Mr. Speaker, the floor of the House of Commons is always an interesting place. We see a development in the debate today, which is interesting and which I hope will yet resolve itself in a way that permits the House to speak with one voice on this important matter of anti-terrorism and the need to refer the subject matter of anti-terrorism legislation to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
I listened with care earlier to the leader of the official opposition who talked about the need for unity and the fact that what his party was engaged in was not any kind of political posturing, but rather an effort to enable the House of Commons to appropriately act.
I think what has happened so far, but I reserve judgment because the day is not yet out and the jury is not yet in on what the final response of the Alliance will be, is that there certainly seems to be unanimity in the rest of the House about referring the subject matter of anti-terrorism legislation to the justice committee so that the committee, on behalf of all us, can begin the serious work that I think Canadians want us to do, and that it is a good idea to do.
Twice members of the House have sought unanimous consent of the House to withdraw the motion that we now have before us and to permit the putting of a motion which would have that effect, and twice that unanimous consent has been denied. I hope that by the end of the day members of the Alliance will see that it is in its interest to agree, but not perhaps in terms of political tactics.
Perhaps the Alliance's intent was to make the rest of us look somehow soft on security or terrorism, but I hope it will see that it is in the interest of the country to have the House of Commons act in an appropriate way, both procedurally and politically.
I say procedurally because a lot of the concerns I have with the motion that we had before us were not just matters of substance. We certainly had some concerns about the motion, not just in terms of the substance of the motion but also procedurally.
We were being asked to refer a matter to committee, but in doing so to adopt in principle approval of the anti-terrorism legislation of the United Kingdom. Thinking about this procedurally, without any reference to the substance of the matter, to me this is a bit like having second reading before the matter is even discussed or before we even know what the legislation is. Often we have second reading before we hear witnesses, but we do not have second reading before we have the legislation.
If the Alliance thinks about it for a minute, it will realize that if the government were to have come forward with a motion referring something to committee with this much work of the committee already predetermined, it would say that this is unacceptable, that this was not the kind of motion it could live with and that it would be like a motion which created the maximum possible freedom for the committee to look at whatever it felt was relevant to the issue at hand.
I hope that by the end of the day, perhaps by repeated argumentation of this sort and repeated opportunities for the Alliance to show it is serious about having the House act in a unified manner, we may yet be able to agree on a motion to refer the subject matter of anti-terrorism legislation to the justice committee. I do not want to say yet that it is calling the Alliance's bluff with respect to posturing. Someone else may want to say that later in the day, if the situation does not change.
I have a few more comments even though I think we have made our position clear. We would like to see the standing committee study this matter. We believe that Canadians expect it of us. It may well be that there are a number of improvements we could make in our security and legislation having to do with anti-terrorism.
A number of suggestions have been made by the Minister of Justice with respect to things that have to be done in order to bring our legislative regime into compliance with conventions that we have already signed. All this is something the committee could look at.
I find it passing strange by reference to the motion before us now that by the Alliance's own admission it is not just a question, and in fact it may not be a question, of the need for the kind of legislation that it has laid out. It may also be, and I listened to the Alliance critic on this, a matter of resources and a matter of current laws not being used appropriately, or not being used as extensively as they could be or not being able to be used as extensively as they could be because of a lack of resources. The Alliance critic himself pointed out that this was a problem in his view.
One is tempted to ask him where the call came from in Canada's political culture for the radical cuts to government that worked their way through all the departments, including the ones he now laments the weakness of. One is tempted to ask him that question, but let us leave that aside for a minute and say that the motion which we have before us would bind the committee to looking only at what kind of new legislation is needed rather than questions having to do with other issues that the Alliance itself has raised with respect to the adequacy of the resources that the Government of Canada makes available to the agencies and departments that concern themselves with this issue.
On the face of it, the motion before us is inadequate. However the idea behind it, that the justice committee should have a free, frank, open and concerted look at this subject matter, is a good idea and we are behind it. We hope that the Alliance will permit that to happen by agreeing at some point in the day to the request for unanimous consent to withdraw its motion and move that the subject matter be referred to a committee. That is a good idea.
It seems that the Alliance is trying to do basically what its members would object to if the government did it, both procedurally and substantively, by presenting us with a kind of omnibus list of all the things that it is sure about. The Alliance does not like it when the government does it. The Alliance does not like it when the government gives us an omnibus list of things which other people are asked to agree to or be made to look bad, or hope that they will be made to look bad. If the Alliance is going to be consistent, it cannot expect to criticize the government when it does this and then do it itself and expect to be free of criticism.
For all these reasons, I would certainly urge the critic for the Alliance party, who I see in the House, to consider the wisdom of accepting the suggestion being made by all other parties, that the committee be given a mandate to look at this matter and that the House be given the opportunity by agreement on the part of the Alliance to act in this united way.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I would seek the unanimous consent of the House to withdraw the motion now before the House and to move: That the House mandate the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to study the matter of anti-terrorism legislation and report to the House not later than February 12, 2002.