Mr. Speaker, like my colleague from Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, I listened to the hon. member for York South-Weston present his motion M-293 regarding the Air India tragedy of June 23, 1985, with great interest.
To demonstrate just how lightly the government of the time took this tragedy, in which 329 travellers, 280 of which were Canadians, most of them of Indian origin, I would mention that the Mulroney government's first gesture was to send its condolences to the Republic of India. That is indicative of how the case was handled. It also helps to understand how the Canadian Security Intelligence Service carried out its investigation or, more exactly, did not carry out the investigation.
It is clear, and the hon. member for York South-Weston mentioned this during his representation, that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's approach to the investigation is questionable. The attitude of the RCMP, which apparently put a lid on its own investigation and only assigned staff to the effort part-time, is as questionable as that of CSIS.
Given the scope of this tragedy, 329 deaths as was mentioned earlier-the biggest mass slaughter in the air ever to have been executed at that time-it is obvious that we should go back and take a better look at this case.
Is the royal commission of inquiry requested by the hon. member for York South-Weston the ideal solution? Maybe not. Obviously, ten years after the fact, we will not be able to interview the victims of the tragedy. Obviously, parallel investigations were carried out by organizations in other countries. It may be wise to pool all of the knowledge collected. Nevertheless, the very serious allegations made about CSIS, while not meriting a royal commission of inquiry, certainly should be looked into by the sub-committee on national security.
It would appear that this sub-committee, which is comprised of parliamentarians and would cost taxpayers nothing, contrary to a royal commission of inquiry, is the appropriate body to study the way the Canadian Security Intelligence Service handled this and other cases, where its work has left to be desired. I think it is high time we cleaned up the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
That is why, given all of the investigations that have already been done, since it is highly improbable that the exact causes of the tragedy will ever be found and since almost all avenues of inquiry have already been exhausted, I am of the opinion that creating a royal commission of inquiry would be a waste of money. However, I am in favour of a parliamentary review of the way in which the Canadian Security Intelligence Service carried out its investigation into the matter.