences for perpetrators, create mechanisms for bringing our hostages home and provide better assistance for the families caught in these nightmare scenarios. There is certainly recognition, both by government and our allies that developed a robust legislative response to hostage-taking, that there is a new threat on the horizon, which needs to be addressed concretely.

Some in this chamber have asked whether the legislation would have prevented the hostage taking of the two Michaels. I am not sure. No bill is a silver bullet that would cover the plethora of contingencies or different kinds of cases. I will say, as was correctly noted by the senior official who was appointed in the Department of Foreign Affairs, or Global Affairs Canada, Julie Sunday, that no two hostage cases are the same. However, undoubtedly, in a multitude of scenarios, Bill C-353 would provide better tools to respond to a wide swath of possibilities. Obviously, they would do so in concert with other tools available to the government.

I look forward to seeing the bill go to the next stage at committee. I thank my colleagues in the Bloc and the NDP for actually reading it.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The question is on the motion.

If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

The hon. member for Calgary Shepard.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, we request a recorded vote.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Pursuant to Standing Order 93, the recorded division stands deferred until Wednesday, June 5, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.