Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to stand and respond to the Speech from the Throne.
Let us look at what the Speech from the Throne said. “The government will work with Canadians to ensure that our communities continue to be safe”. Another point was, “The government will combat drug trafficking”. We looked at that and we thought perhaps an amendment might be in order. The amendment we proposed was “That this government has failed to seriously deal with the problem of drug trafficking, youth crime and child pornography”, which in our judgment is a statement of fact.
While the throne speech was generally imprecise, with fluffy generalities signifying little or nothing, in the case of criminal justice, the government outlined inaccuracies and total distortions of truth.
Let us examine the Liberals' rhetoric against their record. They say, “The government will strengthen the capacity of the RCMP and other agencies to address the threats to public security in Canada and work with enforcement agencies in other countries”. So say the Liberals. That is their rhetoric. Here is their record.
The lead story in the Vancouver Sun two weeks ago puts a lie to their statement. It said, “RCMP halt fraud investigations blaming lack of money and staff. A Kamloops couple complained that they had been duped out of $450,000 U.S. in a stock scheme. Call your MP, the Mounties say”. They did not have to call me and certainly they did not have to call any of the Reform MPs because that is precisely what we have been shouting at the Liberals about for years.
This is a further quote from an RCMP officer in that article, “It is not a message we want to send, but we don't want to give the public a false belief that we will pursue their complaint if we don't have the resources”. That, as I say, was from the head of the RCMP commercial crime section in Vancouver.
It is not just B.C. I have been following a case in Edmonton where investors have been ripped off for $3 million in a stock swindle. They have been waiting three years for the RCMP to complete their investigation and for charges to be brought against the perpetrators of the swindle. The police have evidence coming out of their ears but they simply do not have the resources to get on with their job.
Mr. Speaker, I failed to mention that I will be sharing my time with the member for Calgary Northeast. My apologies.
Jason Cowan and Barb Trosin had an inventive product they wanted to bring to market but as with most entrepreneurs, they required capital. Unfortunately for them as with the case in Kamloops, they fell into the clutches of unscrupulous stock swindlers. Their case also has a Vancouver component where some of their stock was deceptively and fraudulently passed to another unsuspecting investor in a switch which took its inspiration from the Paul Newman movie The Sting . The offices used for the switch involved a well-known Canadian investment firm without the firm having any knowledge of the scam that occurred right at the front desk in its office. Like in the Kamloops story, the RCMP do not have the resources to pursue this obvious criminal fraud.
What about Bre-X, the $6 billion ripped out of investors' pockets and the RCMP already shutting down the investigation? I have a couple of questions.
Why did the RCMP give approval for unsupervised destruction of documents in the Bre-X office in the days immediately following the confirmation of the fraud? The answer seems to be lack of resources.
Why has there been no investigation into the responsibility that Nesbitt Burns had in dispatching their geologist on multiple trips to the mine site in Indonesia? He consistently reported no problems while the firm raked off millions of dollars in brokerage fees, yet within five minutes of an Australian geologist arriving at the mine, he detected serious problems.
The obvious answer is gross under-resourcing of Canada's national police force. Yet the Liberals have the gall to make statements in the throne speech as if they really cared about protecting Canadians. The bottom line is Canadian and international investors can be fleeced by swindlers and due to the government's intentional under-resourcing of the RCMP, our national police force can do nothing about it. The drastic result is that investment capital in Canada is becoming scarce.
I intend to ask the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to have the commissioner of the RCMP appear and explain his force's actions on the Bre-X file.
Speaking of international concerns and commitments, let me talk about organized crime. This is what the Liberals say. “The government will also continue to work closely with the U.S. to modernize our shared border for the 21st century”. That is what the Liberals say; that is their rhetoric. Here are the results. It is as if they have not had the responsibility of running Canada for the last six years. Wake up and smell the coffee. The government has no vision to lead Canada safely into the 21st century.
In 1998 the United Nations declared transnational crime as its highest priority. Members of the G-8 affirmed that it is one of the major challenges facing the world on the threshold of the 21st century. Organized crime has emerged as the number one threat to Canada's overall security, yet the government has cut the legs out from under Canada's security committee. How? This is how.
Last weekend it was revealed that a top secret planning document was stolen. It was a planning document for next year and to all accounts should never have been removed from CSIS property. Unbelievably, it was in a briefcase in the back of a car in a parking lot in Toronto. The bright light from CSIS was at the Toronto Maple Leafs game. She left the briefcase in the back of her car. Druggies smashed the window, took the case and we were told it was thrown into a dumpster, but we are not sure. If we think a smash and grab drug addict is a reliable source for information, then perhaps we will have no trouble also believing in the tooth fairy.
We also know there has been a serious breach of security in Canada's Hong Kong trade office. What happened? There was a cover-up. When the RCMP officer revealed documents that clearly showed a cover-up, he was suspended. Meanwhile, we have also learned that a special operation to get intelligence about Asian gangs called operation Sidewinder was suspended in 1996.
It was not only suspended but all of the data was removed from electronic storage, including e-mails, and all hard copy was shredded. Why? As a matter of fact, the members of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, who are civilians and who oversee Canada's spy agency, learned about the shredding and the turning down of the Sidewinder operation as a result of picking up the newspaper a couple of Fridays ago. They were never told by the solicitor general and never informed by the agents at CSIS.
With that report, we would have information on the people smuggling gangs that hit Canada's west coast this summer. At least we would have a starting point to understand the infiltration into Canadian businesses by organized crime. But, I repeat, the report was shredded. My question is: Why?
Does it have anything to do with the other big story this weekend? That story revolves around the fact that the RCMP and CSIS are having a turf war. They do not share vital information. They investigate each other. There is constant bad blood that inhibits their ability to protect Canadians.
The government delayed and delayed the appointment of civilian oversight for CSIS. For years the spy service of Canada has run without the checks and balances set out in legislation. It has led to an unhealthy culture in CSIS. CSIS exhibited that culture through the director of CSIS when he came before the parliamentary standing committee on justice last May 25.
I fault the Liberal government, the government elected in 1993. The SIRC positions were vacant for years, that is years. There was no proper oversight of Canada's spy agency as a result of a deliberate omission by the Liberal government. All law enforcement and national security agents must, at the very least, be able to maintain the ability to target threats to national security, and the Liberals are badly failing the test.
There has been no strengthening of RCMP resources. Each year the RCMP face more and more challenges as the potential for technological crime increases. Its equipment and resources are rusted while organized crime goes on a buying spree of new technology.
We have just had a very tiny glimpse at the difference between the Liberals' rhetoric and the Liberals' reality. Canadians deserve better from the government. They want the government to resource our people who are charged with the responsibility of maintaining our national police force and our national security. Canadians deserve better than this government.