Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to this significant piece of legislation. It is the most significant piece of legislation I and I expect other members will ever see as legislators.
There is no question it is an immense intrusion into the civil rights of Canadians. That is the reality of the bill. Recently a reporter asked me whether I was happy having seen the amendments the government was putting forward at committee stage. I said I could not see how any member would be happy. I could only see how members would be less unhappy.
I cannot imagine how the Minister of Justice would be happy. I cannot imagine how the Prime Minister would be happy. I cannot imagine how any member of the House would be happy that we have to deal with this legislation. However I commend the minister and the Prime Minister for recognizing that the representations of members of the public at committee have been heard and listened to. The process is a little messy but it works and ultimately the results speak for themselves.
I hope the interpretation of the bill by the courts and police will be fair minded and just. We have wrestled with some of the most significant conundrums and have dealt with them in as fair minded a fashion as we could. I would not say we have dealt with them in an exhaustive fashion.
I hope all members remember that what we have is a system of justice. We do not have a system of settling old scores. We do not have a system of revenge.
As I said, I cannot imagine any member is happy with the legislation. However we are dealing with an existential threat as the member for Mount Royal has said. Because it is existential the threat in and of itself is insensitive to the normal balancing of security and rights one would expect in legislation.
The Muslim council made a significant point before the committee. It said that in sacrificing liberty for security we may be in danger of losing both. All hon. members need to keep that in mind. It is a wisdom that has been generated from the Muslim community, a community that comes literally from all over the world. We ignore its counsel at our peril.
Others more eloquent than I will speak to the changes in the definition and other sections, particularly with respect to the definition of terrorist activity and facilitation. I was pleased that the minister responded to the more egregious aspects of the definitions. Even as amended the definitions lack a certain precision but for now they will have to do.
One area that got neglected was the definition of entity. I would have liked to have seen the possibility that a state be listed as an entity. One can easily see that states such as Libya or Syria are generators of terrorist activity. There is no legal or logical reason a state could not be listed as an entity in the definition section.
Other acts incorporated by reference list states as entities. Some do and some do not, so there is an inconsistency. I do not see a compelling reason that inconsistency could not be addressed at this stage.
This brings me to the listing section of the bill. The minister was right to change from a list of terrorists to a list of entities. Entities is a defined term and terrorist is not, so we were making reference to something that was not defined. In that respect the change makes a great deal of sense.
What does not make sense is the reluctance to deal with the listing in an open fashion. I appreciate that it is our desire to protect sources who may be exposed by the evidence they generate. However there is no meaningful recourse for entities which find themselves in a position of being listed. As a consequence we have a conundrum.
It is inevitable that great injustice will arise out of this section. Entities will be listed that have no rational connection to terrorism and once listed their reputations will be trashed. Ninety-eight per cent of the damage already will have been done. Trying to regain one's reputation will be almost impossible. The crown will not be under any obligation to show all of the evidence, how it was obtained and from whom it was obtained.
The judge will see the real evidence and a person will get a sanitized version of it. One hopes that the evidence will not be subject to a creative writing exercise, but please forgive me if I remain just a tad skeptical on this particular section.
I was pleased to see some attempt to merge the definition of facilitation with the offence of facilitation. Anything which brings more precision to a bill is better than less precision. That should be of some comfort to the charities. Making it clear that facilitation requires a mens rea, or knowledge of what one is doing, is a step in the right direction.
In clearing up one section, however I fear that we have created another problem. Now under the section, facilitation means one knows whether or not one knew. I do not quite know how that will work out in a court of law, but I can see that being a lawyer's field day. I do not know whether this is an intentional studied ambiguity or outright contradictory. I do know that vagueness is the enemy of human rights. Canadians need to know what the law is with some precision. Offences need to be crystal clear.
Bureau de Quebec and the Criminal Lawyers' Association made the point that this should be special purpose legislation. Frankly I found that to be an attractive idea. The bill should be in a special section of the criminal code devoted to terrorism and terrorism only. We should keep those provisions separate from ordinary criminality and organized crime. Otherwise, as one witness said, everything is terrorism and nothing is terrorism.
Leakage among the various sections of ordinary crime and organized crime will occur. Investigations into organized crime and investigations into ordinary crime will leak down into terrorism investigations and reverse. Fortunately, we have experienced a relatively low level of terrorism in Canada, relative to other countries, and we are all thankful for that. However, my suspicion is that some of these sections will be used in ways unintended by parliament.
That brings me to my final point with respect to the role of parliament and in the vote on the bill tonight. I cannot imagine anyone voting in favour of the bill with a great deal of enthusiasm, even though we feel that we should be doing something. It is a significant intrusion into the rights of Canadian. It has immense potential for abuse. The need for the bill has yet to be demonstrated in any form of evidential way. I say this quite candidly. The evidence for the need for the bill was not put forward at committee.
I understand in some respects why it was not put forward, but nevertheless there is no evidence on the committee table of the need for the bill itself. We will be voting with heavy hearts and a great deal of skepticism that this is a trade of rights for security. We hope this trade of rights will work.
Some of us have felt the need for parliament to maintain a continuous watching brief on the bill and the heavy-handedness of security forces. I take some comfort in the minister's willingness to table annual reports in parliament. I take some comfort in the three year review. I take some comfort in the five year sunset clause. I would hope that the justice subcommittee on security will take its mandate seriously and that the justice committee itself will maintain a continuous watching brief over the bill.
I finish where I began. None of us will be enthusiastically voting tonight. Possibly after the work of the committee we are somewhat less unhappy, but no one would introduce this kind of bill unless the circumstances justify it.
There are three conditions which erode civil rights: unanimity of purpose, just cause and great uncertainty. We have unanimity of purpose. Canadians want something done. We have a just cause in the fight against terrorism. We have great uncertainty. The population is quite nervous. We have eroded civil liberties, but will our Faustian bargain give us greater security?