Madam Speaker, I was actually prepared to give a moment of my time to my colleague from the Liberal Party given the amount of work he has done on this issue over the years, but he managed to usurp that time in any event. I really should not be making a joke as this is a very serious piece of legislation.
As I said earlier when I first saw this private member's bill, because we have seen it on a number of different occasions, I had some serious reservations from the perspective of whether this in fact would accomplish anything. In that sense, it seemed to me that the existing provisions within the Criminal Code, including the provisions under the Anti-terrorism Act which are part of the code now, would cover the eventuality of someone conducting himself or herself in such a way that it would amount to a suicide bombing. I suppose that was the lawyer in me coming out.
The real reason for passing this bill, and I believe my colleagues in the NDP are overwhelmingly, if not unanimously, in support of it at this point, should not be approached so much on a legalistic basis insomuch as it is the power of the House to express its denunciation of the conduct that is entailed when someone contemplates or commits an act of suicide bombing.
We have heard from other speakers this evening and on other occasions of the prevalence of this tool. As far as I am aware, it has never been used in Canada but has been used quite widely in a number of countries around the world. Because of my contact with Sri Lanka, I think immediately of the use of it there repeatedly. In fact, there is a strong argument that it may have been the first time it was used certainly on a consistent basis by a rebel force in that country and used repeatedly to great sacrifice to that society with very many deaths and real tragedies. Of course we have seen its use in the Middle East on a number of different occasions. We have also seen it in parts of Asia. We have seen it used repeatedly now in Europe.
I am speaking now as a parent. Many suicide bombers are young people convinced oftentimes by other family members or organizations they become involved with that are led by people who are much older, much more mature, and I use that term advisedly, but certainly in age they are older than the suicide bombers. Because they are convinced of the validity of the ideology, sometimes religious based, they are convinced that they have an obligation to perform suicide attacks.
I say as a parent, it really is beyond my comprehension how adults, no matter how fanatical they are about the issue and the goal they are pursuing, can bring themselves to convince a young person, a teenager in some cases but oftentimes people in their early twenties, to take this conduct to the extreme of committing suicide and killing oftentimes many other people. It seems to me no matter what organization we belong to or goals we are pursuing, that we could never justify taking that route. Counselling a young person to perform that type of act is as reprehensible as one can imagine.
I speak both personally and on behalf of our caucus in saying that we support this legislation. This Parliament has a responsibility to express our outrage, and as I said earlier, our denunciation, of this conduct. This is our opportunity to perform that responsibility.
In terms of speaking to the rest of the country, we have to be clear that this provision by itself would not prevent suicide bombings. We have to be very clear on that. In my mind this piece of legislation has no deterrent value.
We can use this piece of legislation as a way for all of us to speak out against violence in general and this type of violence in particular. We can use it as a tool, an educational tool, a political tool, to say not only to the residents of Canada but to the rest of the world that this type of conduct is totally unacceptable, that we absolutely reject this type of conduct. This is a crime that calls for a determination of first degree murder. This conduct is as reprehensible as any conduct one could perform in our criminal justice system.
I have to say again, and I am saying this mostly to the rest of the world, that some people may have contemplated using this technique in Canada but it has never happened. I am speaking to the rest of the world, and those parts of the world in particular where this type of conduct is prevalent, that Canadians generally live in a peaceful way.
People in Canada come from all over the world. They have all sorts of faith backgrounds, ethnocultural backgrounds, ideological and philosophical backgrounds. In Canada, with very few exceptions, we have been able to live together in harmony and peace and with minimal violence. By passing this bill we would be saying to the rest of the world that it is possible to bring that kind of mix together, that broad multiculturalism that is Canada now. We would be saying to the rest of the world that it is possible to live in peace and harmony. We would be a model for the rest of the world. One way to do that is to pass this bill.
I am quite supportive of this legislation. I hope that the rest of Parliament will unanimously support it, get it through to royal assent, and get it on the books. We could then speak to the international community with one solid voice. We could unanimously say that this is where the House of Commons and Canada is coming from, that this is how we addressed this problem. We would be telling the rest of the world that we are the model to follow.