My thanks for the compliments from the Tories at the end.
Whenever we are dealing with people's rights and security, we are always walking a fine line and we want to get it right, as a previous member said, related to their expectations. Canadians still expect to be secure. They realize there are things to be more concerned about these days but at the same time they do not want any excess infringement on their rights to achieve that security.
The charter of rights and freedoms is raised quite often by the opposition with respect a number of bills. I will repeat what I said with respect to another bill recently. Most Canadians should know that any time the lawyers in whatever department draft a bill, they always have the human rights experts and lawyers who are expert in the field go over the legislation. It should be reviewed by parliament and committees, but the drafters certainly have done it very carefully and technically in a legal sense to try to avoid any of that. Legislation is not thrown together haphazardly. That is why most laws of the land do not infringe the charter of rights and freedoms.
As members have said, this is a very complex bill. There is a great deal in it. I hope the department officials will listen very carefully to the good points people make in this debate and the debate that occurs in committee. I am sure the bill is not perfect at the moment. I definitely agree with that. I hope that the valid points will be taken into account. On the other hand with respect to some points that have been brought up, maybe people just do not understand some of the items in the bill and those items do not need to be changed.
As the opposition members have mentioned the bill affects 19 pieces of legislation and nine ministries. The Bloc member listed some of the acts. Obviously the bill is very complex and how we deal with it has to come out in the House, hopefully on these very different pieces of legislation. It also shows the importance of the bill.
I remember hearing a member ask why we needed the bill. We are looking at 19 pieces of legislation that need to be amended to improve them. How often have members in the House or Canadians outside been outraged because something has fallen between the cracks because the laws just have not covered that situation and someone has gotten off on a technicality?
By the government reconsidering the bill and taking this length of time, a number of those things have been filled in and the legislation is better for all Canadians. I am talking about a number of the smaller points that no one is questioning. There are dozens of areas that we have talked about that are in the bill, but many of them are not even raised because everyone realizes those things need to be done.
I want to talk about three areas where some major concerns are being raised and to emphasize some of the points that should not be of concern. Many other members raised what might be valid concerns in those areas. I always enjoy the debate of the member for Mount Royal. With respect to one of the opposition members who spoke, unfortunately I was in a meeting and did not hear all of his speech today but he has obviously done a very careful analysis.
The three areas I am going to talk about are the defence zones, privacy and the interim orders. They seem to be the areas that most people have concerns about or may have concerns about when they understand the ramifications.
The first area of concern relates to the defence zones. Some people give the impression that all of a sudden the minister has these unbridled powers to turn much of Canada into a military defence zone. That is not the purpose. In fact the minister is not even the initiator. It has to be the chief of the defence staff.
It has to be the department working on the ground that realizes a piece of military equipment has to be somewhere or a visiting ship is coming into one of our harbours. The people in the military can protect that piece of equipment just as they do when they are on present military property. Obviously they will not make that area too big. In fact the opposition never ceases to remind us of the limitations of the military resources. They are obviously not going to make an area too big because it is much harder to protect and control.
There was that horrible example of a United States warship in another port being damaged by an explosion and there was a lot of loss of life. There are real situations that could occur.
The second area of concern relates to privacy. Hopefully people will not think that when they fly on a plane to another country or within Canada all sorts of information will be collected and kept on innocent people. That is not the intent. It is for very serious infractions, so that the air marshal could know about people who could be a danger to transport safety and so that CSIS could know about a terrorism threat.
They would only collect and pass information on to the air marshal or to the appropriate officer if it was a very serious situation; if it was a criminal code offence, it could be more than five years; if it was an immediate threat to life and health or safety, such as someone with a very contagious and deadly disease happened to be on the plane; if there was an infringement of the Immigration Act; or if there is a warrant out on someone for extradition to another country. As we all know a person can only be extradited if he or she is a serious threat.
In the travelling that I do, and from the people I have talked to, I have never heard complaints about extra security concerns. Most people who travel a lot, including members of the House, would feel much safer if the air marshal or the appropriate authorities knew there was a potential dangerous offender on the plane.
Some people have suggested it could be used to collect and track information on protestors. That is not true. It cannot be done under the power of this bill unless they fall into one of those very dangerous categories.
The last area of major concern is the interim orders. A number of improvements have been made. The government withdrew the bill and looked at it. It made a number of changes to the areas I am talking about to improve the bill, to take into account the criticisms and suggestions people had on the first round.
The first thing about the interim orders is that the things that have been put in can be done by regulation. As most members know, most of those do not go through parliament anyway.
There is the suggestion that the ministers would have all sorts of extra powers to do things that they could never do before. It would only affect things that could be done by regulation anyway and they would not go through parliament in the normal course of affairs. All the legislation does is speed that up. It gives them the ability to do it in a timely fashion in an emergency.
It is not a secret. It has to be tabled within 15 sitting days of the House. It has to have cabinet approval within 45 days. It is published in the Canada Gazette in 23 days. The whole country would know. If there were an uproar, obviously it would come before parliament right away. At any time it can go before a judicial review.
There are a number of protections. I hope people consider this as they consider the bill.