Debates of Feb. 5th, 2008

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have been in the House for over 14 years, as has the member opposite. I think we were elected on the same day in 1993.

Sitting in opposition, where the member now is, and observing the Liberal government over those years when it had a majority, and to now make any noise whatsoever about stifling or controlling debate in the House when the Liberals had a majority, my goodness, it is unbelievable.

However, I am sure all members understand that the reason for this motion is very clear. We have a deadline to meet. We must ensure that the people who have been arrested and who have been detained under these certificates are detained in order to provide safety.

I appeal to all members of the House, including the member who just spoke, to give the bill speedy passage, let it proceed through its normal stages and become law so our citizens can be secure in our country against these external threats.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am genuinely taken aback by the comments made by the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park.

On the one hand, we are dealing with legislation that the government could and should have brought in a good deal sooner. It should have given ample time for full and serious consideration of the legislation now before us but it made a decision to delay to virtually the 11th hour before it started to confront us, the members of the opposition, with the fact that this is urgent because we have a deadline that was set by the Supreme Court of Canada almost one year ago.

I do not want to be unfair to the member. I know him to be a conscientious member. I disagree with him fundamentally on a great many things but on occasion I have had reason to actually agree with him on some things. However, I am genuinely taken aback. I think Canadians would find it shocking if we were to ram ahead and put into place the provisions of something that was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada because it was found to be a very serious flaw in a piece of legislation that could cause major problems for people.

I believe I heard the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park a few moments ago say that we needed to be clear here, that we are talking about persons who are a danger to society and we are talking about protecting the public against such people.

We are talking about putting in place the kind of legal provisions that do not try to convict people and condemn them without there being a fair and legal process. Has nothing been learned by the government from the horrors or the Arar fiasco? Has nothing been heard from the counsel offered by the vast majority of members who appeared before the public safety committee and who said that this was severely flawed legislation and that it, too, would likely to be struck down by the Supreme Court?

How can the member turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the overwhelming evidence that was brought before the very committee that he sits on for the purpose of weighing the legislation that is before him and before this House?

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is probably true that it would have been better if we would have had a few more weeks to debate this. I will not argue that, recognizing the input from all of the members of Parliament in this esteemed chamber. However, I would like to point out that to draft legislation, especially when it is under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court, it takes time and it takes a great deal of care.

One cannot just wake up one day and decide to move a bill in the House whether one is the government or not. I am sure the hon. member who just spoke will probably never have any experience of actually being in government, but being here is, frankly, quite different from being in opposition. The onus is on the government to come up with legislation that does meet muster. This has been dealt with by our justice department and by the legal minds in that department. We sincerely hope that the fix they have put into the legislation, as required by the Supreme Court of Canada, will meet the approval of the courts and meet the approval of the people.

I also need to interject that some of the approaches that the NDP members are taking, not only here but also in terms of other justice issues, make me wonder whether they really are first and foremost on the side of law-abiding citizens of this country. Almost all of their debate is on the other side when someone does something wrong or contemplates something wrong; the something that is a distress and a danger to our society. I would urge the members of the NDP to stand up for the citizens more than for the criminals.

I like to live in a country where, if I am falsely accused, I have a right to defend myself. However, if someone is actually guilty, it is the job of our system to find him or her guilty and to hold him or her accountable. That is what we are all about here.

I really wish that the NDP would stop thinking of our law enforcement agencies, our police, our undercover people, our courts and the lawyers who work in those courts as the enemies. They are not the enemies. The real enemies are those who would destroy our society through violence.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I take a little exception to the comments made by the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park about the NDP's concern with the criminals.

The purpose of our stand here is to ensure that we have a process where the citizen can be either proven guilty or innocent within the bounds of our justice system and then be declared a criminal or, as in the case we have seen already over the past two years with the Maher Arar situation, be found innocent. We have to be very careful with this.

Our justice system is what our fathers fought in wars for and what we stand up for as well. We stand up for the rights of our citizens. Our citizens have rights until they are proven guilty.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out with great clarity that the people addressed by this bill are not citizens of our country. Our primary responsibility is to protect Canadian citizens.

The other thing is that this bill is a correction to what was lacking, as identified by the court, in the previous legislation. This provides that people who are so accused would have a process whereby, outside of the people who arrested or detained them, someone independent from that such as a judge or an appointed lawyer who will operate in secret, in closed quarters, in camera, would hear the charges.

Frankly, I do not know why members of the House would fail to trust them. We have to have some trust in our own people, in our own system. They will not keep a person detained who in fact is innocent. That is why this process was brought in.

