Thank you for the question. Thank you for raising it.
I'd like to take a few moments to address this issue because utilization of the term “act of war” in clause 2 of the bill could be potentially problematic. I'd like to offer a few technical comments on that.
The term “war”, or “declaration of war”, really has gone out of fashion in international law since the Second World War. There hasn't actually been a declaration of war per se since the Second World War. International law has really shied away from using that concept, and instead inclines towards the use of the term “armed conflict”. That's preferable in this case because the existence of an armed conflict is essentially determined as a matter of fact and doesn't depend on a formal declaration of war.
Similarly, the expression “act of war” is not found, really, in any of the key treaties currently forming part of international law. The expression “act of war” actually is used to a limited extent in Canadian legislation, but really only in a very limited number of provisions, and strictly dealing with anything with liability, for example, in the Marine Liability Act and the Fisheries Act, but not really in contexts similar to this proposed legislation. So in general, the concept “act of war” is not defined under Canadian legislation in the context that it would appear in this bill.