Mr. Speaker, I rise to say a few words on the proposed amendments, which have been introduced by a number of members, to Bill C-36, the terrorism bill.
At the outset, the events on September 11 in New York City were absolutely terrible and of course we have to respond to terrorism around the world and the potential on our own country. However, this could have been done through the existing provisions of the criminal code.
The criminal code allows a great deal of flexibility for the RCMP, for CSIS and for police authorities to do what they have to do in terms of terrorism, along with some additional money to the RCMP and for security that I expect to come down in the budget on December 10 from the Minister of Finance. That would have been the route to go.
One thing that always concerns me, when we get into these kinds of situations, is that we have to watch out for what is an overreaction by government. Democracy itself is pretty fragile and we have to watch for an overreaction to events. We have seen this before. If we went back through history, we would see what happened to the Japanese Canadians in the second world war when there was an overreaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese participation in World War II.
More recently in 1970, we had the invocation of the War Measures Act. I was one of the members of parliament in the House of Commons in 1970. Sixteen of us who voted against the invocation of the act. I remember those days very well. There was a great deal of fear, anger and concern for what might happen.
All of a sudden in the middle of the night the War Measures Act was invoked by the government of the day. There was a real trampling on civil liberties and civil rights by the police, particularly in the province of Quebec. I can remember the extra police precautions around this place. I remember our soldiers were on Parliament Hill. We were all caught up in this frenzy that there was an apprehended insurrection about to occur, which was the warning of the War Measures Act. After a bit of discussion in cabinet, it was invoked. No discussion took place in the House of Commons before it was invoked.
I remember very well the pressure that occurred when we had a vote and only 16 of us voted against the invocation of that Act.
In terms of the overreaction, I remember the then leader of the opposition, Robert Stanfield, a very honourable, decent and progressive man, said after he retired from this place that the biggest political regret that he had as a member of parliament perhaps in his whole political career was that he did not vote against the invocation of the War Measures Act at that time.
There was a real panic and a real mood of the moment. I remember the fear that people had in my riding and around the country because of the frenzy in the media at that time.
A few years after that, most people concluded that it was a tremendous overreaction by the government of the day to invoke the War Measures Act and that it did not have to be done. What had to be done could have been done under the criminal code and the provisions in the criminal code.
Once again we have a very similar situation with the terrible thing that happened in New York City on September 11. We have a minister bring in the anti-terrorism bill, Bill C-36, which in my opinion is an overreaction. It gives more than necessary powers to police authorities. It suspends for a longer period of time than is needed, civil liberties. There are sunset clauses on certain provisions of the bill but not on all of it. These things do not need to occur nor should they occur.
When I look at the list of witnesses who appeared before the justice committee hearings in the Centre Block, many of the changes they recommended are not part of the package that was tabled by the Minister of Justice.
Many of the amendments that are not part of those are in the package we are debating today. I encourage the government across the way to live up to the tradition of the Liberal party, historically at least, a party which was concerned about civil liberties, human rights and adequate protection of the individual living within the criminal code and having the balance in a free and democratic society. These are the things in which the Liberal party has historically believed.
It is ironic that we had the invocation of the War Measures Act by a Liberal prime minister, Pierre Trudeau. Now we have another Liberal Prime Minister, who was a justice minister in those days, bringing in the anti-terrorism bill. Both of these things have been done by Liberal Parties, not the Conservative Parties and not the Alliance Party.
It is with a great deal of concern that I encourage members across the way to accept some of these amendments. I know many members across the way are not happy with the bill of the Minister of Justice. There are at least two cabinet ministers who have spoken privately and expressed a great deal of concern about the bill. In our parliamentary system of cabinet solidarity that is a big no-no. I suspect many other ministers are concerned about this as well.
If we had a free vote in the House, I think we would have a radically different bill. I guess this is another reason why we need some parliamentary reform in this, so that members are more free to vote with their consciences or in accordance with what they think their constituents want or desire.
I hope before this debate is over that we will have a change of heart and that there will be some new amendments tabled by the government. Perhaps some members across the way will get up and speak against certain provisions of the bill and will ask some of the questions that I think need to be asked.
My prediction is that when we go down the road another five or ten years, many people on the Liberal side, who voted for the bill, will say, if not publicly at least privately, that they made a mistake, that the bill went too far, that the bill was not necessary and that we had adequate provisions in the criminal code. I believe we will have the same reaction to this as we had to the War Measures Act when the incidents of October 1970 became history.
I will close by saying we should withdraw the bill. It is not necessary. Democracy is a very fragile thing here or anywhere in the world. These kinds of bills are a threat to the democratic process. They are a threat to due process, and it is an overreaction. It is using a sledgehammer to crack open a peanut. I think the government will live to regret the day that it passed this bill into the history of our country and that it put whips on their backbenches to make sure that they all voted in unison for a bill that was totally, in my opinion, unnecessary because of the powers in the criminal code.
I hope that some government members who feel that way will get up and express their points of view. We will not change the rules of this place until that starts happening in a more systematic way.
A member who ran for speaker was concerned about some of the rigidities in our parliamentary system and how we were really handcuffed in our parliamentary in terms of a real freedom of speech and votes. We are perhaps the most handcuffed parliamentary system in the world when it comes to our freedom to vote.
Even in Britain, which is the mother of parliaments, the Tony Blair government is very popular, and the Margaret Thatcher government before that was very popular in its first term. In both those governments, bills that were introduced by those prime ministers were defeated when the backbenchers of their parties joined in unison with the opposition parties to bring the bills down. In those cases the government did not fall. The government continued on. There were no measures of confidence.
This should not be a measure of confidence. It is not a money bill and it is not a throne speech which is giving a vision of where the government wants to take the country. It is simply another bill in the path of the parliamentary journals. I hope some members will speak their minds and then vote according to their consciences or the wishes of their constituents.