Unfortunately, we are dealing with people who have been arrested. I do not believe that our people just willy-nilly, at random, take a person off the street and say, “There is one. Let's arrest him”. I do not believe that.

In every instance, these people have had evidence collected against them and they are arrested with grounds. Bill C-3 corrects the deficiency so that there is a process, while at the same time addressing the problem of being falsely accused--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Kitchener—Waterloo.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will switch the order in which I was to speak because I just find it incredible that a member of Parliament would stand up and say, “Let us not bother with the niceties. If the police say they are guilty, then they are guilty”. Has the member not heard of Steven Truscott? Has he not heard of Guy Paul Morin? Has he not heard of Donald Marshall? The list goes on.

The member should check out subsection 11(d) of the charter. It is a fundamental right. It says:

Any person charged with an offence has the right

(d) to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal;

When the parliamentary secretary started talking about the bill, he mentioned the case of a person who allegedly committed industrial espionage. That is a very serious charge. That can actually have an economic impact on Canada. It could cause hardship for Canada. We could lose intellectual property.

That being the case, it seems to me that this person should have been charged and if found guilty, should have been put in custody and held for a period of time. By the time that person got out, the intellectual property taken would no longer be of the same value as it would be if we let the individual go right away.

The whole line of reasoning also bothered me because we do not want Canada to get the reputation that it is a country where people can commit a crime, get caught, and all that would happen is that they would get picked up and be sent out of the country, and no one would have to do any jail time. Surely there is something wrong with that logic. However, the parliamentary secretary from the Conservative Party stood in the House and said that. It seems to me that if somebody commits a crime, then there is an appropriate way of dealing with the person.

I will now get back to the original speech I wanted to give. Back in the House, during the course of the first world war, a bill was debated that dealt with the internment, the naturalization and the disenfranchisement of people involved on the side of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Ukrainian-Canadians were particularly damaged by it.

At the time of the debate, the following was said:

It is quite probable that if this proposal becomes law the alleged “foreigners” and hitherto “naturalized Canadians” will bear their reproach meekly, but they will have sown in their hearts the seeds of a bitterness that can never be extirpated. The man whose honour has been mistrusted and who has been singled out for national humiliation, will remember it and sooner or later it will have to be atoned for.

That happened during the first world war. Of course, we have had apologies coming from the government to Canadians of Ukrainian background for those who were interned. It was not just the Austro-Hungarian people who were discriminated against. We discriminated against all sorts of other people. We all know the story of the Chinese-Canadians. In fact, we just apologized for the head tax.

We know about the Asian exclusion act, we dealt with that. We know about the internment of Japanese Canadians during the second world war for which the government has apologized. We know about what happened to S.S. St. Louis and how it was turned away and Jews were sent to the gas chambers in Europe. We know about that.

We know that we used to have a racist immigration policy and it was because of that that we ultimately enacted the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on April 17, 1982. We did that because we wanted to make sure that injustices of the past did not carry us forward into the future.

A very important section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms relates to the legal section. Section 7 states:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

Section 8 states:

Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.

Section 9 states:

Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.

Section 10 states:

Everyone has the right on arrest or detention:

a) to be informed promptly of the reasons therefor;

b) to retain and instruct counsel without delay and to be informed of that right; and

c) to have the validity of the detention determined by way of habeas corpus and to be released if the detention is not lawful.

The other day a very serious police corruption case which has been ongoing for 10 years died and the judge ruled that a fair trial was violated by excessive delays on the part of the Crown. The Crown failed to inform the accused, I believe there were six of them, concerning the charges against them.

In a public policy perspective, this is a very serious matter. When a police officer is charged, that is the very basis of our justice system. We want to make sure it gets a full hearing and a judgment is made on it, either guilt or innocence. It is a very unsatisfactory way of handling it. But the principle of disclosing evidence to the accused is so important that the case was dismissed by the judge. I am not sure what is going to happen on appeal, but it really goes to underline this fact when we are talking about the security certificates.

The security certificate process has been around since 1977 and in total we have dealt with 28 cases. We have spent a lot of energy and a lot of money dealing with the security certificate process than if we were dealing with the criminal justice process.

We have a special Guantanamo north holding facility in Kingston where we keep our security certificate detainees. This facility cost $3.4 million to build and to house six people. Right now there is one person there and there is a budget of $2 million annually for the facility. So it is a very expensive and unsatisfactory process. The other people who have been issued security certificates are essentially under house arrest in their community.

