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Results: 1 - 15 of 247
View Peter Kent Profile
CPC (ON)
View Peter Kent Profile
2015-03-31 11:10 [p.12580]
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to this important issue and to stand in opposition to the motion before us. Let us be very clear. Jihadi terrorists have declared war on us. They have specifically targeted Canada. They have urged supporters to attack what they call disbelieving Canadians in any manner, and they have vowed that we should not feel secure, even in our homes.
As the government, we know that our ultimate responsibility is to protect Canadians from those who would do harm to us and do harm to our families. That is why Canada is not sitting on the sidelines, as the Liberals and the NDP would have us do, and is instead a proud member of the international coalition fighting ISIL.
The first duty of any government is to protect the safety of its citizens. That is why we introduced the anti-terrorism act, 2015, to ensure that our national security agencies have the tools they need to protect Canadians against the evolving threat presented by jihadi terrorists.
The NDP member for Burnaby—New Westminster has raised concerns regarding oversight and review of our national security agencies. We believe that independent, non-partisan oversight of our national security agencies is a better model than political intervention in this process.
Further, the key powers of the new legislation are subject to judicial review and judicial authorization. This is the role of judges. There is no better authority to review these matters. Judges in Canada already approve or reject applications from police and national security authorities to conduct certain activities to keep Canadians safe. This has been a long-standing practice in Canada.
CSIS will only be able to undertake this activity if a judge from the Federal Court believes it is necessary to keep Canadians safe and specifically approves it. This provides sufficient oversight and robust review.
We must not lose sight of the fact that it is the jihadi terrorists who seek to take away our rights, and it is our national security agencies that are standing up to protect us. There has been much discussion about the legislation at the public safety committee. Many prominent Canadians have appeared to express their support for this legislation.
Louise Vincent, for example, the sister of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, who was the victim of a horrific terrorist attack last October, said: “If C-51 had been in place on October 19...Martin Couture-Rouleau would...have been in prison and my brother would not be dead” today.
Marc-André O'Rourke of the National Airlines Council of Canada said, “The NACC and our member airlines understand the need to update Canada's passenger protect program in light of the evolving nature of security threats, and we continue to support the program under” Bill C-51.
Professor Elliot Tepper of Carleton University said: “Bill C-51 is the most important national security legislation since the 9/11 era.” He continued:
[It] is designed for the post-9/11 era. It's a new legislation for a new era in terms of security threats. While it's understandable that various provisions of the legislation attract attention, we need to keep our focus on the fundamental purpose and the fundamental challenge of combatting emerging types of terrorism.
Barry Cooper, another witness, a research fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute said:
Bill C-51 is aimed at violent Islamic jihadi terrorists, and those are the persons against whom its provisions are to be enforced. The reasons are clear enough provided one makes reference to facts and events of the real world, today. [...] Unlike their critics, the authors of Bill C-51 are sensible enough to have recognized the danger.
Finally, another witness I will refer to, Professor Salim Mansur of the University of Western Ontario, said:
Bill C-51 is directed against Islamist jihadists and to prevent or pre-empt them from their stated goal to carry out terrorist threats against the West, including Canada....
...the measures proposed in Bill C-51 to deal with the nature of threats that Canada faces, I believe, are quite rightly and urgently needed to protect and keep secure the freedom of our citizens.
Therefore, it is clear that there is widespread support among Canadians to give tools to our national security agencies to combat the rapidly evolving threat of terrorism. That is why we will be opposing the motion introduced by the NDP.
As members know, on February 23, the House voted to refer the anti-terrorism act 2015 to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. This vote is an approval in principle of the legislation. There is a process in place for the committee to study the legislation, hearing from expert witnesses, of course. However, there is not an opportunity to expand or change the scope of the legislation.
Had the NDP members expressed a desire to do that, they could have moved a motion to refer the legislation to committee before second reading. They did not do so. Therefore, I think the motion before us is a purely procedural tactic to continue their opposition to a bill that will keep Canadians safe.
We reject the argument that, every time we talk about security, our freedoms are threatened. Canadians understand that their freedom and security go hand in hand. Canadians expect us to protect both, and there are safeguards in this legislation to do exactly that.
There have been many misconceptions surrounding this legislation, primarily put forward by members of the NDP. Some have alleged that the Conservative government is not correct in stating that the other allies allow their national security agencies to disrupt threats. Well, that is patently not true.
In the United States, the Central Intelligence Agency can, pursuant to the National Security Act, conduct domestic threat disruption with an executive order. In the United Kingdom, MI5 can, pursuant to section 1 of the Security Service Act, conduct any activity to protect national security. The Norwegian Police Security Service has a mandate to prevent and investigate any crime against the state, including terrorism. The Finnish Security Intelligence Service is mandated to prevent crimes that may endanger the government or political system and internal or external security, pursuant to section 10 of the act on police administration.
