Thank you.
In short, a bill that is being touted as a safety measure not only enables a program that can nowhere demonstrate evidence supporting the claim that it demonstrably improves aviation safety, but it will also clearly be actively endangering the security of Canadians abroad.
As the Supreme Court of Canada has said in the Charkaoui decision, a process that may bring with it the accusation that one is a terrorist could cause irreparable harm to an individual.
We say that Canada must not be complicit with a program that defies the rule of law. The argument that purported security trumps all other constitutional considerations has no merit. There will always be a necessary weighing and balancing. The Supreme Court of Canada again said, in Charkaoui v. Canada, that “...security concerns cannot be used to excuse procedures that do not conform to fundamental justice at the section 7 state of the analysis”, meaning the section 7 analysis in the charter.
Fundamental justice is not an enemy of security; in fact, there is no security without fundamental justice. We urge Canada to work with our international partners to come to an agreement on aviation security programs that respect the rule of law.
Countries the world over are grappling with these issues. Secure flight represents what we believe is an unprecedented alteration of global travel, with vast implications for travel, trade, and tourism. The international community needs to be engaged.
As you will recall, Canada was not supposed to be in this position. We were harmonizing our security measures, and the development of our own no-fly list was supposed to prevent the imposition of the U.S. list. The pattern is very clear: the exemptions do not last. Obviously the next exemption will be to rescind the exception of Canadian domestic overflight.
The time to act is now.
Thank you very much.