Madam Speaker, I should indicate at the outset that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Vancouver East. I would appreciate some signal from you and I expect I will get it when my time is almost up.
I am pleased to speak on behalf of the motion that my party has introduced into the House of Commons today. It is an important motion. I think it is a simply worded motion. It is one that has no ambiguity; it is one that is clear and direct. I will read it so that those listening to this debate and reading the transcript of it later will know exactly what we are asking of the government and all members of the House of Commons today:
That this House urges the government to agree to the request of the RCMP Public Complaints Commission—
It is not our request, not the students' request, but is the request of the RCMP Public Complaints Commission.
—inquiring into incidents at the Vancouver APEC summit that the government provide separate funded legal representation for the complainants in the inquiry.
I rise to speak to the motion, having addressed this issue some time ago. As my colleagues who have spoken to this motion have noted, the day this House resumed sitting after the summer recess, my colleagues and myself at a press conference asked the government to set up a judicial inquiry to look into the role of the Prime Minister's office in the security arrangements at APEC. The Prime Minister and the solicitor general have ignored this request and they have continued to say let the public complaints commission do its work.
In the absence of a forum of a judicial inquiry, we are asking today that the public complaints commission's own request be acceded to by the government and that funding be provided for those students to at least level the playing field.
Like many of the members in this House who have spoken to this issue, I come from a legal background. I am a lawyer. I spent many years in Nova Scotia as a legal aid lawyer representing the very people, many of them students, who did not have the resources to go before public boards, public inquiries or courts without legal representation. I can unequivocally say that when one side is represented in a hearing and the other side is not, there is not a level playing field.
That is why the public complaints commission has asked for the students to have funding for legal counsel. It is not just to level the playing field, it also makes the whole process operate more smoothly. There are not questions of evidence that are not understood by one party. There can be agreements negotiated when everybody knows the rules so that the lawyers for one side and the lawyers for the other knowing the ruling can come together and simplify the process to get to the truth faster. That does not happen when there is only legal counsel for one side.
It is unfair to those people who are going before the commission unrepresented to ask them to understand all of the nuances, all of the rules that occur at a public complaints commission hearing or indeed at any other hearing.
I mentioned today in one of my questions, how many of us as members of parliament have had to help our constituents when they have had to appear before Canada pension plan disability hearings. Try to explain to a person uneducated in the law what it means to present yourself at a tribunal, what it means to understand the rules of evidence, what it means to cross-examine someone. It is unfair because they do not understand it.
Some have said that this has not happened before, that the public complaints commission has not had a history of funding counsel for those who lay a complaint. This is true. But this is an extraordinary hearing. This is not a normal everyday run of the mill complaint against the RCMP. The reason it is not has nothing to do with the students' complaints. It has to do with information that has come before the commission which has made it broaden its scope because there is evidence—and I am not making unfounded accusations, I am simply stating the facts—that leads to the very highest corridors of power in this country.
There is evidence that suggests the involvement of the Prime Minister's office and perhaps of the Prime Minister himself in the security arrangements at APEC. I am not prejudging it. I am saying that takes this inquiry out of the normal run of the mill inquiry and raises the threshold. Therefore the procedural fairness has to be beyond question if Canadians are to have any faith in the final outcome of the commission's hearing.
These are extraordinary hearings. It is not right to say we may be setting a precedent, that if we fund these students we will have to fund every other group that comes before the public complaints commission. Maybe we will, if in every single instance it indicates that the Prime Minister's office is involved. However I think we can say with some safety and some rational thought that we are now beyond the normal scope of the public complaints commission and what it usually deals with.
The pointing of fingers to the most influential people in this country has raised the threshold. Yet despite repeated requests by the commission and despite the Federal Court of Canada suggesting the students should have independent counsel, we meet with refusal after refusal after refusal by the solicitor general and his government to provide the funding that is necessary to level the playing field.
There are those who say that there are more important issues. The Prime Minister alluded to this in answering questions the week before last. They ask why the opposition is focusing on this public complaints commission. They say we should let the commission move on and do its work while we talk about something else.
There are many important issues in this country, not the least of which are economic issues. I come from an area of the country that has huge unemployment problems. However, I say on behalf of all Canadians that nothing is more precious in this country than our rights and our freedoms. When those are lost, when there is no justice, then all else crumbles. Justice is the foundation of a civil society. Without it there is anarchy.
The Prime Minister smiles, jokes and says that there are other issues. I say in reply that one may smile and smile and still be a villain. Canadians know, we in this party know and we ask this House to consider how important those civil liberties are. When they are infringed upon, the process of determining the truth is as important as what the findings themselves are.
I said in this House in my last question to the solicitor general before the House adjourned that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done if Canadians are to have faith that the answer is a true one. Without a level playing field, without Canadians knowing that these students have had fair representation, the same representation as the government and the RCMP, the findings of that commission will be suspect whether or not they should be.
Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We in this party and those who have spoken in favour of this motion understand that we must be vigilant in guarding not only the rights of Canadians but also the process of ensuring that those rights are guarded in a fair and decent way.
I spent the morning reading some papers and about how the late Justice Dickson had the courage to interpret the charter of rights. The courage to look after our rights is something we have pride in. The students at APEC who are challenging the police have that courage.
The question on this vote will be whether the members opposite have the courage to protect the rights of Canadians in the same way the students before this inquiry have and the same way the veterans who fought for those rights have. I ask everyone who watches or listens to this program to watch the way their member of parliament votes tonight on the very important issue of Canadian civil liberties.