Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague for his very enlightening speech. I also want to congratulate him on making his remarks entirely in French, from beginning to end, which is a first in this House for him.
If I understood the member correctly, the Solicitor General rubber-stamps special mandates, and one must trust that everything is in order since the agency publishes a new annual report every year.
I read the report made public in 1993. It is a ten-page document, with each page only half full to make room for some very interesting graphics. It is not with such a report, that would hardly meet grade 12 standards, that we are going to reassure the population regarding certain allegations.
The Bloc Quebecois has never questioned the need for such an agency. I believe that any self-respecting nation ought to have this kind of agency; there is no doubt about that. The point we raised is that allegations were made and if the Solicitor General approves everything, this means that he knew that someone was spying on the Reform Party from within. This is intolerable.
That is why, in case of allegations, one must go beyond the annual report. Do you know how difficult it is to get into CSIS? It takes about one hour to get all the doors unlocked. If they see you coming, they obviously have the time to put any file they do not want you to see in false-bottom drawers. There is no guarantee that an investigation can get all the facts. If something is secret, top secret, or top, top, top secret, obviously you will not find it lying on a table. It will be securely locked up in a file drawer nobody has access to.
How can we guarantee that an investigation will get to the bottom of things? That is what we are wondering. This is the reason why we say that it is all nice and dandy to wait for the report, but the allegations are too serious. We are just about to enter very difficult times in Canada. We are no fools, but we want to make sure that what happened in 1970 will not happen again. We do not want to see history repeat itself. We want to go through this difficult transition as adults and in accordance with democratic principles, not with a top secret service which is going to plant bombs whenever it pleases.
So I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General how can he guarantee that we are protected from such an occurrence?