Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a privilege to invite all members of the House to support Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act, 2015.
The safety and security of Canada, and Canadians, is being threatened. The international jihadi movement has declared war on Canada. ISIL has named Canada as a target. We have seen its supporters urge their comrades to kill Canadians by any means and at every opportunity. Al Shabaab is urging its followers to attack targets right here in our country. We know these are not idle threats. We have seen the horrific and deadly attacks on innocent people in Paris and Sydney, and elsewhere in the world, including the cold-blooded murders in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and at our National War Memorial.
It is unfortunate and difficult to accept, but we see a concerning number of Canadians travelling to other countries to join and fight alongside terrorists from Syria to Somalia. Even more worrisome, we know that some of these radicalized Canadians have returned to this country, burning with hatred, and often with military training and combat experience.
Their values may seem medieval, and talk about an earlier time in history, but they show no reluctance to embrace technology to communicate, to terrorize, to recruit and raise funds. The threat is more complex, more insidious and more dangerous than could have been anticipated even a few years ago.
We must ensure that our security and intelligence organizations have the tools to meet this threat. To do otherwise would be to abandon our most fundamental responsibility to Canadians. That is why we must move swiftly to pass this bill. It is essential to assuring the safety and security of Canadians.
As we have heard, the anti-terrorism act, 2015 has a number of elements. I hope to get through the first one, and then re-engage on this when we return.
First, it would create the security of Canada information sharing act. Departments and agencies of the Government of Canada collect information of various kinds on a daily basis. In some instances, this information may be of considerable value to the institutions charged with identifying and responding to threats to the security of this country or its allies. Yet we have no tangible, focused or reliable way to ensure that kind of information gets to the agencies in a timely way.
I am certain many Canadians would be surprised to learn, for example, that when citizenship and immigration receives a passport application that raises security flags, it is prohibited by law from sharing that information with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
I will leave it that and return to the discussion when the time is allocated to do so.