Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a little liberty with the actual wording of the motion before the House today and talk about response rather than retaliation because I have been increasingly concerned about reports in the press about Canada's alleged lack of preparedness in the event that terrorists resort to chemical and biological warfare weapons.
As members may remember from earlier interventions that I have made in the past, I am in fact in a former life an expert in chemical and biological warfare weapons and their development. I wrote at one time what was considered the definitive book on the development of these weapons during the second world war. It came out in 1989 and still remains on the syllabus of most military academies across North America, if not across the world.
The reason it would be a Canadian that writes such a book is because Canada was the first to do experiments on the development of biological warfare weapons. The very first field trial to occur anywhere in the world occurred on Balsam Lake in Muskoka in 1940. It was conducted by Sir Frederick Banting who was the inventor of insulin.
In the course of the war Canada went on to develop various types of germ and biological warfare weapons including the mass production of anthrax. This was done at Grosse-Ile downstream from Quebec City. The main research station was in Suffield, Alberta, where Canadians later in co-operation with the British and Americans developed various types of weapons including experiments with botulinus toxin, tuleremia, ricin and various other weapons. The reason for this was because during the second world war it was feared that the Nazis would employ chemical or biological warfare weapons but in fact they did not.
In the post-war period this research continued in Suffield and in various other parts of Canada and continues to this very day. The important point to bear in mind is that Canada not only began in this field before any other nation but it continues to be a major player in this form of research, the idea being that we have to know the weapons to develop the countermeasures.
Canadians have developed the most sophisticated automatic detection machine for determining whether biological warfare agents are in the atmosphere. We lead the world in this. It has been with a lot of concern that I read the newspaper and see reports suggesting that Canada has no expertise in this field, which is simply not true.
More important, because of my background and expertise in the history of the development of this kind of weaponry, the Minister of National Defence and the Solicitor General of Canada asked me in 1999 to consult with their officials and review the state of Canada's preparedness regarding the use of biological or chemical weapons by terrorists.
The two ministers put at my disposal experts from their ministries. I had a meeting that involved people from the solicitor general's office, the defence department and Emergency Preparedness Canada. There was a representative from the biological and defence review committee and there were others. They were very candid with me and they appreciated that they did not personally have the kind of expertise that I could bring to the table on this issue.
I produced a report that found there was a disconnect between Canada's expertise in the use of countermeasures against this type of weapon and the possibility of a civilian occurrence.
By 1999, I should explain, all western nations had become very alarmed about the possibility of a CBW terrorist threat. CBW stands for chemical biological warfare. The reason was because there was an attack with nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system in 1995 in which a few people were killed and a lot of people were injured. That event sent a chill around the world. It made all major western nations realize that they were probably very vulnerable to this type of attack and that the new age terrorists might resort to it.
The Americans immediately made a very major investment. I believe they are investing some $3 billion into trying to create security measures that could respond adequately to this type of attack. Canadians do not have $3 billion but, and this is great credit to the solicitor general and the Minister of National Defence, they are aware of the problem and immediately wanted to take measures to do something about it. I produced a report and the ministers acted upon that report.
In the two years intervening, much planning and much thought has gone into a co-ordinated response across the various departments that would be engaged: defence, the solicitor general's department, anti-terrorism, and Health Canada, because all of this of course relates to the control of dangerous biological agents. One of the outcomes was the creation of the office of critical infrastructure preparedness which was announced by the government earlier this year.
This is all to say that efforts have been put in motion. Just to demonstrate that I am not just talking through my hat, I would like to read a little bit from a letter that I received from the solicitor general on March 21, 2000. As he is familiar with me, he addressed me by my first name. The letter reads:
Dear John:
Thank you for your letter of February 18, 2000, informing me of the results of your meeting with Mr. Leonard Hill, First Secretary at United States Embassy here in Ottawa.
I appreciate and agree with your suggestion that this department host a Canada-United States round table on the issue of chemical and biological terrorism. In fact, I am happy to be able to report that we are holding a joint Canada-United States tabletop exercise here in Ottawa, April 18-19, 2000, under the auspices of the Canada-United States Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear (CBRN) Guidelines that were signed on May 26, 1999.
He goes on in the letter to say:
I should also point out that the CBRN Guidelines are designed to facilitate the provision of the type of assistance noted by Mr. Hill, should either of our countries be the target of a CBRN terrorist incident.
As you are probably aware, this will build on the extensive work on chemical and biological terrorism that we already engage in with the United States.
The point of this letter is that we are in very close contact with our major ally on this issue.
I just want to read a few excerpts from a confidential letter from the solicitor general that was sent to me on May 10, 2000. I cannot read it all to the House because it does deal with some details that he has asked me to keep in confidence. He said:
Thank you for your letter of April 4, 2000, requesting an update on progress towards co-ordinating the government's response to the threat of chemical and biological terrorism. Since we met on February 9, 2000, I am happy to be able to report that we have made progress in developing options for a strategy to strengthen national counter-terrorism response capability.
He goes on to talk about the various inter-departmental meetings that have been organized. The two key sentences I would like to read say:
The Department of National Defence now has a representative working full time with the counter-terrorism division of my ministry.
In other words, we finally have synergy between the experts in the Department of National Defence on chemical and biological warfare and the solicitor general. He finally said:
The issue of funding remains a challenge and we are still seeking solutions.
That last sentence is important because I think we have come a long way, but one of the difficulties that I know these two ministers had, which they could not report to the House, was the difficulty of persuading their cabinet colleagues to put the money on the table as necessary to provide not the infrastructure, because we have that, but the basic equipment. We do not have enough out there to fully have the kind of protection that the CBW counterterrorism plan calls for.
Again, it is not cabinet's fault. I remind the House that up until the terribly tragic incident that occurred in New York, no one in the House was talking about the threat of chemical and biological terrorism. There were only a few of us who were even aware that the danger existed so it is not surprising that the funds were not available to these two ministers who, I have to stress, on their own initiative sought to build a program that would be at least in place. It is in place now, thank heavens, but they do need funding. They were not able to get it at the time and at a sufficient rate. I would dearly hope that while we as Canadians do not need the billions that the Americans are spending, a few million would do nicely.