Mr. Speaker, as the solicitor general critic for Her Majesty's Official Opposition I find it very interesting to listen to the solicitor general's report to the House.
He reported on December 3, 1998. At that time I said that criminals involved in organized crime have successfully landed in Canada without any opposition due to our lax immigration policy and inadequate screening. Organized crime with foreign origins poses a serious threat in many metropolitan areas of Canada, particularly on the west coast.
The danger imposed by modern day organized crime is a serious and destructive force. It imperils the security of our citizens and our nation. This threat attacks us on our streets, in our businesses and in our schoolyards. Organized crime is a threat to our economic sovereignty because the cost of organized crime in our society is astronomical.
The counterattack will require additional resources, legislation and co-operation provincially, federally and internationally. Canada cannot afford the continuing lip service the government is providing to the problem. We need resources. We need action. We need it now. Canadians will feel safe and confident only when these resources are committed to this attack. Crime is organized. So should government efforts be.
Those were my words exactly a year ago. Unfortunately the words of the solicitor general today belie what has happened in the intervening period of time. We have discovered in the intervening year that in the early 1990s there was a compromise of CAIPS, the computer system in our Hong Kong office. This led to very free access to organized crime to be able to move its people into our society.
There was an RCMP review of the compromise of the CAIPS system which led to the Sidewinder project, a joint project of CSIS and the RCMP. That project was making strong headway during the mid-1990s, right up to the point when CSIS decided not only to shut it down but to shred every piece of information that was in the project.
Corporal Robert Read, whom I brought to the attention of the solicitor general repeatedly in the House, did a review of the review of the project and arrived at some very bad conclusions. We also understand that in 1996 CSIS lost a disk of very highly classified information in a phone booth. SIRC did the review the solicitor general has referred to in the House but interestingly the person who found the disk was never interviewed by SIRC.
This year there was a loss of a briefcase by one of the operatives of CSIS. The CSIS director informed the solicitor general but the solicitor general, in his questionable wisdom, did not inform SIRC that would be responsible for reviewing the entire disastrous affair.
On the legislative front I quote the minister on December 3, 1998 when he said “Early in the new year, 1999, the government will introduce legislation to curb money laundering”.
It did not happen early in 1999. In fact it happened in May 1999, but due to the agenda of the government that legislation ended up dying on the order paper. This vital legislation that was supposed to have been introduced, according to the words of the solicitor general, in early 1999 was finally reintroduced for passage by the House on December 15. December 15, I remind the solicitor general, is not early 1999.
He tells us he is spending $15 million to put 100 officers at international airports. That is terrific except that the province of British Columbia alone has a shortage of 500 members at this point. His $15 million for 100 officers at airports is very shallow.
We have traditions in the House. For example, a meaningful tradition is when the mace is brought into the House by the Sergeant-at-Arms, followed by the Speaker. This is to say that the people of Canada have given authority to the House to do something. That is a meaningful tradition. What I am talking about now is a meaningless tradition. The meaningless tradition of this and previous Liberal solicitor generals with statements that are vacuous, meaningless mumblings simply form part of the tradition. Those are my comments.