Jack Ramsay

[Supply, September 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would just conclude that those kinds of comments we have been subjected to without proof, without evidence have been done simply for the purpose of political partisanship.

I would like to ask the member if it is a fact that this Bristow individual infiltrated the Reform Party in order to discredit it, who would benefit from that? Why would anyone in CSIS want to discredit the Reform Party of Canada?

My analysis of this situation is that no one would want to take the time or energy in order to discredit the Reform Party. But who would benefit from it if the Reform Party was in fact discredited? It would be the political parties because we were vying for support from the Canadian public.

Is it not reasonable that these two bodies, SIRC as well as the subcommittee, should examine whether the Solicitor General of the day politicized CSIS in order to do that very thing and received the benefit that would come if this party was discredited by those kinds of labels? I would ask my hon. colleague to comment.

[Supply, September 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his comments. I listened to them carefully. He cautioned members of the House, correctly so, that we should not condemn CSIS simply based on allegations and rumours or innuendo.

Yet I have sat in the House and listened to members across the way label members of the Reform Party as racists and bigots. I have heard those words spoken in the House. In fact the Deputy Prime Minister had to recall the fact that she called one of our members a racist during debate. That is on the record.

[Supply, September 29th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, the overriding question that must be answered regarding the Brian McInnis-Grant Bristow affair is whether CSIS and other institutions of government were politicized by the Brian Mulroney government and whether the McInnis-Bristow incident was the premeditated extension of that politicization.

Rod Stamler, a former assistant commissioner of the RCMP has indicated clearly, not only in Paul Palango's book Above the Law , but in open line radio programs across the country that the RCMP was politicized by the Mulroney government and that it was denied a free hand in the investigation of political and other corruption in Canada.

When we look for evidence of this very serious allegation we see several disturbing incidents. We see the accusation of Shelly Ann Clark about deception and deceit in the Canada-U.S. free trade deal and her continuous complaint that her concerns were never fully investigated by the RCMP.

We see the accusation of Glen Kealy of kickback schemes run by members of the Mulroney government and in particular the case of Roch LaSalle which has never been finalized in court. We also see the case of Alan Eagleson, a close friend of the former Prime Minister, where detailed evidence of wrongdoing was placed in the hands of the RCMP, the Metro Toronto Police and the Law Society of Upper Canada and absolutely nothing of consequence was done.

Yet the U.S. justice department, after looking at the very same evidence, have laid 34 indictments against Mr. Eagleson, issued a warrant for his arrest, have frozen his American bank account and have initiated extradition proceedings to have him stand trial in the United States.

These incidents strongly support the allegations of Mr. Stamler that there has been political interference in the administration of the RCMP and in the administration of justice, that politicization of the RCMP under the Mulroney government did occur and that evidence of wrongdoing by government members and friends of government was not, and has not, been properly investigated.

I have been advised by individuals close to the situation that it would be much easier to politicize the Canadian Security Intelligence Service than to politicize the RCMP. When I asked my sources to explain this I was told that the Solicitor General has the power under the federal statutes to demand secret and classified information, including complete files and names of informants from CSIS.

This is supported by the fact that at least eight boxes of secret and highly classified documents seized from Brian McInnis's residence came directly from the Solicitor General's office. Why does the Solicitor General have to have possession of such highly secret documents? Why does he have to have possession of CSIS documents at all?

This is evidence that Doug Lewis, the former Solicitor General, was directly involved in the operation of CSIS. This was not an arm's length relationship. Mr. Lewis was directly involved.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act grants the Solicitor General full knowledge and power of direction over the policies, operations and management of CSIS. As well, the assistant deputy Solicitor General sits on the CSIS target approval and review committee and has direct input into what groups and individuals are targeted by CSIS.

The question is to what extent, if any, did the former Solicitor General politicize CSIS either through the assistant deputy Solicitor General who sat on the committee that determined who and what CSIS was to target or his own direct involvement or both? This question must be answered.

In the speech the Solicitor General gave in the House today he attempted to negate the Bloc's request for a royal commission hearing into this matter by claiming that SIRC has a mandate to do the same work. This is not true. SIRC advised the subcommittee looking into this matter that it could not investigate matters once they reached the Solicitor General's office. This means that SIRC has no power whatsoever to determine whether the former Solicitor General politicized CSIS. This is a central question

beyond the mandate of SIRC. Was CSIS used for political purposes under the direction of Doug Lewis?

