Mr. Speaker, he was a lawyer and journalist committed to fighting corruption. He was elected four times and served as an MNA for nine years. He was a cabinet minister during Jean Lesage's Quiet Revolution. He was Premier Robert Bourassa's deputy premier, but above all, Pierre Laporte was a man, a son, a husband and a father. Sadly, he never had the great joy of seeing his children grow up or witnessing the birth of his grandchildren. That is because, while playing with his nephew, he was kidnapped by terrorists. A week later, he was found strangled to death.
Today, since we are talking about October 1970, our thoughts are with the family of Pierre Laporte, the victim of criminals, terrorists and the FLQ.
The War Measures Act was not passed overnight, and the October crisis did not happen overnight either.
In the 1960s, the idea of independence for Quebec was brought to the fore by political groups such as Ralliement national and Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale. I do not support this position, but I have a great deal of respect for it. Quebec independence is an idea that exists and that is promoted by people who believe in the democratic ideal. Unfortunately, beginning in 1963, separatists chose the path of violence and terrorism.
All too often, we forget that between 1963 and 1970, the FLQ committed 200 acts of terrorism, including bombings, hold-ups and thefts. These people organized training camps. They bought guns in the United States. They even prepared cells for the hostages they would take in the terrorist acts they were planning.
Wilfrid O'Neil was a 65-year-old night watchman who was killed when a bomb exploded at the recruitment centre where he worked. Thérèse Morin was a 64-year-old worker who lost her life when a bomb planted by the FLQ went off at her place of work. Jeanne d'Arc Saint-Germain was a 50-year-old Ministry of Defence employee who was killed by an FLQ bomb.
Those people should never be forgotten. There are a dozen or so people like them who lost their lives between 1963 and 1970 as a result of the 200 terrorist acts committed by the FLQ.
Ten years ago, Lysiane Gagnon wrote the following about Jeanne d'Arc Saint-Germain, Thérèse Morin and Wilfred O'Neil: “the FLQ was posing as defenders of the working class, but those who died in the FLQ attacks prior to October were all low-income earners.” October 1970 did not start in October 1970.
Let us now talk about what happened during that terrible month, that shameful month for all of Canada: the kidnappings.
On October 5, a British diplomat, James Richard Cross, was kidnapped by FLQ terrorists as he was leaving his home. The next day, the FLQ issued its first communiqué, in which it made seven demands, including the release of “23 political prisoners”.
It was totally irresponsible and outrageous for the FLQ to call these 23 people political prisoners. As Yves Boisvert wrote in La Presse on October 12, “The jailed FLQ members were never political prisoners. A political prisoner is someone who is arrested for having ideas that are subversive in the eyes of a regime. The FLQ members in prison had committed ordinary crimes”.
That is why they were in prison. That is why the police intervened.
On October 8, the public broadcaster read out the FLQ manifesto on air. Unfortunately, during that entire week, from Monday to Saturday, the FLQ continued to perpetrate violence and issue communiqués in which it clearly stated that the kidnappings would continue and that the hostages might be executed.
Sadly, at 6:18 p.m. on October 10, while Pierre Laporte was playing ball with his nephew in his front yard, two people showed up and abducted him. Pierre Laporte would never see his family or loved ones again. The only people he would ever see after that were the terrorists who had abducted him.
Things really escalated after that, and understandably so. After 200 attacks in seven years, the abduction of a diplomat, the publication of FLQ communiqués clearly stating that it would commit further terrorist acts, and the abduction of a cabinet minister who was also the deputy premier of Quebec, tensions were rising significantly.
That is why, on October 12, 1970, at the request of the Quebec government, the Canadian government deployed troops in Ottawa and in the province of Quebec. The fact that it was the Quebec government that asked Ottawa to send in the army is a fundamental historical fact.
On October 14, 16 political figures from Quebec urged negotiations and the release of the “political prisoners”. I want to emphasize that we do not share this perspective, and we find it unfortunate that these political figures employed the terrorists' terminology. In our view, that term did not in any way apply at the time.
