Debates of Oct. 8th, 1998

Apec Summit

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Roberval.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Solicitor General is the minister responsible for internal security. He is the one responsible for state secrets. The portfolio is so different from the others that newly appointed Solicitors General are given more training about security than other ministers.

How can the man responsible for security in Canada not understand that the words he spoke, as reported by the hon. member, are unseemly and incompatible with his position?

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I understand my responsibilities very well and I live by them proudly.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when the Deputy Prime Minister was Solicitor General, he never got into such a situation because he understood he needed to keep his mouth shut. That is what Solicitors General have to learn, and this one did not.

Someone from a foreign power, someone with an interest in getting some information on Canada, could have been the one sitting close to the Solicitor General on that plane, so what he was saying did constitute a risk to national security. How can a man in charge of national security behave in such a way as to endanger the—

[The Speaker]

The hon. Solicitor General.

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the allegations made against me in terms of inappropriately speaking about the Public Complaints Commission by way of process or outcome have been denied. That denial has been substantiated by the gentleman with whom I was speaking directly, not an aisle and a half away.

[Rahim Jaffer, Reform, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said one day “When confidence is lost, the system no longer works”. How things change after five years in office.

Canadians no longer have confidence in the Solicitor General, who is still with us. Why is the government not keeping its word?

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear what is happening. Members opposite have embraced inaccurate observations, snippets from a very noisy aircraft that have been put together as truth.

There are many inaccuracies in these statements, including in my own constituency the name of the St. Mary's First Nation. It turned up across an aisle as St. Michael's. That is just an example.

[Grant Hill, Reform, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the syndrome called recovered memory syndrome was largely discredited in medical circles.

The solicitor general's sudden recovery of memory has actually discredited him, both in this House and through the rest of the country.

Which one of this cabinet will stand up and finally say “We are going to fire the flyer”?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see from the hon. member's question that he is now satisfied with the government's approach to the tragedy of hep C victims.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General. The Prime Minister has claimed that the remarks of his minister have no impact on the commission of inquiry. They caused RCMP officials to say in Vancouver yesterday that they were not prepared to take the blame for anyone else in the Peppergate scandal.

Can the Solicitor General not see that his chats are far from neutral, that they are having serious repercussions for the inquiry and that he must really step down?

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, in the House on Tuesday I advised that the allegations made against me were not accurate. My statement on Tuesday was supported by the gentleman who was sitting beside me on the plane, with whom I was having a private conversation, not somebody eight feet away, a seat and an aisle away, on a noisy plane.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Solicitor General must realize that since his chat in the plane, the RCMP is in a state, secret agents are giving interviews and the media talks of nothing else, from coast to coast.

What does it take to get the Solicitor General to do what duty requires he do—resign?

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think anyone in this country would want the government to make decisions based on inaccurate information.

[Inky Mark, Reform, Dauphin—Swan River, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in this government when cabinet ministers are having problems—and yes, we do have a cabinet minister with a problem, and we have been at it all week—the Prime Minister usually will not allow the minister to resign. The Prime Minister usually waits until he can shuffle the cabinet minister out the back door.

Instead of waiting for the next cabinet shuffle, why will the Prime Minister not just let the solicitor general do the honourable thing and resign?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has said that he has confidence in the solicitor general and that he is doing a fine job. There is no reason the Prime Minister should follow the precedent of the Leader of the Opposition and kick people out of the caucus completely or sentence them to the back row because he does not like the way they are disagreeing with him. That is no precedent for this party or for anybody else in this House.

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in his idealistic youth as Prime Minister, the Prime Minister said: “Integrity and honesty are the cornerstones of this government”. That was 1996—

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Will the Deputy Prime Minister now prove that statement and fire the solicitor general?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the rather uncharacteristic endorsement of the Prime Minister's policies by the hon. Reform member. It is because of the Prime Minister's daily proof of commitment to these policies that he is not going to follow the unwarranted advice of the Reform Party or any other opposition party in this matter.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General.

Since the Solicitor General has demonstrated his flagrant lack of judgment to all, since he has failed to convince anyone other than perhaps his Liberal colleagues of his version of the facts, since his arguments do not stand up to those of the member for Palliser, will he, in a flash of lucidity, submit his resignation right now?

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, last Tuesday in this House I denied the allegations that were made with regard to the process of the Public Complaints Commission or its outcome. That denial was substantiated by the gentleman with whom I was speaking on the aircraft at that time and not by someone a seat and an aisle away.

Government Of Ontario

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the people of Ontario were justifiably outraged recently when the Government of Ontario lowered the minimum age for hunting with a firearm to 12. As soon as the reformatories realized this was a terrible mistake they blamed the federal government.

Would the Minister of Justice please give this House and the solicitor general for Ontario an elementary lesson in jurisdiction between governments?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises a very important issue. It is an issue that has been of concern to the people of Ontario.

I want to clarify for all members in this House and the people of Ontario that in fact the law surrounding hunting, who hunts and the age at which one can apply for a permit to hunt, is in fact within exclusive provincial jurisdiction.

I want to reassure this House and the people of Ontario that this government had no part in the decision made by the Government of Ontario to permit 12 year olds to apply for hunting licences.

Apec Summit

[Howard Hilstrom, Reform, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the solicitor general, the guardian of this nation's most sensitive information, has loose lips. His loose lips violated the elementary rule of policing, that you only release information on a need to know basis. As a former RCMP officer, the nation's top cop is a major security risk because he cannot follow this rule. When will the Prime Minister ask the minister for his resignation?