Madam Speaker, last year in Vancouver, several hundred people wanted to protest peacefully the presence of the Indonesian dictator, Suharto, at the APEC summit.
During the protests, the RCMP intervened and destroyed signs bearing pro-democracy slogans. Nearly 50 people were arrested. Some of them were released after promising to give up their democratic right to protest. We subsequently learned that the PMO had apparently promised Suharto he would not be bothered by protesters during his visit to Canada.
Pressured from all sides to examine these events, the Prime Minister could have enlightened us on the role his office played in the grave violations of the freedom of expression. Under the principle of responsible government, the Prime Minister must account to Parliament for his actions. However, instead of acceding to the requests of the opposition, he decided to sacrifice one of his ministers on the altar of cynicism and arrogance. But both of them are saying nothing. They have told us to await the results of the investigation by the RCMP public complaints commission.
The Prime Minister could have said from the outset that he was prepared to testify before the commission, but he decided to remain silent, even though he is ultimately responsible for orders his office apparently gave to the RCMP.
The silence of the Prime Minister and his Solicitor General will cost taxpayers close to $1 million, the amount the RCMP complaints commission expects to spend before this inquiry is over. And what will there be to show for it? Because the government is refusing to come up with the few thousands of dollars the student victims of these events need to pay their lawyers, they will not be able to present their case properly.
The Prime Minister even tried to cast these victims of the RCMP in the role of aggressors. Yesterday, here in the House, while briefly taking the heat off the Solicitor General, he once again denied the unfortunate students the most basic tool of justice, the right to legal representation.
In his defence, he said:
The police and the government being challenged have a lawyer to defend them. But there is no complaint against the students. They are the ones complaining and they can make their case—
They are the ones complaining against the police. Of course the police want to defend themselves because they are the ones being accused.
Finally, he said:
The RCMP is being attacked Some people in my office have been asked to testify because members of parliament claimed that they are responsible.
Who is doing the attacking, and who is being attacked? These young students were merely implementing a few sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, passed when the Prime Minister was justice minister. But, to add insult to injury, the Prime Minister of Canada even went so far as to defend the RCMP's actions as civilized. I quote him again:
Instead of using baseball bats or other weapons, the police are now trying to use more civilized methods and that is why they also had towels to help out.
That is the ultimate insult. The Prime Minister's attitude is unworthy of a government leader. Must he stoop so low and depict protesting students as violent? Is he so panicked that his judgment is slipping?
Why raise such spectres? Is it because we are getting close to Halloween, or because this government has some skeletons in its closet?
Canada will soon become a member of the UN security council, and this is certainly to the credit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. However, at the rate things are going, one wonders if, before long, Canada will still deserve its enviable reputation on the human rights.
This is a timely opportunity to ask ourselves how Canada will exert its influence on world powers. During the two years that it will be a non permanent member of the security council, will Canada deploy as much efforts for official development assistance, defence industry conversion and human rights protection, as it does for debt reduction, light weapon exports and trade expansion?
These are important questions which we must put to this government. The Prime Minister's behaviour since the APEC summit is unworthy of his position. While he is boasting about studies that put Canada among the world's best countries, he acts like a mercenary at the service of dictatorships.
Since human rights are still being trampled in Malaysia, does the Canadian government intend to take the initiative and ask that the next APEC summit take place elsewhere than in Kuala Lumpur?
Could the Prime Minister tell us whether the government's position is to praise human rights activists, as it did during President Mandela's visit, or to attack ordinary citizens participating in a peaceful demonstration against dictatorship?
Until it has been ascertained what course will be taken in terms of foreign policy during its tenure at the security council, I would appreciate it if the Government of Canada were to put its money where its mouth is and shed light on the allegations of repression made against the government and the RCMP.
In this respect, is the Prime Minister prepared to tell us whether or not the RCMP was acting on his orders when it trampled the democratic rights of demonstrators? Does the Prime Minister intend to apologize to all these citizens who were either arrested or pepper-sprayed, particularly those who, a few weeks ago, were awarded the Carole Geller award in recognition of their contribution to human rights advocacy?
Yesterday, in highly hypothetical terms, the Prime Minister offered the merest suggestion of regrets in response to the question of a member who noted the case of a person who was hurt by the police's action. He said:
I said that if this lady has suffered something because of this abuse by the police it will be judged by the commission. I apologized to her on behalf of the police.
This sure sounds like an admission on his part. The Prime Minister shot himself in the foot. If the RCMP public complaints commission finds the RCMP guilty of improper conduct during these events, the Prime Minister will have to take the blame.
To conclude, if the Prime Minister does not answer very soon all the questions put to him in connection with this matter, people will say that Canada's reputation as an advocate for human rights and fundamental freedoms is overrated. You will understand that, for these reasons, the Bloc Quebecois supports the NDP motion urging the government to provide funded legal representation for complainants in the inquiry and has proposed an amendment to ensure that sufficient funding is provided so that the legal representation is fair and equitable. This is a matter of fundamental justice.