Madam Speaker, today I would like to follow up on a question that I asked in the House on February 28 when I inquired whether the minister was aware, prior to the tragic death of Rémy Beauregard, of the serious crisis within Rights and Democracy.
Unfortunately, the minister's answer at the time was not quite satisfactory, to say the least. Nothing about recent management of Rights and Democracy was anywhere near satisfactory. It was actually quite troubling.
Rights and Democracy was created in 1988 by an act of Parliament that received unanimous approval. The non-partisan organization intervened in troubled regions to promote respect for human rights and further democracy. Rights & Democracy was respected by the international community. It was achieving its goals and working well.
Now, our Prime Minister's government has taken this non-partisan organization that ran smoothly and made it into a partisan organization that runs poorly. The Conservatives have poisoned the organization. Not happy with just poisoning it, we were told on April 2 that the government had decided to go a little further and to shut down Rights and Democracy. What reason did they give for shutting down the institution? According to the minister, it is because the institution had problems. Unfortunately, the institution's problems were the ones that the government had created. As they say, if you want to hang your dog, first give him a bad name.
Rights and Democracy had its head office in my riding. The agency’s employees learned they were out of a job when the minister sent out his press release. The minister did nothing to thank them for their excellent work and the services they provided for more than 20 years. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to do so. I would like to thank them for their work. It is time to recognize the positive contribution made by the people who ran the agency, people who deserved better treatment than they got from the government.
Finally, I would like to say that I think it is worrisome that, just at a time when Canada should be providing assistance to emerging democracies, the government has closed down a centre that was in the best position to do exactly that.
I have a number of questions that I would like to ask the government today about Rights and Democracy, but I will limit myself to three. Was it always the government’s intention to close the centre? Why close the agency instead of just removing the troublemakers from the board of directors and appointing qualified people to run it? Finally, coming back to my first question, when will a member of the government have the courage to speak up and apologize to the family of Rémy Beauregard?