Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is perfectly correct. That is the problem in the first place. In other words, everyone has said we must secure Parliament Hill. They forgot the second part of the sentence, for who? Obviously, Parliament Hill is for parliamentarians. That is why we are called that way. Except that whoever did the security arrangements did not seem to be aware of the second component. We must protect the place. There is a security element, but for who?
For instance, we were not protecting this chamber because the President was coming to give a speech here. Obviously that was not the issue. We were protecting the Parliament Buildings because they and their occupants needed this kind of protection, except that the occupant or the component thereof seemed to have been forgotten by someone in authority.
Security had never been informed that there was a security badge for an MP which is for quick identification. I know it is not official, but it is our quick identification system. We have a lapel pin and our official security card given to us by the Speaker. All of these things were not recognized.
One thing I forgot to mention is that security had a whole slew of accepted security cards. When our colleagues went to security, they said “I want access to the building. Here is my security card”. Security had a whole tableau of various security cards, such as the press security card, the Prime Minister's staff security card, but not one for MPs. It was not even on the matrix for security to compare. As far as it was concerned, the parliamentary security card was not a valid security card to enter Parliament. That is absolutely ridiculous. It explains to what extent people goofed in that regard. There is no other way of calling it.
I hope that these measures have now been rectified. I expect that someone in command, because ultimately the RCMP is to coordinate with the other bodies, will coordinate with them to ensure that they all recognize what a parliamentary security badge is in the future. It is to be expected that members of Parliament, providing they can be properly identified with or without their security credentials, need access to this place. We want to have access to this place at any time. That is guaranteed by parliamentary privilege when we are in session.
Of course, not only were we in session, it was an actual sitting day and a time of sitting when the incidents took place. Arguably, it was an even higher threshold that everyone must live with. Those are the concerns. They really must be respected by everyone in authority.
One final element is the security on the Hill. I referred to the House and Senate. I do not know how they do it, but the security services people memorize the pictures and photographs of MPs better than I can and I have been around here longer than most. There are still a few colleagues who are sometimes a little harder for me to recognize. The security service has mastered that very well.
The RCMP officers who are here on a regular basis can see us through the tinted glass of our car at 20 or 30 yards and somehow manage to recognize us that way too. They are pretty good at this as well. It is not the division of the RCMP that takes care of Parliament Hill that has a problem. I think it is quite efficient in recognizing us.
The problem does not seem to be there. The problem I think has to do with wherever there is this bridging of authority between someone in the RCMP and the coordination of other police forces that come in to support them when we have major incidents such as this.
I think it is on these occasions that the shortcomings are really obvious. For instance, if I can talk about the security offered to MPs, we are all offered a kit when we are elected. There is a little card that we keep in our wallet, or wherever we want to have it. There are these stickers that we put on our telephones at home that has the telephone number of the RCMP in case we get threatening phone calls or have some other regrettable incidents. I had one at my home recently, as some members will know, although I did not raise it in this House. It was an attempt to stop me from leaving my home to come here to sit while we were in session. I did not raise it under that rubric at the time. The authorities took care of that, but I certainly did not raise it here as an issue of contempt of Parliament, although I suppose I could have.
However, the point I am making very clearly today is that the coordination needs to be done far better before we ever have a tragic event such as a crucial vote or members being unable to participate in a decision of the House. As we can see, this could be a very important issue in the future.
We have right now a House that is divided in a number of ways. We have essentially half of the House on one side respecting the wish of the voters, in terms of making this Parliament work, and one half of the House who see a public opinion poll and get rather excited at that proposition quite needlessly because the Canadian public does not want them to go to the polls. We see the threats that are being made there. We must ensure that these security concerns are properly applied, given the context that we have before us today and what the outcome could be.
That is why these issues involving security, if wrongly approached, could have rather catastrophic effects. It is urgent for us to adopt this report and discuss it fully. I am looking forward to its adoption. I really hope that colleagues on all sides of the House will vote for this, so that we can better protect this great institution in the future. That is the point I wanted to make in reply to the hon. member's very good question.
We need to have a more coordinated approach outside and inside the building. I favour unifying the two security forces that regularly operate in these buildings, so that we would have a more coordinated approach in the future.
I do not want to speak too long on this, so now I will allow other members who no doubt want to contribute to this debate.
