Mr. Speaker, Bill C-17, the public safety act, has a long history. As the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam mentioned in his speech, this is probably the third kick at the can. This is unfortunate because some important elements of Bill C-17 are essential to the safety and security of Canadians.
I should clarify that notwithstanding the frustrations of the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, he also confirmed that the Alliance Party supports the bill and I hope most members will.
Last night I happened to be watching the miniseries on Pierre Elliott Trudeau. One of the last events which occurred in the first part was the invocation of the War Measures Act, where basically the civil liberties of Canadians were totally set aside and hundreds and hundreds of people were summarily rounded up and taken into custody. It is a dark period in our history and I guess some would, in hindsight, try to reflect on whether the actions taken by the then federal government were appropriate under the circumstances.
Canada is not accustomed to terrorist type activities, but the members will also know that the federal government cannot bring in the army or do certain things without a request from a province. That is part of the jurisdictional relationship that exists.
I am somewhat sensitive to the arguments that have been raised by members of the Bloc Quebecois with regard to privacy and, maybe more broadly, to the civil liberties, civil rights of Canadians. A prior speaker had indicated that one of the concerns, to summarize, was that basically this is yet another instrument that the government is being given to control the people. It is quite concerning because I suspect that there are some who share that view, particularly from the standpoint that they hear anecdotally about stories where things are happening that in fact do appear to be an infringement of privacy rights of Canadians.
One of the first ones that occurred following September 11, 2001 was the requirement by the United States that a passenger manifest be provided for all aircraft originating in Canada and landing in the U.S. I know that at that time there were some very serious concerns about that, but the U.S., as a sovereign nation, has certain rights to require certain things to protect its own sovereignty and its own security. As a consequence, if we wanted flights to fly between Canada and the U.S., we were going to have to comply and that has happened.
What kind of information? Well this sort of is a starting point of when one gets from a standpoint of who is travelling, how often, what destinations, et cetera, and patterns begin to develop. Following that to its logical conclusion, it is pretty clear that we are talking about profiling people. If we start talking about profiling in terms of their physical activity, it does not take very long before we start talking about profiling people based upon their personal characteristics, whether it be their race, colour, ethnicity, et cetera.
This is where this argument becomes more sensitive. Most jurisdictions have had this difficulty dealing with the whole concept of profiling. It is one of the reasons that I raised in prior questioning today the appropriate balance between the necessity for privacy and the protection of the civil liberties of Canadians, and balancing that with the realities of security and safety of Canadians and of our country.
As I said, if we have no safety then we have no security, and if we have no security, we have no sovereignty. This goes to the fundamental principles in which Canada is going to have to protect itself.
I believe we are approaching question period. I would like to conclude my comments when the bill is next called simply because I believe there are some important points that have to be put in perspective, but I would like to lay out some of the reasons that I will be supporting Bill C-17.