Thank you, Mr. MacKenzie.
My name is Maureen Basnicki and I am a co-founder of C-CAT, the Canadian Coalition Against Terror, which represents terror victims from across Canada.
About six weeks ago I marked the 10th anniversary of the murder of my husband Ken. Ken had been on the 106th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11. On that morning, I watched the tower and my life as I had known it collapse on TV while sitting in a hotel room in Mainz. I was there on a layover in my capacity as a flight attendant for Air Canada, and it was on that terrible morning that my long journey to this committee hearing began.
I would like to thank you all for giving me the opportunity to be here today and to express my support for the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, recently introduced as part of Bill C-10, Safe Streets and Communities Act. It has now been seven years since C-CAT initiated the campaign for the passage of this type of legislation. During this time, no fewer than 10 such bills were introduced in the House of Commons and the Senate, with Bill C-10 being the most recent iteration. C-CAT looks forward to the passage of the eleventh and final version of this bill within 100 sitting days, as promised by the government.
I am testifying today on behalf of Canadians who are victims of terror and on behalf of Canadians who are not yet victims of terror. I am here because it is a fundamental right of every Canadian, of every person, not to be a victim of a terrorist attack. JVTA speaks precisely to this right. If this bill is effective even once in deterring a terrorist attack, it will have served its role in safeguarding that right. It will have been worth the thousands of hours of effort invested by Canadian terror victims in getting this measure passed.
But while C-CAT believes that this legislation has great potential, we are also of the opinion that certain provisions in the JVTA must be amended to ensure that the bill meets its stated objectives of providing justice for victims and accountability for those who victimize them. While C-CAT has consistently advocated for a more comprehensive list of changes, the document we will be distributing to the committee lists only four proposed amendments. We believe these changes are the minimum required to enable the legislation to be effective in deterring terrorism and most applicable to the greatest number of Canadian terror victims. These proposed amendments are based on Senator Tkachuk's private member's bill, which was the precursor to the government's current version of the legislation. The senator's version of this bill has broad support and was endorsed by many experts who testified before the Senate in its favour.
While it's difficult for me as a non-lawyer to describe the amendments, I am summarizing them because our advisors have said they are vitally important.
Number 1, cases against foreign states brought under the new bill will primarily involve acts outside of Canada, and the only connection to Canada in these cases will be the Canadian citizenship or permanent residency of the victim. However, due to recent court rulings, our lawyers have concluded that it's likely that citizenship or permanent residency will not be sufficient to establish a real and substantial connection to Canada, which the bill states is necessary for a case to go forward. It is entirely possible, then, that the vast majority of actions will be stopped on jurisdictional grounds, completely undermining the most basic intent of the bill. It is therefore essential that the legislation ensure that a person's Canadian citizenship or permanent residency status be enough to establish a real and substantial connection to a Canadian jurisdiction.
Number 2(a), the government bill presently allows civil suits only against foreign states that have sponsored a listed terrorist entity but not for directly committing a terrorist act.
