Madam Speaker, it is always nice to rise and share some thoughts and some opinions on things that come before the House. I must say right up front that I am disappointed in the official opposition. Today, those members stand alone. I do not see the unholy alliance with them on this. Even the Green Party is offside with the motion. They stand alone, and there is a good reason for that. One of my colleagues called the current leader “Stephen Harper 2.0”. There is a lot of truth to that simple statement. Members of the opposition seem to want to repeat their past, and it is really unfortunate because it talks to the negativism in politics today.
I do not believe for a moment that there is any member in the House of Commons today who in any way would support terrorism. I do not believe there is a member in the House who would not want to see whatever is possible to be done to condemn terrorist acts.
Members across the way have talked about the horrific acts that take place in some of these countries where terrorism is occurring far too often, horrific actions such as women being raped, gays being thrown off buildings, people being burned alive, and decapitation. These are all horrific acts, and no Canadian would recognize them to be anything other than horrific acts.
Canadians want members of this chamber to speak out against them. If each and every one of us stood in our place and provided comment on those acts, maybe with some variation, I believe I have in essence captured what each and every member would say, at least in part. It needs to be reinforced that there is not one member in the House who is more taken aback by those horrific actions and is therefore a fighter against terrorism.
Members on both sides of the House recognize the horror of terrorism and want as much as possible to marginalize it, to minimize the types of acts that are taking place around the world today, more concentrated in some areas. It is sad to see. The Government of Canada has taken many different initiatives not only outside our borders but also inside our borders.
I want to pick up on some of the things I have been hearing over the last week or two in regard to some of the spin that the Conservative Party is trying to put on this. The Conservatives are trying as hard as they can to give the impression that there is not only a serious problem with terrorism, which we all recognize, but that the threat is increasing to more today in Canada than previously.
The recent question I asked my colleague was meant to be a sincere question in the hope that the member opposite would be able to provide an answer. It was not a difficult question. Listening to the rhetoric that is coming from the opposition benches, one would think that the Stephen Harper government and those Conservative members would have sent directly to jail anyone who came back to Canada from certain areas of the world. That is the impression one would get from some of the rhetoric we are hearing today.
That is the reason I posed the question of how many individuals were actually put in jail by Stephen Harper. People who might be following the debate or listening would be expecting to hear a number, I am sure, maybe even a guesstimate, anything to provide some legitimacy to the motion or to the rhetoric we are hearing from across the way. The member, who has the right to answer any question in any fashion he chooses, chose to ignore the question. I do not blame him, because my understanding is that it is pretty close to zero, if not zero, but we would not know that by the type of rhetoric we are hearing.
On many question period opportunities, the opposition members said we have 60 returning individuals who were radicalized, left Canada, and now are coming back, and asked why are they not going directly to jail. That is what the opposition members are trying to imply, that because the Government of Canada is not putting them in jail, Canadians are at great risk. I contrast that to what was taking place prior to this government. In 2015, it was around the same number, 60.
There are lawyers inside this House and maybe they can advise me a bit differently, but I genuinely believe that Canadians have rights. The Liberal Party is the party of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We are the party that actually brought it in through Pierre Elliott Trudeau. We understand the importance of rights and freedoms. Behind closed doors, at times, it seems that Conservatives also will recognize that, and that is likely the reason why the member opposite could not provide an answer greater than zero. The legislation that the Conservatives introduced said that, if people left Canada with the intention of coming back after committing a terrorist act, they would be prosecuted. Even with that, what were the results? What did the Stephen Harper government provide at the end of the day? It provided zero, nothing, and yet now we do not really see a great huge influx. It is right around 60 and the Conservatives are screaming from their seats that the sky is falling, and asking what is happening and why the government is not throwing them all in jail. That is what they are trying to imply and because the government is not saying that, they say—eureka—they have an issue here; they are going to say that the Government of Canada is soft on terrorism, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Whether it was through the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, or the parliamentary secretary, with whom I was quite impressed and would encourage members to read his earlier speech, or the answers that the minister provided for the opposition members, or in fact even the Prime Minister's address to the leader of the official opposition in regard to the issue, Canadians should know they have nothing to fear in regard to the issue, any more than they did two years ago. In fact, with the recent budget, I would suggest there is a greater likelihood that we are going to be able to do more with regard to preventing the radicalization of Canada's young people.
The Minister of Public Services and Procurement made it very clear, and I believe I have the numbers here. We talked about the agencies, and that would have been a great way to start the debate. We really need to express just how wonderful a job our Canadian security agencies actually do. It is phenomenal work.
It is not something that is nine to five. This is seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and not only working with agencies here in Canada. This is working with the Five Eyes countries, G7, Interpol, and so forth doing this tracking system. It is very thorough. The women and men who perform for us in keeping Canadians safe need to be recognized, and they should be applauded for the fine work they do day in and day out.
I have far more confidence in them and their ability than the spin the Conservatives are putting to try to give a false impression. The number I heard from the minister of public safety was over $1 billion in cuts. Think about it, between 2011 and 2015, as opposed to the Harper government supporting all those security agencies with the responsibility of keeping Canadians safe, it actually cut in excess of $1 billion in that time period.