One of the issues we in this chamber have to get our minds around is that by following the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which we enacted, we are not weakening our society, we are very much strengthening it.

I think that this is an important consideration for members, particularly in light of the events of 9/11. I believe that the best way we can possibly deal with security issues is to make sure we have the kind of society that is inclusive, where all Canadians buy into it and all groups in Canada buy into it because we are all in the same boat as far as our security is concerned. We cannot single out any group the way we have done in the past with Ukrainian Canadians, Chinese Canadians, the Sikhs, Japanese Canadians and the groups go on an on. We have to make sure that all of us are in an inclusive society, where we are all in the same boat and we are all rowing in the same direction.

The Liberal Party critic on this bill mentioned the need for necessary evil. It is interesting that he used the term “necessary evil” because I was just reading a book entitled The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror. It is quite a good book. It truly makes one think about how to balance security for the whole versus security for the individual and what are the trade-offs. The author states:

Legislatures can take hearings on sensitive intelligent matters in camera; judges can demand that the state prosecutors justify secret hearings or the withholding of information from the defence. The redlines should be clear: it is never justified to confine or deport an alien or citizen in secret proceedings. Openness in any process where human liberty is at stake is simply definitional of what a democracy is.

Essentially, I am saying that this is a real challenge for our society and we are much better off if we operate in accordance with the charter and do not violate any of its sections.

There is no question that a democratic society has to defend itself, but we defend ourselves much better when we take people who are actually dangerous to our society at large, dangerous to peace, order and good government, dangerous to individuals and put those folks where they belong, which is in jail.

Picking someone up in this day and age who we say is that dangerous and getting him or her out of the country does not make Canada safer. We do not have the kind of borders that keep people out as such. What we want to do with someone who is dangerous is to put the person on trial. If the person is found to be guilty, we hold the person in custody. That is how we should deal with dangerous individuals.

For the life of me I cannot understand how many of my colleagues on the other side fail to understand that the security certificate regime was found to violate section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which makes it unconstitutional. I notice that we have the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in the House which is good. He is a lawyer and he can definitely inform his colleagues on what it means to violate section 7 of the charter and what the court judgment actually said.

We would show a great deal of maturity if would let this piece of legislation lapse and if we would get rid of the security certificate process and put money into enforcement. There are thousands of people that the government is actually trying to get rid of legitimately, but it cannot deal with those people because the government has created a crisis on the Immigration and Refugee Board and in the Immigration Appeal Division. In those cases where there are people with status in Canada who are actually a risk to Canadian society, they cannot be deported. They cannot get hearings before the Immigration Appeal Division because the government has created a crisis there.

On one hand, there are thousands of people whom the government is legitimately trying to get rid of because of criminality and other issues and that is not happening because the IRB members have not been appointed. A crisis has been created because of that shortage. We are dealing with thousands of people, which would greatly impact on the safety of Canadians. On the other hand, the government is wasting a great deal of time and resources in trying to deal with something that is going to apply to very few people and something that has not complied with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Having heard the judgment of the Supreme Court, for 26 years the security certificates have been operating unconstitutionally and it is time to let that whole process die. Let us reinforce and strengthen the charter and let the government ensure that there are quick hearings at the Immigration Appeal Division so the thousands of people we are legitimately trying to get out of the country can be removed and they are not given protection by a government that has created a crisis in enforcement in that regard.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a couple of points.

First, the legislation indicates that the advocate's role of course is to protect the interests of the permanent resident or foreign national. The special advocate, which did not exist before but would exist now, could challenge the minister's claim that disclosure of information or other evidence would be injurious to national security or would endanger the safety of any person.

Would the member agree that in some cases the release of information may be injurious to national security or may endanger the safety of persons? Does he not envision that happening at any time?

Second, a special advocate may make oral representations or written submissions with respect to the information or other evidence provided. He may participate and cross-examine witnesses who testify during any part of the proceeding. He may exercise, with the judge's discretion, any other powers that are necessary to protect the interests of the permanent resident or foreign national. Those are the kinds of things the special advocate can do: cross-examination, testing the evidence, and weighing the relevance.

Would the member agree with me that the special advocate did not exist in the previous legislation, that it now exists and it provides a series of things that the advocate may do to protect the interests of the foreign national that did not exist before? Would he not agree with me that those, would have to be better than what was before, to a considerable degree?

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was hoping my colleague the parliamentary secretary would stand in the House and say that the courts found it to be unconstitutional. I regret he did not take up the challenge.

