Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to make it clear that I absolutely acknowledge that there is such a thing as terrorists potentially being in our midst, but I do not think we solve one problem by creating another huge problem, which is that in the process of deciding that suspected terrorists can be such a threat, we have to suspend all of the fundamental principles and practices of our legal system.
I am not a lawyer. I do not pretend to know where there could in fact be some limitations warranted in terms of the public divulging of some information, but what I do know is that when we basically try to convict people without any due process of law, without even their knowing what they are charged with, without their having any legal representation, or in other words, no legal rights whatsoever, we have created a huge problem to deal with another problem.
I do not believe for a moment that there is not a way to ensure that due process takes place. Yes, possibly there are some aspects of information that should not be fully divulged to the public, but to not have some divulging of information to legal representatives who can participate in the due process is just simply not acceptable.
It was acknowledged, and I personally think that it went much too far, that there were aspects of the record in terms, for example, of the Arar inquiry that perhaps should not have been fully publicly divulged. I do not think anybody ever argued otherwise. I think it was pretty clear that there were massive amounts of redacting, that is, blacking out with black pens information that had more to do with protecting people in our legal system than it did with protecting the accused. But I want to say that I think there are reasonable limits in such cases.
What I do think is that what is proposed here is simply inadequate to the test of due process and the fundamental elements of our legal system that we must uphold in regard to anybody who is being tried and potentially can be convicted of criminal activity or terrorist activity.