Madam Speaker, on October 8, I announced in this House that the New Brunswick premier, Camille Thériault, was aware of the plan to build a correctional college in my province, the very college the member for Palliser heard the Solicitor General talking about on his famous flight to Fredericton.
In my opinion, this is irrefutable evidence that the member for Palliser heard the Solicitor General discussing confidential matters in public. This is why I asked the Solicitor General to admit that he had committed a grave error and invited him to resign.
What was his response? He said the member for Palliser had misunderstood him. Knowing that the member for Palliser could not have known of the correctional college unless he had heard about it on the plane, the Solicitor General nevertheless decided to deny the remarks by the member for Palliser.
Needless to say, the Solicitor General's response left a lot to be desired.
On the other hand, I have to say that his response surprised no one. For three weeks now, the Solicitor General has refused to acknowledge that he made a grave mistake. He has refused to admit that he discussed confidential matters in public. He is incapable of recognizing that his behaviour was completely inappropriate for a minister.
In fact, the behaviour of the Solicitor General is totally in keeping with that of his government, which has attained a point of such arrogance that it deems itself above all criticism. The debate in the House today shows that very clearly.
The RCMP public complaints commission asked him to provide adequate funding to allow UBC students to hire lawyers to represent them before the commission, but the solicitor general denied its request, arguing that the students did not need lawyers to represent them.
The government however is sending a full team of well-paid lawyers to Vancouver to represent and defend the interests of the solicitor general, the Prime Minister and the Liberal government before the commission.
Since the beginning of October, the solicitor general has been contending that the public complaints commission is a fair, equitable and independent institution and that parliament should let it do its job.
But when the commission asks him for the resources it needs to do its job, the solicitor general refuses to provide them. How can the solicitor general claim that the commission's proceedings will be fair and equitable when, by his own actions, he is making sure they cannot be.
This brings me back to my original question. On October 8, I asked the solicitor general to resign. He refused. Since then, almost every editorial writer in the country, including those of the Globe and Mail , the Halifax Herald , La Presse and the Edmonton Journal , have called for his resignation. Yet he will not resign.
The solicitor general keeps on making blunders, but the people of Canada and all my colleagues in the opposition keep on wondering when he will tender his resignation.