Mr. Speaker, I am glad to rise on behalf of the NDP caucus and address Bill C-40 at second reading. On behalf of our justice critic, the member for Sydney—Victoria, I would like to announce that our caucus is supportive of Bill C-40. We are pleased to see many of the changes being introduced in terms of trying to harmonize a piece of legislation that was spread out over many other pieces of legislation in the past which made it very cumbersome and complicated.
I do not have nearly as much to say about this as the previous speaker from the Bloc. This is not my area of expertise. I will stick to the very limited, narrow subject matter here, the proposed legislation.
The legislation is intended to bring our extradition procedures more in line and closer to those of other countries to prevent Canada from becoming some kind of safe haven for international criminals, those who do not benefit our country. We want the international co-operation and the tools at our disposal to send these people where justice will be served.
One of the major problems with the current legislation, as pointed out by the parliamentary secretary, is the difficulty for Canada to meet its international obligations in any kind of an international criminal court or tribunal. It is ironic that Canada has been one of the most outspoken countries in trying to create such an international court and to oblige people to serve or to attend that international court, but under the current system we cannot extradite a fugitive to such a body. Obviously that is a limitation that needs to be corrected.
We feel that Bill C-40 is necessary and beneficial because the current legislation does not deal with things like the newer high tech crimes and is not flexible enough to accommodate changes arising from the globalization of criminal activity, for instance the drug trade, organized and transborder crimes. The increased mobility of individuals makes the need for effective extradition relations with other countries more important than it ever has been in the past.
When we look at the two acts that covered extradition in the past, the Fugitive Offenders Act and the Extradition Act, both were enacted in the 1800s, 1877 and 1882. That kind of legislation is even older than my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore and obviously needs to be revisited, updated, reviewed and amended. We are glad to see Bill C-40 coming in to do that.
The NDP caucus is in support of measures to prevent Canada from becoming a safe haven for fugitives, as I mentioned. We are in favour of enhanced human rights protections and safeguards for persons who are the subject of an extradition request. I believe Bill C-40 will further enhance those human rights issues associated with the extradition.
The NDP caucus is in favour of provisions for extradition of persons to international tribunals and courts, as mentioned. We feel that is one of the big benefits. Obviously we are in favour of modernizing the act to deal with high tech and organized crime.
One of the things we have reservations and concerns about is with the changes being proposed that would permit the admissibility of a broader range of types of evidence in cases of extradition hearings. We have some serious reservations and concerns with the powers to exclude certain persons from extraditions hearings. We believe Bill C-40 will augment the ability to exclude certain types.
The non-publication of evidence provisions has been dealt with in Bill C-40. We have some serious concerns about that. Most fundamentally, the NDP has a very grave concern that safeguards regarding the imposition of the death penalty are not really made binding. We have not really ever addressed whether Canada is going to promote or allow the extradition of criminals to places where they could stand and be executed where the death penalty still exists. We do not believe Bill C-40 has really addressed that adequately and that is one of the serious reservations we have.
I would like to add a small anecdotal piece of information. I do not know a great deal about the legislation and the history of extradition, but I know in my own riding of one case that I have been working on at great length trying to get a woman extradited to the United States so that she can stand trial for the murder of her husband, a Canadian citizen and a member of the Canadian military who was murdered in Florida. The grand jury of the United States stood for eight minutes before indicting this person that there are probable grounds for this person's standing trial. I can attest to how frustrating it is to try to get a person extradited from this country.