Mr. Speaker, I am dismayed when I hear the member of the Reform Party talk of sedition and of such a serious matter, as you said Mr. Speaker, with practically no grounds. I think that the leader of the Reform Party is a smart man and knows how to read communiqués. I think he understands the news. I wonder why he is putting so much time and energie into bringing this matter up in the House today.
I think that, if one follows the news, one realizes-maybe this is something people do not know-that this matter has already been considered by a justice of the peace. A lawyer from Montreal was, like the Reform Party, of the opinion that the member for Charlesbourg had committed a crime of lese majesty and decided to lay a complaint. A justice of the peace, a law professional, a person who knows the law, who knows the Criminal Code, who knows what he is talking about, has studied the communiqué, has considered the facts at issue, and has rejected the complaint made by the Montreal
lawyer. Furthermore, the same thing occurred in Ontario, and the complaint was again rejected.
The member must be aware of that. Canadian legal experts, not only from Montreal or Quebec, but also from Toronto, in Ontario, determined that there was nothing wrong there. The communiqué was even been described as a job offer.
Today, some people feel the need to waste the time of the House, to make members of Parliament waste their time on something as ridiculous as this. There is no sedition. That is clear. I challenge the member to find in the communiqué issued by the member for Charlesbourg a call to violence or to threat to public order. Where can he find, in the communiqué, an invitation or an incitement to engage in some prohibited action? Where? Nowhere.
I challenge the member to find exactly where such things are to be found in the communiqué. He will draw the same conclusion as the justices of the peace and the legal experts: it is a job offer. The member for Charlesbourg said that after a yes vote, those who are in the army will be allowed to join the forces, or the Quebec army, since Quebec will have an army, as any other self-respecting country.
It is not a call to sedition or revolt to welcome people with open arms while telling them: "French and English speaking Quebecers, join us". Nowhere in the communiqué can such a distinction between French and English speaking people be found. The Reform Party members are the ones who are making that distinction. They are the ones acting in this way.
Where, in the communiqué, is there a distinction between French and English speaking people?