Madam Speaker, I am pleased to announce that I will be sharing my time with the member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin. I would like to read from page 24 of a document that was published almost three years ago. It says, “It is time to shine more light on government...” It is the Liberal Party of Canada who said that, and it is true. The time has come for the Liberal government to shine some light on the pathetic scandal concerning Mr. Atwal and the Prime Minister of Canada.
As the saying goes, one lie begets another, and that is exactly what happened with the scandal involving Mr. Atwal and the Liberal Prime Minister of Canada. Unfortunately for us all, our Prime Minister disgraced Canada and Canadians around the world during his infamous mission to India. There was a dramatic and appalling incident the likes of which have never been seen in the history of Canada: a criminal attended a diplomatic event that the Prime Minister was also expected to attend.
I will not discuss in detail the trip during which we saw the Prime Minister spend eight days with six ministers and 14 other members, take pictures of everything, change his clothes five times a day every day of the week and show up at events dressed up in native costumes while everyone else was wearing Western garb. I will not discuss that. Nor will I discuss the fact that the Minister of Agriculture, and God knows that that was important, did not participate in the mission. However, I will discuss the biggest blunder, the presence of criminal Jaspal Atwal.
Who is this man? In 1986, Jaspal Atwal was found guilty of the attempted murder of an Indian minister in Vancouver. The House will probably remember that, during question period, my colleague, the hon. member for Yellowhead, described a situation that deeply moved me. He had witnessed the police operation leading to the arrest of the criminal when he was an RCMP officer. Jaspal Atwal was found guilty of attempted murder. The same Jaspal Atwal was present at the events surrounding the Prime Minister’s visit to India.
Here is the sequence of events that led to today’s motion to have Daniel Jean, the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada, appear before a parliamentary committee. The criminal Atwal was present at an official event during a Canadian diplomatic mission to Mumbai, and that is when our suspicions were aroused. Mr. Atwal had his picture taken with all sorts of people, including our Prime Minister’s wife. I call him our Prime Minister because he is every Canadian’s prime minister. Unfortunately, he has not been up to the task, and he has not acted with the dignity befitting his position. When these events unfolded, when Mr. Atwal was found in attendance at a diplomatic event in Mumbai, the CBC began asking questions and uncovered the truth, identifying him. It then began to ask what a criminal was doing at such an event. That is when the Prime Minister had to come up with an explanation. He immediately said that it was the hon. member for Surrey Centre who had invited Atwal. He said that the hon. member took full responsibility for the event.
First of all, and I will be frank, it is very cowardly on the part of a prime minister to lay the blame on someone else. When you are a leader, you must assume full responsibility for your troops. You do not find a scapegoat and say, “You're responsible. You're taking the blame, I'm out of here.” A leader assumes full responsibility for his troops. In this case, he did not, and what comes next is even worse. Since the situation began to escalate, the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada, Daniel Jean, met with journalists to give them a technical briefing on the situation. I was a journalist for 20 years, and I have been to dozens, even hundreds of these meetings. They are always interesting, because they give us a glimpse of the details about very specific situations, numbers, data and statistics that are not necessarily interesting to the public, but that allow us to get a better grasp of the situation.
At that technical briefing, the National Security Advisor did not talk about how many Canadians eat cereal in the morning. What he said was far more political. According to the media, at that briefing, the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada said that the criminal Atwal’s presence was a plot orchestrated by the Indian government.
I like history, but try as I might, I could not remember one situation in the history of Canadian diplomacy that was as embarrassing, as shameful or as irresponsible as this one.
Need I point out that India is a Commonwealth country, that we have very close ties with India and that we need to preserve them? This situation with the criminal Atwal at a diplomatic event completely severed the bonds of trust and friendship that we need to have with a country as important as India. That the Prime Minister asked the senior official responsible for national security to meet with journalists to tell them something like that is of serious consequence.
That is where all the contradictions start. In the House on February 27, the Prime Minister agreed with the version given the journalists by his National Security Advisor to explain the presence of the criminal Atwal, in other words that it was an plot fomented by the Indian government. The next day, on February 28, India, highly offended, vigorously denied this version of the facts and squarely laid the blame on our Prime Minister. I say “our” Prime Minister because the entire country is now paying for the Liberal Prime Minister’s mistake.
So, on February 27, the Prime Minister told the House that he agreed with his National Security Advisor’s position that he was the victim of an Indian conspiracy. On March 3, we heard from the hon. member for Surrey Centre, the guy the Prime Minister picked out of a hat and blamed, then tossed aside like an old slipper. The hon. member said that it was his fault, that he was the one who had invited Atwal. This contradicts what the Prime Minister said, in other words that India was behind it all.
That is not all. On March 9, the criminal Atwal, not without pointing out that he knew the Prime Minister very well, not without pointing out that he had participated in dozens and dozens of Liberal Party activities in his part of the country, said that he received the invitation from the High Commission, that he honoured the invitation and that India had nothing to do with it. This contradicts the Prime Minister’s version.
Lastly, on March 11, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is not exactly a nobody in cabinet, said, “It’s an honest mistake.” It is an honest mistake on Canada’s part.
So who is telling the truth? Is it the Prime Minister, who is relying on his senior official who is telling all the journalists that it is a conspiracy, or is it the hon. member for Surrey Centre, who is saying that he is at fault? Is it the senior official who says one thing, or is it Atwal, who says that he is responsible, that he went on his own? Or is it the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who says that it was an honest mistake?
That is what I was saying. When you do not tell the truth, you end up stuck in a web of lies. That is the issue here, and that is why it is at the heart of the motion.
The motion put forward by my colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles would finally allow Canadians to learn the truth.
Here is a senior official, Daniel Jean, who met with journalists to make serious accusations, to say that India was responsible for having the criminal Atwal show up at diplomatic events. That is what he said. Great. He said that to journalists, who wrote it down. Also great. Now, let him tell that directly to Canadians.
That is what we are asking, but, oh, what a surprise, these people who got elected by saying that it was time for a transparent government are refusing Canadians the most basic transparency: allowing people who said things to journalists to testify before a committee. Why such obfuscation? The best way for Canadians to finally learn the truth is for them to hear this guy testify rather than continue to cover it up.