Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to what the hon. parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources had to say. It goes without saying that the Bloc Quebecois supports Bill C-71, an act to amend the Explosives Act, but I still have many questions to ask him.
I must admit that I was surprised when I saw Bill C-71 to amend the Explosives Act on the orders of the day. I was also surprised not so much by the bill itself, although one can easily wonder, but by the delay, the time it took the government to react. It should be pointed out that this bill implements the 1991 Montreal Convention. The Montreal Convention was produced at the March 1, 1991, meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organization.
The bill came five years later, give or take a month, considering that it was read for the first time on February 24. So, it took the government five years to produce a bill only a few pages long, two pages and a half to be more precise, giving the impression that this government is a bad student. Like some students, only a few, it put off doing its homework till the last minute, if not the last second. To look good in front of the international community, it has now seen fit, five years later, to make the Canadian explosives legislation consistent with the terms of the Montreal Convention.
The impression we get from that is that this government is not efficient. It seems to indicate that this government is no better in terms of efficiency than the previous one, which we gladly got rid of.
As we can see, this government is not efficient. Unfortunately, acting on the Montreal Convention is not the only area in which the government is not very efficient.
Unemployment remains high throughout the country in spite of election promises and other commitments. Regions in Quebec and Canada are still in an extremely difficult situation in spite of repeated promises. This government tells us day in and day out that it is concerned with the economy, yet the country is going from bad to worse.
With Bill C-71, the government is hoping to convince the public that it is deeply concerned with the problems associated with criminal use of explosives. If that were the case, it would be great.
One wonders however what purpose this bill is intended to serve. Note that I said the purpose of this bill, as opposed to that of the government, because in my view we must distinguish between the two.
Officially, the purpose of the Explosives Act is to ensure the public and workers' safety, and that is fine. It also regulates the ingredients, quality and properties of explosives as well as their manufacture, importation, sale, purchase, possession and storage.
Its scope even includes pyrotechnics commonly called fireworks. The act requires the marking of most plastic explosives, so as to detect them. It prohibits the manufacture, storage, possession, transportation, importation and exportation of unmarked plastic explosives.
The act also seeks to control the proliferation of plastic explosives used in terrorist incidents. It provides for exceptions which include research purposes, as well as police and military uses. These are the official objectives. However, from the outset, we can easily question the effectiveness of such a bill.
First, it must be remembered that the Montreal convention could not even be implemented because there were not enough signatories. Therefore, why bother marking our explosives if we are practically the only ones to do so? Sure, it can be argued that we should set an example. Canada has always been very good at that, but when we are faced with the reality, it is an altogether different matter.
Canada is a peaceful country, but it is also a major producer of military equipment and explosives. I would love to think that, with this bill, we will solve the problem of international terrorism and that tragedies such as the Air India bombing and the incidents currently occurring in France will never happen again. Unfortunately, I cannot be convinced that this will be the case, because not all countries of the world are members of the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Those countries that provide weapons and explosives to terrorists will be even more reluctant to sign such a convention. They will certainly not pass similar legislation. If they do, they will continue to act like hypocrites. They will continue to make unmarked explosives and to sell weapons and ammunition on the international market.
The government's only real objective is to save face and to make Quebecers and Canadians believe that they will be better protected. With this legislation, the government is trying to look better than the others; however, there is a huge gap between theory and reality. Indeed, the government's real objective is to give the impression that it is doing what it should at home and on the international scene. This enables it to publicly pat itself on the back, even though it is well aware that the problem will in no way be solved and that the safety of Canadians will not be improved at all.
As a matter of fact, this government has always created illusions: illusions regarding safety, better economic performance, debt reduction, greater social justice, etc. So, we are going to mark our explosives. We cannot go against virtue. Once explosives are marked in Canada, so as to make them easier to detect, terrorists will surely be scared to buy them. They will no longer dare bomb anything in Canada. They will no longer dare fly on our airlines and use our airports. At least this is what the government would like us to believe.
Let us be honest with Quebecers and Canadians. Let us tell them that we are in fact passing this bill to ease our conscience. What will terrorists do once our explosives are marked? You know as well as I do they will go buy explosives somewhere else, where they are not marked.
The question immediately arises: Who sells explosives to terrorists? The federal government has no answer to this question. However, we do know that Canada is used by many criminal organizations as a convenient gateway to North America. This is true, for instance, in the case of organizations linked to the drug trade. It is common knowledge. Canada has a lot of trouble controlling drug trafficking within its own borders.
Canada has always had and still has trouble controlling alcohol, tobacco and cigarette smuggling. And now we are supposed to believe that this legislation will help them control the smuggling of explosives.
Now, do not get me wrong. I would be delighted if this happened. However, I am not so naive as to think that all of a sudden, this legislation will give us a superefficient government. Once the legislation is passed, its implementation will not be easy. Marking explosives is pretty straightforward. Of course we have the technology, but do we have facilities across the country to help us detect marked explosives? What is the use of marking explosives if we do not monitor them?
Are border controls stringent enough to prevent smuggling of explosives? Will this government invest enough money to ensure the bill is actually implemented? I doubt it.
Good intentions are fine, provided they lead to tangible results. The government will have to answer all these questions if it wants to be taken seriously.
