Debates of Oct. 20th, 1998

Supply

[Svend Robinson, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with care to the member for Vancouver Quadra. It is unfortunate that he did not listen with the same care to the members of his own party in British Columbia who voted overwhelmingly this past weekend at their convention, the BC federal Liberal Party convention, to urge the government to provide funding.

I will put a very specific question to the member. He has an opportunity now to stand up and be counted on this issue, to stand up for his constituents. He does represent UBC.

I suggest with respect that the member is misleading this House. I am sure it is inadvertent. He is misleading this House when he says that the commission has the discretion to use the funding it has been given, including the $650,000, to fund legal assistance for the students. He talked about various legal opinions. However, the member for Vancouver Quadra did not talk about the fact that Madam Justice Barbara Reed of the Federal Court of Canada specifically said that the commission has no jurisdiction to provide one cent of funding for those students. I quote from the commission—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

We have to keep going.

[Ted McWhinney, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let us make some corrections. I was at the Whistler meeting. I spoke to Ron Basford. I spoke to the students. I discussed this operational problem solving strategy and they agreed. The member does not know. He was not there.

On the issue of funding, let us face it. Once one gives a press conference as the hon. member did yesterday, and says that the object of this resolution is to put government members on the spot, what is this being turned into? A political game? Do not play politics. Do not go after cheap newspaper headlines. I work on solving the problems. The hon. member does not.

I understand the limits of the opposition role and of the government role, but I wish we would take this seriously and go to the gut issue of getting the funding.

[An hon. member]

What about the federal court.

[Ted McWhinney, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

You are the last person to bend the knee to an obiter dictum by one judge. If you have had a good constitutional law course, and I know have, you would know these issues are open—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I remind all hon. members to address each other through the Chair.

[Val Meredith, Reform, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is apparent to me that the hon. member from across the way has not shown respect for the member for Burnaby—Douglas. It is not a question of who his professor was. Maybe the hon. member from across the way thinks he is above all of us.

He has the opportunity tonight to represent the people of his constituency, to represent the B.C. wing of the Liberal party, and he has the ability to represent the common and decent thing to do here. Is the hon. member going to support this motion when it comes up for a vote tonight, yes or no?

[Ted McWhinney, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, may I accept the challenge and simply say to the hon. member that it is good to have her on board on this issue to speak on civil liberties. I have not heard much from her side of the House on this point until now.

I fought for this since December 1997. The hon. member has not. So let us get down to the substance. On this particular issue she has joined the gathering at the cave of the Adullamites, the unholy alliance. Let us cease playing political games. I want funding for students. She is there for the headlines.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is very sad to see what has happened here when an honourable and distinguished member has abandoned his earlier courageous position. I did not hear a clear answer on the last question posed.

It is also said that the backbench would abandon this man's ethics by letting him stand alone in his courageous position.

Is the hon. member prepared to defend or to be loyal to the Prime Minister and the government ahead of his loyalty to Canadians?

[Ted McWhinney, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the lesson has been lost. The hon. member is one of the most promising of the opposition people but unless and until you understand that the role is to get results, not to make the cheap debating points, we are not doing much service to the House. The issue here is the funding.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we hear chirping that that was a poor answer. The answer was bang on. I find it particularly interesting to have the member for Burnaby—Douglas say in this House, Mr. Speaker allowed it to stand on the record, that the former speaker was misleading this House. I did not think that was appropriate.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I listened very carefully to the debate and very carefully to the words of the member for Burnaby—Douglas. The implication in his words as interpreted by me are not reflected in what the member just said. So we have a difference of opinion.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Then I suspect, Mr. Speaker, you will be just as generous in interpreting what I am about to say because there are very clearly some people misleading the Canadian public on this issue.

The hon. member just spoke about this being a political game. It is absolutely clear that is exactly what this is. To see the the unholy alliance lining up is really quite remarkable.

