Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate although I too want to register my objection to the fact that on such an important issue we are having to debate this under very significant time constraints. I do not think it augurs well for this relatively new parliament that we are heading in this direction on something as important as Bill C-36.
The announcements on the changes by the federal justice minister last week overall were disappointing. The minister proposed that two of the most controversial powers in the bill, namely investigative hearings and preventive arrests, would lapse unless specifically renewed by parliament every five years. That could probably be summed up by “a sunset clause if necessary, but not necessarily a sunset clause”.
The minister also offered to tighten the definition of terrorist act in Bill C-36 to ensure that it could not encompass activities such as illegal strikes. Although it did not go as far as I would have liked, they were certainly headed in the right direction in terms of the changes that the minister indicated she was prepared to make.
I submit that people who are concerned about freedom of speech, preventive arrests and human rights have every reason to be apprehensive that the powers in this bill have not modified or changed and are therefore very much at risk.
For example, a couple of weeks ago in Ottawa, even though Bill C-36 is obviously not yet law, civil libertarians were highly critical of the way in which the Ontario police broke up a peaceful march in the nation's capital by wading into the crowd, singling out people who were dressed in black and detaining 41 of them, only five of whom were subsequently charged. That in itself was very unfortunate, although it is amusing to see the signs festooned on lampposts around Ottawa in the aftermath of that incident suggesting that people should wear black because the Ontario police think it is an arresting colour.
People of the Canadian Arab and Muslim community are particularly disappointed by the failure of the government to modify the preventive arrest component because they believe their people and communities will be targeted, as the previous speaker and others before him have indicated.
I will take a minute to congratulate the editors and the writers of a book that was published in very quick order. The University of Toronto press produced and published a book entitled Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada's Anti-Terrorism Bill . The book was largely written by 25 Canadian experts in law, criminology and political science. I believe the member for Mount Royal, if I have that correct, was one of those essayists. It is a very impressive feat when one stops to consider that the anti-terrorism bill was only brought in on the October 15 and a 500 page book was produced in time for all MPs to be provided a copy before the Minister of Justice came back to the committee with proposed amendments last week.
According to the editors of that book, the challenge for lawmakers in this piece of legislation is to design arrangements that equip the nation to deal with terrorist threats without undermining our democratic core and values. Looking at that test, I submit that the changes suggested by the justice minister have failed to meet that high standard. Unfortunately experience in other countries in response to the threats to security has not been encouraging.
One of the essays that I paid particular attention to was written by Janice Stein, whom we sometimes see on national television, especially post-September 11. She noted that countries tend to grossly overstate the risk of terrorism and that they have in the past. She alleges that in such a heightened environment citizens are willing to accord state officials greatly expanded emergency powers.
Unfortunately these become the baseline for even more rights and liberties to move from the citizen to the state. That is one of the key points that we have been trying to make throughout this debate, especially the member for Winnipeg--Transcona, who has taken the lead for our caucus on this.
He did get an editorial in the Vancouver Sun which pointed out that he was correct in noting the pitfalls of legislation which is done quickly. As the editorial said, what may now appeal to Canadians when images of the World Trade Center are fresh may six months from now seem to be inappropriately extreme invasions of privacy.
Without question, we have gone too far in one direction on this legislation. In short, I do not believe it is balanced. It has been alleged that one senior RCMP official said in an unguarded moment that the provisions in Bill C-36 were greater powers than it ever dreamt it would have acquired.
Last month our caucus had the opportunity to meet with leaders of the Arab and Muslim communities. I was particularly impressed with and remember vividly one grandmother who immigrated to this country many years ago. She said she would not dream of living anywhere else and insisted that the first time she saw the snow-capped Rocky Mountains she knew she was in heaven.
However, most disturbing was her comment on Bill C-36, the provisions of which she believes will make Canada no better than the countries that she and other people fled to come to Canada. We are obviously talking about the racial profiling that was raised eloquently by the previous speaker.
In the wake of September 11, people said that giving up their lifestyle and way of life would mean that the terrorists had won. The same can surely be said for our laws. If the state can make a convincing argument that our laws must be circumscribed to deal with a particular crisis, then it should be allowed to proceed with emergency powers, but those powers should not remain one second beyond the point at which the threat has passed.
As others have noted, there have been incidents in the country where civil liberties have been overridden at times of crisis. They pointed out the Ukrainians in the first world war, the Japanese-Canadians in World War II and French-Canadians in the province of Quebec and the War Measures Act of 1970. In all cases the general public loudly applauded these actions at the time. In each and every case the general public decided later that the country made a terrible mistake.
Canadians need to work and stick together to maintain human and civil rights to the greatest extent possible. Otherwise, if we do not, I am reminded of the powerful words at the entrance of the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, which I had the privilege to visit last year. They go like this:
They came for the Communists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Communist;
They came for the Socialists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Socialist;
They came for the labour leaders, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a labour leader;
They came for the Jews, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Jew;
Then they came for me - And there was no one left to object.