Mr. Speaker, I do not know if it is possible to appreciate just how offensive this legislation and the practice of the use of these certificates is unless a person is one of the targeted groups.
We can talk to the children and grandchildren of people who were removed, we can talk to those individuals who were incarcerated when the War Measures Act was applied to them in 1970. I have talked with people from the Muslim community and to some degree the Sikh community. They are feeling most vulnerable because their family and friends are still newcomers to this country and could still be subject to one of these certificates. They are sometimes targeted by the country they came from, information is passed to our security people, and they end up being investigated. As my colleague mentioned earlier, so much of that evidence comes from torture.
Those people have to live under a cloud. They are newcomers and they want to speak out but they have a fear of speaking out. There is a chill affecting those communities because of the availability of this kind of device. I do not think people really appreciate that unless they happen to be one of the targeted groups. I will not say that I fully appreciate it. As long as we have this kind of law on the books, people will live under that fear and that chill. It is not good for democracy.