I refer to November 1985 when the member for Burnaby—Douglas described Bill C-65, which established the public complaints commission, as taking us out of the dark ages. Those are his words. Today that same member is trying to marginalize the public complaints commission. He is trying to suggest that in some obscure way this commission is unfair. It is clearly remarkable to see members opposite, lawyers opposite, standing up and simply fighting for money for lawyers.

The young lawyer who represented the students and who walked out with them claimed that he had fees in excess of $80,000. I would like to see the dockets. I would like to examine the billings. What is going on here? This is not a court of law. The members opposite know that.

The hon. leader of the New Democratic Party made reference to the fact that inquiries in the past had intervener funding provided. She used the example of the Dubin inquiry. Let us talk about that. Canadians know what that was. That was the alleged Ben Johnson affair, the investigation into the use of drugs by athletes. There were accusations. There were charges. The inquiry is named after Chief Justice Dubin. He sat in a judicial inquiry role. He had people who were accused of breaking the law come before him. Of course there would be legal representation for someone who was accused of breaking the law.

This is not a judicial inquiry. The Canadian public understands that, in spite of the nonsense and the rhetoric that goes on around here about their poor rights being taken away.

It is amazing to see members from the Reform Party stand up as great champions of human rights. It is really quite remarkable. This is the party that has repeatedly told this government to get rid of the court challenges program. It has called for that. The question which should be on the minds of Canadians, recognizing the the court challenges program provides assistance to people involved in a court procedure, not simply a commission, is how can this party claim that there is no need to provide legal funding for disadvantaged individuals and groups involved in actual litigation and now turn around and claim that we need special funding for a public complaints commission.

What is the commission? This public complaints commission was set up to receive complaints from the public about the actions of the RCMP. Members know that. But it is in the interests of the members in the opposition to try to mark up the Prime Minister or the government. The proof that this is a political game and a political football is here. If we look at the photograph in the Toronto Star Thursday, October 15, under the headline “Students quit APEC inquiry”, the byline says: “Stage Walkout: Two members of the Raging Grannies lead APEC demonstrators Jonathan Oppenheim and Garth Mullins out of RCMP commission hearings in Vancouver yesterday”. If we look carefully at the photograph we see behind one of the students the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas. Was he advising these students? Was he counselling them?

The Reform member does not seem to get the point. The difference quite clearly is that this is politically staged. He is virtually walking out arm and arm with the students. He is giving them advice. He is encouraging them to leave. Then he gets the grannies to walk out in front. It is a wonderful photo op. Do they think the Canadian people are stupid? They can see what is going on. They can see that they are abusing the system attempting to create some issue. It is scandal envy. They sees the press and the Republicans.

The Reform Party gets all its advice and policies from south of the border. We all know that. It sees the scandal, the media attention and everything going on with President Clinton. Reformers imagine getting the Prime Minister subpoenaed to appear in front of a commission. They want to twist this around to try to create some kind of false sense of scandal.

Should we simply believe that rhetoric or perhaps would it be more appropriate to believe the latest witness reported in the media who came to the commission? This is University of British Columbia Professor Chris Gallagher. Should we believe him? He said: “It seems there was no other alternative. From my perspective it appeared that pepper spray was used where it had to be”.

I do not know if Gallagher is right. What we want to see happen here is have the public complaints commission do its job. This is not a court of law. This is not a judicial inquiry. The students have been charged with nothing. We are not talking about their legal rights being in jeopardy. They are witnesses. They have been asked to come forward and tell this commission, duly established by parliament in 1986, in their own words and based on their memory what happened.

Mr. Gallagher who was a witness within 45 meters of the actual events describes how a fence was torn down and students were clamouring to get over the fence. He goes on to describe how there was no punching, no kicking and no physical activity in the sense of hitting any of these demonstrators. They used pepper spray. I do not know if it is appropriate to use this. I am not a commissioner on the complaints commission.

However, the feeding frenzy that is going on over here is totally laughable. If the opposition had any idea how foolish it looks in attempting to portray this as some kind of White House, oval office scandal, it is absolute nonsense.

This commission has integrity and an international reputation for fairness and for examining the issues. It has paid counsel available to advise and to ensure that witnesses are not intimidated and that their rights are protected.

