Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the member for Egmont here who can perhaps learn something with respect to what is or is not happening in his own government with respect to Bill C-55.
After September 11 the government demonstrated its inability to govern and put forward legislation that was necessary at the time. It had this knee-jerk reaction that brought forward a piece of legislation that was not well thought of and not well thought out. It was drafted over a short period of time by people who did not know what it was they were trying to achieve.
Bill C-42 was introduced in the House and went to committee. Everyone suggested that it was nothing more than simply a difficult way to put forward legislation to appease the situation of September 11. Everyone that came forward in committee spoke against it, yet the government was intent on bringing it forward, pushing it through and suggesting it was necessary in order for Canadians to cope with terrorism within our borders.
Better minds prevailed and, because the legislation was so terribly flawed it could not even be dealt with by amendment, Bill C-42 was pulled from the order paper. That was probably the only good thing that the government has probably done in the last nine years. It was a step in the right direction. The government admitted it had made a terrible mistake and had drafted some terrible legislation. In fact it listened to the opposition and the people who made presentations to the committee and pulled that terribly flawed piece of legislation.
Unfortunately, it did not totally learn from that mistake. The government then came forward with a replacement to Bill C-42, which is the bill we are debating today, Bill C-55. It brought it forward and made some changes to it. It made changes that make it worse than what it was when it was Bill C-42. It brought it forward and, believe it or not, suggested that it be referred to the transport committee. What a silly thought.
The government wanted to refer the bill to the transport committee when in fact the bill dealt with dozens of laws, the least of which would be transport. Yes, there was the innocuous little area of the Aeronautics Act but that was not really the here nor there of it. However, the government suggested that it be referred to the transport committee, again making a serious mistake.
Members on this side of the House who objected to the piece of legislation suggested honourably and seriously that it should go to another committee, a committee that encompassed more than just transport. In fact it did. It was referred to a newly struck legislative committee which was just passed today in the House. I received notice that the legislative committee had been struck. We have a member on it, as do other members of the opposition and the government. That is a pretty positive thing.
What is not positive is that the bill is still the wrong piece of legislation to deal with terrorism. Members should make no mistake about it. We have stood in the House and said time and time again that we absolutely do not condone terrorism, especially within the borders of our country. There has to be a consequence to any kind of terrorist action in this country. We believe we have that legislation right now with the Emergencies Act. If it were put into force it would provide everything that would be necessary to the government. However, the government decided that it would go beyond that.
Bill C-55 is a serious threat to the freedom of Canadians. Let us make no mistake about that. Canadians out there do not often pay a lot of attention to what is happening in this House. Canadians must pay attention to this piece of legislation because it impacts their civil liberties. There was a comment made the other day on a newscast I was watching that said if governments keep nibbling away at civil liberties, eventually they will become difficult to get back.
The government has no checks and balances. We have seen in the past, as we have seen recently, all the allegations that have been going on with respect to sponsorships, pork-barrelling and patronage. It seems the government is prepared to go to any lengths to take and grab those powers that it thinks is necessary for it to continue on that path.
This legislation is not the way to do it because this would seriously impact Canadians. The bill would grant cabinet a whole host of new powers, including the right to arbitrarily declare certain military zones off limit to Canadians, and to violate the rights of Canadians by supplying passenger information to the RCMP without any cause.
As was said earlier today in question period the police must be totally impartial in a free and democratic country. It cannot be given specific rights against the people it is policing. This legislation would allow it to do that.
Other pieces of legislation which granted similar powers were all withdrawn, some over time, such as the War Measures Act, while others were never made into law, and I refer to Bill C-42.
Bill C-55 would grant the government both the power to protect and the ability to abuse this power. Unfortunately, it is most likely the latter would prevail. The existing law, the Emergencies Act, ensures this does not happen by protecting the principles of a free and democratic parliament. This law would take parliament totally out of the picture. It would not allow parliament to be a part of any of the decisions that would be made based on this particular piece of legislation.
There is a clause in the legislation which would deal with interim orders. Eight parts of the bill would amend various statutes to provide a new power, permitting the responsible minister to make interim orders in situations where immediate action would be required. Two other parts which would deal with the Aeronautics Act and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act would extend the power of the minister to make such orders.
The statutes that would be amended to introduce the power, and respective ministers are those of the department of health, food and drugs, hazardous products, navigable waters, pest control, and quarantine. The ministers would be given power over every ambit of Canadian lives and Canadian law at the present time.
The extension of these powers unfortunately would have no backstop. They would not be able to come back to this parliament and have those interim orders removed. The ministers would have the ability to extend those orders if they feel it were necessary.
We talked about confidence. There was a motion yesterday in the House about how Canadians have lost confidence in the government. They lost confidence not only with respect to trade, but also in the government's ability to govern.
Can we have confidence in a defence minister, who unfortunately or fortunately for us as Canadians is no longer in that position, who would be able to have such extraordinary powers that no other Canadian, and parliament, would have any ability to take those powers away from him or from the government? Do we have confidence now in the Prime Minister when he leads by example? We see that day after day. In fact they, the Prime Minister, his ministers and his government, have no one who can take the ability of their incompetence away from them.
Bill C-55 will be going to a legislative committee. My hopes, wishes and desires are that every academic and non-governmental organization and individual being affected by this piece of legislation would appear before that committee and tell government why it is absolutely mandatory that this legislation be defeated and not go forward.
We have a piece of legislation now, the Emergencies Act, that will allow us to do what has to be done with respect to terrorism. We should not give government any other powers or any other ability to impact Canadian civil rights the way they would be impacted by this piece of legislation.
I will have the opportunity to speak to this again after speaking to the amendment. We will also have the bill coming back from committee with plenty of amendments because that is necessary.