Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-36. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom as Thomas Jefferson once said. Members are correct to be concerned about the implications this legislation has for civil liberties.
I will point out that over 6,000 people died in the attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and flight 93 which crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. This means that as legislators we should be prepared to take steps to ensure that Canada is not in any way open to those sorts of things in the future. We must do whatever we can to stop the scourge of terrorism in the world.
We are happy to see that the government has reacted in some way to some of the issues that the Canadian Alliance raised in the past. Government members will acknowledge that the Canadian Alliance on many occasions pressed some of these issues. We have made known our concerns about the lax screening of refugees and the inability of the government to keep track of what was happening to refugees who were denied refugee status in Canada. After raising these concerns we were roundly condemned and people accused us of having all kinds of motivations that simply were not true.
We pointed out that Canada had an inadequate military to protect its own sovereignty or our allies. This is what is happening now. When we raised these issues many people said they were unnecessary. It would be irresponsible if I did not point out that we have already raised these concerns.
We suggested that if these concerns were not dealt with they could have an impact on our ability to trade with our American neighbours. This is a very important relationship for the prosperity of Canada. Eighty five per cent of our exports go to the United States and NAFTA. This accounts for approximately 33% of our total wealth as a country and our trade relationships around the world.
If Canadians are to feel secure in allowing our border with the United States to stay open then they want to know we are doing a good job on the perimeter. The government has to ensure that people with malicious motives do not get into Canada and use our country as a launching ground for attacks on the United States.
These issues were pointed out in the past and were dismissed by the government. I am willing to overlook this, but I expect that from now on when we raise these concerns they will not be dismissed. It should not be suggested that we have other motives for raising these issues.
I take issue with some of the comments made by the previous speaker from the NDP. He mentioned that he was a civil libertarian. He should know that civil libertarians do not believe that one should be cast in chains and sent to prison for the crime of selling one's own wheat. That is what the NDP believes. It believes that upholding the wheat board is more important than upholding the individual rights of people to sell their own property. I point out that inconsistency which my friend raised a few minutes ago.
The civil liberties concerns are real. I am a member of a party that believes in individual freedom. We believe in the long history of common law and the establishment over a period of 900 years of some very basic and important rights such as habeas corpus and property rights. We have to raise some of those concerns and point out that while we may feel we are in a time of emergency it does not mean that the government has carte blanche to trample over individual freedoms.
The member from the NDP pointed out some examples that we have seen in the past where the government has gone too far in trying to protect the public, to the point where it has trampled individual liberties and has gone over the line.
I acknowledge that it is always difficult to know where the line is but I am personally concerned about the idea of preventive 72 hour detention without the usual protections afforded in law. I think we should try to find some way of going to a judge ahead of time and having to meet some kind of evidentiary standard in order to get a judge to give us the go ahead to make those kinds of arrests. It is a 15 minute process, that is all, but it would ensure that someone outside the political system, outside the police, makes a judgment about whether or not somebody's fundamental rights are being trampled on. I am concerned about that. I raise that and want the House and the government to note it and take it into account so that when we go into committee those sorts of things can be addressed.
Other people have suggested sunset clauses for certain components of the legislation so that when this period of crisis has passed and things have settled down we can revisit whether or not that 72 hour preventive detention aspect of the legislation is completely necessary.
Because the legislation was drafted quite quickly, we may find other problems within the legislation. It may overstep the bounds of individual liberty. If that is the case, then I think the government should be prepared to revisit the legislation and take away some of the more odious aspects of it. We probably will not know that for some time because it was drafted very quickly and we have not seen all the consequences of what is entailed in the legislation.
Having said that, I also want to point out to members of the Bloc and NDP who have been pretty reluctant about some aspects of Canada's involvement in what amounts to a war in Afghanistan, that it is critical that Canada stand by its ally, the United States, and do what it can to support it in this war against terrorism.
That does not mean we should rubber stamp every decision that the United States makes with respect to going to battle or its own security. Not at all. I do think we have an obligation as right thinking people to stand by the U.S. in the face of an attack on its country. We need to root out people like Osama bin Laden and, frankly, the Taliban people who support him. We must send a powerful message that this cannot happen again. That means devoting some of our own troops to the cause. We know that in the past the Americans have stood by us, going back to the second world war. We know they have stood by us when we have needed them. We have to be with them in their hour of need.
There are reasons beyond just the moral imperative for doing this. We also have a huge trade relationship with the Americans and they have to know that we will be with them all the way, no matter what. They need to know that we are prepared to secure our borders so that people who come to North America with the intent of reigning terror on the continent cannot just waltz through lax security at the Canadian perimeter. If the Americans have that assurance then this very profitable trade relationship that we have with them can continue.
If it was not for our ability to trade with the U.S., Canada would be in dire straits indeed. It is because we have this wonderful relationship that Canada is a relatively prosperous country. We must not forget that.
I say to the government and the foreign affairs minister that they should not be so dismissive of the idea of having a secure perimeter. They should not call it simplistic. It may not be sufficient but it is necessary.
We need to have a secure perimeter, one that has laws similar and harmonious to those of the United States, if we are going to keep that border between Canada and the U.S. open.
In closing, I will simply say that the official opposition supports these efforts of the government but with the caveats that I have mentioned. I encourage my friends in the NDP and the Bloc to be mindful of our moral obligations to our friends within the NATO alliance and certainly below the Canada-U.S. border.