Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
At the beginning, we set out the principles by which we would determine the appropriate balance between the fight against terrorism and the protection of individual rights.
We said that those principles should ensure that nobody would be unduly penalized, that no organization such as the RCMP or CSIS, with their dubious past in the management of such issues, would be given too much power, and that the proper safety net would be put in place to protect us from excesses.
The provisions on military zones were among the main elements that had to be changed. That was a terrible flaw that we had to rectify and did.
In the present bill, one of the key points is that we allow the RCMP and CSIS to keep data on air travellers for several days. That provision means that we question the honesty of people without any formal proof. Those are things that could be harmful right now or later on.
For example, a note might be left indefinitely in an individual's file, as long as a justification is given. But there is nothing to say that, in three months, six months or a year, someone will not prevent this person from travelling or from leaving the country because of this kind of note that has nothing to do with a criminal judgment or a decision that legally penalizes and finds this person guilty.
It is because of this type of situation that we say that the bill should be amended, particularly because of several changes that we asked for in the Immigration Act, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Implementation Act, and the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) Act. These are all elements that make this bill too flawed to be passed today. The government must correct this bill once again.
It has already done so twice and it has recognized that it has, in the past, tabled bills that were ill defined and vague. We know that we are not dealing with an urgent situation requiring that we face a terrorist attack tomorrow.
However, we will have bills that will give us the tools necessary to respond. More than ever, I believe that Canadians expect the bills that are passed to adequately protect human rights. Passing this bill would call that into question.