Is this better than it was before? Yes, I will say it is somewhat better than it was before. That is number one. This is the British model. We heard evidence from Ian Macdonald, a British lawyer who used to take part in the British model. He gave up doing the security certificate process because he said it did not work satisfactorily.

Clearly, if the Conservative government wanted to further improve the security certificate process, it could have picked up on the suggestions by the Liberals and gone with the SIRC model, which it chose not to do.

Let me express my disappointment that the parliamentary secretary did not stand in his place and tell the House that the Government of Canada has created a crisis on the Immigration and Refugee Board, which has created a huge backlog in the Immigration Appeal Division. There are thousands of people whom we should legitimately be getting out of the country because they have broken laws and have serious criminality issues, and not being citizens can be dealt with. However, those cases cannot be dealt with because prior to being able to deport permanent residents, they have a right to a hearing before the Immigration Appeal Division and there is a real crisis there.

If the parliamentary secretary were to say to me that the government is going to address that, that would go so much further for the security of Canadians than this bill would, which by the government's own admission, applied to 28 people in the last 30 years. We heard that industrial saboteurs were given a get out of jail free card and airfare out of the country when they should be doing time for their crime.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-3, which deals with security certificates.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to sharing my time with the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek.

I have to say that I already was very concerned about the legislation that is now before the House. If we just take a moment to remember, it is legislation that aims and purports to fix flawed legislation that was struck down by the Supreme Court for some very good reasons. Now what we have is flawed legislation to replace the flawed legislation.

The legislation that has now been introduced by the Conservatives has been left really until the last minute. I think they are hoping that some kind of fearmongering and trying to muster public opinion will actually put pressure on members of this House to cave to the notion that we should cut debate short and we should just ram it through without critiquing it, which is actually what the parliamentary secretary proposed a little while ago, I have to say to my surprise and horror.

When I heard the comments that he was making in his defence of this flawed legislation, I just could not believe that members of this House, and probably he is representative of his colleagues, have learned absolutely nothing from the very problematic situations that have been created. Frankly, to be honest, many of them were created by the previous Liberal government, but in the instance of security certificates, these have been in place for a very long time.

What has come to light is that when people are placed under suspicion of possibly having engaged in some kind of terrorist activity, a great many fears flood to the fore and people seem quite prepared to say, “Let us just trample on human rights. Let us suspend civil liberties. Let us throw due process on to the scrap heap. Let us be satisfied that we are going to make some mistakes”. Without due process we will never know for sure. We will just entrap some people who may be completely innocent, and we will never have a way of knowing whether that is the case, because those people will have virtually no rights whatsoever to due process under the law.

I have had many occasions over the last several years since 9/11 to recall the prophetic, profound warnings of a very courageous member of the U.S. Congress who stated that in the attempt to defeat terrorism, let us not become the evil we deplore.

I consider that it is succumbing to evil, that it is embodying evil to say that we do not owe the same kind of due process to every single human being who comes before our courts, to ensure that they are not wrongly convicted, and to ensure that any conviction takes place in a court of law with due process and not based on rumours, suspicions, prejudices, Islamophobia, or any other form of hatred. I consider that it is all the more reason for us to take even more time to be cautious about what kind of legislation we put in place.

My colleague from Surrey North, the public security critic in the NDP caucus, has very aptly cited the instance of Maher Arar and the courageous battle that was conducted to clear him of exactly the kinds of prejudices, presumptions and condemnation. He was placed under suspicion, not through security certificates but through the unbelievable events that resulted in his being spirited away from Canada because of information that was wrongly provided by Canadian authorities to American authorities, and in turn American authorities were prepared to send him off to Syria to be tortured.

It seems to me that it is a particularly appropriate time for us to take a few moments to think about the honour that was bestowed on Maher Arar and Monia Mazigh last night at a very well-attended event addressed by a previous ambassador of Canada who gave distinguished service to the United Nations. What it recognized is that all of us are indebted to the courageous struggle that Monia Mazigh engaged in to bring her husband home. Calmly, clearly, simply, but profoundly, she asked for her husband Maher Arar to be returned home to Canada, to be returned home to his family, and to be returned home to justice.

Let me say again that this did not happen under the security certificates. Effectively, he was tried and convicted in the court of public opinion and was treated without due process, even by the authorities, and perhaps especially by the authorities in this climate. I remember how infuriated I was when cabinet ministers in the previous Liberal government were prepared to ask me if I was not worried that if he was found to be a terrorist I would be tarnishing my own reputation. My reaction was that this will never be allowed to be a fear as long as I live and breathe when someone is placed under suspicion without the benefit of due process.