Unfortunately, October 15, 1970, was the pivotal day for all these events. That day, the National Assembly met to discuss the two abductions and the ongoing crisis. Of course, at the time, it was not yet called the October crisis.
Here is what Premier Robert Bourassa said about the army:
We have therefore requested the support of the army to allow the police forces to continue to protect both public buildings and the public. ...Democracy in Quebec is currently under threat. ...and it is our primary and essential responsibility to safeguard it. It is with this aim...that we intend, with the co-operation of all members, to assume our responsibility.
There it is, in black and white. The premier told the National Assembly that he had requested the support of the army and that it was his responsibility. He was not the only one to think that way.
Do the hon. members know who said the following on October 15, 1970?
The premier's appeal to us is certainly perfectly understandable and justified under the circumstances.
Who said that? It was not a Liberal supporter, or a friend of the government, or even a government minister. It was the house leader of the Parti Québécois, Camille Laurin, the father of Bill 101.
Let us consider the context. Later, on October 30, the leader of the Parti Québécois, René Lévesque, wrote this in his column in the Journal de Montréal:
The army is occupying Quebec. It is unpleasant but undoubtedly necessary at a time of acute crisis.
At the time, on October 15, after two kidnappings and threats of further kidnappings, everyone understood that we really did need the army. Even the PQ thought so.
On the evening of October 15, the government gave the FLQ an ultimatum and six hours to accept it. It was to no avail.
More importantly, even though there had been two kidnappings and the FLQ was threatening to commit more, 3,000 people gathered at the Paul Sauvé Arena in Montreal to read out texts like the FLQ manifesto and raise their fists in the air while chanting the FLQ slogan, “FLQ, nous vaincrons”, which means “FLQ, we will prevail”.
It is important to remember that that is what was happening the night of October 15 to 16, 1970. Between 1963 and 1970, there had been 200 terrorist attacks and a dozen deaths. The FLQ had kidnapped a diplomat and Quebec's deputy premier and was threatening more kidnappings.
An FLQ communiqué published at the time clearly stated the following:
In accordance with previously established plan 3...the Chénier fundraising cell has just kidnapped the Minister of Unemployment and Assimilation, Pierre Laporte. The minister will be executed...
The FLQ communiqué stated in black and white that it was threatening to execute people.
Even though there had been two kidnappings, threats of more and a threat of execution, 3,000 people gathered to chant “FLQ, we will prevail”. These were the circumstances that led to the invocation of the War Measures Act. It was at this point that the Government of Quebec requested military intervention, and we must remember that it had already made a very formal request that was backed by the National Assembly. Then the federal government met, and at four o'clock in the morning, after a long debate, it invoked the War Measures Act.
At the time, the Sûreté du Québec was in charge of police operations, with support from the Montreal police and the RCMP. The army was deployed to support the police, but the Sûreté du Québec made the arrests.
A total of 497 people were arrested without a warrant. They were not allowed to speak to a lawyer, and they were thrown in jail without being told anything. Most, if not all, of these people had no connection whatsoever with the crimes perpetrated by the FLQ. This was an abuse of police power, and we cannot forget that the Sûreté du Québec was running the show.
A few hours later, on the following day, October 17, the FLQ released a communiqué stating that it had decided to take action. Pierre Laporte was executed. He was found that evening in the trunk of a car, covered in blood, and the autopsy carried out a few hours later confirmed that he had been strangled to death.
René Lévesque wrote: “Those who coldly and deliberately executed Mr. Laporte, after watching him live and hope for so many days, are inhuman beings. They have imported here, into a society where it was absolutely not justified, an ice-cold fanaticism and methods of blackmail by assassination that belong in a jungle from which there is no way out.”
Not too long ago, FLQ member Jacques Lanctôt said, “Pierre Laporte was killed, and it was not an accident.”
