Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in the debate on the bill today, Bill C-14. I think it is a positive step and one we can embrace as doing something positively as a partner in the international community to eradicate the possibility of continuing this horrible torment of conflict diamonds.
We only have to see the effects of what has happened in some of these African nations to realize how important it is for Canada to advocate the Kimberley process and to be on side with our legislation in time to have a simultaneous process start in January of next year.
I say that for a number of reasons . First let us go to the international reason. Canada has been at the forefront. I, along with my colleague from across the way, wish to congratulate the member for Nepean--Carleton for his work and advocacy on this issue. However we have also been working at it through UN resolutions during Canada's time at the security council. We have been involved in all the ministerial meetings leading up to the process of implementation.
A lot of Canadians do not understand what this process means. It means good economics for Canadians. We have in our north and throughout the provinces a nascent diamond cutting, mining, polishing industry. Recently we have heard that Tiffany wants to polish diamonds in Canada. This is great news. Hundreds of people are currently employed in the diamond industry and we could be employing thousands more.
I was very pleased to hear my colleague from the Bloc being positive and on side with this process. It is one that will help us with our economy nationally and one that will help us as a playing partner. We know that 48 nations are currently involved. Those 48 nations represent 98% of the world's diamond producing nations. We have the players around the table. I know we are heading into further meetings in November. Hopefully this Parliament can show that it can work efficiently to move things along.
I believe that members of the House from time to time do have legitimate concerns. I want to address my interpretation of the process, which I hope is the right interpretation, but we will work this out at committee stage to convince those members who have concerns.
I have heard a concern from the member for Elk Island. As a lawyer in my former life before this place, my knowledge is that when a bill does not have a process in place about search and seizure, then the Criminal Code process is utilized. I believe the Criminal Code process of warrant and search and seizure will be used with all the safeguards we have under the Criminal Code.
Therefore I think the hon. member's interpretation of the two clauses in question, clauses 23 and 24, will be straightened out in a way that addresses the concerns of my hon. friend. I have worked with him many times in the House and in many committees. I know it is an honestly felt concern about privacy and property. I believe that is something with which the member should not concern himself.
The bottom line is that we are trying to place an international certification on the import and export of diamonds. If we want to be a player in this part of the economy, we have to be part of this process. There is the morality issue of not wanting to purchase or be trading in any conflict diamonds.
I was in Sierra Leone for a week last year training potential female parliamentarians who had come out of a decade of civil war. I and a former member of the House, Audrey McLaughlin, visited Sierra Leone with other parliamentarians from Nigeria and Ghana. We spent a week in Freetown and helped train some of the women to take their place in their parliament. In fact in the elections held within months after our visit the female members of parliament went from six to sixteen. It was a successful intervention.
While I was in Sierra Leone I saw the results of the conflict. If they say a picture is worth a thousand words then members would be impacted as immensely as I was to see many children with their limbs cut off as a format of the civil war that went on. What was the cause of that civil war? It was the guerrilla actions that revolved around an illicit industry on the wealth of a nation, a wealth that went underground and by illicit means out of the country as opposed to legitimately raising the value of the economy for the whole population to share in the wealth as it grew.
Let us help all the people in those countries right now, get involved in a conflict resolution situation where they can export what they have underground in their alluvial rivers, where they can mine the diamonds. I congratulate South Africa, the Congo and all the other players that have worked so hard to put this process in place.
Let us be a participant. Let us not bicker along partisan lines. Let us do something that is right for Canadians, the Canadian economy and all of us around the world who want to get these international resolutions of problems done in a manner that helps everyone. Let us not do it two years from now, but let us do it so we can be a player and go forward with the process of certification for our diamonds leaving Canada and for all the diamonds in transit that we receive from other countries. Let us do something right and let us do it expediently.