Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate and to express the concerns of my constituents on the issue raised by my colleague, the hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt.
We are debating today whether the comments made by the hon. member for Charlesbourg and the actions of the then leader of the opposition should be viewed as seditious and offensive to the House, whether they constitute a contempt of Parliament and, therefore, should be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to determine what action might be appropriate.
These are very serious allegations. As the Speaker said, it is probably one of the most serious issues with which the House has had to deal in the 35th Parliament. It should not be viewed lightly.
Yesterday, when my colleague was presenting his motion, some Bloc members were laughing and heckling. They found great merriment in the presentation of the motion. My constituents believe, as do I, that these comments were in fact seditious and offensive and, therefore, constitute a contempt of Parliament, as well as a breach of the Criminal Code.
The issue of whether the courts have ruled on this matter has come up a number of times in the House. I suggest the statement that the courts have found that it does not constitute a breach of the Criminal Code is not right. The Ontario court has yet to rule on the matter and there is an appeal before the Quebec court because the verdict on the original charge was not accepted by the crown, so further litigation will proceed on the matter.
I have also been very upset by the Bloc comments that I heard yesterday and today on the matter. Bloc members have tried to make light of the issue. They have said that the communiqué, the press release, was simply a communication for information to the Canadian Armed Forces and that it was information for Quebec soldiers. There is no such thing as a Quebec soldier. They are Canadian soldiers, each and every one of them.
I heard it said it was no different than going to athletes from Quebec and saying to them "after we reach independence in Quebec you will be invited to participate in athletics and to represent Quebec". It is no different than going to the artists from Quebec and saying "when we become independent you will be invited to represent Quebec instead of Canada". That simply is not acceptable.
It is entirely different from those circumstances. Each and every one of the people in the Canadian Armed Forces has taken a serious and solemn oath to protect and to be loyal to Canada. That is the difference. I do not know of athletes anywhere who have had to take such a solemn and serious oath to represent their country or their province in athletic competition.
I believe most Canadians find it very offensive to have the separatist Bloc Quebecois representing Her Majesty's loyal opposition in this House. That is not to say it does not have a democratic right to be here. I would support the democratic right for that party to be here. The people of Quebec have the right to choose anyone they wish to represent them in this House.
However, it does not follow that the Bloc has a right, or should be sitting as Her Majesty's loyal opposition. I find that quite ludicrous. I am most disappointed that the government would hide behind legalities, precedents and regulations to allow that to continue. Canadians everywhere find it outrageous and a good part of the world is laughing at Canada for allowing such a ludicrous situation to continue.
Did the member for Charlesbourg really think Canadian military officers, the men and women, who have pledged allegiance to defend Canada, would take up arms against Canada to enforce a yes victory after a referendum? Did he really think that his actions would not upset Canadians, both English and French, both inside and outside Quebec? I can hardly believe he would be so naive as to believe that.
This act by the member for Charlesbourg and the then leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition shows how ludicrous the pretence is that the Bloc Quebecois represents the official opposition and the interests of all Canadians, not just the interests of the separatists from Quebec. One would have to be an idiot to believe the Bloc represents anybody's interests but the separatists from Quebec.
As retired General Lewis MacKenzie points out, only in Canada would one get away with something like what has happened here. I believe, and everyone might agree, that in some countries people who had done such things would be either executed or would be waiting in jail. In Canada the attitude is simply to ignore it and perhaps it will go away. That is what the government had hoped.
Canadians had hoped for the last four months that the government would do something to address this matter and take some action. We waited and waited while the demand for something to be done got louder and louder. Since the government did not act we were forced to act as the third party in the House of Commons.
The attitude of the leaders of the government, in particular the leader of the Canadian military in this government, is simply outrageous. For the life of me I cannot understand why the police, the military, the courts and government ministers have wimped out on this issue of what appears to be an open and shut case of sedition or at least an open and shut case of inciting to mutiny, both of which carry a possible 14-year prison sentence.
One can quote all the dictionaries one wants, that is quite irrelevant to this issue. The definition of sedition or inciting a mutiny is quite clear in the Criminal Code. It is quite clear that the actions of this member constituted a breach of the Criminal Code. I understand the defence minister consulted the justice department on the issue at the time and was told by a lawyer that there was no case. Therefore, no action was taken.
This incident casts a serious shadow over the loyalty of members of the Canadian military which is responsible for the defence of Canadian sovereignty. On that issue, I quote an article that appeared in the November 25 edition of the Financial Post , written by Diane Francis: ``The rumours are that secessionists had obtained oaths of allegiance from sympathetic officers eager to set up a rival army''.
The Bloc member who spoke before me said that we were fools to think that there were no separatists and disloyal members of the Canadian Armed Forces who were prepared to take up arms against Canada. It is reprehensible that this shadow would be cast over the Canadian Armed Forces that I respect so greatly and which has such a tremendous reputation around the world for the work they have done on behalf of all Canadians.
Reports in the media also state that there was a problem with junior officers. Again, Diane Francis pointed out in her March 2 article in the Financial Post , that half of the cadets at the Kingston Military College were packed and ready to return to Quebec to join the new Quebec army if a yes vote had succeeded.
What was the minister's response to this? The minister stated in an interview with Diane Francis that he cannot get directly involved because it would cause problems within the military, already demoralized by the Somalia scandal. That is ludicrous. It is his responsibility to get involved, to deal quickly and decisively with what might be disloyalty in the Canadian Armed Forces.
