moved:
That this House call upon the government to introduce anti-terrorism legislation similar in principle to the United Kingdom's Terrorism Act, 2000, and that such legislation provide for:
the naming of all known international terrorist organizations operating in Canada;
a complete ban on fundraising activities in support of terrorism, and provisions for the seizure of assets belonging to terrorists or terrorist organizations;
the immediate ratification of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism;
the creation of specific crimes for engaging in terrorist training activities in Canada or inciting terrorist acts abroad from Canada;
the prompt extradition of foreign nationals charged with acts of terrorism, even if the charges are capital offences; and
the detention and deportation to their country of origin of any people illegally in Canada or failed refugee claimants who have been linked to terrorist organizations.
Mr. Speaker, before I begin I would like to notify you that I will be splitting my time with my leader, the leader of the official opposition.
“It's the end of the age of complacency”. That was a headline in the National Post yesterday. Under this heading we read:
Security will become the dominant policy agenda in Canada for the foreseeable future...If there are new resources to be had, the security side of government will be able to lay claim to them a lot better, a lot faster and a lot quicker than other sectors.
I will believe that when I see it. Unfortunately I am not confident that we will maintain the heightened vigilance enacted following the horrific events of September 11. I know that those concerns are also shared by the former commissioner of our Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Norman Inkster.
During a recent interview, Mr. Inkster said:
My concern is, just as has occurred in the past, we get a knee-jerk reaction and tighten everything up and a few months or a year from now we are back to where we were. Then we open the door to these kinds of people perpetrating similar events in the future. If we are serious about security--and we ought to be--then let's decide the appropriate level, let's fund it accordingly and let's maintain it. Our biggest risk is complacency.
I am afraid that despite the mortal threat we and other democratic nations face, Canada will eventually grow lax, especially if bin Laden, the United States' prime suspect, bides his time.
As Andrew Coyne of the Post writes:
--the enemy we face presents a unique combination: of enormous ambition, extraordinary capacity, and fanatical determination, such that he is willing to kill himself as well as others...If he is truly fiendish, he may do nothing for a time, until we grow lax, or tired, or bored, and forget what all the fuss was about. Then he will strike again.
Our response to the tragic events in the United States cannot be limited to avenging this one atrocity. We cannot simply launch a quick retaliatory strike against the immediate culprits. Canada must, as President Bush has promised Americans, launch a massive and sustained campaign against international terrorism in general. However, as pointed out numerous times in the House yesterday, our security and intelligence agencies, like our national defence forces, have been starved for so long that the Canadian public is not confident that we have the capacity to fight such a sustained war.
We are not confident that our present laws allow for apprehension and retention of terrorists and their associates. Therefore, today the Canadian Alliance asks the Government of Canada to immediately consider the question of anti-terrorism legislation.
I would like to point out that this request was not born solely out of last week's events. We on this side of the House have been urging the Liberal government for some time to get tough with organized criminals, to eradicate senseless acts of violence, to effectively close the doors to undesirable migrants who so readily and easily take advantage of our generosity, and also to make aiding and abetting terrorists an offence.
Before I proceed, I will say to you, Mr. Speaker, and to my colleagues that I mean no disrespect or animosity toward any of the many of the legitimate and trustworthy immigrants making Canada their home. We know that the vast majority of these people are law abiding citizens who have and will continue to contribute to the economic well-being of our nation as well as the cultural mosaic of the country. I refer only to those individuals who seek Canada as a stage, a stage to wage war against the United States and other nations.
On April 30 during the second reading of Bill C-16 I stood in the House and said:
If curbing the operation of terrorist front groups truly was the goal, we could emulate Great Britain's terrorism act 2000, which empowers cabinet to ban from its country any organization that it believes is involved in terrorist activities. The law proscribes any group if it commits or participates in acts of terrorism; if it prepares for terrorism; if it promotes or encourages terrorism; or if it is otherwise concerned in terrorism either in the United Kingdom or abroad.
I asked the government a number of months ago to introduce and enact legislation that would make it hard for terrorists and their supporters to get here and stay here, and furthermore to make it impossible for terrorist supporters to raise money while here. I also asked that for those caught supporting terrorist activities in any way, shape or form, here or abroad, criminal charges with severe penalties be handed down.
The solicitor general rejected such recommendations. He did so despite knowing from intelligence sources that terrorist groups from around the world were and are extremely active in Canada, raising funds for bomb plots or other violent activities.
As stated earlier, we are formally asking that the government immediately consider the question of anti-terrorism legislation similar in principle to the United Kingdom's terrorism act 2000. That legislation provides for the following: first, the naming of all known international terrorist organizations operating in Canada; second, a complete ban on fundraising activities in support of terrorism and provisions for the seizure of assets belonging to terrorists or terrorist organizations; third, the immediate ratification of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism; fourth, the creation of specific crimes for engaging in terrorist activities in Canada or inciting terrorist activities abroad; fifth, the prompt extradition of foreign nationals charged with acts of terrorism, even if the charges are capital offences; sixth, the detention and deportation to their country of origin of people illegally in Canada or who are failed refugee claimants who have been linked to terrorist organizations.
As lead critic for the official opposition, I am asking the solicitor general to effectively equip, adequately fund and sufficiently empower CSIS and the RCMP. We must ensure that our first lines of defence against terrorism can do their job, including all emerging threats. What types of threats? There is perhaps the threat of anthrax, the threat of a potentially deadly biological weapon for terrorists, which could decimate the population of any metropolitan area. Yet despite general security warnings in 1998 regarding the possibility of anthrax being brought into this country, the government has done nothing to prepare us against a potential attack.
As recommended by an expert from John Hopkins University, we should be stockpiling drugs and vaccines and developing and distributing rapid tests for agents and we should come up with effective ways of isolating infected people.
On September 11, the world received a huge wake up call, one so powerful that this government had no choice but to react. There have been other times. There have been other attempts to provide wake up calls. CSIS has tried in the past to wake a slumbering government, but the government has reached out and hit the snooze button.
CSIS tried to warn the government and provide a wake up call in regard to the growing threat of terrorism, the more sophisticated acts of terrorism; however, the government hit the snooze button. CSIS tried to wake up the government in regard to its caseload, how it did not have enough resources and how it has to risk manage the threats, but the government hit the snooze button.
The Canadian Alliance has tried to wake a slumbering government in regard to bills, criminal acts and terrorism. In disdain the government has reached out and hit the snooze button.
The RCMP tried to provide a wake up call when they said 8,000 Tamil tigers were living and training in Toronto. The government reached out and hit the snooze button, except of course for our finance minister who happened to be out for lunch with them at the time.
The RCMP also complained about the crippling effects of few dollars and limited resources, but the government hit the snooze button.
I will concede that this government is now awake, but the question remains, will the government remain awake or will it roll over and go back to sleep?
Is this really the end of the age of complacency? Time will tell.