Madam Speaker, I caught the end of the brilliant speech given by my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean.
Like him, I support the principle of the bill before us, which was introduced by the member for Thornhill. We want to see it pass in principle, because I think it is well intentioned.
This bill seeks to fix a number of the problems noted in the past in hostage-taking situations. In principle, we welcome the initiative of our colleague from Thornhill. However, when we look at the various provisions of the bill, as my colleague mentioned a moment ago, we see that there are problems with enforcement. In the end, this could turn out to be a bad idea masquerading as a good one.
What matters to us is that the bill pass in principle so that it can be referred to committee and we can make the necessary amendments to try to improve it.
What is the problem? The problem is that we are biting off more than we can chew, as the saying goes. This bill seeks to resolve all sorts of problems by using the same blanket approach. However, not every situation is the same, similar or comparable, so we need different ways of resolving them. In that sense, I think that we need to avoid taking a one-size-fits-all approach. We need to avoid saying that we have a miracle solution that will apply in all cases. Unfortunately, that is what we have with this bill: a formula or framework that would have us solve the problem by applying the same process to every situation.
I am going to give a few examples to show that not all cases are the same, and that is why we need to be able to apply different measures to different cases.
I am personally associated with the case of the imprisonment of a dual British and Canadian national, William Sampson, now deceased. Some years ago, he was falsely accused by Saudi Arabia of committing an attack, along with British nationals and a Belgian national. Although he was innocent of the crime, he confessed under torture. This began a legal saga that included mistreatment, among other things. The problem in this particular case was the need to avoid attracting public attention as much as possible. In Saudi Arabia, it is imperative to avoid causing the royal family to lose face. If the royal family decided to be magnanimous toward a westerner who, in the public's mind, was guilty of wrongdoing, the gesture could obviously backfire on the royal family. As we know, the Saudi Arabian regime hinges on a delicate balance between Wahhabi Islamists and the royal family.
This is the kind of specific situation that we need to be able to take into account. We cannot say that we are going to apply same formula everywhere.
Another high-profile case in recent years involved the arbitrary imprisonment of two Canadian citizens. They were known as the two Michaels, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig. Their case was different in that moving it forward required talking it about it as much as possible. At least that is what the members of the two families told us.
In the case of William Sampson, family members were telling us not to talk about it and to keep it as quiet as possible so that the secret negotiations could continue.
There have been different cases of hostage-taking by terrorist groups. There was former ambassador Fowler, who was held hostage for some time. According to public reports, a ransom was paid and he was released.
There is the more recent case of Édith Blais, who, along with her Italian spouse, was taken hostage. Again, there were negotiations involving the Italian government. It appears that, in that case, there may have been a desire to pay the ransom, but in the end the two were able to escape. She has recounted the whole saga in a book.
The circumstances of each of those four cases were very different, and the government cannot necessarily apply the same formula across the board. The government must have some latitude. The odd thing about this bill is that it gives the government a lot of latitude in some cases, maybe too much latitude. Perhaps the judiciary should be more involved. In other cases, the government is not really given any latitude.
For example, there is the idea that we should be open to paying a ransom. There is something extremely dangerous about that idea, because it would be like telling all the terrorist groups in the world that Canadians have a price. What is the price of a Canadian abroad? To what extent will the government be prepared to pay that price to get a hostage released? That said, we must also not get locked into a position where we say that we will never pay a ransom, because otherwise we will find ourselves in a situation where the lives of our fellow Canadians may be in danger.
We therefore need to give the government some latitude. I think that there are a lot of good intentions in this bill, but it seems that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and, as our colleagues say, the devil is in the details. When we look at the details of this bill, we see that there are problems. However, we do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We want an opportunity to study the bill and improve it so that we can do better than we are doing now.
Our colleague from Thornhill put his finger on a problem. It is a fact that Canada's approach to hostage-taking and arbitrary imprisonment is not always the best or most effective, so we should be able to do better. However, I am not sure that the legislation that we have before us will necessarily enable us to respond appropriately to every situation.
Like my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean, I want to tell members of the House that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of the principle of this bill, so that we can examine it in committee and perhaps make amendments that could lead us to pass it at all the remaining stages.
If the required changes are not made, the Bloc Québécois cannot rule out withdrawing its support for this bill. That would be unfortunate because, as my colleague pointed out, it is, objectively speaking, a positive bill that seeks to improve things. It aims to enable us to intervene more effectively to preserve the life, security and health of Canadians and Quebeckers who might be held hostage by terrorist groups or by foreign governments.
That is what opens the door to the debate that I hope will allow us to improve this bill.
