Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. Again, all of us are so offended by senseless violence and the effect it has on our society. One of the most poisonous effects is that it creates an impression that the basic rule of law and basic rights need to be done away with.
We saw this in 2001 with the horrific time after 9/11, when rendition, torture, arrest without a warrant and detention without charge were considered to be what was needed for the 21st century. At that time in Canada, we had a young engineer who was just coming home from work, Maher Arar, and he was arrested and sent through rendition to torture in Syria. That happened under the former Liberal government. At the time, Mr. Arar was considered to be the price to be paid for democratic freedom. The man was being tortured and he was completely innocent. Now, we realize that his rights were completely abused.
At the same time, the Liberal government brought in two very controversial measures. One was the ability to detain someone without charge. The other was to force those individuals before a judge without their being able to protect themselves. The Liberals knew it was so contentious that they agreed to a sunset clause, because it was to be for a limited period of time. Now, we see that the government is bringing it back in the wake of the horrific killings in Boston and that the Liberal Party is supporting it. The Liberals told Canadians they would sunset it, but now we see them hiding on the coattails of the Conservatives, bringing back the same provisions that were proven unnecessary and a major affront to Canadians back in 2001 and 2002. They could still lead to further incidents. We have not seen this party understand the implications of what happened to Mr. Arar.
We need to ensure that innocent people are not caught up in what they are calling, under this bill, the need for the wide sweep.