Mr. Speaker, I rise, as I think everybody else has so far, to support this bill. The bill, and I have said this to my caucus, in its technical basis may not be necessary. In fact, one could argue strongly is it not necessary. However, that is not the reason we would support it. We support it because of the message it would send. I think that is clear from, again, some of the speeches I have heard from all parties, that we understand this.
In that regard, to be a bit technical, this is an amendment to a section of the Criminal Code that is part of the anti-terrorism sections in the code. There is a specific provision now in the code that speaks of violent acts as being a terrorist activity, depending on what the intent is of the conduct. We are amending that to say suicide bombing would be a specific example of this type of violence. Again, as a lawyer, it is probably not necessary to do this.
However, in terms of the role we also play in this legislature, and in any democratically-elected legislature, we also have to provide leadership and examples to the country. Part of that leadership and the examples we provide are on those occasions when we need to speak a strong voice of denunciation, and we must do that. This is one of those times it is necessary to do that.
One could argue that there are all sorts of other times where we may do it and not have any particular impact and so we probably should not. However, in this case the message we would send to our citizenry and to rest of the world is this is a particularly abhorrent type of murder, one that has become, unfortunately, for the peace and safety of the world, all too common.
In preparation for this, I did some background reading. One could argue that this type of murder, this type of violent, abhorrent criminal activity, is a fairly new concept, and there is a great deal of truth to that. I think most observers internationally recognize that the first modern suicide bomber came out of the conflict in Sri Lanka, in the late 1960s through to the mid-1970s, and was used very often, again, unfortunately for the peace and safety of the citizenry of that country.
Unfortunately, it also provided a message to other terrorist groups and groups bent on the use of violence to achieve their ends, a methodology that could be used, and it has spread to any number of countries in the world. Our response to that must be this act of denunciation on our part, to simply say this is not acceptable.
Again, there are strong arguments that we can go back and look at the use of people committing a criminal act, killing other people and, at the same time, taking their own lives. It existed long before the incidents in Sri Lanka made this so prominent a tool for those who had a significant absence of sanity in their conduct.
It is impossible to imagine anyone encouraging other people to strap explosives to their bodies, conceal them on their bodies, move into a highly travelled area where there are a number of other human beings and set off those explosives, taking their own lives and those of any number of innocent bystanders. It is the act of someone who is insane.
I do not have any doubt in my mind that by supporting and passing the bill, it will change the minds of those people who are that lacking in mental health. However, there is a broader audience to which we need to speak, the audience of those individuals who would consider doing this and allow themselves to be talked into it. They need to hear that democratic societies do not function on the basis of force and violence. We need to repudiate that at every opportunity.
Since we are being given that in this case, it is appropriate and very important that the House as a whole, when this comes up for a vote, which I believe will be tomorrow evening, give this unanimous support. I know it simply means it will go to committee and we will study it more there. I cannot imagine there will be any amendments. It will then come back here and, again, it is extremely important that it receives unanimous support for the purposes of expressing denunciation and sending this very clear message. If one is going to consider using violence to achieve one's ends, whether they be political, religious or any number of other ideological goals, a particular violence that is as abhorrent as this is, we are going to denounce that as the representatives of our country, both to our citizenry and to the rest of the world.