Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to debate the motion moved by the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.
We are all here to debate an issue of utmost importance: national security.
One thing is absolutely clear: leaving Canada to join a terrorist organization overseas is utterly reprehensible. Our goal is to arrest these people, charge them, and bring them to justice so that they may ultimately be convicted of their crimes.
Members of Daesh and other terrorist organizations must face severe consequences for their reprehensible actions. Anyone who commits atrocities and returns to Canada must face the consequences of their actions and be prosecuted under Canadian law. One thing is for sure: we will keep Canadians safe by not repeating past mistakes, like those of the Harper Conservatives, who are still using rhetoric to scare Canadians rather than taking concrete measures to fight terrorism.
I would also like to clarify one fact. As the government has stated, we are aware that Canadian citizens are being held in Syria.
However, it is important to note that reports describing an agreement to bring these Canadians back to Canada are completely false. I am pleased to have the opportunity to offer an explanation to the House and reiterate that no such agreement was ever negotiated or ever even existed. It is equally certain that Canadian officials absolutely did not make any promise to bring these individuals back to Canada. It is completely false and inappropriate to suggest otherwise.
It is also important to note that the Canadian embassy in Syria has been closed since 2012 and that Canada has no diplomatic presence in that country. It is impossible for us to provide such services on the ground. We must also take into account the fact that Syria is a very dangerous and volatile environment. Multiple military operations led by states and other organizations are currently under way in several parts of the country. That makes the situation on the ground very dangerous and the level of risk extremely high.
We would never take any measures that could put the lives of our personnel in danger. That is precisely why Canadian officials do not travel to Syria.
Our priority is always to protect and ensure the safety of our Canadian officials abroad. As the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness has said over and over, the dangers and risks associated with sending Canadian officials into the field would be completely unacceptable.
Given that Canada has absolutely no diplomatic presence in Syria, and considering the extremely difficult situation on the ground, the Canadian government has no direct access to the individuals being held in Syria. This means that our ability to provide consular services to Canadians in Syria is extremely limited.
However, when individuals being held in that area choose to reach out to Canadian consular officials, they have a duty to respond to them. It is important to note that it is in the interest of our national security to gather as much information as possible concerning the identity and location of those individuals.
I hope my colleague will share our view and agree that our priority should be to protect Canada. I also hope he will agree that locating these Canadians who decided to travel abroad to join a terrorist organization is vital to our national security.
However, it is clear that if these Canadians return to Canada, they will have to face the consequences of their completely irresponsible actions. That is why Canada's law enforcement actively pursues investigations and lays criminal charges when the evidence is there.
When there is not enough evidence to lay charges, the Government of Canada has other counterterrorism tools it can use to respond to threats. They include investigations, surveillance and monitoring, intelligence gathering and lawful information sharing, peace bonds, the no-fly list, revocation of passports, and legally authorized threat reduction measures.
I would also like to remind the House that the best way to protect communities is to address the situation from both sides and to be proactive. That means we need to ensure that our law enforcement agencies use all the enforcement measures at their disposal while supporting prevention and deradicalization programs.
That is why our government established the new Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence in order to support local initiatives that fight extremism in any form, crack down on terrorist propaganda and online recruitment efforts, intervene early to keep young Canadians from going down the path of extremism, and help families and communities affected by radicalization. The centre also supports research in order to develop an evidence base about what approaches work best to combat radicalization in the Canadian context.
The centre also facilitates the sharing of best practices and supports research to develop an evidence base about what works best to combat radicalization in the Canadian context. According to Dr. Lorne Dawson, an expert at the University of Waterloo, all the G20 nations are convinced of the need to move into prevention programming because, in the long term, it is our best bet. We cannot arrest our way out of this problem. It is too big and pervasive around the world.
Unfortunately, Canada has a lot of catching up to do because, according to Dr. Dawson, the previous Conservative government had little or no interest in following up on this. During its final term, the Harper government cut over $1 billion from Canada's security services. That includes $530 million from the RCMP, $390 million from the Canada Border Services Agency, $69 million from CSIS, $42 million from the Communications Security Establishment and $171 million from the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.
I would also like to reiterate that when these people come back to Canada, we do take serious measures, and our actions prove it. Since we took office, criminal charges have been laid against four terrorists who came back to Canada. Two have been convicted, and the cases of the other two are still before the courts. Our police officers and prosecutors are actively seeking evidence to support further prosecutions.
Some people who return from engagements with terrorist groups may be the wives and children of Daesh fighters. In those cases, as in every case, Canada's security agencies will examine the threat, take the measures they deem appropriate from a security perspective and lay charges if there is evidence to support them.
In closing, I would like to remind members that the Government of Canada condemns the horrific and cowardly acts of Daesh and takes the threats posed by travelling extremists and individuals returning to Canada very seriously.
Our top priority is the safety of Canadians, and that is exactly what our government is working on tirelessly.