Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You will no doubt appreciate that I readily support the bill introduced by my hon. colleague from Rimouski-Témiscouata. For the benefit of those just joining us, I would like to make it quite clear that, as the official opposition in this House, we sincerely believe that we are putting before Parliament a bill to redress an injustice.
We must not overlook the fact that there was a time in Parliament's history when, within these walls, shame, intolerance and injustice prevailed. Our purpose in recalling such injustice is certainly not to revive old fratricidal conflicts. We will recall that Louis Riel was democratically elected three times by the people of Provencher and given the mandate to do what we as Canadian parliamentarians are doing today, namely representing our communities.
There is a paradox in accusing of high treason a man who, on many occasions in this House, was recognized as an upstanding founder of Manitoba. Louis Riel was recognized as a leader in his own right in the defence of human rights. He advocated principles that still reverberate in Parliament.
There is a paradox in, on the one hand, recognizing that Riel was one of the founders of Manitoba, that he fought for his peers, for the recognition of the right to self-government and self-determination of his community, the Métis community, and on the other hand, regarding him as a traitor. This paradox could become a source of unbearable shame if ever we, as parliamentarians, were so ill-advised as to not support the bill put forward by my colleague, the hon. member for Rimouski-Témiscouata.
What is this bill all about? It calls for the revocation of Louis Riel's conviction. We are not trying to rewrite history here. Later in the debate, as we have all along, we will review the very specific milestones of Louis Riel's public life.
I think it would be unfair and irresponsible not to recognize that the decision to sentence Louis Riel to death for high treason was historically unfounded. Without rewriting history, but having lucidly considered the facts, we certainly have a duty and responsibility to redress the injustice that unfairly cost Louis Riel his life.
What are the tools at our disposal to effect redress? This is what the hon. member for Rimouski-Témiscouata, who has a sense of history, is proposing. She is asking this Parliament-let me quote the bill directly:
Whereas Louis David Riel, member of the House of Commons for the electoral district of Provencher from 1873 to 1874, was convicted on August 1, 1885 of high treason and sentenced to death, and was hanged on November 16, 1885 at Regina, North West Territories;
Whereas, notwithstanding his conviction, Louis David Riel has become a symbol and a hero to successive generations of Canadians who have, through their governments, honoured and commemorated him in specific projects and actions;
It is being asked-and this is the thrust of the bill, this is where we will see if, in the House, we are able to act upon words-out of respect for history, since:
-and whereas it is consistent with this recognition that the conviction of Louis David Riel be now revoked-
that this conviction now be revoked.
You will tell me that history cannot be rewritten, and this is a very great truth.
I repeat that, if history cannot be rewritten, we still have the responsibility, as parliamentarians, to set the record straight, considering that it was in this very place that Louis David Riel, whose election was sanctioned by a democratic process, as is the case for all of us here, was not allowed to fulfill his mandate.
But worse than that, what happened? There was a practice Louis Riel, first in 1869-70, as the head of his community located close to the Red River, witnessed, without being consulted, powerless but not impassive, whereby British settlers, people who were not part of his community, occupied the land. Louis Riel was forced to stand by, fully aware and committed, while an act of dispoilment was being committed. I am deliberately using the word "despoilment", because as you probably remember, the central government of the day, with the support of the British authorities, sent surveyors to readjust the maps so as to redistribute the lands to people other than the Metis.
Under these circumstances, prompted by their strong desire for democracy, Louis Riel and his peers formed a temporary government which had to quell a rebellion, a government which, having to deal with the rebellion stirred up by British settlers in Fort Garry, decided to execute Thomas Scott.
Because a community was being despoiled, a man had to die, as was the custom at the time. The Metis were despoiled.
What happened then? Instead of opening up the discussions, of trying to understand the claims which the Metis had often ex-
plained to Parliament, violence was used, because the government felt it could quell the rebellion with the help of its armed forces.
The fundamental problem was that of a community which was being despoiled on an individual basis, because the very existence of the Metis community was being ignored.
Time has gone by and Louis Riel has remained the very significant figure he has always been for the Metis. Ontario and its most aggressive Anglo Protestants demanded Louis Riel's head and they got it.
In a second uprising, this time in the far west, at the end of the railway line, there was a second attempt at removing a community and despoiling the Metis again in what was to become Saskatchewan.
Again in 1865, Louis Riel was part of the struggle and stood up for his people. At that time, we-I say "we", but there is nothing personal to it-the Parliament of Canada was party to a verdict of execution against Louis Riel. What is becoming increasingly clear from the writings of historians of the day, and very few of us could deny these facts, is that Louis Riel was the victim of injustice and that the ideal conditions, the conditions of elementary justice, were not all there for his trial.
I could remind you that Louis Riel was tried in Regina although he should have been in Winnipeg. He was judged in Regina by six English- speaking jurors, but if his trial had been held in Winnipeg, as his peers were requesting at the time, the jury would have been made up of an equal number of English- and French-speaking jurors.
Also, Louis Riel was tried by a judge liable to dismissal.
He was not tried by a Superior Court judge, who could have acted independently from the federal government because he was not liable to dismissal.
Moreover, Louis Riel and his family were not allowed the benefit of the expertise of his attending physician. The government preferred the testimony of a Hamilton doctor, who examined Riel for half an hour, before coming up with the subservient and false medical opinion we are all aware of.
Still on the sad saga of Riel, the jury that condemned him recommended clemency, but the judge nevertheless sentenced him to death. Louis Riel's story is a story of injustice. It is the story of a subservient Parliament and, thus, of a community covered in shame.
You know all the publicity Riel's case had in Quebec. It is certainly not by accident that, after the hanging of Louis Riel, in November 1885, the Premier of Quebec, Honoré Mercier, the fist premier, as you will remember, who asked for an interprovincial conference, the first nationalist premier, said spontaneously in front of a huge crowd of 50,000 people: "Louis Riel, our brother, died unjustly".
And in the opinion of several historians, Louis Riel's death was the first step in what was to become a major national unity crisis.
Allow me, in concluding, to quote a distant cousin of Louis Riel and former member of the other House, who said this: "We have to admit that this sentence alienated the Province of Quebec. This was a major crisis, maybe as serious as the one we living through today. It is hardly surprising that, each year between 1885 and 1900, some 100,000 French Canadians left Quebec to emigrate to the United States. They did not go to western Canada. There is no need to look for the causes underlying this phenomenon. People in Quebec felt they were not welcome in that part of the country, as was evidenced by events of the day, such as the death of Riel and the fact that the use of French was abolished in Manitoba in 1890". These are historical facts.