I submit to this House and to the Canadian people that what we see here is purely opposition politics, tactics that perhaps I am not totally unfamiliar with having spent time in opposition in the Ontario legislature, but based on absolute nonsense and no facts. Let the commission do its job.

I reiterate that these students are not before a judge, not before a court of law and not in jeopardy of being charged for having their legal rights violated in any way whatsoever.

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to know that rhetoric has not died. We have the king of rhetoric over here from Mississauga West. If he thinks this is laughable, I am sorry but it is not laughable. This is an attack on the very rights that we expect to enjoy in Canada, the freedom of speech, the freedom of association, the freedom of expression, all of which are being suppressed.

Let me get right to the point. The commission was set up to examine complaints against the RCMP. The commission has an excellent reputation. The three commissioners right now are doing their level best to do their job and I admire their tenacity but this is the wrong venue. The is the wrong venue to be taking a look at the political interference and connection that has been clearly established between the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's office and the police of this country. That is what the question is.

This commission, with all its great reputation, does not have the ability or the resources to get to the bottom of the question. Why does he not admit that?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, how about the Reform member for New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby who claimed that the court challenges program I referred to “only serves as a taxpayer supported platform for radical feminists, the gay and lesbian agenda and other social engineering groups”.

Does the member feel the same way about providing taxpayer supporter lawyers to every complainant who comes before the complaints commission?

Canadians know that the Reform Party's posturing on constitutional rights is nothing more than an attempt to score false political points. They know that this party called to have the charter of rights abolished. I do not know why I always wind up with quotes from the member for Wild Rose. He said on January 17 in the Calgary Herald “we should scrap the whole thing”. That is their idea of protecting civil rights. The issue is not laughable, they are.

[Peter Mancini, NDP, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member. I have two questions which are fairly straightforward, things he ought to be able to answer.

He says he just wants to have the public complaints commission do its job. The public complaints commission has instructed its counsel to request from the solicitor general funds for legal representation for the students.

Would the member encourage the solicitor general to do that in allowing the commission to get on with its job? If his answer to that is no, he has gone on to say that this is not a judicial inquiry or a court room, they are not before a judge and they do not need lawyers. If that is the logic I ask him if he would instruct his caucus colleagues to suggest that the government withdraw its own lawyers and answer the question why they need them if the students do not.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will give a very direct answer. The only people in jeopardy of being charged with anything are RCMP members. They are the only people who are being investigated, examined and whose conduct at the APEC hearing is being questioned. Not one of the students is under any cloud or suspicion of wrongdoing. Not one of them requires legal protection to prevent a charge from occurring.

In a democracy when someone in the law enforcement business is being challenged, accused of wrongdoing or is subject to potential criminal activity or criminal charges down the road, I would have assumed that members opposite would be concerned about protecting their rights. This would happen at any level of policing and I would have thought Reformers of all people would have supported this.

The only rights the opposition wants to protect is its rights to make this an issue that does not exist. The students do not need legal counsel. The RCMP may if the findings of the commission lead to some kind of criminal charge.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to talk about the issue and problem the students have in Vancouver.

I was there for four days of the APEC meetings and know what the security was like and the situation was on the ground. I would like to take my time today to quote largely from a student at UBC, a teacher in my constituency who was there on the front line of the whole issue.

He has taught English at Lindsay Thurber high school since 1986. He has taught at Red Deer College, at UBC, and at the University of Hawaii. He has a bachelor of education with distinction from the University of Calgary and a masters degree from the University of Victoria. He was the Rotary international ambassador of goodwill from my home Rotary Club in the University of Hawaii for a year. He is now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia. His area of special interest is social justice in education.

He was at this event. He was part of it. He was there throughout the whole thing, the preparation, the weeks and months prior to APEC. The kind of person he is tells it all. He served as a board member of the Alberta multiculturalism commission. He is the vice-president of the Alberta association of multicultural education, among a number of other distinguished positions he holds in the community.

