Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be in the House and to see members opposite.
I am pleased to speak tonight on the Liberal government's complete mishandling of the APEC affair. I hasten to add that the handling is really the question.
Contrary to what has been stated by Liberal members, this is not an issue of partisan politics. Rather, this is an issue that involves serious questions pertaining to the responsibilities of ministers of the crown.
Canadians are deeply troubled by a Prime Minister and a solicitor general who appear to have clear disregard for their respective duties and outright refuse to be accountable for their own actions, not unlike the infamous Airbus affair which we have yet to hear the last of.
Upon assuming office ministers of the crown must swear an oath to Her Majesty the Queen to uphold responsibilities which are inherent in serving the federal cabinet. The Prime Minister and the solicitor general in particular are entrusted with very heavy responsibilities.
Canadians need to know the level of the Prime Minister's involvement in directing RCMP officers to suppress peaceful protesters so as not to offend the sensibilities of an Asian dictator. What offends the sensibilities of Canadians is not only the callous remarks of the Prime Minister and the efforts to dodge the issue that the government is engaged in, but how closely was he involved and is it appropriate that he was involved. These are the fundamental questions that have remained unanswered throughout.
Of equal importance is why did the Prime Minister and his government not simply answer questions about this matter in this House when the matter was first introduced? Instead of engaging in that, they stepped up their efforts by engaging spin doctors to deflect these questions to avoid the hard questions that were posed to them.
Sadly and to his personal shame, the Prime Minister has refused to account for his actions and the actions of his office. His government has chosen the RCMP Public Complaints Commission to investigate these allegations. Despite the commission's lack of a legal and moral mandate to undertake such an inquiry with a broad truth seeking authority or any real final say in the matter, the government has been hiding behind this.
It has recently been declared that the federal court will not be hearing the appeal that was put to it. Instead, the commission itself is going to be tasked with the decision as to whether the commission has already prejudged this matter by the chair's alleged remarks in a casino. The commission is left with the tantamount task of deciding its own fate. This has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.
This matter has completely lost the faith of the Canadian people. This entire affair has a stench around it now that Canadians will not tolerate.
The solicitor general openly chastised the opposition members when they asked questions about this. He then went out, got on a plane and spoke about this in a very forthright way saying that Hughie was going to take the fall and that certain officers were going to be the fall guys in all of this.
This matter has been completely compromised by the government and by the actions of both the solicitor general and the Prime Minister. There is a blatant contradiction in what the government has asked the Canadian people to swallow, which is that they should have faith in this commission. However, when the commission asked on two separate occasions that the students be funded, the government refused. How can Canadians have faith in this commission if the government will not listen to the requests of the commission?
The member for Palliser made very damning allegations against the solicitor general and these allegations were repeated.
I suspect that we have not heard the end of this APEC matter. I am very interested to see how the parliamentary secretary will respond to these allegations.