We support marking explosives if it can really make a difference. I am still waiting for evidence that marking will have any impact on international terrorism.
The bill also provides for certain exceptions which I had not discussed so far. These exceptions are substantial and have the effect of considerably undermining the whole credibility of this bill. Everyone knows Canada manufactures arms and explosives. The bill provides that explosives for use in research by the police or the military will not be marked.
The reason is obvious. If you go to war and the enemy can detect your explosives, you lose a lot of your effectiveness. That I can understand. But these exceptions, necessary though they may be, make the bill practically useless.
They have the effect of telling international terrorists where they can purchase unmarked explosives, and since we do not mark explosives destined for research for use by the police or military, we can say this bill will only affect a negligible part of the explosives used in this country.
Fine, we can say we will carefully monitor unmarked explosives destined for researchers, the police or military, although here again, do not depend on it. Everyone knows that even where security is supposed to be tight, there is always a leak somewhere. And another thing, the Canadian border is in many respects as leaky as a sieve. Government cutbacks have also affected controls at the border and in our airports.
So, even if we do mark explosives, if we cut services further, it will not serve much purpose. There are good examples both past and present of the permeability of the Canadian border thanks to the carelessness of this government.
Canada is currently facing serious problems involving a number of well armed native communities. Some members of these communities are almost as well armed as members of the Canadian armed forces and certainly better armed than the police. We have experienced this sort of problem in Quebec, unfortunately. We might ask ourselves where these individuals got the weapons, ammunition and explosives. Are they Canadian or were they imported?
The Montreal region is currently in the midst of a veritable war among organized gangs of bikers. They are also well armed, as you know. Where did they get their weapons, ammunition and explosives? Can the government tell us?
They have shown that Canadian controls are not very effective. They have shown that this supposed great country where people allegedly enjoy a remarkable quality of life is living on a lot of illusions.
It cannot be claimed that this bill will give people greater security. It is true that the government has to legislate. It was established to govern our society. But it has yet to acquire the means to carry out the legislation it enacts. What is the point of enacting legislation, if we are unable to carry it out?
Instead of trying to ease its conscience, as it is attempting to do, and to improve its image internationally and endlessly repeating that Canada has one of the highest ratings in the world, this government should really make an effort internationally to try to correct certain injustices.
Except in the case of organized crime, the use of explosives in Quebec and in Canada for purposes other than those for which they were intended is neither obvious nor particularly frequent.
Along with adopting legislation on marking explosives, would it not be a good idea for the government to take steps to fight organized gangs, to acquire the means to monitor the movement of terrorists within the country as closely as possible and to tighten controls at border points as well as at ports and airports, ensuring more effective surveillance?
There is much public pressure now for anti-gang legislation. We know that gangs are the ones using explosives for criminal purposes. Having such a statute would be a hundred times more effective than marking our explosives.
Perhaps Canada once enjoyed a certain credibility on the international level. By adopting Bill C-71 the government is trying to bolster that credibility, which is seriously drooping these days.
The aboriginal problem has markedly lowered Canada's degree of credibility.
The Prime Minister's statements implying that he will not respect the choice of 7 million Quebecers in the coming referendum suggest that this government does not have a great deal of respect for democracy. In fact, this government's sole purpose in passing a bill on marking explosives is to give the illusion that it is fulfilling its commitments. It is proposing this five years after the Montreal convention, when it could have done so far earlier.
The effectiveness of such a statute is questionable. Do they really believe that Quebecers will be fooled, that Canadians will be fooled? On the international level, will the body of nations be fooled? Will international terrorism quake in fear of this new measure? I beg to differ.
I would be especially happy if this government really respected democracy and promised to recognize the results of the upcoming referendum in Quebec. I would be especially happy if this government did honour another one of its commitments by really creating jobs. I would be quite satisfied if this government could show me how it will succeed in reducing the common debt while respecting the most disadvantaged in this country.
I would be satisfied if Canada managed to regain a certain credibility at the international level, but not by taking action at the last minute in order to ease its conscience, as this government is doing by proposing this bill. Because contrary to what some members of this government and some Canadian extremists may think, we in the Bloc Quebecois are not ill-disposed toward Canadians. We simply want to give ourselves a country that will respect its neighbour.
The present government's attitude toward the traffic of explosives in Canada and toward the commitments made when the International Civil Aviation Organization met in Montreal shows everyone that we simply have a vision and that reality is quite different when one has to manage a country.
For ordinary citizens from the small towns and villages in my riding, this bill, whose only purpose is to enable the government to save face at the international level, is a little ridiculous. These people really feel that the government is wasting its time instead of dealing with the big problems they must face every day: earning an honest living so they can put bread on the table, as the Prime Minister keeps repeating every day; keeping their small businesses afloat; living safely and peacefully at home.
You can mark manufactured explosives all you want, these people will say, but if you do not fight social injustice and take real steps against violence, organized crime and terrorism, you are simply wasting your efforts. I am convinced that is the message I will hear back in my riding, and I can only agree with these people.
I urge this government to be a little more serious and take action for reasons other than to ease its conscience, because although we support this bill so far, we still have many questions. Is the bill's only purpose to allow the government to show off at the national and international level, or is it a real bill that will be acted on because we will give ourselves the means to do so?