Mr. Speaker, the people of Quebec were supposed to be voting yes to negotiating a new deal with Canada. With the release of the communiqué it seems that the people of Quebec were misled. They were being asked to vote yes to the undermining of the Canadian Armed Forces starting the day after a yes vote. How can we allow special briefings by the defence department to the Bloc member in question or indeed his separatist caucus when we know that they are capable of this type of activity?
By November 11, 1995 the Toronto Star , an unimpeachable Liberal source, reported that the Bloc's whip denied knowing details of the communiqué. In my view this points to the reckless disbandment of the hon. member for Charlesbourg. Another explanation of the Toronto Star report would point to the possibility that the Bloc whip himself honestly did not understand the significance of the communiqué. Again I must question the prudence of providing these minds with the information contained in special briefings on the Canadian Armed Forces which are given to members of Canada's Standing Committee on National Defence.
On a related matter, Quebec Deputy Premier Bernard Landry wrote a quick note to all foreign diplomats in Canada encouraging them to recognize Quebec's new independence from Canada the day after a yes vote. The deputy premier sent his quick notes off to diplomats the night before the referendum.
I come to the controversial word "lendemain" which was in the communiqué. Some people say it means the "next day" in English.
As with the action of Quebec's deputy premier, what we are watching here is the action of a very few excited men. One is the deputy premier; the other is the Bloc's defence critic. The actions which these men took were without a doubt wrong. They were not thought through completely. They were damaging and regrettable. They are mistakes.
It was a mistake for the deputy premier to insult Canada by encouraging foreign diplomats to interfere with Canadian politics. It was a mistake for the Bloc's defence critic to contact Canadian Armed Forces personnel and coerce them into choosing sides in the secession debate. Again, there are no apologies for these seemingly sinister actions. Having said that, what we are talking about may be
truly mistakes. No one knows because we have not dealt with these matters. Mistakes can be corrected.
Many people have been hurt as a result of the efforts of the Quebec separatists. Canadians have been killed.
We still remember the previous premier of Quebec blaming the loss of the referendum on those voters in Quebec who were new Canadians, Canadians of different cultures, anglophones and allophones. Mistakes hurt people. These mistakes must be addressed. There should be no apologies for these actions and no apologies are volunteered.
We must bring these matters to the attention of the proper authorities. Today, as if I had the power of the proper authority, I raise the matter of the communiqué. The Government of Canada has the authority to deal with this matter. Our courts have tried it. The Liberal Party of Canada has chosen not to exercise the authority of our federal government with respect to this communiqué.
The constituents of Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt sent me to Ottawa because I am not a Liberal, yet I have the power of our federal government. The people I represent have vested this power in me. They have entrusted it with me. They have asked me to come to Ottawa and see that our federal government protects Canadians and the integrity of this House.
I am raising this matter in the House and I am raising it in the defence committee later today. I have some serious problems with the Liberal members sitting on the defence committee who vote in support of members of the Bloc Quebecois to serve as vice-chairs.
The Liberals I have no doubt are greatly relieved that last week I made public my plan to force them to draw the line in the sand on what is unacceptable behaviour by parliamentarians. The Liberals are sure that the member for Charlesbourg will not stand for re-election as the vice-chair for the defence committee. The Liberals under the auspicious eye of the Liberal whip, a man to be feared if one is a Liberal, plan to elect a different Bloc Quebecois member as vice-chair. The same Liberal Party whip described the communiqué using the terms "dangerous" and "mutiny" in the same sentence. This must have been following his public statement that he knew very little of the details of the communiqué.
I hope the new vice-chairs will know that the Canadian Armed Forces personnel are only released after a six-month period and not the next day.
The communiqué cannot be described as a job offer. I would like to point this out. What we are talking about here is not Zellers asking the people from Wal-Mart to come over to the new firm. He asked members of the Canadian Armed Forces, men and women who have pledged allegiance to this country, to move to a new armed forces-
