Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Halifax for staying on topic and speaking so readily to the issue of the bill at hand.
I share her concerns with respect to privacy. For the record I want to make sure it is perfectly clear that the remote sensing satellites expected to be licensed under the proposed act are unlikely to possess sufficient performance capabilities to generate privacy concerns.
Should any future technology provide law enforcement agencies with imagery capabilities against which a reasonable expectation of privacy would exist, prior judicial authorization should be required.
I also want to assure the hon. member that our government is firmly committed to protecting the rights of persons afforded under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms against any unreasonable searches. It is important that the hon. member understand from a privacy perspective that we too of course would be vigilant. However, this does not have the technology to do what is perceived to be a concern as it relates to privacy.
I assure the hon. member that I know the distinction given my intervention on the FLIR decision, which was to accord with the Supreme Court of Canada to reverse the position on the forward looking infrared camera. I know and understand the distinction between what was said at the Superior Court of Ontario which was wrong, which turned out to be upended by the Supreme Court of Canada nine to nothing. I will take that kind of affirmation for my efforts any day.
I want to point out to the hon. member, as I said to other colleagues earlier, that the BMD satellites observe missiles in flight or on trajectories above the earth. Remote sensing satellites do not.
We can have the debate on BMD any time. The hon. member will know that I had a very thriving debate with her leader on Sunday. When given the facts, Canadians will arrive at the need to balance our sovereignty needs with the issues of security on BMD. They will make that decision through parliamentarians.
We will not be moved by those who believe that somehow this is the escalation of the arms race. Canada believes very strongly in the notion of prevention and protection as well. If missiles are going to fly above our territory, we want to know what is going on. We want to be at the table. We want to ensure that those missiles and the debris, whether it be chemical or warheads, does not fall on Canadians.
Every Canadian knows that North Korea attempted to do this. The mission failed. It wound up halfway over the Pacific Ocean. These are hard facts. Several nations, such as Iran, have refused to become part of the non-proliferation treaty. We saw what happened in New York in 2001. We know that it has cost Canadians $10 million to protect our security at the borders from that kind of attack.
I look forward to the hon. member's participation on this very important issue at committee. We will have an opportunity, as we are now, to deal with issues along the lines of proliferation and arms treaties and arms control. The foreign affairs committee is looking into that. I hope the points that we have made about privacy are ones which will meet with the hon. member's satisfaction.