In 1987 Darren spearheaded an action group in our community of students and teachers opposing prejudice, a group known as STOP. This became a model for students across Canada and through the U.S.

In 1998 he received the race relations award from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and in 1993 he received the Canadian student rights achievement award from the league for human rights of B'Nai Brith Canada.

In 1996 he received a Reader's Digest national leadership in education award and in 1987 he won the Alberta human rights award.

This gentleman is married, has two small children and was a student at this assembly. This was not some kind of kook who was there as a rebel, as we so often hear described in this House by people who obviously have not taken time to even look at the issue.

This is his experience and I think this might tell the House more than anything else. He wrote:

Last November I witnessed a disturbing spectacle that has shaken my faith—in this country.

As a resident of student housing at the University of British Columbia, however, the upcoming meeting took on a more ominous tone as November 25 drew nearer. At random intervals throughout the day and night thundering military helicopters made low passes over the treed peninsula.

A groundswell of public discontent was rising, as fair minded people began to question how the Prime Minister could ignore basic human rights.

Many UBC scholars and students spoke out against APEC and our welcoming leaders notorious for brutality against their own citizens. The protest rally being planned for the meeting day was taking shape as an important display of the democratic right to free expression. But what transpired would tarnish a campus, the police forces involved, a government and its leader.

A vibrant, almost festive tone characterized the early stages of the protest; activists performed skits and speeches and the Raging Grannies sang—.Meanwhile, stiff plainclothes officials milled through the crowd, some taking pictures, others talking into headsets, as choppers whirred overhead.

The march toward the meeting area gained momentum with more chants and songs, and the crowd grew to nearly 2,000 peaceful protesters by the time we reached the approved protest zone.

I think this says it all:

I froze as I noticed sharp-shooters surveying the crowd from atop the nearby Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. At the graduate student building, the Tibet flag, a silent reminder of one brutal Chinese campaign of genocide, was removed by RCMP “on special orders”.

Barking police attack dogs intimidated those near the front, and city police officers in cycling shorts used their bicycles as battering rams to keep protesters back from the fence after it came loose.

Suddenly and without warming, RCMP officers began emptying dozens of fire extinguisher-sized canisters of pepper spray into the eyes of those nearest to the front. Random chance determined that I and my colleagues from the faculty of education were spared an agonizing attack, while many around us winced in pain.

[The Prime Minister] may say he puts it on his plate, but this ostensibly harmless “pepper” is known to have caused at least 60 deaths in the past seven years in the U.S.—

He quotes the source of that statistic.

He goes on to talk about how at Green College, a place for high academics, the very best from the world attending, they had signs in their windows that were removed by the police saying such offensive things as free speech and democracy. Now we have to look at this whole situation. We have to look at how the government has treated this whole affair. In our foreign affairs committee, because the Prime Minister and the foreign affairs minister will not show up at the hearings and will not tell how it really was, we asked that they appear there. Even one Liberal spoke in favour of that. The hon. member for Vancouver Quadra was removed from committee the next day. That is how the government responded to that.

The next week a motion came that we should fund these students because we had a David and Goliath affair going on here. It is fine for the Prime Minister to stand up and say Mr. Considine can handle that whole thing. But there is no way that one man can be expected, no matter how good he is, to handle the affairs of these students and to give them a level playing field against all of these government lawyers. No matter what anybody says in the House, the public now knows how the government abused these students and their complaints.

Whether they are right or wrong is not the question. The point is they are Canadians. They were not treated in a Canadian manner. The government did not give us pride in our country and we are embarrassed for the way it treated these students.

Very simply, I believe this motion is speaking to the very issue of free speech and of right of assembly. The Prime Minister, in his joking way about baseball bats, pepper steaks and pepper on his plate, is insulting all of us as Canadians. He should be embarrassed and he should be chastised by his own caucus for his embarrassing performance that Canadians have to witness day after day on television.

I think Canadians are now seeing the sort of person he really is. He really is that guy who will choke somebody. He really is that guy who will have a soapstone under his bed to bash somebody on the head. He really is that kind of person.

