Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege of being able to speak to this debate. I spent eight days at the hearing and I can bring some perspective from having been an eye witness to what is going on.
I want members to understand the impact of no funding and what it means. We have a perspective that there is an ongoing political cover-up for the Prime Minister. That may or may not be proven. Time will tell. However, what I saw was a lack of funding, no funding for Craig Jones, the first complainant, the first student on the stand. I saw a very experienced counsel for the RCMP, Mr. Macintosh, Q.C., take Mr. Jones' testimony and completely turn it on its head.
He had Mr. Jones agreeing that the entire effort was focusing on security and did not really have anything to do with the political statement. The reason the complainant, Mr. Jones, was arrested without charge and detained for 14 hours was that he was protesting the fact that he was trying to make a political statement which was shut down by the RCMP at the behest of the Prime Minister. It was a very skilful cross-examination by Mr. Macintosh.
Mr. Macintosh, on behalf of the RCMP, also got a subpoena for Mr. Jones to provide 800 pages of his e-mail. When he gave the commission those pages, Mr. Arvay who was acting on his behalf in a unpaid part time capacity said “I am sorry, Mr. Jones, but I do not have time to go through these 800 pages to determine relevance of the pages”. It fell on Mr. Considine, counsel for the hearing. Mr. Considine also said “I am sorry. I do not have time. I cannot possibly take a look through these documents to find out what is relevant”.
I understand he then went to Mr. Jones and asked for his approval to turn over all 800 pages without any reference as to relevance of the pages to the inquiry. There was an assumption on the part of Mr. Arvay, Mr. Considine and Mr. Jones that Mr. Macintosh, their adversary, would also honour the fact that there would be the execution of an examination of relevance of the documents before they were ever used in the cross-examination of Mr. Jones.
I apologize that this is a little complex but it is very important to set the background. Mr. Macintosh either knew or should have known that, when he introduced the documents pertaining to the e-mails between Mr. Jones and Terry Milewski of the CBC, those documents were irrelevant. Those documents had nothing to do with the cross-examination of Mr. Jones.
I state again that Mr. Macintosh, Q.C., either knew or should have known that the documents were irrelevant. Therefore, what was the advantage of Mr. Macintosh on behalf of the RCMP introducing these pieces of paper?
What has been happening is that Mr. Milewski, a seasoned reporter of the CBC, had been carrying on a relationship with a number of people who were parties to the issue to try to get information that was not available to him from the Prime Minister's Office, from the RCMP or from any other source, Mr. Jones being one of them. Instead of exchanging verbal communication, as it happened they exchanged documents that ended up becoming documents on a piece of paper through e-mail.
Those documents show that Mr. Milewski and Mr. Jones were exchanging the information they had so that Mr. Milewski could bring the report to the CBC and to the people of Canada as to what was going on. I say that he is a reporter of some repute, a reporter who will check his facts, and a reporter who before these stories ever went to air made sure that he had it airtight. The Prime Minister did not like it. Mr. Milewski was like a terrier on the Prime Minister's ankle.
I come back to the question. Why did Mr. Macintosh, an experienced counsel, Q.C., not know? As we understand, he should have known these documents of exchange of information between Mr. Jones and Mr. Milewski were irrelevant.
I checked with a crown counsel in my constituency who advised me that it is completely wrong court procedure for documents to be presented in examination or cross-examination that are irrelevant and clearly for the purpose of simply introducing the documents to get them into public record. I will not say it any stronger than that because I am not a lawyer and I do not understand the implications.
Because of the lack of counsel for Mr. Jones and the lack of counsel for the students, we now have the Prime Minister's press secretary, Mr. Donolo, using what Mr. Macintosh did in getting Milewski's information into the public record to attack Mr. Milewski, getting him off the case and getting the one reporter who was probably the furthest ahead on this issue out of the way.
Was there collusion? I think that is a question the Canadian public has to take a look at. Was there actually a knowledge on the part of Mr. Donolo that Mr. Macintosh was to do this in order to deflect Mr. Milewski off the case, who after all was a most troublesome person for the Prime Minister?
It is clear that this is very high stakes poker for the Prime Minister. It is very clear because, as I just presented in my question to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General, the Prime Minister is not only represented by Canada's chief crown prosecutor who has flown at public expense from Ottawa to Vancouver to protect the Prime Minister. He is also there aided by two Vancouver lawyers of some repute. Apparently they were concerned that perhaps this was not enough cover for the government's—the Prime Minister's—position, so they have now dispatched Mr. David Scott, QC, from Ottawa to Vancouver, a jurist of high repute. It is reported that his normal billing time would be in the range of $350 an hour. We have Mr. Whitehall, the chief crown prosecutor for Canada, we have two assistants and we have a $350 an hour lawyer protecting the Prime Minister.
The case I have cited of how they managed to use the system in a grossly adversarial way, perhaps even in connection between Mr. Donolo and Mr. Macintosh to get Mr. Milewski off the case is as clear an example as I can give the Canadian public of what this issue of lack of funding means.
On the issue of going forward with setting a precedent, the precedent has been set. Take a look at the number of inquiries where people, complainants, coming to inquiries have been funded. The only reason why this particular case is in the hands of the public complaints commission as opposed to an independent inquiry is part of the cover-up in the first place.
What is going on here is that the solicitor general has seen to it that the power remains in the hands of the Prime Minister and the government. The solicitor general has shamelessly acted and continues to act as a cover for the Prime Minister rather than doing his job as the chief advocate for the people of Canada in his role as the Solicitor General of Canada.