That is right. There are all sorts of nasty things the government is willing to do in the name of anti-terrorism. However on the flip side there are at least half a dozen governments that I could count right off the tip of my fingers which have in one way or another abused diplomatic immunity over the last 20 years.
The government has chosen to open up the gates instead of going after the people who fund terrorist acts and provide travel documents and passports, visas, diplomatic immunity and diplomatic pouches for the transfer of materials. It is not going after those foreign missions, consulates, embassies, diplomats and attendees that come to Canada for various conventions and who are agents of foreign governments that have funded some of these acts.
The government has chosen to open Pandora's box and allow those people greater freedoms and privileges in Canada while restricting those of its own citizens, those people who are native to this land.
I cannot tell the House how frustrating it is to be an opposition member in parliament and watch the government fumble with the whole issue of national security. For years we called on the government to do things for national security.
We called on the government to increase the size of the Canadian armed forces and to secure better equipment for the forces as it was rusting out. We called on the government to look into the matter of people coming to Canada and claiming refugee status when they burn and destroy their own documents. We criticized the lack of detention and enforcement in that regard.
We called for greater police force provisions to have more police out there enforcing the law. We called on all these things ever since we first came to parliament. Even some of my colleagues who were here four years before my time called for these reforms. Yet when it came to the crunch and a terrorist crisis killed thousands of North Americans with evidence of planning and staging in Canada, the government failed us.
The government went ahead and opened the doors to those who would harm us and restricted the freedoms of those who were there to bolster us and help us. It does not make any sense.