Mr. Speaker, I began my speech just before oral question period. I will not repeat everything I said, but I will come back to the Bloc Québécois' position on Bill C-35, which seeks to lift the immunity of states that support terrorism and expose them to private civil actions.
As I was saying before question period, the Bloc Québécois would like to examine Bill C-35 in committee. We have many questions about the bill, which contains several points that bother us. Nevertheless, like the rest of my party, I believe that it would only be right to examine it in committee to learn all its ins and outs.
When my speech was interrupted, I was saying that, practically speaking, the recourse offered by the government through Bill C-35 could never lead to true justice and redress for victims. It should not be surprising that a terrorist state that is prosecuted would be very unlikely to pay. Furthermore, any goods it might have in Canada—not everyone has an embassy here or goods of any significant monetary value—would not even cover the costs awarded by the court.
As for suing terrorists themselves, I ask the government whether it really believes it is possible and realistic to sue a bin Laden or any other such terrorist, in the hope of obtaining redress and compensation. The answer is self-evident.
Will such a measure really have a deterrent effect on terrorists? It will now be possible in Canada to sue terrorists and the governments that support them, but I am not sure that this will prevent them from committing acts of terrorism.
The government will establish the list of countries that can be sued by victims. Victims of a country on the list will be able to obtain compensation under this bill, while victims of a country not on the list will not. As I said, I believe that this will be academic. The bill will create a double standard, because victims of countries that are not on the government's list will have no remedy. The government has created an injustice by making this distinction.
Moreover, the very idea of a list is questionable. Where do we draw the line? That is a question that the committee will have to consider.
And why limit lawsuits to terrorism? Not that terrorism is not truly reprehensible—of course it is—but we should also think about all those countries where there are war crimes and crimes against humanity. I am thinking of torture and genocide. Earlier, during questions and comments, an NDP member asked questions about countries where torture is practised.
Not long ago, a free trade agreement with Colombia was discussed here in the House. We know that torture is practised in that country and that journalists and opponents of the regime are kidnapped, tortured and assassinated. Not only should we not sign a free trade agreement with this sort of country, but we should add it to the list. We could make it possible for victims of these countries to sue them.
To add to the Bloc Québécois' reservations about this bill, it is possible that it may interfere, yet again, in Quebec's jurisdiction on civil law. Civil law is within the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. Through this bill, the government is casting a very wide net and could interfere in our jurisdictions. Obviously, we will pay particular attention to that aspect in committee.
I do not know whether this has come up since we started discussing Bill C-35, but, according to my research, the only similar measure exists in the United States. It is an example of foreign legislation that is quite similar to the policy the government wants to implement.
The only country that has legislation related to Bill C-35, is the United States. They adopted their antiterrorism and effective death penalty act of 1996 and amended their foreign states immunities act in order to provide an exception like the one proposed in Bill C-35.
Has the effectiveness of the U.S. legislation been measured before implementing exactly the same type of legislation here in Canada? I doubt it, otherwise a different bill would have been introduced. I still have a few minutes to explain the type of problems the U.S. is experiencing with this legislation. The U.S. experience is not at all conclusive. In the United States, the legislation has been in place for more than a decade. Only listed countries can be sued, as would be the case here, with currently listed countries being Cuba, Iran, Syria, Sudan and North Korea. Iraq and Libya were originally listed but have since been delisted.
A common problem identified by the Congressional Research Service, or CRS, has been the refusal of defendants to recognize the jurisdiction of the American courts. As I mentioned earlier, we can very well sue an offending country, but that country will say that it does not recognize the courts under which it was sentenced; it will refuse to pay and, obviously, to compensate the victims. So we end up caught in a process where, no matter what we do, the defendents will always be able to refuse to accept the sentence they receive. Defendants do not even appear, and default judgments are rendered, which the debtor countries then ignore and refuse to pay damages and interest.
Now, let us look at what happens when it comes to recovering damages and interest, if a country is successfully convicted. As I said, if the country does not appear and refuses to pay, we have ways to try to recover what is owed to the victims. This also causes a major problem given the limited assets of listed countries being held in the United States and the executive branch’s resistance to allowing frozen assets to be used for this purpose. As Congress attempted to create avenues for recovery, the executive—the politicians—would resist such efforts over concerns about retaliatory measures, losing leverage over the countries concerned, and potentially violating international law on state immunity.
