Mr. Speaker, I also would like to congratulate the Bloc member for the motion. As the previous speaker indicated the motion is very timely in light of the fact that we are presently considering Bill C-36. Bill C-36 gives tremendous power, power that in a free and democratic society under normal circumstances we would never, ever consider. It is a bill that is draconian in nature and one that is of deep concern, I am sure, to every member of the House. Therefore this motion is singularly timely.
Let us go back to the events of APEC in 1997. Flowing from those events, the activities of the police and the apparent interference of the Prime Minister and his office, there were two questions. The first question was about the actual conduct of the RCMP. As has been mentioned by the former ombudsman for the province of British Columbia, the member for Vancouver--Quadra, the point is that the public complaints commission established in 1986 indeed was the correct venue to be able to determine what happened, what the activities of the police were and indeed if they were appropriate, but there was an equally pressing second question that the government to this day has never answered. The question is, did the Prime Minister and his office interfere with the RCMP enforcement activities at APEC 1997?
I spent a fair amount of time at the hearings. In listening to the testimony of the people who came before the commission and in seeing the way in which the commission was actually started up, I saw that it was clear that there was the hand of the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office, even through the public complaints commission, even through commissioner Heafy at the beginning of the public complaints commission process, to ensure that the people of Canada would never, ever receive an adequate or a true answer to the question, did the Prime Minister and his office interfere with the RCMP and its enforcement activities at APEC 1997?
We recall that at the beginning of the public complaints commission process there were three commissioners appointed, a chair and two commissioners, for a total of three people who were involved in that process at the beginning. What was very clear was that there had been interference. There was interference with the original chair of the public complaints commission. He said so himself. There is evidence that there was interference by the head of the public complaints commission, Shirley Heafy, into the process at that time. The question about that has never been answered: Why did she interfere with that process?
Let us fast forward to the end of this process, where commissioner Hughes has come forward with some innuendo, and that is all he can do, about the involvement of the Prime Minister in interfering with the RCMP. Why can he only do it by innuendo? Because that is the way the Liberal government set this up. It was to protect the Prime Minister. It was set up so that the public complaints commissioner himself, Hon. Justice Hughes, was incapable of getting to the bottom of the question of whether the Prime Minister and his office interfered with RCMP enforcement activities at APEC 1997.
Justice Hughes came forward with the portion of his report which has been noted by my Bloc colleague. Now the government says we must make sure that the commissioner and her reporting is unfettered by government interference. It is a little bit thick because in spite of the fact that she uses the words fair, impartial and independent, the fact of the matter is we know that at the beginning of the public complaints commission process she was not fair, impartial or independent because of the way in which the first three commissioners of this ended up crashing and burning.
We can fast forward to section 33.3.1 of Justice Hughes' report. Commissioner Zaccardelli of the RCMP was not standing up for the RCMP. He was being an apologist for the government. He was ignoring the involvement of the Prime Minister and the political aspect of the decisions that were made at APEC.
Colleagues before me gave a very good explanation of why he was doing this and I agree with them. He has to recognize as a top government official, the equivalent to a deputy minister, which side his bread is buttered on.
That is a very harsh thing to say and I am well aware of that. However it is my judgment that the Prime Minister of Canada got away with the fact that he interfered with the RCMP and its enforcement activities at APEC in 1997.
As a matter of principle there must be an absolute barrier between politicians and police in a free democracy. I say that as a politician, but as I take a look at other politicians, particularly people like the Prime Minister and other ministers of the crown in positions of authority who can directly influence the police without a clear line of delineation between politicians and police, they can continue to do that.
It is scary that Bill C-36, the anti-terrorism bill, gives so many powers to the police. It tips the balance away from our free and democratic society, the very freedoms we are trying to protect. We are having to set some of those freedoms aside so that we can protect the freedoms we must keep. It is a terrible situation for us as politicians to be in.
I commend the Bloc Quebecois member for her motion. I consider it a crying shame that it has not been permitted to come to a vote. This is an action that the Prime Minister and the government should be bringing to the House, if only for good faith reasons, as part of Bill C-36 so that we would understand that there could never be a breakdown of the barrier between politicians and police.