Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Langley--Abbotsford. Yesterday I rose in the House to congratulate the government for doing the right thing in committing Canadian troops to join the coalition in the military effort in Afghanistan. Today I rise again to congratulate the government for doing the right thing in bringing forth comprehensive anti-terrorism legislation which will address some of the concerns that need to be addressed.
The legislation being proposed does in some ways appear to be similar to the United Kingdom terrorism act legislation of 2000 and is comparable to U.S. legislation, but it is still lacking in some very important areas which must be addressed.
For over one month we have been asking the government to introduce anti-terrorism legislation and today we are pleased that the government is taking action.
The official opposition was calling for a clear Canadian commitment to provide military support to the United States and for anti-terrorism legislation a long time before September 11. I am not saying that out of any sense of partisanship. I point out that it is the duty of the official opposition to point to areas where we feel the government is not moving strongly, quickly or adequately enough and to encourage the government to take action.
Precious time in the war against terrorism would not have been lost had the measures that we asked for been in place on September 11. The most important role of government is to act as the guardian of the public, particularly in times of great national and international crises such as we faced since September 11. It is the role of the official opposition to be a guard of the guardian. It is the role we played and will continue to play as far as our national response to the threat of terrorism goes and how it unfolds.
On September 18, a week after the horrific terrorist attacks on the United States, the official opposition brought forward a motion which compiled a comprehensive list of those items we had been focusing on for some time previous to September 11.
We called for the naming of all known international terrorist organizations that were operating in Canada, a complete ban on fundraising activities in support of terrorism, the seizure of assets belonging to terrorists or terrorist organizations, the immediate ratification of the international convention for the suppression of financing of terrorism, the creation of specific crimes for engaging in terrorist training and terrorist activity in Canada or inciting terrorist acts abroad from Canada, the prompt extradition of foreign nationals who were charged with acts of terrorism even if the charges were capital offences, and the detention on the deportation to the country of origin of any people illegally in Canada or failed claimants who may have been linked to terrorist organizations.
In a war on terrorism there are many things that should be done but there are a few things that absolutely must be done. If the purpose of the legislation is to have a wall, to block the flow of terrorism and terrorist activity, the wall is of little use if it is of strong concrete in some places but has gaping holes in others. It is the holes in the wall that we need to address.
The elements being brought forward by the government do not deal with the issue of detention and deportation of failed claimants. It does not deal with that issue at all, and I suggest that it is a huge and gaping hole.
We hope to have the opportunity, when the bill is reviewed by the Standing Committee on Justice, to improve this anti-terrorism legislation.
These areas must be addressed. The bill would allow the government to create a list of known terrorist organizations. We have been asking for this for a long time. We named the Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils, or FACT, from the government list as a front group for the terrorist Tamil tigers, an identification which had been made not by us but by CSIS, as well as the U.S. state department and the government's own justice and immigration department lawyers.
We took the government's identification of that group as a dangerous group and were accused by the government and its members of smearing innocent Tamil Canadians. That is absolutely far from the truth and that unreasonable part of debate should not be entertained in the House.
The items we are dealing with here are too important to lower ourselves to that kind of accusation. What the government apparently did not want to acknowledge is that Tamil Canadians are among the victims of the Tamil tigers. They have been tricked, cajoled and bullied into supporting terrorist activities through supporting front groups.
While the bill allows the government to list terrorist groups and their front organizations, it does nothing specifically to prohibit membership in those organizations. It only allows for criminal prosecution where individuals actually perform terrorist acts or other crimes related to terrorist activity.
It is possible under the legislation the government is suggesting that al-Qaeda, which is clearly known to be a vicious terrorist organization responsible for the vicious slaughter of thousands of people, could be named as a terrorist organization. Its members across Canada could stand and freely wave and proclaim the al-Qaeda flag. That should not be the case.
In the United States and in Great Britain it would be enough, if it were proved that an individual was a member of a type of organization like that, to allow members of security forces to arrest and detain that person.
We have to remember we are talking about groups of people whose sole reason for existence is death, destruction, terror and destabilization. It would be useful to prosecutors to have available a lesser charge of membership in a terrorist organization like that to bring suspected terrorists into custody. It is very necessary legislation.
Another weakness of the bill is that it continues a policy which has been roundly criticized by many of the government's own members, especially the member from Mississauga. It is something that we call volume discounts for mass murder.
Canadians, including members on the government side of the House, are appalled that multiple murderers cannot be convicted to consecutive life sentences, in effect keeping them in jail for life. We heard ministers on the other side of the House state that life means life in terms of how the government applies the law. It does not. That is simply not a fact. After 25 years a mass murderer is eligible for release and parole. We can produce a list of people already in that category walking the streets of Canada.
Crimes of terrorism are deliberately aimed at the death and destruction of people. We believe judges must have the option of convicting terrorists to consecutive life sentences without any possibility of parole. That should be absolute.
A third weakness is that the bill, unlike the comparable U.S. legislation, does nothing to ensure security from people arriving on our shores from other countries who may be linked to terrorist activities. Canada has a reputation, quite properly, of welcoming people who want to come to Canada, who believe in freedom and democracy, who want to live here, raise their families, and pursue their hopes and dreams.
Our arms are open and have been to those types of people, but we also have a reputation of being somewhat of a haven and a magnet to people who want to come here who do not appreciate freedom and who want to take away and destroy the freedoms that others enjoy. We need to shed that reputation.
We ask for legislation that will give immigration officers and judges the power to detain claimants who arrive in Canada without documentation or where there is reasonable suspicion of involvement with terrorism or organized crime. Detention should be permissible until claimants are able to prove that they are who they say they are and are not a security risk.
This happens in the United Kingdom. It happens in the United States. It happens in Australia. It happens in other freedom loving democracies. It should happen here. It is another gaping hole in the legal wall the government is trying to build, a wall that is concrete in some places but has holes in it that will not stop the flow of the worst type of terrorist activity. These holes attract the bottom feeders of society, the terrorists themselves to whom I refer. They will find the holes, and the holes must be closed and closed firmly.
Fourth, we note that the legislation does nothing to improve procedures for extraditing suspected terrorists to other jurisdictions. Because of the supreme court decision in Burns v Rafay it may prove practically impossible to deport a terrorist to a country, for instance the United States.
This would include people who have possibly masterminded the atrocity in New York City, with the deaths of thousands, coming to Canada. This does not allow them to be deported just because the sanctions for their crime are different from the sanctions that we would have here. That is inappropriate.
We need to address these issues and we need to provide the resources. The minister talked about $250 million and $64 million for law enforcement. On the one hand that might sound impressive until we realize that the amount of money the federal Liberals are saying should be available is actually one-tenth of what they have spent on a faulty system of registering the shotguns of duck hunters.
The priorities are wrong, which is another reason we need a budget in place. There must be a budget. This country should not be known as a country that is now going into two years without a budget. We need that in place so that we can help the government move from areas of wasteful spending and low priority spending to the areas of high priority spending that really matter to Canadians.
Those are the thoughts and principles that we will be taking forward as we address our concerns about the bill. We need to ensure that Canada is a place which invites those who love freedom, peace and democracy but slams the door firmly on those who do not.