OTTAWA –The Opposition says it will not support the Liberal bill to overhaul national security, with Conservatives ripping Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government as soft on terrorists in the face of returning Daesh fighters.

The political attack by the Conservatives came as parliamentary debate finally got underway on Bill C59 – a massive security package introduced by the Trudeau government to curb excesses of the Conservatives’ Anti-Terrorism Act of 2015.

The New Democrats signaled they would not support the bill because it does not rein in measures that violate Canadian freedoms and privacy rights.

However, the Conservatives claim the bill will only weaken national security agencies at a crucial time as the would-be caliphate of the group calling itself Islamic State collapses in Syria and Iraq under advances by the international anti-ISIS coalition.

A senior British minister controversially said last month the only way to deal with returning Daesh fighters is to kill them.

Conservative critics took up that line in debate Monday, with defence critic James Bezan suggesting Canada is failing while its allies in the U.K., the U.S. and France vow to get tough on extremists with “shoot to kill” orders.

“That is not happening here in Canada,” said Bezan. “At least incarcerate them. No. We’re going to reintegrate them.”

In Question Period, Official Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer repeatedly demanded to know how many Daesh fighters “are now being welcomed back to Canada by the prime minister with the promise of reintegration services to help them.”

Scheer mocked Liberal plans for extremists he said left Canada to fight allied soldiers, watch as they “burned to death in a cage,” sold “women and girls into slavery,” and “who pushed homosexuals off of buildings just for being gay.”

“Can the prime minister explain to the House exactly what a program or reintegration service would look like for people who commit these kinds of atrocities?” said Scheer.

Trudeau refused to be specific about the number of returnees though his public safety minister Ralph Goodale conceded later the number “known” to security agencies is “in the order of 60.” Goodale said they were under tight surveillance.

Trudeau said national security agencies are monitoring “trends in extremists’ travel” and have several “tools” to deal with threats, including putting names on no-fly lists, cancelling, revoking or refusing passports, or laying criminal charges. Trudeau said returnees are being “carefully monitored” by national security agencies who are doing the “difficult work of collecting evidence required for convictions in Canadian courts.”

“We recognize the return of even one individual may have serious national security implications,” said Trudeau.

“But we have launched the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence which helps ensure resources are in place to facilitate disengagement from violent ideologies, in particular children who return from conflict zones require tailored solutions.”

As Trudeau discussed the number of Yazidi refugees Canada would take in as victims of the brutal Daesh sweep across northern Iraq and Syria, the prime minister said his government takes the threat posed by returning Canadian fighters seriously: “We are going to monitor them, we’re also there to help them to let go of that terrorist ideology.”

However, the Conservatives claimed the Liberals’ plan as framed in Bill C59, tabled in June, weakens the powers of security agencies to act in emergencies by requiring agents to seek warrants to stop terrorist acts, by limiting the definition of terrorist propaganda to actual incitements to violence, and by curbing “threat disruption powers” CSIS had acquired under the past Conservative government. They said Bill C59 “waters down” the 2015 law that the Liberals supported while in Opposition.

Goodale says he is open to constructive suggestions for change. As proof, he pointed to the Liberal government’s decision to send the bill to committee for study before a second reading vote in the Commons. It’s the first time the government has done so. “Second reading” gives approval in principle and limits the scope of amendments that can be proposed in committee.

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Goodale said it is a way to give MPs “maximum opportunity to make their views known” and to suggest changes and amendments.

NDP critic Matthew Dubé said Bill C59 is a “failure” because although it offers oversight mechanisms that the NDP supports, it does not do enough to correct mistakes on airline passenger-protect or no-fly lists, it does not curb extensive information-sharing powers, including among countries with poor human rights records, and doesn’t protect Canadians’ digital privacy under its scheme to allow cyber-offensives to prevent attacks.

Dubé said it would have been better for the government to provide the proper resources to the RCMP and a real counter-radicalization strategy.

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