The truth hurts. Members across the floor obviously do not like to hear this because they are liberal minded, they care about human rights and they care about people. They are obviously demonstrating that they have none of those features.

I failed to mention at the start that I will be sharing my time and another member will be picking up from here.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there is an old saying that if a person wants to be their own lawyer they have a fool for a client, speaking to the idea that no one should go into a forum like that without representation.

There is an even more pertinent point in law which says that a person can be presumed to have intended the probable consequences of his or her actions.

I raise this now because I would like to hear the hon. member's views on this. Could it be that the probable consequences of denying representation to the students are that the government does not want the message to come out? It does not truly want to reach the truth or the bottom of this whole story, where these orders really came from or if there was political interference into the police force of the country. Could it be we have people who are deliberately trying to avoid getting to the truth by doing just as we fear, denying representation and advocacy for those students, the predictable consequences we are well aware of?

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a question that if the hon. member had more time he would say more about. That is just the point.

I watched the Somalia inquiry and watched how it was planned. The planned thing was to carry on these long extensive hearings, to shoot any messengers who happened to come forward who might want to testify and give the truth, to go after the media and blame the media for some aspects and to then go on to try to single out some of the lower guys in the chain of command, find an RCMP officer, find a private somewhere and go after him and pummel him and make him look like the victim. Then the other tactic is to draw it out as long as we can so that fatigue itself destroys the whole honesty of the process.

I hope Canadians will get tired of this approach. I hope they will not accept the fact that two or three RCMP officers will be expected to take the fall at the end of the inquiry. Meanwhile, the guys who organized it at the top get off scot-free. They have gone through that process one too many times and are about ready to pay the price.

[Val Meredith, Reform, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to listen to the debate this morning. It upset me to hear some of the comments from government members. They do not seem to understand the concern of Canadians. I have heard the excuses. I have heard the comments that it is not a court situation, that it is a semi-judicial body. To an extent they are right. The public complaints commission is a semi-judicial body with commissioners that has been set up to find out whether there is any merit in the complaint.

The government has used the excuse that it is an informal process. The question from the opposition side has been that if it is an informal process then why does the government need to have its lawyers there. If the government has decided that it requires legal advice and legal presence at the commission, how can it possibly justify not having the students represented by lawyers to make sure that their representation is given a fair hearing?

I have heard comments that students are not being charged with anything. Neither is the RCMP at this time. The commission is not mandated to sanction or impose penalties. That is not the commission's role.

If the commission finds that perhaps there is basis for the students' complaint and if the RCMP decides to take it one step further and discipline members of the RCMP, there will be a separate hearing, a separate process, at which time they will have legal counsel. However, if the process is strictly an informal one, there is no justification for the government to bring on its lawyers.

Another issue I would like to raise is the question of fairness. I have heard from constituents. One of them is a colleague of the member for Vancouver Quadra. Some of them do not necessarily agree with the students' protest. They do not necessarily agree with the manner in which it was held, but they feel that the public commission process must be fair. Even if they do not agree with the students in their initial protest, they do agree that if lawyers are there for the government side, paid by taxpayers, there should be lawyers there for the students, also paid by taxpayers.

Why? It is not because they agree with the issue or with the students' position but because they believe in the Canadian democratic society there is the question of fairness and equality. If it is fair for the government to have taxpayer funded lawyers then it is also fair for the students to have the same consideration.

I wonder how government members would feel if, Mr. Speaker, you decided that one day only the opposition would be allowed to debate a bill and that the government would not be heard. I wonder how they would feel if only one side of the issue was given the ability to represent one side of the story. I am sure they would not feel that was a fair and proper representation of democracy.

Canadians expect that in a public complaints commission both sides will have equal opportunity to present their positions so that a non-biased group can make a decision based on the information put before it. No Canadian feels that in this case it is an equal playing field.

Let me just share with the House and with Canadians who happen to be watching who supports taxpayer funding for the students, who feels that this is not a level playing field and is not fair.

