Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-44, an act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other acts. It is always a pleasure to stand in the House and represent the voices from the riding of Newton—North Delta.
I want to get something on the table right at the beginning. There is no one on this side of the House who supports terrorists or any acts of terrorism. Before my friends across the way start to have conversations and yell things, I wanted to make that clear. All of my life I have worked for peace. I am a mother. I am a grandmother. I have been a teacher for most of my life, and I can say that I abhor acts of violence.
Occasionally members are accused of liking terrorists, but those kinds of things do not help us when we debate in the House.
I want to talk about the substance of this bill today. First, I supported this bill at second reading. Why? It was because New Democrats, like everyone else in the House, want measures that will enhance public safety. It is because of this that we supported this bill at second reading, and it went to committee. Once it got to committee, the government repeated the same mistakes it makes over and over again. It limited hearings.
When there is such critical legislation that has not been debated or had any changes for decades, some major changes need to be made. The committee needed to hear from witnesses. As much as we all like to think we are experts on everything, there are great experts out there we need to hear from who know far more about public safety than we do. They know what works. They have evidence of what works in other jurisdictions and of what would be good in Canada. Our job is to listen to it.
Two hours to hear from officials from the department was fair enough, but two hours for all other witnesses was just unacceptable. I can assure the House that when trying to address public safety in a serious way, the government once again used the hammer of its majority to push through legislation without giving it the due process and oversight it needed. I do not hesitate in opposing this legislation any more because of what happened at committee.