We must ensure that CSIS has the same tools to keep Canadians safe. Some have said that this will transform CSIS into a secret police force with no accountability, while also violating our basic freedoms and Charter rights. Everything about this statement is wrong.
Bill C-51 would give no law enforcement powers to CSIS. CSIS cannot arrest any individual. It cannot charge any individual. What is proposed in Bill C-51 is efforts to stop terrorist attacks while they are still in the planning stages.
The NDP has said many times that choosing between liberty and security is a false choice, and we could not agree more. However, at every turn, the NDP chooses to vote against measures that increase our security.
As we have said many times, without security there can be no liberty. That is why we will vote against this motion and continue the good work of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to pass this important legislation.
I now move, seconded by the member for Selkirk—Interlake:
That the debate be now adjourned.
View Peter Van Loan Profile
CPC (ON)
View Peter Van Loan Profile
2015-03-30 15:21 [p.12534]
Mr. Speaker, with respect to the consideration of Government Business No. 17, I move:
That debate be not further adjourned.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
View Peter Julian Profile
2015-03-30 15:22 [p.12534]
Mr. Speaker, it is a sad day in the House. This is the 92nd time the government has imposed time allocation or closure on important legislation. In comparison, the previous government in Canadian history did it less than a third as often as this government has. It has almost 100 times imposed time allocation and closure.
This comes after one day of debate on this important issue. As the leader of the official opposition said last week, there is no more serious question than to decide to send our women and men in uniform into a situation where they could well be giving their lives. Yet the government, after one day, is saying, “Enough debate, we just want to ram this thing through”.
There is a reason for this. It is quite simple. With Bill C-51, the more debate there has been, even at the committee level, the less Canadians have liked Bill C-51. We have seen a majority of Canadians now go to a majority of Canadians opposed to Bill C-51.
There is no doubt, on this particular motion, that as the debate has been furthered, Canadians have become clearer about what the government has tried to pull over the Canadian public, the whoppers that have been told, and the fact that our humanitarian aid is scant compared to the nearly $1 billion the government wants to put into bombs.
Is that not really why this is happening today? The government does not want the debate, because it is afraid of the facts this debate will expose.
View Jason Kenney Profile
CPC (AB)
View Jason Kenney Profile
2015-03-30 15:23 [p.12535]
In point of fact, Mr. Speaker, since the member has referenced public opinion, I would note that in several public domain, empirical public opinion surveys, some two-thirds of Canadians expressed accord for an extension of our mission against the genocidal terrorist organization, the so-called Islamic State. In the most recent Ipsos-Reid survey, some 56% of people who intend to vote for the New Democratic Party, so the vast majority of supporters of his own party, disagree with his ideological and rigid position on this.
I would note that contrary to what the member suggested, this is not legislation. This is a motion the government has tabled to seek a sense of the House. That is done, frankly, ex gratia. There is no constitutional or statutory requirement for the government to table a motion of this nature. In fact, this is a relatively new practice in this place.
I would point out that the previous government committed thousands of Canadian ground troops to a very difficult battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan without even seeking a sense of this place. However, there have already been in the debate on this discretionary motion 21 speakers for the NDP and altogether well over 50 speakers, and it will be 15 hours of debate. That compares to the seven hours of debate that occurred on a similar motion at the Westminster Parliament a few months ago. This is in addition to the dozens of hours of debate and speeches that occurred, on essentially the same mission, last October.
This is an extraordinary new precedent this government is setting to consult this place. However, the consultation, of course, has to have some parameters. It is not an invitation for the House leader for the NDP to stall the government legislative mandate, which of course we have an obligation to implement, further to the last election.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2015-03-30 15:26 [p.12535]
Mr. Speaker, I have had numerous opportunities to talk about the issue of time allocation. I will put that on the back burner for now and focus on the issue at hand. More and more, whether it is the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's Office, the Minister of National Defence, or the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the government has been sending very confusing messages to Canadians on this issue of Canada's role.
There has been a lack of transparency and openness. To use an example, one could talk about the issue of combat roles. There is a conflict between what the Prime Minister said at one time and what is actually happening today.
Maybe I will ask the Minister of National Defence if he could provide some clarification. The other day he talked about precision guided missiles and said that only Canada and the U.S. actually have that capability, only to find out later from a general that it is not the case. It took a general to come out and defend the minister and the comments he was espousing all over media outlets.
Can the minister explain what he was telling Canadians and why the general had to actually correct what the minister was telling Canadians?