On November 5, the first terrorist was arrested, and on December 28, the FLQ members were extradited. That was the October crisis of 1970, but it did not end there. A few months later, on March 12, 1971, justice minister Jérôme Choquette rose in the National Assembly and announced a compensation plan for the 497 people who had been arrested. He was following the recommendations of the ombudsman, who had received complaints from people who had been arrested. He was the one who recommended that they be compensated. The ombudsman, Louis Marceau, said at the time that the police powers had not been exercised with the necessary care and moderation. We agree with that conclusion.
However, the ombudsman never mentioned the federal government's responsibility. The justice minister told the National Assembly, “We hope that the government's approach will convey its sincere desire to repair any harm that may have been caused to individuals during this time of crisis”. The Quebec justice minister never said anything about the federal government.
During the same debate on the compensation proposed by the ombudsman for those who had been arrested, the Parti Québécois house leader, Camille Laurin, said that his party would support “anything the Minister of Justice could do to correct acts that resulted from the government's overreaction”.
There is no mention of the federal government's responsibility, and rightly so, since it was the Quebec government that asked the federal government to step in. It was the Quebec government that asked the federal government to send in the army. Are we supposed to apologize based on that? We will have an opportunity to come back to that in greater detail. That fact is that by compensating the victims who were arrested, the Quebec government proved that it admitted responsibility.
All in all, 497 people were arrested, 103 were compensated, 26 were charged, and 21 were convicted. The question we are asking today is, should the federal government apologize?
We do not think so. We acknowledge the police blunders and mistakes that were committed during these troubling times. As we said earlier, 497 people were arrested without being allowed to contact anyone. Some stayed in prison for a few days, and others for a few months, but on average, they stayed for a week. Of course, that is one week too many.
We will note, however, that the arrests did not come out of thin air. The October crisis of 1970 did not happen overnight. First there were 200 acts of terrorism committed by the FLQ, followed by the kidnapping of a diplomat and the publication of communiqués warning that there would be more kidnappings. Another did follow, that of the deputy premier of Quebec. The FLQ threatened to kill him, and that is indeed what they did. This business did not come out of thin air. A few hours before the War Measures Act was invoked, 3,000 people gathered and started chanting, “FLQ, we will prevail”.
It was the Quebec government that asked the federal government for help from the army, it was the Quebec government that admitted responsibility by compensating the victims, and also, it was the Sûreté du Québec that carried out the police operations. That is why we believe that the federal government should not apologize, since, given the circumstances and events that contributed to this, the responsibility lies first and foremost with the Government of Quebec, which requested this help.
I will let the Liberals explain why, in their first four years in office, they have apologized six times. When we Conservatives apologized, it was for special cases. In 1998, under Brian Mulroney, we apologized to the 21,000 Canadian men, women and children of Asian descent who were imprisoned for three years in internment camps. The federal government was entirely responsible for that, so an apology was called for.
On June 11, 2008, here in the House, Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper apologized to Canada's first nations for the residential schools, where 141,000 children suffered over the course of more than 100 years. This is a very serious matter, because we are talking about lost generations, and it continues today. Yes, an apology was called for.
It is clear that the apologies that we Conservatives made on behalf of the Canadian government were for events for which the Canadian government was entirely responsible. Sad to say, this was the case with respect to Chinese Canadians, and with respect to first nations as well. That is why we apologized.
This is in no way intended to diminish the pain and suffering of the 497 individuals who were arrested without a warrant and spent entire nights in jail without being allowed to speak with anyone. However, when it comes to acknowledging the government's responsibility and offering an apology, we believe that, in this particular case, the responsibility lies with the provincial government, since it was the one that requested federal assistance.
The Bloc Québécois motion reminds us of this sad episode in our democracy and the fact that an elected official was murdered in cold blood by terrorists, criminals whom René Lévesque called inhuman beings, because they watched him live, suffer and die before their very eyes.
We must also remember that a dozen people lost their lives, including Jeanne d'Arc Saint-Germain, who was probably from Gatineau. There is no bridge named after her, but she was a victim of the FLQ.
This is why, when we start a debate or open a history book, we do not just read the sentence that suits us. We read the entire book. This is also why, in our opinion, Pierre Laporte is the ultimate victim of the October crisis of 1970. All our thoughts are with him and his family.