The public complaints commission feels that the students should have some funding from the government. All opposition parties in the House feel that the students are justified in having some support. Citizens from coast to coast, even though they are not part of the whole APEC scene that happened in Vancouver, feel that the students should have some legal representation paid by the taxpayer. Last but not least, the B.C. wing of the Liberal Party of Canada voted at its weekend meeting for the government to provide funds. Even federal Liberal members in British Columbia feel that it is not fair.

It would appear to me that the only people who do not seem to recognize the unfairness of students trying to represent themselves when the government has overloaded itself with lawyers are the Liberal members who sit on the other side of the House. There will be an opportunity later this afternoon for government members to do the right thing, to recognize that Canada is a great democracy simply because we recognize the freedom of our citizens to express themselves publicly. The government does not have control to the extent that some dictatorships have over their people. Canada is not a Tiananmen Square type of government.

Sometimes we on this side of the House wonder in what direction the government is taking our country. As I was saying, at the end of this afternoon government members will have an opportunity to do the right thing and to support Canadian democracy. They will have an opportunity to say that we need to make sure we protect democracy by maintaining a level playing field and by giving both sides of the debate equal opportunity to represent their sides of the question.

I hope they will do the right thing and will support the request through the motion to provide legal funds for the students so that they have the same opportunity as the government members, the Prime Minister's Office and the RCMP to present their side of this debate in a fair and equitable manner.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, one thing we have been hearing from the Liberals on the other side, not only today but in previous interviews, is that they believe the commissioners in the inquiry already have the authority to use some of their money to hire lawyers for the students. This seems to be contravened by Madam Justice Reed of the federal court who ruled that this was not the case, and we do not believe it to be true.

Would the member care to comment on the practicality of having the commissioners simply use some of their resources to hire lawyers for the students? Does she see that as a possible option?

[Val Meredith, Reform, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. It is quite clear that the commission will be stretched for financial resources for its own needs without even contemplating paying legal fees for the students.

The court has made a ruling on that. Unless that ruling is appealed it does not really allow flexibility for the commission to use its very tight resources to pay lawyers fees for the students.

It also undermines the commitment the federal government needs to make in the fairness of the process. It has been suggested by other colleagues of mine on the opposition side that if the federal government were really concerned about fairness and not prepared to use taxpayers' funds to fund a student, in that acceptance of fairness it should take its lawyers out of the courtroom.

The lawyers are not required. The process can function quite well without them. It would at least give the appearance to Canadians that the government accepts the concept of fairness, equality and justice being served.

[Gurmant Grewal, Reform, Surrey Central, BC]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member for the last few minutes talk about freedom of our citizens and democracy in our great country. She also mentioned that only one party in the House did not believe in equality or equal opportunity for the students in the inquiry.

We have been listening to jokes about pepper spray on plates and pepper steaks from the government side, particularly from the Prime Minister. Yesterday the Prime Minister said that students are lucky the RCMP is not using baseball bats.

Does the hon. member think this is a display of arrogance by the Prime Minister? Is the Prime Minister disrespectful of Canadians? Is the government removed from Canadians and not listening to them or understanding them? What does the hon. member think about this arrogance and the jokes?

[Val Meredith, Reform, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would be the last person to try to justify what the Prime Minister says publicly. It is only one more example of the arrogance shown by the government of the day and by the Prime Minister's caucus.

Today's debate has been a real eye opener as far as the lack of respect for somebody else's opinion is concerned. Whether we agree with these students is not the issue. The issue is a fair hearing so the public complaints commission can decide whether or not the students complaint was justified.

The concern of the opposition right from the beginning is that this process, this public complaints commission, may not have been the vehicle to have investigated the involvement of the Prime Minister's Office and the government in police activities. We were assured by the government that the public complaints commission would be able to do the job. Now we see interference, if in no other way, by a heavy barrage of government lawyers manipulating the process.

This shows the arrogance and the lack of appreciation of the government of the desire of Canadians to get to the bottom of this matter, find out the truth and make sure the process is fair and equitable.