Madam Speaker, I rise today on a point of privilege. I feel it is incumbent upon me as a member of Parliament to bring to your attention a matter of the most serious importance.
The following description of events is lengthy and complex but will clearly show that actions taken by the Security Intelligence Review Committee are an affront to the House and amount to the utmost disrespect for Parliament.
Page 123 of the twentieth edition of Erskine May defines contempt as follows:
It may be stated generally that any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of such House in the discharge of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such results may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent of that offence.
Furthermore, in Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada contempt respecting documents is defined as follows:
Similarly, should any person present documents to to a committee of the House of Commons which have been forged, falsified, or fabricated with intent to deceive such committee or the House, or, to be privy to such forging or fraud, this will constitute contempt of Parliament because it is an obvious affront to the House of Commons to present it with such documents. The House of Commons is not only entitled to but demands the utmost respect when material is placed before it for its scrutiny, investigation or study.
The following description will show that SIRC's actions led directly to the Solicitor General of Canada's unknowingly tabling on December 15, 1994 a report contemptuous of the House.
On December 15, 1994 the SIRC report on the Heritage Front affair was tabled in the House of Commons by the Solicitor General of Canada.
In chapter 8 of the report the following is written: "On October 17, 1989 the service decided to formally investigate the alleged $45,000 contribution. CSIS said that they could not go back to the informant, as all contacts had ended on December 31, 1988. The service authorized a three month, level one investigation entitled "LNU/FNU (Unknown Contributor(s) to Preston Manning's Electoral Campaign)". The service cited section 12, paragraph 2(b) of the CSIS Act as the legal basis for the investigation".
On December 16, 1994 SIRC appeared before the national security subcommittee. I asked the following of SIRC. I quote page 5:32 of the Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence of the Subcommittee on National Security: ``Can you have your officials go back to CSIS and have them examine the hard copy of the original authorization of the level one investigation on the Reform Party and a foreign government, not just the corrected copy? Specifically, can your employees examine the caption on the file?''
SIRC member Michel Robert responded: "About this specific question, the last one, I do not know. I will examine that. I am not in a position to answer now but will certainly look at the files".
In other words, Mr. Robert mentioned nothing about knowing of any name change in the investigation entitled "LNU/FNU (Unknown Contributor(s) to Preston Manning's Electoral Campaign)" when the SIRC report on the Heritage Front affair was tabled in the House of Commons on December 15, 1994 by the Solicitor General of Canada.
However, in a letter dated January 27, 1995 from Maurice Archdeacon, executive director of SIRC, Mr. Archdeacon informed the member for Scarborough-Rouge River, the chair of the committee on national security, that the file caption was indeed changed: "The caption she referred to for the targeting authority dated October 17, 1989 was Preston Manning. The caption was revised on March 30, 1990 to state: `LNU/FNU (Unknown Contributor(s) to Preston Manning's Electoral Campaign)"'.
On March 30, 1995 the Solicitor General of Canada appeared before the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs accompanied by his deputy ministers, including Ward Elcock, the director of CSIS.
Mr. Elcock was asked why SIRC was unaware that the file was originally in Mr. Manning's name. Mr. Elcock's response, according to the Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, Issue 95, March 30, 1995,
pages 95:17 and 95:18 was: "I don't know that in fact that SIRC was unaware. I don't know why they would not have put it in their report or would have chosen not to do that. That is SIRC's business and you would have to address that question to SIRC".
After further questioning about whether SIRC knew about the investigation name change, Mr. Elcock went on to say: "My belief is that they did have that information, but I will certainly check that for the hon. member".
The following day, on March 31, 1995, I wrote to the hon. Jacques Courtois, chair of SIRC, asking for clarification of Mr. Elcock's comments of the previous day: "Was any member or employee of SIRC aware that the original TARC investigation launched on October 17, 1989 [was] in the name of Preston Manning and not "LNU/FNU (Unknown Contributor(s) to Preston Manning's Electoral Campaign)" when the Heritage Front report was tabled December 9, 1994?"
Mr. Archdeacon responded for Mr. Courtois in a letter dated April 7, 1995. He said in his reply to my letter that contrary to what the SIRC report and committee testimony from SIRC members had led the House to believe, SIRC did indeed know of the investigation's name change at the time of the tabling of the report by the solicitor general: "SIRC staff saw the original title of the targeting authorization as well as the corrected titled and all other documents pertaining to this investigation".
The evidence presented bears witness to the fact that the actions taken by SIRC are in contempt of the House. SIRC deliberately omitted from its December, 1994 report the fact that the name of one of CSIS's investigations was originally entitled "Preston Manning".
For whatever reason, the caption of the TARC investigation was changed to "LNU/FNU (Unknown Contributor(s) to Preston Manning's Electoral Campaign)" two months after the expiration of the investigation.
These facts are by any measure crucial and their absence from the report is inexplicable and deliberately contemptuous. The actions taken by SIRC amount to an attempt to mislead a minister of the crown and to obstruct the House by offering admittedly incomplete information.
This should have been the conclusion of my question of privilege, as the evidence is clear. However, over the past two months SIRC and CSIS have provided new information that is completely contrary with their own evidence to this point.
In a letter sent to CSIS on November 9-