Mr. Speaker, I want to support my colleague from the Bloc. I will start out by saying that my length of service in the House did not stand in the way of not being able to get on the Hill yesterday because I was indeed one of the people who was prevented from accessing the Hill for a short period of time.
I just want to register my own objection. I do not understand why these police, who were not the usual RCMP that we find on the Hill, could not have been instructed, or if they were instructed, why they did not absorb it, that there would be people coming up to the Hill who were members of Parliament and who had ID showing that they were members of Parliament, or a pin, or a pin and ID.
In my case I had my identification card with my picture showing that I was a member of Parliament but the policeman said that was not good enough and that I had to have a security pass. I told him that my staff were on the Hill and asked him why I could not get up. I was with Senator Grafstein from the other place, who incidentally is co-chair of the Canada-U.S. Parliamentary Association. He also had to prove that he was a senator. Neither one of us could get passed this particular policeman and we invited him to discuss the matter with his superior officer and he went to do that.
In the meantime, we carried on the discussion with the policeman who was left and finally persuaded him that these passes were legitimate and that we should be allowed to proceed up Wellington toward the East Block. We were somewhere between the Chateau Laurier and the East Block. We got past him but then the other policeman came back and asked what we were doing. We told him that we were on our way up the Hill. He told us that we could not because we needed security passes. I told him that no one told us we needed a security pass and no one ever did tell members of Parliament and security passes were not provided for members.
It was only when we managed to talk our way close enough to the gate at the East Block that the RCMP, who normally police the Hill, were able to see myself and the senator and tell the police officer that it was okay to let us on the Hill.
When I got through the gate and up onto the lawn, there were protesters there. Did they have security clearance? Did they have the card that I did not have? They had huge signs saying that George Bush was a terrorist and everything else. They were on the lawn by the eternal flame having a fine old time but I, as a member of Parliament with picture ID, could not get on the Hill. Something is wrong with this movie.
Mr. Speaker, you need to talk to the people who were in charge of security for yesterday's events and make sure that this kind of thing does not happen again.