Mr. Speaker, very serious allegations have been made recently about CSIS's infiltration activities. Now come revelations from a former officer of the Communications Security Establishment, another federal agency, who in a book published this week mentions the existence of a special unit called "French Problem" that is responsible for intercepting Quebec government members' telephone calls or having these calls intercepted by foreign services.
For his part, the Prime Minister said yesterday in this House that since he entered politics, he knew nothing about any spying on the sovereignist movement by federal services.
My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. How can the government pretend, as the Prime Minister did yesterday, not to be aware of federal agents spying on Quebec's pro-sovereignty movement, when the reports of the Keable and MacDonald commissions showed the extent of the RCMP's illegal activities in the 1970s, much activities as planting bombs, burning barns and stealing the Parti Quebecois's membership lists?