Madam Speaker, I had an opportunity to speak earlier on this bill and I intend to again because it constitutes a very fundamental and important threat to the freedom and civil liberties of Canadians. I also believe that it is a bill that is absolutely unnecessary. All the powers the government needs already exist in the Emergencies Act, as my colleague just indicated. That Emergencies Act was brought in more than a decade ago to replace the War Measures Act which was used with such terrible imprecision by the Trudeau government, the Liberal government of the day, to throw Canadians into jail without charge in a shocking chapter of our Canadian history.
What did the Parliament of Canada do about that? For years we were concerned that powers of that kind not be invested again in a national government. The Liberal Party frequently offered and promised, as it promised for example to bring in an ethics commissioner, that it would change the War Measures Act, but it did not change it. It took another government, one in which I was honoured to serve, to introduce changes that got rid of the War Measures Act and brought in the Emergencies Act in its place. It gave the Government of Canada the same powers that it needed to act in an emergency but also built in for the first time the capacity of parliament to review, revoke and control any government actions taken under the War Measures Act.
What does this bill do? It retains the power for the government but takes away the power of control by this parliament.
This is not about terror. This is about accumulating more power for a Government of Canada that already has too much power. Day after day in the House the government has demonstrated that it is far too open to abusing its power. This bill would be bad at any time, but particularly now when we have a serial situation of minister after minister, on relatively minor matters, breaking the trust of the House and abusing their powers.
Imagine, if the Liberals abuse that kind of power with regard to advertising contracts, how threatening it would be to Canadian citizens if a government, whose tradition has already been to invoke the War Measures Act, had the power to abuse the fundamental rights and liberties of individual citizens without any kind of recourse or control by parliament.
It is a very dangerous piece of legislation. I am pleased to see that some members of the government party are standing up and taking exception to individual portions of the bill. Certainly we in our party, and I am pleased to see other parties in the opposition as well, will do what we can to draw attention to the very dangerous aspects of this bill.
Among other things, Bill C-55 will allow the Minister of National Defence to act solely on the recommendation of his chief of defence staff, to designate what are called controlled access military zones. This means any property in Canada, private or public, can be designated a military zone if there is a piece of property or a person which the government believes needs to be protected.
The language of the bill is imprecise. In effect, what it says is that if the government moves any military equipment any place in Canada, the bill would allow it to designate the air above, the ground below and the territory around, wherever that military instrument is put, as a military zone. What instrument might it be? It could be a staff car, a tank, an army boot or anything that under a reasonable definition of the law constitutes something that belongs to the Department of National Defence.
If that is the case and that staff car suddenly shows up in Kananaskis or suddenly shows up on the front lawn of the national assembly of the province of Quebec, or the front lawn of Queen's Park, or the front lawn of the legislative assembly of Alberta, by this law the federal government would have the right to declare the air above, the ground below and the area around that military item to be a military zone where federal martial law could apply. That is a frightening provision. It may or may not be the intent of the government, but that is clearly what this law says.
Section 74 of Bill C-55 amends the National Defence Act to add the definition of a controlled access military zone. The minister may now designate any property that is provided for Canadian Forces or the department and is situated outside a defence establishment—clearly civilian territory.
The new section defines a controlled access military zone as, and I quote subsection 260.1(3):
an area of land or water, a portion of airspace, or a structure, or part of one, surrounding a thing referred to in subsection (1) or including it, whether the zone designated is fixed or moves with that thing. The zone automatically includes all corresponding airspace above, and water and land below, the earth's surface.
In effect, the minister would be able to designate a tank, a car, a ship or an army boot as a controlled access military zone.
All area around it, above or below is now subject to control by the military. The dimensions of the zone are not defined. The bill only states, and I am quoting from subsection (4), not greater
than is reasonably necessary to ensure the safety and security of any person, thing or property.
Note that it says reasonably necessary. Who is the judge of what is reasonably necessary? This is left entirely to the discretion of the Minister of National Defence.