Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I was referring to all the national and international benchmarks that enable us to legislate by giving consideration to the necessary and important precepts underlying the fundamental issue of citizenship.
Here is what the ICLMG thinks about this:
The definition introduced in the Criminal Code by Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act in December 2001 provides a vague, imprecise and overly expansive definition of “terrorism” and “terrorist activity” that could be interpreted arbitrarily to encompass forms of dissent and/or violent behaviour that have little to do with terrorism, thus threatening civil liberties and the right to legitimate political dissent. For instance, several democratic countries have recently invoked anti-terrorist laws to prosecute opponents and protesters against resource development projects. Recent Public Safety and CSIS reports also blur the line between “dissent” and “terrorism”. Under the proposed amendments, Canadians with dual citizenship who are environmental defenders or who protest at international summits and are convicted of terrorist-related offences by a foreign country, or by Canada itself, could be stripped of their citizenship.
Yes, it is necessary and vital to work together and define measures in a draconian way, measures that are very broad in this case. Yes, that is a concern. Yes, it is a well founded and fundamental concern, because that can simply lead to abuses. God only knows how fast abuses can happen. Through history, we have seen men and women threatened with imprisonment or the loss of their freedom because we had not set enough benchmarks and restrictions to be able to limit some things.
The ICLMG adds:
This would be a grave Charter violation of the right to free expression of certain Canadians. Another problem with such a sweeping definition of “terrorism” is that it fails to distinguish between criminal terrorist entities and freedom fighters or liberation movements, whose legitimacy can shift depending on the time period and the dominating political interests at stake.
Those distinctions are clearly necessary. They would certainly make it possible for us not to mix everything up. They would prevent people, who could legitimately defend some things, from being faced with decisions that might be made within a legislative framework and because of which their citizenship would be revoked altogether. We must really pay attention to these concerns and we must not exaggerate by going outside the legislative framework which is not sufficiently limited and goes beyond honouring our Canadian army, as I said on various occasions.
I will continue to read from ICLMG's submission:
Under Canada’s current definition, Nobel prize recipient Nelson Mandela and Rigoberta Menchu would be considered terrorists.
You can imagine that, if we were to refer to Nelson Mandela as a terrorist today, that would make no sense at all; it would be completely absurd. Imagine what would happen if these amendments were not defined or really reconsidered. That is why I would like to come back to that. It is crucial. I think this is really at the heart of our debates.
I will go back to the motion. This private member's bill, Mr. Shory's bill, makes no reference at all to what I just talked about. As I said before and as the title tells us, the purpose of this bill is all about honouring the Canadian Forces. But we are seeing the complete opposite. The minister is coming in with his heavy boots. He is bringing in amendments. Based on the remarks I am reading, we can clearly see that these amendments are completely changing the Citizenship Act, gutting the initial bill to turn it into different bill.
That said, as some witnesses mentioned, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism has all the latitude he needs to propose a government bill. We could then have a democratic parliamentary debate, which is obviously needed. That would give us an opportunity to set most of the legislative foundation...