Madam Chairman, since September 11, the world has changed; everything has changed. The world is no longer the same, nor will it ever be the same again. We are facing consequences to date unsuspected. The shock waves have hit us, are still hitting us and will continue to hit us.
Foreign affairs, defence and security have become priorities not just in the House, but also in the press and among members of the general public. Our economy has been shaken and the full extent of the impact is still unknown.
Who could have foreseen on September 10 that Bombardier and Pratt & Whitney would find themselves in such a situation? Or that Swiss Air and Sabena would suspend flights for a few days? No one could have predicted this state of affairs.
Citizens are quite rightly preoccupied about their personal safety. In our societies, men and women are worried and their worries cannot be ignored.
We must also take note of the anti-American demonstrations in the Middle East and in Asia, which we do not approve of, but whose existence we cannot ignore, making the cohesion of the international coalition against terrorism all the more difficult.
I conclude from this brief overview that the UN is definitely the best placed to ensure a broad coalition of countries against terrorism, including, and especially in my view, the predominantly Muslim countries. But the UN is not sufficiently involved.
I wish to remind the House of a number of positions taken by the Bloc Quebecois in the House since the beginning of the crisis. We invoked, and still invoke, the need for a broad international coalition, as broad as possible, under the aegis of the United Nations.
The fight against terrorism must not be associated only with western nations, or with rich or powerful nations. Terrorism is a scourge affecting all countries. It has no nationality. Muslims or Arabs are not the enemy. Neither does democracy have a nationality.
We said, and we still maintain, that we must respond to terrorism efficiently and in a measured way and seek out those responsible for the attacks. Of course, before responding, we must review all options. We must make every possible effort to keep civilians from paying the price of the response.
The first victims of regimes such as that of the Talibans are the populations like the Afghans. Women and children are the first to suffer from those insane and inhumane regimes. We must not forget that. Democracy and freedom have nothing in common with ignorance, blackout, violence, religious fundamentalism and fanatic behaviour.
That is why we must uphold the necessity of an international justice system. Terrorist attacks are attacks on the international community; it should therefore logically be up to the international community to bring the perpetrators of such attacks before an international court of justice.
To date, the international community has given itself 12 treaties in order to fight terrorism, but the judicial aspect of the issue is not covered. There is no international court of justice. Terrorism must be added to the terms of reference of the future international criminal court.
However, the fact that this court does not exist should not preclude the establishment of an ad hoc court to judge the actions committed on September 11. It was done for Rwanda and for the former Yugoslavia.
The first international court probably was the one convened in Nuremberg. Victims of different countries and nationalities go together to judge those responsible for crimes committed during the second world war.
The casualties of the September 11 events were of various nationalities. Such a court could hear the cases in New York, at the UN building, an American territory which is neutral in the case of international agreements.
We must strive for an ad hoc tribunal that would judge those responsible for the attacks of September 11 if we want democratic countries and all nations to trust a tribunal that would be called upon to judge those responsible for these attacks and not consider, should the tribunal be strictly American, the United States, or Canada, to be judge and jury.
I believe that the biggest strength of our democracies is the unity among democratic nations as a whole. They must stand together and demand that those responsible be prosecuted by such a tribunal.
We must also address the root causes of terrorism. A military response is not enough, nor is it satisfying, albeit necessary. No army will be able to defeat suicide bombers. The threat of the death penalty is of no value against people who are willing to die for an unjustifiable cause.
Destroying bin Laden is one thing, destroying terrorism is another one all together. We must address its root causes, namely poverty, lack of democracy, dictatorship, and the crass ignorance which stems therefrom. These causes cannot in any way justify the kind of fanatism we have witnessed. However, we must realize that these causes are the fertile ground in which fanatism and terrorism flourish.
We attacked Saddam Hussein in 1991. We did not get rid of the Saddam Hussein problem in 1991. As long as we do not deal with the root causes, other forms of fanatism will emerge.
Such was the case in Germany after the first world war. This is what gave us Hitler. As long as international agreements prevent us from addressing these causes, fanaticism will rear its ugly head decade after decade. We must recognize this.
Therefore we are faced with a new international situation. As parliamentarians, it is our duty to work with the government--in a critical way, of course--in order to respond to the immediate concerns of the people, deal with immediate security problems both at home and abroad, and deal with the current crisis with a view to eventually getting back to normal.
Because this is just the beginning of a new international context, we must take it into account when contemplating the future. It concerns every country, every government, every people.
In response to the current situation, the government has introduced an anti-terrorism bill. We support the principle behind this bill. We need to balance the need to protect our civil liberties and security against trade imperatives. It may not be easy, but it is absolutely necessary. The best response to terrorism is the quality of our civil liberties. The best weapon against terrorism is the example democracy can set.
At first glance, there seems to be some flaws in the government bill. For example, in terms of access to information, the attorney general has the power to prohibit the release of information. Of course, I know that some information needs to be kept confidential. That is not what I am worried about. However, I think it would be better for the information commissioner, and not the attorney general, to determine what information is confidential. As judge and jury, the attorney general would create uncertainty--to say the least--or generate a great deal of distrust for any decision he might make. This would not be the case if the decisions were made by the information commissioner.
Our second concern about this bill is the three year review period it provides for. Without being denied, a number of our civil rights are being altered or diluted. Hence, it is our most basic duty in a democratic society to ensure that the legislation be reviewed every year.
There is also a flaw in the fight against money laundering. We have to be consistent in our approach and not sign special conventions with certain tax havens that make it easier to fund terrorist groups.
Nor is there a dialogue with the provinces, which are responsible for the administration of justice. The minister told us that she phoned provincial governments this morning. This is somewhat like saying “Listen to me on RDI or on Newsworld. I will be on the air in the next five minutes”. This is not consultation.
At this point, and I am not making a constitutional battle out of this, we need the greatest possible dialogue between the various stakeholders. There is a flaw in the process and there is still time to correct it.
As for our military commitment, there is the need to take part in a response against those responsible for these attacks and to provide logistical support, but above all humanitarian assistance. The role of the Canadian army must be clearly defined. We will never be the police of the planet and thank goodness for that.
So, we must define the role of the Canadian army before approving budgets. We can act quickly in terms of logistics and humanitarian assistance, but if we look at the longer term—and we should, because as the Prime Minister, President Bush and all the others have said, this war against terrorism will last more than a few months—we must define the role of the Canadian army in that context.
Humanitarian assistance, logistical support, participation in peacekeeping missions: these are the priorities that would allow the Canadian army to play a useful role at the world level. This means investing in equipment that is appropriate for the missions and priorities that we set for ourselves. There is no need for nuclear submarines. It might be better to invest in so-called smart ships or in versatile ships that can play a role in peacekeeping missions. This would also put our shipyards to work because, as we saw with the economic shock that we just experienced, everything is interrelated.
Another point is that the government should let parliament vote. We are told that the executive branch makes decisions. Of course. The executive branch make decisions and parliamentarians legislate. We vote here on any number of acts, on regulations—