View Jason Kenney Profile
CPC (AB)
View Jason Kenney Profile
2015-03-30 15:27 [p.12535]
Mr. Speaker, none of that is true. I would point out that there is probably a reason why the member for Winnipeg North does not want to discuss the matter before us, which is the motion to limit debate, because his party has already limited debate. His party has put up I believe two or three speakers. I think last week on Thursday the Liberals missed several of their designated speaking slots.
That is the party that committed Canadian ground troops to what turned out to be a decade-long and costly war in terms of treasure, talent and the sacrifice of our troops in Afghanistan without ever having come to this place. We have already had more debate just on the renewal of Operation Impact than we have had in 10 years in this place under the previous government on the operation against the Taliban.
With respect to precision-guided munitions, what I reported to the public last week was precisely verbatim of what I had been briefed by the military, which has been confirmed by the Chief of the Defence Staff, contrary to inaccurate media reports. The Chief of the Defence Staff said:
The weapons that will be employed [by the RCAF] will be amongst the most advanced precision-guided munitions in the world. The[y]...are equipped with laser and GPS guidance systems, giving Canada the ability to strike targets in all types of weather. Currently, only the United States uses these advanced precision-guided munitions in Syria.
Our highly trained pilots can use these advanced precision-guided munitions to strike targets either deliberately, or dynamically....This is a significant capability which, currently, only the US employs in Syria.
That is what I was briefed by the Chief of the Defence Staff.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2015-03-30 15:29 [p.12535]
Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised that I am let down, but I am not surprised that the government wants to limit debate when the Prime Minister stands in the House of Commons and makes jokes about whether Canada is in breach of international law, while we are possibly putting people in harm's way. Later that day the Conservatives had to tweet that they were going to send a letter to the United Nations because they had not even bothered to do that.
We hear from the government about our allies and the allied coalition, yet it is a fiction. This is not a UN mandate nor a NATO mandate. There is no western country other than the United States involved. According to those who are looking at the situation in Syria, they say that Bashar al-Assad is the head of the snake and ISIS is its tail. They said that in Kobani, our allies, the PPK, were considered as fanatical as ISIS, that on our so-called allies that Canada had in Syria right now, which are doing the bombing and fighting in Syria, Joe Biden had admitted that all those allies the minister had been cozying up to were actually fighting a proxy Sunni-Shia war in Syria.
Therefore, with the misinformation and the misrepresentation that we have heard from the government and the minister in particular, I am not surprised they would not want to debate this. Who are the allies on the ground who will ensure that we prevent further damage to a nation that is already seriously damaged and whether we are in any way following international law because the Conservatives did not bother to get a mandate?
View Jason Kenney Profile
CPC (AB)
View Jason Kenney Profile
2015-03-30 15:31 [p.12536]
Mr. Speaker, only in the distorted world view of the NDP could striking targets of a genocidal terrorist organization that has declared hostility toward Canada and indeed civilization, such as the Islamic State, be considered doing damage to Syria.
The member contends that this motion is limiting debate. In point of fact, the actual consultation of the House through the motion before us is relatively unprecedented. This is a new practice introduced by this government. There was no constitutional, statutory or even conventional obligation for the government in exercising the royal prerogative in the deployment of Canadian troops to consult with the House of Commons. Therefore, every hour of debate that we have in this place, including the 15 hours on this motion, is extraordinary. It is an extraordinary opening to the democratically-represented voices of the people in the House.
I would point out that I was here for I think 13 of the 14 hours of debate on Thursday and the New Democrats were not really interested in the substance of the debate. They all read the same canned speeches. It is simply a parliamentary tactic to delay all of the government's business, to delay the people's business.
View Laurie Hawn Profile
CPC (AB)
View Laurie Hawn Profile
2015-03-30 15:32 [p.12536]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to touch on a couple of points.
We talked about the mission changing and evolving. In my view, people are making it, and I will ask the minister to comment on this, more complicated than it needs to be.
There are only two changes happening to the mission. First, it is going to be extended for 12 months because the job is not over until the job is over, and the enemy has a vote what goes on. Second, airplanes, instead of operating within Iraq, are going to be operating over Syria. The border between the countries has effectively been erased by ISIS in any event. The actual changes to the mission are not all that complicated and substantive.
The other point is that people are saying it is really a combat mission. The ground mission is in a dangerous place. We have done missions in dangerous places around the world for many years. They were called peacekeeping missions. They were missions in dangerous places. They were missions where Canadian peacekeepers died because they were shot by people who did not like the fact that we were there. By definition, of the verbiage in the media and the opposition, that would suggest that every one of our peacekeeping missions was in fact a combat mission.
There are words here that are being used inappropriately. What is the actual change of the mission, and is it really not all that different other than we will be airborne over one more place?
View Jason Kenney Profile
CPC (AB)
View Jason Kenney Profile
2015-03-30 15:34 [p.12536]
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Edmonton Centre for his service in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He speaks on these matters with source credibility.