Let us take a few minutes to think calmly about what it is that we are discussing here today. I am trying to be calm, but I feel very provoked by the comments made by some members in the House over the last while. Those comments show that nothing has been learned from the horrible events that have been visited on the lives of too many people because of the suspension of due process. That goes to the heart of what our Supreme Court exists to do. It exists to ensure due process and to strike down the law when it finds that due process is not assured.

I know that there will be some argument made about the fact that some other countries have now put this kind of system in place, such as New Zealand and the U.K., but there are already serious indications of how flawed the so-called reformed legislation is when it comes to the treatment of people placed under suspicion of terrorism. Let us be very clear. No society has ever been made safer by trashing due process of law.

I have only a couple of minutes left. I want to say once again what has already been said by many of my colleagues and by the member for Surrey North, who has done a superb job in addressing the very heart of this matter, and that is that this legislation is flawed for a number of reasons. Some of those reasons I have already explained, such as the suspension of due process, but also, ironically, for those fearmongers who keep trying to dredge up absolute horror for the public, the irony is that security certificates do not punish people who are plotting terrorist acts.

The fact of the matter is that our criminal legislation should be dealing with this problem. That is the way in which we should be dealing with any handling of suspected terrorists.

I plead with all members to pay careful attention to the fundamental principles that are at stake in this instance. Let us be clear that any society which tries to become more secure by trashing human rights and civil liberties is likely to end up being both less secure and having a lot less freedom for all of its citizens.

Message from the Senate

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed certain bills.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (certificate and special advocate) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, be read the third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take just a few moments to thank the member for her speech. I think she is thoughtful. She has expressed herself well.

I would ask her, though, this question: does she not see the danger of divulging to somebody who is actually guilty the source and nature of the evidence against him or her? It would put in danger those who were able to find the person and to arrest the person, because there invariably is a network of people involved in this. There are relationships built in order to infiltrate a group, so to speak, and this would put an end to that process and put the lives of those individuals in danger. If not with the process proposed in the bill, how would she handle it?

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

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.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, she did not answer the question. I asked her how she would handle it if someone were picked up with substantive evidence, enough to arrest them. The evidence is there, but we cannot divulge either the source or the nature of the charges against the person because doing so would put in danger those who are on our side, the informants, the other people who are involved.

I would like to also point out to the member that Bill C-3 does accommodate that by allowing a judge, and in this country we believe judges to be fair and impartial, to hear the evidence in secret chambers, with a lawyer appointed to actually represent the accused and to see the evidence but also sworn to total secrecy so the whole process can be done to protect our citizens. That is in the bill. So she is at the same time supporting the concept of what is in the bill and speaking against the bill. I have sort of backed her into a corner. I regret doing that. I do not like to--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

The hon. member for Halifax.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Well, Mr. Speaker, I think that was a very sincere comment: he does not really like to do that but...? Give us a break.

I think I have made my point clear. We have a fundamental disagreement here. I absolutely believe that overwhelmingly we are well served with very competent judges. I also believe that we have a legal system that for a very good reason exists with checks and balances, with due process.

Yes, there may be instances in which some information should be withheld, but that is a far cry from the kind of hang 'em high, lock 'em away and throw away the keys kind of justice system that is too often conjured up in people's minds when they are fearful about the possible threat of terrorism.

We have to be very careful not to succumb to that. As Barbara Lee has said, “let us not become the evil we deplore” in the attempt to defeat terrorism.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, over the last few weeks, and in fact today in this House, we have seen some extraordinary things happen.

The House of Commons, in my estimation, should always be a place of debates that enhance and ensure that the expectations of Canadians of their justice system are met and exceeded. This place should always be a home of motions and bills and debates that raise the bar on human rights as well as the rights of citizens. Bill C-3 and its expected outcome would do just the opposite.

However, in this place, the tone of debate on Bill C-3 often mirrors a mediocrity and a nasty tone that one never would expect of parliamentarians present. We hear derisive remarks. We hear catcalls. We heard baiting in the form of the questions put forward on this bill that were they not so amateurish, might well have stood in the 1950s and been used by Senator McCarthy of the U.S.

Parliamentarians must reach to do better. We must move to a place in our debates that illuminates rather than obscures the makeup of any bill. As I said, Canadians expect this of their elected representatives. It is our responsibility to meet that expectation.

When I last spoke on Bill C-3, I advised the House of an occasion last summer when I had visited a Muslim friendship centre in Edmonton. At the centre, I met some new Canadians as well as some more-established Canadians from that Muslim community. Our discussions were wide-ranging and the topic of racism and discrimination came up.

