Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure and some emotion that I rise to take part in this debate today.
We are debating a very important motion that deals with one of the tragedies in the history of Canada, which has affected and continues to affect hundreds of families and thousands of children and grandchildren of the farmers who were shortchanged. That is why I will be sharing my time with the member for Lévis—Lotbinière, who will provide a clear picture of the situation faced by farmers, as he is a farmer himself.
Mirabel will forever be associated with one of the greatest tragedies in our nation's history. It was the 1960s. In the mid-1960s, there was a baby boom and a tech boom, and Montreal needed a new airport. Certain areas like Vaudreuil, Drummondville, Saint‑Jean and Sainte‑Scholastique were considered. In the end, the federal government chose Sainte‑Scholastique. At that point, the location was a foregone conclusion, but the way it was done and the way it was expanded were completely unacceptable.
It happened on March 27, 1969, at exactly 2:25 p.m., during a press conference being broadcast on the radio. Jean Marchand, the Liberal minister of transport, announced that 97,000 acres would be expropriated. I am not a farmer, so I cannot visualize how big an acre is. However, 97,000 acres is equivalent to two-thirds of the Island of Montreal. For our friends out west, that is as big as the city of Calgary. The government needed to expropriate 97,000 acres. That is 20 times the size of John F. Kennedy Airport, one of the largest airports in the world at the time. A total of 3,126 families were directly affected by the announcement, which came without any prior warning. They were directly affected without any notice. That amounts to 10,000 people. Work began in June 1970.
Yes, the government slapped together some compensation. Yes, the government said it held consultations. The outcome was that barely 17% of farmers met with someone who assessed their land. Everyone else was told that was that, thank you and goodbye. It led to human tragedies. People left their house in the morning and came back in the afternoon to find it burned to the ground. People left in the morning to work the fields and came back to find people swarming around their house, moving their belongings out.
The great Denise Bombardier reported on the situation for Radio-Canada in 1970. This is what one of the people whose land was expropriated had to say: “Of course it worries me, because we were never paid, we don't know how we'll get by. We didn't ask to leave. We were notified on March 27, 1969, and then we just waited. I was hoping things would work out for the best”. Unfortunately, they did not work out for the best.
A committee was set up in 1973, but, unfortunately, Pierre Elliott Trudeau's government ignored the very valid grievances of the people whose properties were expropriated. If only it had been worth it. It was predicted that Mirabel would be serving 60,000 passengers by 2025. No more than two million passengers ever passed through during any year of operation. There was a plan to build high-speed rail, but that never happened. There was a plan to extend Highway 30, but that never happened.
The airport opened for business on October 4, 1975. One of the ridiculous things about Mirabel was that international flights used Mirabel, while all others used Dorval. Awesome. That is the best way to kill an airport. As of September 15, 1997, all flights were transferred to Dorval. The last flight took place in 2014. The terminal was demolished in 2016. What a disaster. It was all for naught. The government expropriated 97,000 acres but used barely 6,000 acres, which is why this is so tragic.
In 1995, the Prime Minister, the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney, offered to return 80,000 acres to those who had been expropriated. It was the first step that needed to be taken, and he did it boldly but, above all, with a sense of responsibility and humanity. The Right Hon. Brian Mulroney did it, and he did it the right way. The debate did not end there. What we are discussing today has been debated in the House before. On November 25, 2004, the official opposition moved a motion to return the remaining 11,000 acres to the expropriated landowners.
Who kicked off that debate? It was the Right Hon. Stephen Harper, the then leader of the Conservative official opposition. Mr. Harper did not have any seats in Quebec at the time, but that is not important. What is important is the reality of the 3,126 families who had been expropriated and dispossessed. In a very important speech, Mr. Harper said that it had been “a savage expropriation”, “a massive injustice, an odious boondoggle”, and that the situation of the farmers had been “difficult, unjust, humiliating and...dramatic, even, at times”. He said that it was “not a matter of politics but rather a matter of goodwill and justice”. Quite appropriately, he said that “all governments can make mistakes from time to time. The problem in this saga is that the government made mistake after mistake, with no consideration whatsoever for the families that have been in the area for generations.” Stephen Harper said that in 2004.
Mr. Harper did more than just talk. When Canadians placed their trust in him by electing a dozen Conservative members from Quebec, for example, including my colleague from Lévis—Lotbinière, the Harper government gave back 11,000 acres. What is interesting is that, during the 2004 debate, the transport minister at the time was the late Jean Lapierre. According to La Presse, Mr. Lapierre accused Stephen Harper of raising false hopes in the public, knowing that he would not be able to follow through on his motion. With all due respect to the memory of Mr. Lapierre, he was mistaken, because that is what happened.
In 2019, the Liberal minister also sold back 750 acres. That was the Hon. Marc Garneau, a man of unquestionable and indisputable integrity and humanity. He said what he truly felt in his heart. He said that the government made a big mistake. He also said, “We learned difficult lessons, and I am sorry you were the victims of that.” That was the great Marc Garneau, whom we love and respect. Unfortunately, he was speaking on his own behalf, not on behalf of the government.
As my Bloc Québécois colleague put it so well earlier, now is the time to do the right thing to commemorate those people and, above all, avoid repeating the same mistakes. Three times in the House in recent years, the government has been asked to apologize to the expropriated people of Mirabel. With the motions from the Bloc Québécois, the NDP and myself, who contributed to this, the government has refused to apologize three times.
We understand that this is a vote of the House. It is not the government itself that is taking action, but the House of Commons. I would remind all the experienced ministers whom I respect and admire that they are, first and foremost, members of Parliament elected by Canadians. That is why each of us here in the House have our responsibilities, but, first and foremost, we are members of Parliament. We have asked for an apology three times; unfortunately, the government has refused three times.
I want to say something, and I will stand by my statements. Is it because the 23rd Prime Minister of Canada had difficulty acknowledging that the 15th Prime Minister of Canada had made a grave mistake? To put it plainly, did Justin Trudeau not want to blame his father? Is that why the government refused to do what needs to be done, which is to apologize? I invite all my colleagues to consider carefully and in good faith what actually happened. They know very well, in their hearts, as Marc Garneau so eloquently pointed out, that the government made a mistake, that it was a big mistake, and that an injustice was committed. That is exactly what the motion before us proposes and calls for.
I heard our colleague say that sometimes we need to stop being partisan and work across party lines. Yes, I agree. This is an excellent opportunity to do so.
This is why I deeply hope that at this time, all members of the House, the government, opposition, second group of opposition and independent members, recognize that what happened to the people of Mirabel was totally unacceptable. If we have to, again, do something with great projects, we should learn and adapt our attitude based on what the people of Mirabel have lived through.
I sincerely invite all my colleagues to recognize the grave mistake that was made in Mirabel and that it should never happen again.