His comments are absolutely accurate. We already had a very extensive debate in this place, with dozens of speakers, last October. This is another discretionary motion for a discretionary debate that the government has given the House an opportunity to have, which is essentially over the same mission. He is quite right.
In fact, we are not adding any additional assets or personnel to the mission. We continue to deploy 69 special operations forces for an advise and assist mission in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, and some 600 RCAF personnel situated out of Kuwait who are manning 6 CF-18, 2 Auroras and 1 Polaris aircraft.
It is the same character of the mission. We will simply be hitting ISIL targets in what it regards as its state, which is in an area of Syria where it has de facto sovereignty. We are doing so in full compliance with international law.
This is just an extra opportunity for debate in this place, as we do want to hear the opinions of members. I do not think my friends in the New Democratic Party really believe there should be unlimited canned speeches on what is essentially a relatively minor change to the terms that were discussed here last October.
View Raymond Côté Profile
NDP (QC)
View Raymond Côté Profile
2015-03-30 15:36 [p.12536]
Mr. Speaker, it is rather amusing to see the minister using smoke and mirrors to try to cover up his real agenda.
The government is an expert at that sort of thing. For four years, it has been imposing its will both in the House and in committee by systematically rejecting thousands of amendments put forward by the various opposition parties and refusing to listen to very reasonable and rational speeches about its proposals. Now, the government is claiming that the issue was thoroughly debated.
When did the minister take the time to listen to what was said in this House about this debate alone? When did all of the members of cabinet take into account the opinions of a broad segment of the population that we, the legitimate representatives of that population, have been sharing with them?
The minister may be trying to put one over on members and Canadians, but the truth is that he is trying to once again shut down debate and ignore the opinions of a broad segment of the Canadian population. When will he listen?
View Jason Kenney Profile
CPC (AB)
View Jason Kenney Profile
2015-03-30 15:37 [p.12536]
Mr. Speaker, I am listening. I was here in the House on Thursday as well, debating this motion for 13 or 14 hours. Today, I plan to be here as long as possible, likely all day, in order to listen, answer questions and clarify the government's policy.
This is not a bill. This is a discretionary motion that the government is under no obligation to move. However, we developed a new approach whereby we consult the members of the House, because we believe that is important when it comes to major deployments of the Canadian Forces overseas.
The hon. member says that the government is not taking the opinion of some Canadians seriously, but it is the NDP that is opposing the majority opinion of its own supporters. According to the polls, the majority of those who voted for the NDP support a continuation of our fight against this genocidal organization that is trying to rid the world of cultural, ethnic and sexual minorities. These are crimes against humanity. It is sad that the NDP believes that Canada should do nothing to deal with this threat.
View Sadia Groguhé Profile
NDP (QC)
View Sadia Groguhé Profile
2015-03-30 15:39 [p.12537]
Mr. Speaker, to listen to the minister talk about extending this mission in Syria, one would think that we should be thanking him. He is saying that he has done us a favour by moving this motion.
Let us not forget that we still live in a democracy here and that it is important that such an essential and crucial matter be debated in the House and for more than a day, of course. Extending this mission will add more chaos to a chaotic situation. This new mandate has no legal legitimacy, especially since the UN has issued no mandate for this mission.
Can the minister explain to us why the Conservatives are yet again imposing a unilateral decision that was never fully discussed in the House?
View Jason Kenney Profile
CPC (AB)
View Jason Kenney Profile
2015-03-30 15:40 [p.12537]
Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, we are going to spend not one, but two days discussing it. Add to that the two days spent in October, and we will spend four days on it. By comparison, the British Parliament, a minority parliament, debated a similar motion for only seven hours.
Yes, ours is a parliamentary democracy. However, according to our Constitution, the government is not required to consult Parliament about this. It is a royal prerogative, a discretionary decision under our Constitution. Every hour of debate and every speech is extraordinary and made possible by our government and our desire to include all voices, even dissenting voices.
The sovereign government of Iraq wrote to the UN asking that other countries help defend its citizens against the terrorist and genocidal attacks of the Daesh. Accordingly, we are providing a military response to this request, together with 24 other countries. Under Article 51 of the UN charter, this is the alliance's concept of collective self-defence.
View Lois Brown Profile
CPC (ON)
View Lois Brown Profile
2015-03-30 15:42 [p.12537]
Mr. Speaker, could the minister speak about what he feels is Canada's moral obligation to act? He has talked about the brutality of ISIS. We know it has specifically targeted religious minorities. The Yazidis have been specifically attacked as a group.
I know the minister has spoken to diaspora groups across the country. Could he relay to the House the things he has heard from diaspora groups about our need to help?
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