Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about a specific and important matter requiring urgent attention. Under Standing Order 52, I ask that, today, you grant my request for an emergency debate. Here are the facts.
For the first time in history, the Supreme Court has decided to launch an internal review after allegations that Laskin violated the fundamental rights and rules regarding the separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. The Supreme Court has confirmed that this is a serious situation. Yet, having the Supreme Court investigate itself will not demonstrate that we have an open and transparent justice system.
With regard to the information contained in the book La bataille de Londres, which was published last week, historian Frédéric Bastien stated—with evidence to support his statement—that former Supreme Court chief justice Bora Laskin provided information to Canadian and British government officials during Supreme Court deliberations on the legality of the plan to repatriate the Constitution.
What is more, another Supreme Court justice at that time, Willard Estey, also secretly exchanged information with London on the same topic in the fall of 1980. By so doing, these judges ignored the separation of powers.
The very operation of our democratic institutions is based on this fundamental principle of the separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. These judges violated this rule by violating the confidentiality of the deliberations and by submitting themselves to the will of the executive branch.
The information contained in La bataille de Londres raises serious concerns that alone are enough to justify a public inquiry. Patrick Taillon, a law professor at Laval University, Benoît Pelletier, an expert on constitutional law and law professor at the University of Ottawa, and Henri Brun, a constitutional expert, have all come to the same conclusion.
Mr. Bastien and some analysts confirm that, by definition, this violation of the separation of powers between the judiciary and the executive constitutes a coup d'état. “When a person violates a constitutional rule in the name of constitutional change, that is a coup d'état,” Mr. Bastien said.
John Ford, who was the British high commissioner in Ottawa at the time, also described the situation as “a real attempt at a coup d’état in order to change the balance of powers within Confederation”. This quote is taken from correspondence between Ford and the British foreign affairs minister at the time, which Mr. Bastien obtained from the Foreign Office.
In light of this new information, I ask for an emergency debate on this issue, which calls into question the integrity and independence of the Supreme Court, as well as the separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, which form the very basis of democracy.
Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the attention that you will give to this request, which is fundamental to the trust that Canadians must have in the separation of powers.