Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the official opposition, I welcome this opportunity to respond to the statement by the Minister of Public Safety regarding the consultative process for the creation of the national security committee of parliamentarians.
Quite obviously, the minister has picked a very opportune time to table this report in the House of Commons. It comes only one day after the Auditor General brought down a scathing report regarding the government's record on security. Unfortunately, for the minister this announcement cannot deflect the Auditor General's criticism and it cannot hide the fact that for over a decade the government has failed miserably in most fundamental role; that of the protection of its citizens.
Yesterday, Ms. Fraser revealed that there were significant gaps. She revealed that there were significant errors in national security. She has found that there are major deficiencies in inter-agency cooperation, out of day terrorist watch lists and as many as 4,500 airport employees who have “possible criminal associations warranting further investigation”. Furthermore, border officers are not provided with a list or any other information concerning the 25,000 Canadian passports that are lost or stolen annually.
The Auditor General found:
The government as a whole [failed to] adequately assess intelligence lessons learned from critical incidents such as September 11...
The Auditor General also noted:
--the deficiencies we've noted are serious and need to be addressed on an urgent basis.
The operative word is “urgent”, yet the minister has come today to the House announcing that in the coming months consultations will be carried out with an end to creating a new national security committee of parliamentarians. She has made this statement knowing full well a federal election is imminent, and this will very likely not even come into existence for at least a year or more.
If members do not believe that this is exactly what will happen, one only has to look at the fact that in 1996 the then auditor general pointed out the exact same deficiencies in our security as Ms. Fraser identified yesterday. Yet the government has failed for eight years to address those deficiencies.
We do not have a year. We do not have a month to address all major deficiencies in our security. Canada is a named target now. It is a named target today. Look at the headlines today in the National Post and other papers where al-Qaeda has named Canada as a target. This is nothing new. We know we have been a target for a number of years. While the government continues to consult, plot and plan, Canadian citizens have been identified as human targets by al-Qaeda.
Actions speak louder than words. The time for action is long overdue. Yesterday, the Auditor General confirmed that it is long overdue.