Raymond Chrétien got called on the carpet and was brought out.
As this parliamentary library report, in its first of several ministerial accountability controversies, outlines—quite subtly, I think—after an internal inquiry that was done within the government.... It doesn't mention the parliamentary inquiry, so perhaps our Library of Parliament support here and in the foreign affairs committee would like to actually update this 2006-12 report with some of the more modern things on ministerial accountability, which this motion of MP Blaikie is bringing to fruition.
It goes on. I know that committee members and those watching will be...as we move through time to 2004. That was not long ago. It was still a Liberal government. The newly merged Conservative Party from the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance.... The new leader was the Right Honourable.... Well, he was just Stephen Harper then, leader of the opposition. The Honourable Stephen Harper became the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, one of our best prime ministers, only two years later.
In 2004, again, we had another situation where we didn't have to fight this finding Freeland thing. We had an incident when the then minister of citizenship and immigration.... I know some of you will recognize this name here, because this person still sits in the House. In fact, last weekend in Toronto I went to an event with her—the Vietnam freedom day. It was an honour to go to the Vietnam freedom day. Judy Sgro was speaking on behalf of the Government of Canada, and I was speaking on behalf of our leader, Pierre Poilievre, the next prime minister of Canada.
That event is an important foreign affairs.... It marks the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. I was in junior high, just to be clear. I wasn't in the government then.
In 1979, of course, one of the most important things was the boat people from Vietnam, and how to deal with them. It was a big issue. Back then Canada was only accepting 10,000 to 12,000 refugees a year.
The newly elected government of the Right Honourable Joe Clark, in 1979, had to face this as one of their first issues. That issue was what to do with the hundreds of thousands of people unsafely risking their lives trying to leave Vietnam in a boat. Families and thousands of people were dying on the ocean to escape communism and seek freedom—something we all love and are privileged to enjoy here.
One of the things that happened then was the Joe Clark government considered what they should do. They had a fellow named Ron Atkey, the member of Parliament for St. Paul's. That riding is currently held by Dr. Carolyn Bennett. Ron Atkey was the new immigration minister—a lawyer.
The then foreign affairs secretary of state for external affairs was a woman named Flora Macdonald. In fact, Flora MacDonald represented Kingston and the Islands. It is currently held by, as we know,MP Gerretsen. Kingston and the Islands, the home of Sir John A. Macdonald, was represented by Flora MacDonald, a descendant of Sir John A. Flora was Canada's first female foreign affairs minister. It was a very important time in Canada's history.
They had to face this crisis of Vietnam. They decided to allow in an unprecedented—until recently—level of Vietnamese refugees, boat people. In less than a year, 42,000 were brought to Canada.