Madam Speaker, this is for Steve Albert, Richard Amyot, Claude Anctil, Lise André, D'Arcy Archambault, Jean-Luc Arène, Spiros Argiros, Michel Aubé, Claude Auclair, Élaine Audet, Florent Audette, Nick Auf Der Maur, Lise Balcer, Marcel Barbeau, Robert Barbeau, Louise-Francine Barsalou, René Bataille, Pierre-Marc Beauchamp, Pierre Beaudet, Marc-André Beaudin, André Baudry, André Beaulieu, Gérard Beaulieu, Guy Beaulieu, Louis Beaulieu, André Beaulne Laflèche, Jacques Beaulne Laflèche, André Bélanger, Jean-Pierre Bélanger, Richard Bélanger, Roger Bélanger, François Bélisle, Francine Bélisle, Michel Belleau, Henri Bellemare, Claudette Bertrand, Jean Bertrand, Jacques Bérubé, André Bilodeau, Denis Bilodeau, Jean Bilodeau, Monique Bilodeau, Pierre Bilodeau, Robert Bilodeau, Michel Bissonnette, Normand Bissonnette, Denis Blanchard, Jocelyne Blanchard, Véronique Blanchard, Yves Blondin, Monique Blondin Martin, Jean Boisjoly, Pierre Boissonnault, Michel Boisvert, Diane Boivin, Jean-François Bonin, Paul Bonneville, Denise Boucher, Pierre Bourgault, Yves Bourgault.
I rise in the House today to remind hon. members of Canada's five agreements for enacting the War Measures Act.
We want to note that this episode is one of the most traumatizing in the history of Quebec and one of the darkest chapters in the history of the Government of Canada.
It is high time that Ottawa recognize its mistakes and apologize to Quebec.
I would like to remind the House that when the War Measures Act was enacted on October 16, 1970, the Government of Canada gave itself the power to suspend the basic freedoms of its citizens. This legislation enabled it to trample on the rights of Quebeckers during a time when we were at war with no one. The Canadian government gave itself this power and abused it.
I would also like to remind the House that 97 Quebeckers were arrested and imprisoned, some of whom were famous, including union member Michel Chartrand, singer Pauline Julien, poet Gaston Miron and journalist Gilles Paquin. Most of them were workers and mothers and fathers with families. The only thing they were guilty of was being Quebeckers with political opinions that inconvenienced politicians in power in Ottawa.
Today, the government has the responsibility of recognizing the gravity of the decisions it made at the time. It must take responsibility for its mistakes and recognize its wrongdoings so that Quebeckers' rights and freedoms are never violated in the same way ever again.
Since 2016, the government has presented many apologies for past injustices. It is high time that the Canadian government apologize to Quebec.
First, we condemn the enactment of the War Measures Act when there was no justification for its use. That was the first time in Canada’s history that such measures were taken in peacetime.
One of the ministers at the time, Donald Campbell Jamieson, wrote in his memoirs that the government had no serious grounds for using the army against the population.
Some members of the opposition rose in the House to condemn the government’s actions and the total lack of evidence to support the far-fetched, long-discredited idea that there was a supposed insurrection in Quebec to justify its authoritarian approach.
The government turned a deaf ear to these concerns and decided to go ahead without any evidence that such use of extreme force was justified, when only war, invasion or insurrection should allow a government to exceptionally use the army against its own people.
The Government of Canada had no valid reason to use force against Quebeckers. It did not attempt other courses of action and did not even bother justifying the use of force against Quebeckers. This is very serious and unacceptable
Why did the government decide to act in that way? The government could have chosen another approach, but instead it decided to use brute force, fear and intimidation for the sole purpose of trying to undermine the aspirations of Quebec independence and silence political supporters of sovereignty. It was through fear and intimidation that the Canadian government decided to deal with what the cabinet at the time called “the Quebec question”.
Fear is measured by the number of guns and tanks on our doorstep. Fear is more than 12,000 soldiers in the streets of Quebec’s cities and towns. Fear is more than 30,000 searches, sometimes in the middle of the night, and more than 4,600 seizures. Fear is the air force, which, according to the head of the air force at the time, deliberately flew over Montreal at low altitude to frighten the public.
Intimidation is shattered windows, broken-down doors, entire families staring down the barrel of a machine gun or children woken up in the middle of the night by shouting soldiers. Intimidation is when police officers arrest someone without cause, taking them by force and forcing them to leave their children without supervision. Intimidation is citizens being imprisoned, without being allowed to phone their families to let them know what is going on. Intimidation is unacceptable stories of police brutality, days-long arbitrary detentions, unacceptable detention conditions, corporal punishment and psychological torture.
This was a bleak time in Canadian history. We strongly condemn these violations of the fundamental freedoms of Quebeckers. We condemn that the Canadian government at the time chose to quash the sovereignist movement and handcuff Quebec's democracy.
It is high time for Ottawa to acknowledge its wrongdoings and apologize to the victims of this show of force. I remind members that of the 97 people arrested, 90% were released without charge and 95% of those charged were acquitted or had their cases thrown out.
In conclusion, I would say that Quebeckers are entitled to an apology from the Prime Minister, on behalf of his government. Since 2016, the Canadian government has been rightly making apologies for its treatment of Inuit peoples, for residential schools, to the Jewish community, to the LGBTQ+ community and to the Indian migrants from 1914. We are now demanding an apology for Ottawa's affront to the liberty of Quebeckers. Quebeckers remember October 16, 1970. The Bloc Québécois will never forget that day.