A gentleman who had been in Canada some 30 years spoke up. He was well established. He said he had been contributing to the Edmonton society. From the other people in the room, it was very clear he was a leader who was well respected in his community and the broader community. The gentlemen told the story of how over the ensuing years following the tragic events of 9/11 investigative officers from CSIS would drop by to speak to him. He said that they wanted to know about all the money he was sending to his homeland and the terrorist groups he was supporting. He told them Canada was his homeland, but as a dutiful son, he had sent money home for 30 years to raise the standard of living of his family in his former country.

Some 40 years ago this year, I moved from New Brunswick to Ontario. For me, coming to Ontario, in the 1960s in particular, was something like moving to a new world. However, like the man in Alberta, many good Canadians from our own east coast send money home to their families to help support them back east.

In my opinion, what is happening to us as a country is nothing short of tragic. In my opinion as well, what is happening in the name of national security is an affront to our democratic processes.

As Canada rushed to follow the Americans' approach to, in their words, fight terrorism, we cast aside some of the most fundamental beliefs of Canadians. Just consider Bill C-3 and how it conflicts with the fundamental belief of Canadians that in Canada one has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

I stand here today speaking on security certificates, and I regret that I am doing this. In our country, once so rightfully proud of our human rights record, our justice system and our positioning in the world, how did we reach this point?

After Bill C-3, Canadians will not be more free. And because of Bill C-3, they certainly should not feel any more secure. I believe, along with the rest of the NDP caucus, that Bill C-3 would continue to fail Canada and to fail Canadians.

The NDP opposes Bill C-3 for the most fundamental of reasons. Repeatedly, we have spoken to the fact that measures in our Criminal Code already give law enforcement the tools they need to deal with crimes against Canada and crimes against Canadians.

Security certificates themselves fail Canadians in a grand fashion. A security certificate does not allow for the presentation of evidence that would support accusations against a person accused or suspected of terrorist activity. Instead, the security certificate simply removes the individual from Canada. In doing so, it fails Canadians.

When an individual is believed to be guilty of an offence against Canada or Canadians, then the Criminal Code must be used to deal with that accusation. A security certificate does not offer, nor support, justice for either the accused or for Canadians. In fact, as I have said repeatedly, security certificates in themselves are an affront to Canada's national sense of justice.

If the accused is guilty, the person should be charged and tried under our Criminal Code and the appropriate penalties applied. Only then, following those penalties being served, should the person be deported. Bill C-3 would allow people to be held in detention without the opportunity to face their accusers or see the evidence against them.

We should consider, for a moment, that people in detention who proclaim their innocence will never have the chance to speak to the evidence in a court of law. If they are allowed to go through our Criminal Code procedures, our courts, our justice system, and were found innocent, they would have had the right to return to a Canadian life, to pick up where they left off, to pick up the pieces.

Under security certificates, many will spend years upon years in detention, and they have already. They have not seen the evidence against them. Nor have they had the chance to refute the evidence against them. As a result, the most fundamental tenets of our justice system will have been sacrificed. The existence and the use of security certificates has put a chill across our country.

I alluded to the individual in Edmonton, Alberta, but there are more cases than that individual, cases where Canada has failed its citizens. We should talk to Mr. Almalki about his time in Syria. He was detained in a cell, which was more like a coffin, for three months. We should talk to Mahar Arar about how Canadian officials let him down when he was abandoned to be rendered to another country to be tortured when certain people knew that would happen. Canadians know that Canada failed these men. Bill C-3 is setting ourselves up for further failure.

I was raised to take great pride in our justice system, and I do. The fact that innocent people can face their accusers and the evidence against them, and because of that process, the innocent one day can walk free.

It is crucially important to the sense of justice that all Canadians have that the people in this place pause, stop the rhetoric and think about the deterioration of our justice system and our human rights system if we gerrymander the process with Bill C-3, if we put into place a process like this, which is so ugly and disgusting. I truly cannot understand how anybody in this place can support it.

Our Criminal Code is among the best in the world. Our justice system is among the best in the world. Canada even sends people to other parts of the world to teach them about our justice system. One of the few ways we can keep that pride in our system and our institutions is to ensure individual rights and the rights of all people to face their accuser and the evidence against them.

For the NDP, the security certificate is an affront to civil liberties. We understand, with Bill C-3, the Conservative government is trying to address what is seen as a flaw in the process, and the Supreme Court ruled that it was a violation of the charter. Clearly, what the government has tried to do with Bill C-3 is move around something that has been deemed by the Supreme Court as a violation of the charter.