It is quite unbelievable that this has happened. Had it happened in the U.S.A., I can assure the House that the U.S. military and the U.S. minister of defence certainly would not be sitting around on their duffs doing nothing. This is a serious matter. We have an obligation to Canadians to cite this member's statement as seditious and then have it examined by the parliamentary committee on House affairs to determine what action should be taken.
We also have to weed out the separatists in the Canadian Armed Forces because loyalty is everything in a country's army. If the army is not loyal to Canada, then we have a very serious problem.
It is a sad that the government has taken no leadership role in this matter. It took a private Canadian, Brent Tyler from Montreal, to have the courage to take this matter before the courts with an unfortunate, unsuccessful result to this point. The story is not over. We are hoping with all our hearts that the courts will deal seriously with the issue and rule on it in a fair and reasonable manner.
Again, Diane Francis, the journalist I quoted earlier, went to the RCMP over the issue because she felt so strongly. She asked the RCMP to do something about it. They in turn told her that it had been turned over to the legal branch of the RCMP which would be discussing the matter with the Department of Justice. Furthermore, they said that the matter will take some time to investigate. We waited and waited. It appears that the whole matter has been dropped. We all know why. It is because appeasement of the separatists is the Liberal answer to separatism in Canada.
Appeasement has never worked anywhere in the world and it will not work with the separatists. We have been appeasing the separatists in Quebec for 30 years and on October 30 we came within a hair's breadth of losing this country. The strategy is not be successful. It does not work and I will not support it.
I have received numerous letters, phone calls and personal interventions from my constituents on this issue. It is important that we have the opportunity to express the views of ordinary Canadians and put those views on the record. Canadians should be able to read in Hansard how the House dealt with this serious issue.
This is not only my constituents. There was a poll done yesterday by Broadcast News, a national news network. A question was floated to Canadians: should a Bloc Quebecois member of Parliament be censured by Parliament because he invited soldiers to switch their loyalty to a post-referendum independent Quebec army? Of the number of calls received, 1,112 people said yes, he should be. Only 66 callers said no, he should not be. Ninety-four per cent of the respondents supported the idea that this member of Parliament should be censured and held responsible for the action he took. It certainly was not simply a job offer to members of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Constituents in my riding, Mrs. Maureen Bizon and Mr. Robert Johnson, contacted my office in the last day or two to express outrage with this issue. They demanded that since the government would not raise this issue we should do something. Mrs. Bizon said I should push the Minister of Justice to press charges against these members who made this statement in their press release. She continued by saying these members should be at least charged with sedition or inciting mutiny. At the very least, she wanted a serious and thorough investigation of all the allegations. That is typical of the many constituents who called, phoned and stopped me on the street to talk to me about this issue.
The list is endless. Canadians everywhere feel this is very serious. However, I wanted to quote that one person because I felt it was fairly representative of how all Canadians feel.
The comments made by the member for Charlesbourg and by the then leader of the opposition were reviewed by ordinary Canadians everywhere as seditious and offensive. The inaction by the police, the military and the government are viewed as deplorable by Canadians.
The question now is what to do about it. These Canadians have called on the government first to do something about it. They have called on the courts to do something about it. Failing that, they have now called on our party to do something about it. Will we now simply sweep it under the rug or whitewash it as the government is now still trying to do? Those nasty Reformers are inflaming the separatist movement.
Are we to ignore it and sweep it away again like we have so many other things, as we have for other racial groups that are openly and flagrantly breaking the Criminal of Code of Canada? We must not hold them accountable because we will inflame the separatists or other racial groups simply for the appearance of being politically correct.
Did we ever really have to wonder about the military members in Alberta? Do we have to worry about them being recruited to an Alberta army? I do not think that is very likely.
The one thing that concerns me most is that the majority of Canadians living in the constituencies of these members across the floor probably feel the same. However, we heard an ongoing debate
about how democratic this place is and what opportunities all members have to express the concerns of their constituents.
It certainly appears that members opposite do not have the courage to stand up and speak for their constituents on this issue. Instead they hide behind the procedures and the precedents of the House. They let us raise this issue which is unmentionable for them simply because their party will not allow them to do that. It is truly unfortunate that they are not able to speak on behalf of their constituents and that the government takes such a casual and a laissez fair attitude toward the separatists inciting a mutiny in the Canadian Armed Forces.
I remember distinctly last year when this issue was first raised and was front page material in the press across the country these same members were all excited and up in arms over the comments, saying how terrible it was and that something must be done, we have to deal with this and we have to stop this open challenge by separatists to the Canadian Armed Forces.
What happened? Nothing was done. Why did the frontbenchers in the government opposite not take some action? Why did they not answer to what was happening. Why again on this issue, as we have seen in so many others, is the government simply supporting the separatists in the actions they are taking in committees and in Parliament?.
The government, until we raised this issue, had every intention of using its majority in the justice committee to elect the member we are charging here as the vice-chairman of the standing committee on national defence. If that is not aiding and abetting the separatists in their cause to take Quebec out of Canada, I have no idea what would be. The same procedure went on recently in every standing committee of the House.
I believe the only way to satisfactorily deal with the situation is to lay the charges we have and then refer the charge and the motion we have put forward to the standing committee for examination and for recommendations on action to be taken.
I view this as much more than, as the whip for the government said, an impetuous act by a member of Parliament, that we should send it to committee, he should be slapped on the wrist, he should be censured and told he should not do that and then let the whole matter fall aside and take no further action.
We have to take very serious action. We have to consider the expulsion of this member from the House of Commons. We have to consider pursuing laying charges under the Criminal Code of Canada for the action he has taken.