Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises two separate issues, one being the question of eminent Canadians as opposed to a public inquiry, and the second being what has happened over time, the passage of time and the change of circumstances.
No one disagrees that a lot has happened in the last 20 years but the parliamentary secretary misses the point. The point of the motion is to find out why the investigation was bungled and why hundreds of hours of transcript were destroyed resulting in the inability to pursue this case through to conviction.
I assume that there are transportation related questions with which the government has dealt. Perhaps on another day and in another time those will be investigated. I hope, as a Canadian, that some of those issues have been dealt with by the government but that is not the question in front of us.
The question in front of us concerns one of the most significant trials in Canadian history in which a respected judge made a decision in favour of acquittal and uncategorically said that one of the reasons he acquitted was because of the bungled investigation. What assurances do Canadians have that that miscarriage of justice will not happen again?
The only way we can get to the bottom of that is to do it in public. It is not eminent Canadians or any eminent Canadian who needs to have that question answered, it is all Canadians, eminent or not. All Canadians, including the families of the victims, want to get to the bottom of this but not through a secretive, reclusive process between the minister and a hand-picked person.