We must think about the rights and freedoms for a moment. We must think about the individuals detained in our country. Their freedom has been taken away and they have no rights.

It is our Charter of Rights and Freedoms that we must protect. Imagine the setting aside of well respected fundamental terms of justice and how this is being done so cavalierly. The detainees have not seen any critical evidence against them. Their legal representatives have not seen the evidence against them. Let us just say tomorrow, for whatever reason, it is deemed acceptable that they return to Canadian society, that there had indeed been an error. They will also be besmirched by the fact that they have been detained. Because of Bill C-3 and the security certificates, they will always be subject to suspicion.

I spoke harshly because I was upset with what I had heard in a committee about the tone of this place. I know when I speak to many members here, they want to see us all rise above rhetoric and beyond the point scoring process that seems to happen here daily. That challenge is being put to us by Canadians and they want us clearly to reflect what they believe.

With that, I will close with a line that has been heard in this place many times before. We must remember, for the rest of the world, what we ask for ourselves, we wish for all. That is what makes Canada the place to which many people from all over the world seek to come.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the intervention by the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek on the bill.

I know it is not possible for all members to sit in all committees, no matter how interested and concerned they are about particular legislation. However, I think the member may also be aware that our colleague who sits on the public security committee, the member for Surrey North, has indicated that the overwhelming testimony before that committee was to oppose Bill C-3 in the form in which it was presented.

I agree that some small amendments have made it less odious, less objectionable, but not sufficient for the NDP caucus to support the legislation.

Of the 20 written submissions to the public security committee to deal with this, only 1 recommended support of BillC-3? Of the 17 witnesses who did not have written submissions but nevertheless gave convincing oral submissions, only 1 recommended support of the legislation.

Could the member comment on what that says about being responsible or unresponsive to the informed views of people with considerable scholarly background, legal background, involvement in human rights and civil liberties activities and organizations over a very long period of time?

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the question of the member for Halifax is insightful. In my remarks I referred to the fact that there was a chill across the country. It is in primarily our diverse communities. They feel they are being abandoned.

How the government members and the government itself can ignore the expert advice that came before the committee is beyond understanding. Clearly people are frightened for the well-being of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They see this as the beginning of the undermining of that charter.

It is baffling. The warnings that were given, and I used the word before, were cavalierly tossed aside by the government.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned the tone in the House. I was glad he raised this issue. I think it is very pertinent to the debate about democratic rights.

Many young people in my riding are concerned about the bullying, the catcalls, the kind of behaviour that is displayed here. They are becoming discouraged with the democratic process with our government and believing in what we are doing here.

Would my colleague like to comment on the link that he makes between the erosion of democracy and behaviour in the House?

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the thing that is very striking about what we hear in the community is this. I will give one example that my caucus mates have shared. All of us have heard from teachers. Because of the tone in this place, they no longer wish to bring their students here.

The member asks me what I believe the long term effect of that will be. If people do not experience this place, if schools no longer want to talk about this place, if we do not encourage the democratic process for which this place should stand, then the young people will not learn and they will not want to be part of this process.

All the things that minimize democracy have to be challenged. That is what brought me to the point of raising my remarks earlier.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (certificate and special advocate) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act. As we know, this is a bill that would reintroduce security certificate legislation with the provision for special advocates to address the civil liberties issues raised by the Supreme Court.

I am opposed to this bill because I believe it would compromise some of the fundamental principles of our justice system by circumventing due process which is a fundamental right in any democracy.

The Conservatives, supported by the Liberals, are proposing a law that attacks section 9 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that states, “Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned”. This section specifies not just Canadians but everyone in Canada and yet this law would deny that right to permanent residents and foreign nationals.

It seems somewhat ironic that we say that we are fighting for democracy in Afghanistan and that we want to help them build a justice system that treats all people fairly at the time when there is slippage of those very principles in our own country.

I believe there are many ways to erode democracy. Corruption in government, for example, erodes democracy, free trade agreements that favour commercial rights of corporations over the rights of their citizens, of which the Conservative government is an ardent proponent of, or laws that disenfranchise groups of voters, as did Bill C-6, for example, introduced by the Conservatives, or indeed, as my colleague has just mentioned, the behaviour in the House which undermines true democratic debate.

Bill C-3 is just another law in that series that undermines the fundamental principles that many have fought for and that are being traded away in a very bad law.

