Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak briefly to the referral of Bill C-16 to committee. It is a procedure that is not used all that often.
Bill C-16 is a bill which is well suited to this kind of examination in committee before second reading so that no parties in the House, and particularly the government, find themselves committed to any particular position on the bill. It leaves the way open for members on the committee to explore all the various concerns that a great many people have expressed about the bill.
Having listened to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General, it seemed to me that he made a speech that was more appropriate for a traditional second reading debate in which he vigorously defended the bill and the government's position on the bill. That is not what should be happening now. The bill is going to committee before second reading presumably because the government has some sense that there are things which need to be looked at before any final commitment on the part of the government is made to the passage of the bill.
There would be an opportunity for people to come forward, as they have been doing through correspondence to various members of parliament, particularly those associated with this file, and express their concerns on the record before the committee.
Another bill which may be suited to this kind of process would be a bill that the government could bring forward having to do with workplace safety and changes to the criminal code with respect to the charging of companies or individuals of companies responsible for the death of workers on the job through corporate negligence.
I am referring to a bill that existed in the last parliament that was sometimes called the Westray bill. Our party was pushing that bill in the last parliament, particularly our leader, the hon. member for Halifax. We were urging the government to act on that particular issue.
It would seem to me if the Minister of Justice, as she has said to me, wants to hear from more Canadians, if she is not prepared to act on the Westray file at this moment, that bringing forward a piece of legislation and referring it to committee before second reading so that more people could be heard on that particular subject would be a good idea.
I make no apologies for using the opportunity when we are employing that process with respect to Bill C-16 to say that there are other issues which are equally important and which I think the government should act on by using this particular process. One of them could certainly be acting on the Westray file, that is to say, changing the criminal code in such a way that the kind of activity that led to that particular tragedy would be the kind of activity that could be gone after much more efficiently than it can be gone after now.
With respect to Bill C-16, there is no need to speak at great length about the bill. We want to see it go to committee. I would say that the government should be open, as I think I already know it is, as to whether or not it finally should go to the justice and human rights committee because the justice and human rights committee is a very busy committee. We have Bill C-7, the youth criminal justice act, Bill C-15, the omnibus amendments to the criminal code and the organized crime bill, and there will be more. I would hope the government would consider whether or not at some point, perhaps in discussion with House leaders, if we could agree to send this bill for this kind of an examination to some other committee, a committee that can do it sooner. It is not because we do not want to do it in the justice committee, but perhaps we could agree to send it to some other committee whose calendar of work would permit it to do this earlier.
Surely all Canadians would agree that if this is a problem that needs to be addressed then it should be addressed sooner rather than later. I put it on the record that we should look at perhaps where we might refer this bill for this kind of study. We could always change it by unanimous consent.
A number of groups have already expressed concern about the bill, but I will say briefly that we in the NDP support the principle of the bill, which is that taxpayers should not be funding, surreptitiously or innocently by virtue of deception any particular organization or terrorism activity either here or in any other country.
If my understanding of the bill is correct, I think what the government has in mind here is terrorism abroad. When I listened to the Alliance spokesperson complain that the bill does not fight terrorism in the many ways that he thinks it should, he may be right that there are other things the government could be doing to fight terrorism, but the bill is directed toward amendments that need to be made to the charities act.
In fairness to the government, we could say that it should be doing this, that and the other thing, and that all may be true, but the bill itself, it seems to me, zeros in on a particular problem and that is, how can we prevent the Canadian taxpayer from subsidizing terrorism through the charities act? How can we do that in a way that does not interfere with the legitimate activities of a great many charities which may in fact be configured in relationship, not necessarily to another country or to a cause in another country, but configured culturally or ethnically in a way that leaves them open to that suspicion or may in fact, depending on what is actually the case, leave them open to being used in that particular way?
Many of the groups that would fall into that category have a legitimate concern, I think, that they not be dragged through a process in which, even if at the end of that process they are found to be innocent, they would nevertheless have expended a great deal of time, energy and perhaps reputation in defending themselves against that charge. How can we balance that concern with the very real concern that some organizations may actually be or may be tempted to be or may in the past have been or may in the future act in such a way that the moneys which Canadians give to them, which are tax deductible, are used in some way or another for terrorism?
I will end by saying that one of the things we need to keep in mind while trying to find this balance is that we also need to do a lot more critical thinking about what constitutes terrorism, particularly when we are talking about terrorism abroad, which is mostly the kind of terrorism we are talking about. It is sometimes a very political matter what is defined as terrorism, which is obviously unacceptable, and what is defined as resistance or legitimate rebellion or whatever.
One is reminded of a time in the House when one left oneself open to very severe criticism if one spoke in any sort of supportive way of the African National Congress and the anti-apartheid movement. Yet there were acts of violence associated with the anti-apartheid movement and the African National Congress within South Africa. Would that have meant in the context of this bill that anti-apartheid groups in Canada who were raising money for the cause of anti-apartheid in South Africa could have been dragged through the process that this bill lays out?
I ask that question because it is a legitimate concern. The task of the committee will be to address that concern while at the same time respecting the principle of the bill that Canadian taxpayers should not be funding terrorism.