Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to take part in the debate. It is certainly an issue that is becoming one of great national concern, more and more so with each passing day, to the alarm of many Canadians.
Smuggling has been going on in Canada for over a century. In my home province of Nova Scotia, which was very famous for rum running during the days of prohibition, there is a strange aspect of human nature. There has been a bit of romanticism about that aspect of smuggling.
It has been a problem of law enforcement. Stepped up efforts have managed to bring this problem under control in some parts of the country. Nowadays smuggling is becoming more and more a high tech and dangerous issue of drugs, guns and pornography. Some days we hear time and time again on the news that Canadian coastlines are being besieged with these kinds of contraband material.
Romanticism is certainly lost in this debate, particularly when we hear stories of human smuggling and the slavery of Chinese migrants trying to gain access to Canada. Thousands are brought in, as people are being constantly reminded through the daily media.
One specific problem gaining media attention involves Asian criminal gangs known as snakeheads, which are referenced in this motion. It seems more reminiscent of a James Bond film when we hear the facts of this case. There have been claims of an RCMP cover-up after files were deleted from the immigration computer at the Canadian commission, now the consulate general in Hong Kong. There are intriguing words like triads, Chinese Mafia, snakeheads, people smugglers and project Sidewinder. There are local staff with high level security clearance using their posts to accept bribes in return for distributing approximately 2,000 blank visa forms. The allegations are being made against the RCMP by one of its own, which has made this case all the more chilling and disturbing.
RCMP Corporal Robert Read has made the allegations that the RCMP is covering up aspects of a visa scam at the Canadian diplomatic mission in Hong Kong. Read has been suspended for talking to the media in the Vancouver province about this Hong Kong investigation and is now subject to investigation. It has all the makings of an espionage thriller that would make a John Le Carré novel seem unbelievable.
Sadly it is not the case that we are able to look at a movie and hopefully come to some sort of happy ending. In the real world the RCMP corporal is being discredited while his legitimate hard earned evidence is being ignored.
Poor Chinese migrants are being treated as human cargo as they spend their life savings trying to get to Canada, only to find themselves in slave labour in return for this passage to Canada. Snakeheads and triads are making a fortune smuggling bodies and providing slave labour to their triad connected businesses in North America.
It is unthinkable to most Canadians that this could be happening, and meanwhile the federal government has failed to take decisive action. This past summer snakehead boats with their human cargo continued to besiege the B.C. coast, and the government had no plan of action other than waiting for the weather to change.
With no budget for the coast guard, deep cuts to the RCMP and sparse navy patrol on the water to intercept these vessels, Canadian coastlines are vulnerable. Refugee status to migrants being granted while still onboard is one way to approach the problem but with sparse resources we are unable to do it. No moneys from the government can be spent in this area. Yet it appears that the government will continue with funding for gun registration and funding for other programs that pale by comparison when viewed in terms of the seriousness of the issue.
This is a human tragedy, and yet the government has not taken meaningful action on this specific problem. It was a Bloc motion that forced the government into accepting the idea of putting the matter before the justice committee as a start. Sadly we know it will take the committee a long time to address the matter, given the agenda it is currently faced with.
As we have seen with other RCMP officers like Corporal Read, when they find themselves in conflict with their political masters or the high ranking brass in the RCMP, they are castigated, singled out and then abandoned.
An initial investigation into this possible cover-up of project Sidewinder was surprisingly stopped shortly after it began in 1992 due to lack of evidence. As we have seen in other investigations like Bre-X or Air India, when they are cut short the public is left to wonder what is the true outcome and what is really at work. Yet we know in other investigations that are politically motivated, like the creation of the Airbus scandal, that the money seems to be there and the investigation seems to go on endlessly.
When RCMP officers like Corporal Read are assigned to a file they are not given the support they need. Read made some very significant discoveries and found gaping holes in the original investigation. He was completing a report into why 788 files containing sensitive background information on businessmen and criminals had been deleted from the computer assisted immigration processing system, CAIPS, but was yanked off the case at the last minute just as he was beginning to get close to the truth. He protested and continued to repeat his allegations in an attempt to have the RCMP reopen and continue the case, yet they fell upon deaf ears.
Read was suspended for speaking to the media. Out of frustration he turned to the media. The RCMP is not actively investigating the triads. Instead it has begun to investigate him. It is the irony of ironies.
Even as late as the end of November the solicitor general was oblivious to the issue. As he stated in the House, it is up to the RCMP to decide what measures to take. He suggested that Corporal Read should take this issue to the Public Complaints Commission. Little did he know that Corporal Read had already done this and was told by the commission that his case was beyond its purview.
Again this is a clear indication that the solicitor general is sadly lacking in some of the fundamentals of his own department. If this is a case of RCMP misconduct then the solicitor general should look into Corporal Read's request to have his complaints addressed by an independent commission.
Read said that he had already brought his complaint of the alleged RCMP cover-up to the Public Complaints Commission, the auditor general and CSIS, and yet there is still no investigation. It is a shocking revelation.
For that reason I commend the hon. member for Lakehead for bringing this issue before the House of Commons. It is hoped that in listening to this debate perhaps the Liberal government will realize that its inaction has aided the proliferation of snakehead-triad organized crime in this country.
These are all important messages that are being transmitted. We have yet to see the government react. Will it receive this message? Time will tell.