Mr. Speaker, I rise to present to parliament the solicitor general's annual statement on national security, having tabled today the 1997 public report of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
The public report provides parliamentarians and the public with a review of the global and domestic security environment. Canadians value safety and security. Whether it is defined from the health care, environmental, consumer protection or law enforcement perspective, Canadians see public safety as a key component on how we define ourselves as Canadians.
Public safety is my mission; it is the mission of the Department of the Solicitor General.
Whether it be pursuing the goal of more effective corrections, fighting organized crime or maintaining national security, CSIS, the RCMP, the correctional service and the National Parole Board are dedicated to public safety.
Today I want to focus on the efforts the government is making to protect Canada's interests and to safeguard our citizens from threats to their safety and security. As the CSIS public report underlines, the 1990s have been a decade of great change dominated by increased instability worldwide and the escalating use of violence for political and ideological purposes.
Terrorism, including state sponsored terrorism, is an all too frequent occurrence. CSIS has a mandate to forewarn and advise the government on such activities, providing threat assessments and helping to ensure effective consultation and information sharing with appropriate agencies.
CSIS, the RCMP and other federal departments work together to investigate and monitor the threat of international terrorist activity in a common mission to protect Canadians and Canada's interests here and abroad.
Canadians can expect to see a range of tough measures against those who abuse our democratic system and our institutions to further their deadly aims. I will outline some of the measures.
Canada is a signatory to the United Nations convention on the suppression of terrorist bombing offences and the convention on the safety of UN and associated personnel. The government plans to introduce legislation to ratify these conventions.
We want to make it much more difficult for terrorist groups to raise funds in Canada. This is a global as well as domestic problem and we are working with other G-8 countries to help develop approaches to handle this problem while not impinging upon legitimate humanitarian fundraising activities.
We also want to make it much more difficult for terrorists to enter Canada and to abuse our immigration process to avoid justified removal from the country. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is developing proposals on these issues as part of her broader reform.
My colleague, the Minister of Justice, has announced that she will bring major amendments to our laws on extradition to help us better meet our international commitments and to ensure that Canada is not a safe haven for criminals around the world who want to avoid justice.
I reiterate the commitment I made in this House last November to introduce legislation that would help the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies to combat money laundering. While these mechanisms are designed to counter organized crime, we anticipate there could also be benefits for counterterrorism efforts.
The RCMP and CSIS play key roles in national security. These two agencies of my portfolio are marshalling all the resources in a co-operative and integrated fight against threats to our national security. CSIS has a key role to play in exchanging information with other countries and providing relevant criminal information and strategic analysis to Canadian law enforcement.
Several countries are active in trying to steal leading edge technology from Canada. CSIS has a mandate and a responsibility to investigate these matters.
In a world driven by economic advantage we do not expect to see such activities diminish and CSIS will continue to develop co-operative arrangements with other security and intelligence services in pursuit of our security objectives.
The government is studying the issue of creating modern legislation to replace the badly outdated and overbroad official secrets act to address the threats Canada faces today.
I welcome the opportunity as well to brief the recently created special committee of the other place that will be examining our counterterrorism arrangements.
In this brief canvass of national security I have emphasized that the global situation is unsettled, often dangerous and hence has important implications for Canadian public safety. We are working hard on both the domestic and international fronts. Canada will be front and centre at the Birmingham summit of the G-8 next month to deal with threats to Canada's national security and our national interests.