Madam Speaker, on October 9, I quoted a number of grade 11 history students from Hamnot Collegiate in Flin Flon, Manitoba. These students are constituents of mine who had faxed me that day with their views on whether the solicitor general should resign. The overwhelming majority of them said he should resign. Prior to question period that day I asked the class if I quote them in my question. They were ecstatic that their views were going to be heard. I was very disturbed by the Deputy Prime Minister's response. He called the students' comments unwarranted and unjustified and accused me of abusing the process of this House. I will address each of these allegations in turn.
Some of the students were very insulted that the Deputy Prime Minister dismissed their opinions as out of hand. In a democracy is the government not supposed to respect the views of its citizens? The Deputy Prime Minister had no right to call their opinions unwarranted and unjustified. His doing so goes right to the heart of what is wrong with this Liberal government. it is arrogant. The Deputy Prime Minister clearly does not care about the views of Canadians. No wonder the things the government says and does are increasingly out of touch with what Canadians want.
The same attitude can be seen in his accusation that I was abusing the process of this House by informing the students of my question so they could watch it on television and give their opinions. Does the Deputy Prime Minister actually think it is an abuse for Canadians to watch their own government on television? Would he prefer that the proceedings go on behind closed doors so they do not have to be accountable? It is not an abuse for Canadians to watch the proceedings of parliament. It is a democratic right. But this Liberal government does not seem to care much about democratic rights.
The previous speaker, my colleague from Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, indicated his efforts to try to bring some modern changes and some democracy into the House. Once again there is no attempt by this government to see that change go through, not even to the point of taking that suggestion to committee where it could be discussed and heard and so we could finally see some kind of change to the type of democracy this government is bent on pursuing.
The right to protest is another crucial right in a democracy. This is part of freedom of speech. If Canada is to be a democracy, Canadians must be free to voice their opposition to what the government does. When the RCMP pepper sprayed those APEC protesters in Vancouver they were suppressing the fundamental democratic rights of those protesters. This is a very serious matter and Canadians deserve to get to the bottom of it.
Rather than openly answer these allegations, the government has been acting as if it has something to hide. First, as his comments on the plane to Fredericton showed, the former solicitor general prejudged the RCMP public complaints commission. The sworn affidavits confirm this to be so. He has now resigned for this indiscretion, proving the students I quoted were right all along, but the matter is far from closed.
The government continues to insist the RCMP commission will get to the bottom of the pepper spray incident which is absolute nonsense. The commission is only mandated to review the actions of the RCMP officers, not the political masters. Since the commission cannot look into the actions of the Prime Minister, it cannot determine whether he or his staff was involved in the suppression of democratic rights. The commission has been hopelessly tainted by the former solicitor general's comments and by the fact that the students have not received any legal funding while the government is represented by a team of high priced lawyers.
The only way Canadians can get an accurate picture of what truly happened during the APEC conference is to appoint a judicial inquiry to investigate. If the government truly has nothing to hide, it should appoint a judicial inquiry to exonerate itself.