Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to the bill before us. We do want to get it into committee so that we can have it addressed there and move things along.
I will remind both our viewing audience and other members here, who are probably well aware of it, that the bill picked up on some good ideas from other parties, some from our Canadian Alliance. I think that is the way parliament should work. Many of the recommendations were made by the Canadian Alliance on our supply day not so long ago, recommendations such as providing for the naming of terrorist organizations, the ratification of the international convention for the suppression of the financing of terrorism and a ban on fundraising activities in support of terrorism. It is great when the House works that way and we are able to bring the pressure to bear on the party in power such that we get some of the legislation, some of the good stuff in there. I believe the bill is a direct result of that kind of pressure that we have been able to bring to bear on the government.
The minister emphasizes that the bill meets the reasonable test of the charter of rights. We feel that the emphasis should be on whether the legislation protects Canadians from terrorism. As the minister says, it should meet the reasonable test of the charter of rights, but more important, it should actually and practically do something to protect Canadians from terrorism with very concrete and specific measures rather than just offering feel good assurances.
As a caveat, the legislation will be of little value if the Liberals do not provide the adequate resources to our frontline forces in the fight against terrorism. It might be so much fine rhetoric and look good on paper, a nice piece of legislation to have sitting there, but we cannot actually do anything with it without resources. We cannot implement it and follow through if in fact we do not have the resources applied. There are plenty of areas where there is waste and squandering of money and those dollars could be set aside and prioritized for this very crucial fight against terrorism.
The Liberal government failed to ratify both the suppression of terrorist financing convention and the suppression of terrorist bombing convention until now. We have been after them. We were saying prior to this that it should have been done. It is regrettable, in a sense, that it took a tragedy of this proportion to finally get to the point now where these have been ratified and we are moving on to other things in the fight against terrorism.
If government had listened to frontline workers, to those who are out there day by day and know what kind of threats we face, if it had been listening to those workers who protect Canada from the terrorist threat and have over the years, but without adequate legislation and without the proper tools, this type of legislation would have been enacted quite some time ago. The United Kingdom legislation was enacted in July 2000. There is a good democracy in the world that often we follow when we see what good things it is doing. We should have been much quicker on the uptake.
Unfortunately, the legislation does not ban membership in terrorist organizations. We are basically hearing minister and others say that as long as people are not too active they can have a membership, that they can even acknowledge that they have a membership, but as long as they keep inactive and not do it a lot, then that is quite okay. However we believe that if these are known terrorist organizations membership in such bodies should be banned outright.
We have called on the government to put in place laws which would ensure that criminals are extradited promptly and without reservation to countries that respect the rule of law. We are talking about countries that honour rule of law as we do. There may be some things that we can quibble about in terms of their laws being written slightly differently or even in terms of things like capital punishment and so on, but that should not be a reason not to extradite to those countries.
Bill C-36 does nothing to address that problem. As a result, Canada is now being regarded internationally as a safe haven for criminals, even though members on the other side may protest. It is a known fact that many people regard Canada this way, especially as our laws in respect of these things are not as tough as those of some of our neighbouring countries. Canada would be the place of refuge or the haven to come to as they plan and prepare for terrorist acts.
Another concern we have and which we want to have pursued and addressed in committee is that it seems the minister and her department have been sneaking in provisions limiting access under the Access to Information Act. This is of concern. We often have complaints because we are denied certain information that in our role as members of parliament we want to get at and need access to. That is bad enough, but it is especially bad when it comes to this area as to why the government cannot proceed or move on something. We would be denied access to the information by way of some of the provisions limiting access that have been snuck into the bill.
Compared to some other jurisdictions, Canada's bill simply falls short. The United Kingdom legislation provides a list of names of banned organizations. We think that should be done. Canada does not do it. It is a little too open, general and generic. We should providing at least a starting list of names and it could be filled out, amended or have additional names added to it by regulation along the way. We think our legislation should be that specific and that it would be more helpful for law enforcement and those who will have to be on the front lines in the fight against terrorism.
The United Kingdom legislation also provides for compensation where private rights are interfered with or property is taken and an owner is not convicted of an offence. Canada does not do that. We believe that is a safeguard. Authorities may with reasonable grounds pursue a threat with respect to terrorism and yet it may be found out in the aftermath that they overreached and did not have a thorough enough basis, so we think there should be something of an offset or compensation or way of making it up to those who have been in some way unduly interfered with. The process would be better if compensation or recompense could be given to those people. Canada's legislation does not do that and we like to hold up the example of the United Kingdom legislation which has that provision. We think is a reasonable one.
The United States legislation places extensive stress on deportation issues and Canada has long been lax in this. Canada has not addressed the reality that it has become a safe haven for those seeking to avoid the death penalty. People may commit some very heinous crimes, but by getting up into Canada quickly afterward they are out of reach of these other countries where the crimes may have been committed. We do not think that is right. If there is the general rule of law with good standards and so on, we should not forbid or prevent extradition to those countries.
The American legislation also requires the administration to commit resources. I mentioned that before. I think any reasonable common sense person would say that if we have some fine sounding words and rhetoric on paper and yet there is no backup, no follow through and no resources then it is so much wind. It is just that, rhetoric, and it does not actually create the result that we want. We believe that the Liberals need to make a concrete and specific commitment in terms of resources and actually follow through and get some of this stuff done. It may sound very good on paper but does not amount to much if in fact there are no resources.
In the days ahead it will be the bounden duty of the Canadian Alliance, the official opposition, to point out those shortcomings. We will be pressing in committee to try to get a good piece of legislation so that we can combat and defeat terrorism. We should do it together. I am grateful for the comments that other members have made and we will as a party press these issues and point out those shortcomings to in the end improve the legislation.