There are two major problems with security certificates. First, as one of my colleagues has mentioned, they do not punish people who are plotting or have committed serious crimes, like terrorist acts or espionage. Security certificates allow for the detention and deportation of those suspected of terrorist activities but do not ensure suspected terrorists are charged, prosecuted or jailed for their crimes.

Because there are very serious consequences facing those named in security certificates, like deportation orders, possible removal and even torture, strong safeguards are required and this legislation does not go far enough in protecting civil liberties.

Canada must take strong measures to protect itself and its citizens against terrorists and spies. These are not nice people and we must take strong measures. However, we must find a better balance between protection against terrorist activities and protection of civil liberties than that offered in this flawed bill. The NDP believes that the Criminal Code is the right tool for the protection of our national security, not the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

I listened very carefully to some of the Conservative and Liberal members who have argued today in favour of this law. The member for Vancouver South said that security certificates offered the only effective mechanism, as the evidence may be out of country and we could not get a conviction in a court of law.

I think there is something fundamentally wrong with sending someone away under the cloud of accusation of terrorism without any proof. There is something equally wrong in sending them away so they can continue their criminal activities elsewhere. Why would we allow someone we suspect of terrorist acts to leave the country? How does that improve our global security?

The second flaw in this bill includes secret hearings, detention without charge or conviction, detention without knowing the evidence against someone, indefinite detention and lack of an appeal process. This again undermines the core values of our justice system.

The right of full answer in defence, the right to know the allegations against someone and the opportunity to respond to those allegations is a well recognized aspect of fundamental justice and that right is abrogated under the security certificate process. The detainee may never know the reasons why he or she is being deported. As with the Maher Arar case, we have seen the abuses that can occur.

It is understandable that security may be needed in some cases. I am not a lawyer but I understand that there are very clear provisions within our Criminal Code and the court system for matters of national security for hearing evidence when there is a need to withhold information in the interest of national security. One has to ask why we are rushing to abrogate basic democratic rights.

I believe it was the member for Vancouver South who admitted that this law was flawed but, like most of his Liberal colleagues, he has indicated that he will vote in favour of a bad law. It was an incomprehensible statement Liberal opposition members made in our Parliament that they would support a bad law because we are running out of time, the time having been set by the Supreme Court. I do not know how often I have heard this. It seems very convenient that the government has waited nine months or until the very last minute to reintroduce Bill C-3.

Another argument that has been used by those supporting the bill is that they have improved the security certificate process by introducing special advocates. Special advocates have been used in New Zealand and the United Kingdom and the process in both of those places is seriously flawed and under heavy criticism by many credible people. The United Kingdom keeps being cited by those who support modifying rather than abolishing the security certificate system despite court cases that have ruled against them there.

Given that the United Kingdom Lords of Appeal have ruled against provisions of the process and that Ian Macdonald, QC, a special advocate with over seven years experience, quit over the failure of the government to address the problems with the system, it does not seem to be the ideal solution for Canada to adopt.

The NDP strongly believes that a system that denies the right of answer in defence cannot be corrected by mere procedural tweaking. Even if all civil liberties were protected, security certificates within the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act would still not be the appropriate mechanism for dealing with threats to national security which should be pursued under existing articles of the Criminal Code.

We strongly oppose security certificates because the process is fundamentally flawed and this measure would further diminish democratic rights in Canada.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I too share many of my colleague's concerns. I have been doing quite a bit of homework. I have spoken to NGOs, Amnesty International and certain people in the legal profession about this bill and have asked them if they knew of any way we could change it or improve it, or whether it should be rejected.

Much to my surprise, Amnesty International is opposed to the bill but, at the same time, it does not argue that we should get rid of security certificates at hand. Other prominent human rights lawyers, such as Kent Roach from the University of Toronto's faculty of law, have said that Bill C-3 does address the concerns raised in the Charkaoui decision by the Supreme Court in February 2007. I know that legislatures have a very difficult thing at hand because this is, in some way, being rushed by the government. The government had from February until October to introduce the bill before the House.

At the end of the day, this is still a flawed bill and I do not support it because of that. However, there should be some consideration given to the need for security certificates given the fact that we do not live in a perfect world, that there are different objectives at play and that sometimes these objectives can be in conflict with one another, even on issues of civil liberties and on security.

Is it the position of my hon. colleague and her party that security certificates should be eliminated and that we should not have them in this country because it is not the view of organizations such as Amnesty International?

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

I am afraid we will have to wait until after the votes to hear the response of the hon. member for Victoria to that intervention.