Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing some of my time with Ms. James.
Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today, in particular Ms. Basnicki. Thank you for your courage in appearing today. We truly appreciate it.
I know something of history and I know something of victims. My father was in a gulag and my mother was forced labour in Nazi Germany, so when we talk about World War II, we do understand, certainly on this side, the impacts of victimization on a grand scale like that. In Canada some of those things that happened over 70 years ago were acknowledged, apologized for, and we've moved on. The point of a lot of this is about terrorism and the intention of those who would do harm to this country to inflict cruel and inhuman acts against Canadian citizens, which is not part of the charter.
This is something we have to work hard to prevent. In this country we do have a right to make laws that suit ourselves. We look at other countries in parallel, but we have a right to go our own way as well. As a former Canadian soldier, I feel we can talk about law in terms of an act of war or a definition of an act of violence.
I'm pretty qualified to know a friendly or an unfriendly act against me. If somebody's shooting at me, or some of my buddies are running over IEDs—and I did lose many friends in Afghanistan. I think we don't ask a lot of people in this country when they come here. We just ask them not to break our laws and commit acts of terror against our citizens, then everybody can live in peace and harmony and enjoy the fruits this country has to offer everyone.
I'm going to start with Mr. Collacott. Sir, I think a lot of the critics of this bill ignore the very real victims of the violent and disloyal crimes that are committed. It not only harms Canada's reputation, but devalues our citizenship. As a former soldier I take offence at somebody holding the same citizenship I've fought so hard to defend. It results in the deaths of innocent mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, friends, and loved ones, as Mr. Gupta so eloquently pointed out earlier.
Sir, what message do you think it sends to the victims of these criminals that their actions are not taken for what they are, and that they continue to have the same rights and access of the vast majority of Canadian citizens who proudly uphold our Canadian values, our rights, and our responsibilities, which are inherent in citizenship?
Finally, do you think the ability to strip dual nationals of their Canadian citizenship, if convicted of terrorism or high treason, will have any sort of deterrent effect. Why, or why not?