Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Saint-Jean for sharing his time with me so that I am able to speak to this bill, which I will have the honour to study with my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, failing unforeseen circumstances. I truly appreciate this privilege because this bill is actually very important for a number of reasons.
I will begin by examining a practical aspect that directly affects us almost daily. We must not forget that we live in a world where nuclear and radioactive materials are very present.
Bill S-9 talks a lot about nuclear materials and civilian or military applications. These very specific applications are not under the direct control of mere individuals. The bill also covers radioactive substances that have civilian applications in our day-to-day life, such as medical applications or other civilian applications, where radioactive materials are used in measuring devices. Members will recall that some models of smoke detectors once used substances that emitted radiation, which was banned for obvious safety reasons.
This type of substance is much more common than people think. As a result, it is very important to go beyond the existing provisions of the Criminal Code that already impose sanctions for the improper or criminal use of this type of substance and extend them to cover terrorist activities. These activities go well beyond the simple desire to harm an individual or group of people. They are used to pressure and terrorize in order to force a country or group of people to basically change their behaviour and be subject to a regime that is completely unacceptable for a democratic state.
In addition to this first clarification, another concept that the NDP supports and wants to implement if and when we take office is respect for and the implementation of key international agreements governing various activities. I even asked a question in this regard. Long gone are the days when Canada demonstrated leadership, when Canada successfully adopted and implemented a treaty to prohibit landmines.
The example of the landmines treaty is important in that, even if a convention of this type is adopted, it can still be limited in terms of what it can accomplish by the non-compliance of some states in the world that prefer to avoid restricting their potential for action.
And so, beyond the perfectly valid amendments to the Criminal Code, we must ask the government this question and hope that it goes much further and truly demonstrates an ability to act to convince—if not compel—the community of nations to ratify the nuclear terrorism treaty so that it has the force of law not only within each of the different countries, but so that the countries co-operate to prevent things from getting out of control and to prevent the occurrence of any terrorist activity that we are seeking to prohibit through amendments to the Criminal Code.
I repeat that I am very honoured to be able to debate this bill today and to discuss the amendments proposed in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. We must ask ourselves a number of questions on the proposed amendments and their scope. When the bill was introduced in the Senate, a serious flaw was pointed out related to the creation of a device using nuclear and radioactive materials, which can be harmful to people. This omission is very serious. Nuclear terrorism experts are concerned that a traditional nuclear bomb could be built, even if it is quite beyond the scope of terrorist organizations. They especially worry that an explosive device or radiological dispersion device could be built, as it is much simpler to build and would be harmful to a number of people.
I am very pleased that this is now included in Bill S-9. It is good to widen the scope, but my colleague from Toronto—Danforth wondered about the multiplier effect of the crimes targeted by this bill. We will have to look into the individual effect and the scope of these actions, and whether the amendments made to the Criminal Code are in line with the constraints imposed by our society to preclude the arbitrary power of the state.
In the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, I had to examine some bills that were not charter-proof, in whole or in part. That is very disappointing; aside from the waste of time they represent, it is a serious problem for all Canadians. They could be unwitting victims of harsher laws, which do not fully achieve the desired objective and could potentially invalidate certain sections. There could be some very unfortunate consequences.
During our review in committee, my colleagues and I will ensure that the proposed changes are not invalidated by the Criminal Code because they are too broad in scope, or because they do not provide enough safeguards regarding the charter, which would result in Canada no longer being able to fully implement the requirements of the international treaties to which it is a signatory.
One issue raised in the Senate is the case of a protest taking place at the electrical generating facilities of a nuclear plant. It could be a protest organized by environmentalists to prevent employees from entering the facilities to keep the plant operating at full capacity. Under the proposed sections, could these people be charged with carrying out a terrorist activity? We are talking about a peaceful protest whose objective may be highly questionable, but still legitimate from a freedom of expression and a freedom of mobility point of view.
So, I am going to review the bill with 11 of my colleagues to ensure that we do not find ourselves in the totally unacceptable situation of the law being invalidated because it goes too far.
There is a major concern. The changes to the Criminal Code are perfectly legitimate and they are an important first step. However, once we review them, we will have to ensure that all the preventive and concrete measures taken by Canada in the future, because of its place on the international stage, will restrict the proliferation of nuclear weapons, which is another issue dealt with in these treaties.