Mr. Speaker, after listening to the minister I would say that he should be embarrassed with what his government is attempting to do here by putting closure on the bill.
This is not routine business. The bill is critical in terms of security measures and the potential infringement on the civil liberties of Canadians. We can see that the government is grasping at anything as a cover to bring in closure yet again on another bill.
For anyone to suggest that this is about a modern democracy and the fact that the U.K. brings in closure all the time and therefore we should do it, so what? We are talking about the Canadian Parliament. We are talking about upholding the public interest. This is not just about the opposition doing its job or the minister doing his job. There is something very important here and it is called public interest.
If anyone ever knew about public interest it was Stanley Knowles. We should not be invoking his name and saying that Stanley Knowles knew when to cut off debate. Pierre Elliot Trudeau never invoked closure 88 times like this government has done.
Just yesterday Maher Arar was released from Syria and is finally coming home to Canada. Bill C-17 would provide enormous powers to security authorities where we could see more instances of innocent people being targeted. If that question is not a matter of public interest and something that is worthy of debate then I do not know what is.
The government should be embarrassed for trying to shut down debate on a very important bill. Bill C-17 is a package of all of these security measures. This is now the last leg the government is bringing forward. We are here to alert Canadians to what the legislation is really about.
Shame on the government and shame on the minister for yet again trying to shut down debate on this very important question affecting all Canadians.