For example, the 1981 Algiers Accord that resulted in the release of American embassy staff who were held hostage by Iran—Canada played a very important role in this crisis— barred the hostages from initiating civil suits. However, Congress sought to provide a right of action to those hostages through various proposed laws, which the executive resisted, because of the international implications if such an accord were to be violated.
Changing circumstances in Iraq also created a difficult situation for the Bush administration. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was a listed state that could be sued. A number of such suits were successful and the plaintiffs sought recovery by seizing certain Iraqi assets. However, after the invasion of Iraq, according to the CRS, the American government no longer had an interest in allowing such assets to be taken, as they wanted them to be used for the benefit of the Iraqi people in rebuilding the country. In fact, we invade a country saying that we have come to save it, to help, and to get rid of the dictator. But at the same time, we say that court orders have been issued against it and that we will take what we can and give it to the victims. The situation there was already very explosive. The Iraqi people would probably have been even more outraged by the American intervention.
Despite the legislation, the American government decided to take a step back and not seize these assets and send them to the United States. The United States decided to retroactively delist Iraq. Many plaintiffs were unable to recover the money granted them in judgments.
With limited seizable assets in Canada, victims will find themselves competing for the few, if any, assets available for recovery.
If there are multiple victims, which is often the case in terrorist attacks, the few assets belonging to the state that helped the terrorist group carry out the attack will have to be seized to recover a minimal amount of money from the forced liquidation of the assets by the courts.
Moreover, the Americans' concerns about retaliation, as described earlier, seem well founded. Cuba and Iran, for example, took similar action in response to American measures. There has been retaliation.
I would now like to discuss the inclusion of terrorism and the exclusion of torture and other crimes. One of the most common criticisms of the bill is that it includes terrorism offences but ignores torture. Lawyers and commentators, such as the Canadian Centre for International Justice, find that there is no justification or rational basis to allow suits for one but not the other.
Why would torture carried out directly by a state and recognized internationally as an action not covered by state immunity not be covered, while terrorism, typically carried out by small cells that are impossible to catch, is? How are we supposed to take bin Laden to court and get a ruling against him for compensation when we still do not know where he is? How can anyone think that this kind of bill can resolve that situation when it does not even address torture and other abuses, such as genocide?
The United States’ legislation lifts immunity for an act of torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage, hostage taking, or the provision of material support or resources, thus including both terrorist acts and torture. Some countries in Europe are also lifting immunity for torture, such as Italy, which has permitted suits against Germany for its actions during World War II. Private members’ bills addressing torture, but not terrorism, are currently before the House of Lords and the House of Commons in the United Kingdom.
I would like to talk about diplomatic relations. We will also encounter problems in that regard, which must be discussed with important witnesses in committee. Various diplomatic challenges may be created by this bill, according to commentators. One newspaper article described the proposed legislation as a “diplomatic minefield”. Listing countries may be problematic for Canada’s foreign relations. Similarly, the proposed role of the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Foreign Affairs—the two ministers who could add countries to the list of those that can be sued—in enforcing judgments through such actions as identifying and locating assets for seizure, may negatively affect diplomatic efforts. For example, Afghanistan and Pakistan are commonly seen as “incubators” of terrorism, but their listing could be problematic from a diplomatic perspective as the Canadian government seeks to support the governments of those countries. Others question whether courts are equipped to deal with the foreign policy and international relations, considerations that will inevitably be attached to such cases.
I also found articles in Quebec newspapers, for example, in Le Devoir and Le Soleil, which refer to this bill's grand illusion. It is a fine illusion. Jean-Marc Salvet, the editorial writer for Le Soleil, wrote that the bill will have almost no effect, for what could it possibly offer? Clearly, he says, the threat of a future claim for damages is not going to stop a terrorist from committing a crime. So no one should look for any kind of advantage from that perspective. There are other examples like this one.
I invite the members of this House to refer the bill to committee so we may discuss it further.