Madam Speaker, in my statement this afternoon I mentioned that we are campaigning for life without violence. This evening I am obliged to speak of the violence that does exist.
It is a bit of a paradox that we are obliged to speak of such violent things once again, and it will certainly not be the last time we will have to talk about the min the House. We speak of them not only in this House, because I am sure people who watched us yesterday and are watching us today and will watch us tomorrow will continue to speak of the events of September 11. It is part of our day to day reality and we have no choice but to speak of it.
What really bothers me is that I was born in a free country and want it to remain free. I would also like Quebec to be a free country.
Why do I speak of that? Because it annoys me that we have to pass such laws, bills that are vital but affect the balance between security and freedom. I would never have thought that we would have to speak more of security than of freedom.
I have children and I hope they will live in a free country. For us to be in a free country, our freedom must not be curtailed, and this is what concerns me. Our fundamental guarantees must remain untouched also.
We talk of the constitution. This is a major issue. We could simply talk of freedom, but we must look at the source of our freedom and what makes us a democracy, which must be properly enshrined so that we can live in a free country, on a free planet. This is something we should be able to take for granted. We saw what happened on September 11. We had no choice.
Either people are poor or they live in an undemocratic system. They have no freedom and in their lives they have a problem: they are forced to live in abject poverty. That is the word, poverty.
Poverty is why we are talking about antiterrorism legislation today. This is a pity. I hope the money spent on it will not just go to sanctions but will also reduce poverty and suffering so that we can solve the problem of terrorism.
I hope this will be discussed. There is a lot of talk about sanctions and how to stop terrorists, but is there another way to deal with this problem? Maybe this should be looked at also.
There were four objectives in the government's anti-terrorist plan when work was begun on drafting this legislation: to prevent terrorists from entering Canada and to protect Canadians and Quebecers against terrorist acts; to provide tools for the identification, prosecution, conviction and punishment of terrorists; to ensure that the border between Canada and the United States is not taken hostage by terrorists, which would have serious repercussions on our economy, both in Canada and Quebec; and to co-operate with the international community to bring terrorists to justice and to deal with the root causes of the hatred that motivates them. Those were the four objectives.
Something will have to be done about this bill and I hope that the government will have its ears wide open, both here and in committee, that it will not go too fast and that it will listen to experts. We can hear from people who not only are experts in international law but who know a lot about terrorism.
I want the definition of terrorism to be much more precise and not as broad as what we find in the bill now.
That definition does not include a definition of a terrorist. Of course we are told that we cannot get an international consensus on what terrorism is.
The problem is that the bill only refers to terrorist activities without defining terrorism. It goes without saying that it will be difficult to do that, but we should not hurry, because what are terrorist activities?
In the bill, the definition of terrorist activity is twofold. Clause 83.01(1) reads as follows:
an act or omission committed or threatened in or outside Canada that, if committed in Canada, is one of the following offences:—
Then there is a list of ten conventions that were signed and ratified by Canada. There are also two that remain to be ratified and implemented in Canada.
Clause 83.01(1) states the following:
an act or omission, in or outside Canada,
(i) that is committed in whole or in part—
The most important part in that clause is the expression “in whole or in part”.
The expression “in whole or in part” opens up a lot of possibilities. It is not restrictive. It leaves the door open to anything that will follow. It gives an idea of what the legislator wants to do. The legislator is the House of Commons. This expression is broad and is followed by this:
(A)...for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause,
(B) ...with the intention of intimidating the public, or a segment of the public, with regard to its security, including its economic security, or compelling a person, a government or a domestic or an international organization to do or to refrain from doing any act, whether the person, government or organization is inside or outside Canada—
I skip 83.01(1) (b) (ii)(A), (B), (C) and (D) to go to the following:
(E) to cause serious interference with or serious disruption of an essential service, facility or system, whether public or private, other than as a result of lawful advocacy, protest, dissent or stoppage of work that does not involve an activity that is intended to result in the conduct or harm referred to in any of clauses (A) to (C).
It is very broad. This paragraph says in part that the organizations seem to be made up of unions or supporters. We have seen what happened at the summit of the Americas in Quebec City. Police officers did a good job. Some of the protesters were there but were not provoking anything. However, things happened that could even be classified as terrorist acts.
We cannot leave such a broad definition of terrorist activity in this legislation. I believe a definition of terrorism should be included, or the concept should at least be explained.
At the European Commission meeting held in September, a proposal was made to the council. Terrorist acts are said to generally affect the physical and psychological integrity of a person or group of persons, their property or their freedom, just as common law offences do. Terrorist offences go much further than that, because they undermine the political, economical and social structures of countries through violence. It is a very severe form of crime.
Moreover, we find the following proposal in a definition of a terrorist offence.
Terrorist offence deliberately committed by a person or group of persons against one or several countries, their institutions, their population, with the intention to intimidate them and to destroy or severely compromise the political, economic or social structures of those countries, in particular murder, bodily harm, kidnapping or hostage taking, blackmail, theft or robbery, unlawful seizure of governmental or state facilities—
I will spare you the rest of the list.
All that is to say that this proposal will be ratified on December 6 or 7 by the Council of the European Union.
Of course, ten minutes go by very fast and that is unfortunate. However, the bottom line is that the concepts of terrorism and terrorist activity really need to be specified.