Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to join with my colleagues from the NDP in speaking to our opposition day motion that really is a very important question. It has taken up an enormous amount of time in the House over the past few weeks.
The reason for bringing forward this motion today is to simply, as my colleague from Sydney—Victoria and other members of our caucus have outlined, put the question fair and square to the members of the House that the student complainants at the public complaints inquiry commission have a right to receive independent legal representation. The question before the House today is that straightforward and that simple.
I was in my riding of Vancouver East last week. It was not surprising to me that wherever I went and whatever discussions I had on many topics, the issue of the complaints inquiry came up. Everywhere I went, whether it was talking to seniors, students, unemployed people or community members, this issue came up. To hear government members today dismiss this motion and this issue as something that is politically expedient in terms of the opposition raising this issue tells me that government members have already closed their ears. They have stopped listening to what the people of Canada have to say.
After several weeks of questioning in the House, last Friday all of Canada was waiting to hear whether the solicitor general would finally agree that the students must have legal representation and the funding for that to happen. When the announcement was made and we heard the solicitor general's weak and very limp response, it was a shock. Many of us expected that this was an opportunity for the government to set the record straight and to begin to do the right thing. It was a huge disappointment after two requests from the commission the solicitor general told the House that we have to have faith in that he refused the two requests from the commission for independent funding.
It raises the question of the conflict of interest that the solicitor general is now in. On October 9 I along with my colleague raised in the House the question that the solicitor general had to acknowledge the conflict which he had placed himself in and the jeopardy that he had created for the process he had defended in the House. The conflict of interest and the fact that the very students he is denying funding to are the students who want to call him as a witness is a very serious conflict that has yet to be addressed.
It is important to go back and look at what has caused us to be at this incredible juncture today which is one of the most important questions we have considered in this parliament. We have to remember that the reason students were protesting democratically, the reason they were protesting peacefully and the reason they were exercising their democratic rights was their concern around the APEC summit in Vancouver last November.
I along with my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas and other members and activists attended the peoples summit to express our very deep concern about the role the Canadian government was playing in hosting foreign leaders who not only deny and violate human rights in their countries but who were coming together to promote a system of a capital intensive marketplace that supersedes all human needs and human rights. That is why those students were protesting. That is why those students were holding up their little signs on the way to UBC. They were really putting their point on the record. The travesty that has unfolded since that time has dug us deeper and deeper into a situation where now we seriously question the honour and the credibility of this government in what it really stands for.
How many times have we heard the Prime Minister get up and say he is here defending the rights of young people or Canada has a good track record on human rights? Here is the proof, here and now today in terms of this public complaints commission inquiry. This is where Canadians make the determination as to whether we stand for democracy, whether we stand in defence of those students or whether we are about to abandon those rights. The government has made it clear where it stands.
Last September I was very fortunate to be a part of a delegation hosted by the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. It visited two of the countries that are living the consequences of what APEC and trade liberalization are all about. I visited Indonesia and Thailand and saw for myself, along with other members of parliament and members of the NGO and international community, the devastation of what the so-called economic miracle in trade liberalization has been in those two countries.
It was very ironic after meeting students in Indonesia who have led the struggle there for democracy and economic and social reform at great personal risk as many of them have been jailed to come back to Canada and learn that the public complaints commission inquiry was beginning and that security here had been used as a cover to suppress the political and democratic expression against students who were exposing the same situation in Indonesia.
Very often we think that what we hold dear in this country is something that maybe we take for granted. I think we learned that day in November that we can see a government that becomes incredibly arrogant through the decision of a Prime Minister and that interference at a political level can violate those democratic rights and basically trample on young people who are trying to defend their rights here and to speak out against dictators like Mr. Suharto and other thugs who have suppressed their own people's rights. I think it was a very sad irony that that sort of situation exists.
As this story unfolds and as the government digs itself deeper and deeper into a situation that it seems unable to recover from, one of the most disappointing things has been to see the role that the Prime Minister has taken on. We had the first joke last November, a totally inappropriate comment. The Prime Minister did not learn from that. He went on to a second and a third joke. Even in the House we have now heard comments about baseball bats and water cannons. It really is a very serious matter and it is something that Canadians do not want to hear jokes about.
The Prime Minister continues to trivialize and make light of the very serious protest that these students undertook and their seriousness in trying to bring this complaint. They have had a complete lack of support from the government. That the government is doing its very best and spending a ton of money to undermine the process is something that really is very dishonourable in the House. It brings a great deal of shame on us.
I remember listening to Mr. Nelson Mandela in the House in September. It was a day when we remembered the honour that Canada had brought in the struggle to end apartheid. Yet very sadly it was also a day when we were in the midst of this crisis of a government that was unable to see what the right thing was in supporting these students and making sure we have a proper inquiry that is not undermined but will seriously get at the truth.
This motion today is very simple and straightforward. We would like to ask who on the government side will stand up and defend democracy and affirm that we are here in the House to represent the people of Canada and to defend democracy. It is not to protect a government when it has botched a job and it is not to defend a Prime Minister who is absolutely wrong and callous in his regard for people's human and legal rights.
The question is straightforward. Will the House agree and will Liberal members to have the courage to stand up and say that it is not too late to change a grievous wrong to those students and the people of Canada and to make sure that inquiry, limited as it is, will at least enable those students to get a fair shot at getting their case heard and having their complaints fairly heard? We have called for a full judicial inquiry. We ask the government members to have the courage to support this motion.