Therefore, there is a need to look not just at this matter but to look at the whole question of the politicizing of our federal institutions by the Mulroney government, including CSIS and the RCMP.

There is the clear suggestion that there has been a deliberate dismantling of the division of power between those who create the law and those who administer and enforce the law. This is the much broader and more serious question raised by this whole McInnis-Bristow issue and that is has the rule of law been destroyed or harmed in this country?

Therefore I reject the submission made in this House today by the present Solicitor General that SIRC can do the job. It is obvious SIRC cannot look into misuse and abuse of political powers within the office of the former Solicitor General or any other institution of government. Therefore its mandate is inadequate.

Our hopes must rest with the subcommittee. If the subcommittee fails to get to the bottom of the issue and answer all relevant questions, the demand for a full scale inquiry will be justified at that point.

[Liberal Government, September 28th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, last week the Minister of Justice expressed his total disregard for the principles of democracy that govern this country; the we know best attitude still prevails. You can change the name from Tory to Liberal but the game seems to remain the same.

The GST, FTA and NAFTA, to name a few, were shoved down the throats of Canadians by virtue of the fact that the we know best attitude was a hallmark of the Tory government. Now the Minister of Justice has effectively put his government in the same category by publicly proclaiming that any proposed gun legislation will not be determined by a head count. The justice minister does not take a head count. He is not influenced by numbers nor the message behind them.

Democracy does not prevail because the philosophy of the Liberal cabinet is that it and not Canadians knows best.

What can Canadians do about this atrocity? Their only recourse is to wait until the next election and remove this government from power as decisively as they removed the Tories from office in the last election.

[Gun Control, September 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for that response. I am sure that he will submit those reports to the members of the standing committee on justice.

My supplemental is this. In describing Canada's current gun control legislation, the courts of Canada have used the terms such as vague, uncertain, invalid, inconsistent with the charter, convoluted, fictitious and twice removed from reality.

I ask the minister this. Will he put aside any proposed legislation and immediately undertake a complete re-evaluation of the current legislation to ensure it is clear, consistent and of direct effect upon the criminal element to provide the protection needed by our society?

[Gun Control, September 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the justice minister as well. In his 1993 report, the Auditor General indicated the previous government's Bill C-17 was not formulated upon a sound statistical basis and that the government proceeded for reasons of public policy.

I ask the Minister of Justice this. Will his proposed amendment to the gun control legislation be based upon statistical information that clearly demonstrates whether or not the current controls are meeting their objectives which is to reduce the criminal use of firearms in society or are we again proceeding simply for the purposes of public policy?

[Gun Control, September 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I can see clearly from the last exchange that the law-abiding gun owners from Quebec out here on the lawn do not have a representative here in the Bloc.

[Criminal Code, September 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. It is reasonable. As I have appeared before audiences all across certainly my constituency and other parts of Alberta I am quite prepared to appear before any committee or any assembly or any audience to put forward my concerns and my reasons for opposing section 745 of the Criminal Code.

The premise on which my concern is based is that it was a betrayal of the people of Canada at the time capital punishment was being removed from the Criminal Code. We were promised that the substitution would provide the protection that society was looking for and that substitution was life imprisonment with a minimum penalty of 25 years.

I have heard individuals, including open-line commentators, express outright disbelief when they heard about section 745 and its implementation. Now these murders come forward and use it in order to gain early parole.

My concern and my opposition is to the whole of the bill, of course. However with the time limit, I focused only on that one particular area and other members will focus on other areas of this bill.

My specific concern is that section 745 should never have been implemented in the first place. It was a betrayal of the honest people who are prepared to give this whole idea of the removal of capital punishment from the Criminal Code an opportunity. That was based upon a life sentence with a minimum term of imprisonment for 25 years.

[Criminal Code, September 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on Bill C-41 which is an amendment to the Criminal Code regarding sentencing.

I want to focus specifically on what the hon. member had touched on in his speech, that is, section 745 of the Criminal Code. This bill leaves section 745 in the code which makes a mockery of the term life imprisonment.

In 1976 the government abolished the death penalty and assured us that society would be protected by sentencing murderers to life imprisonment with no chance for parole for 25 years. However Bill C-84 which was to accomplish this contained a little known clause which created section 745 of the Criminal Code.

Section 745 nullifies the term life imprisonment and grants murderers the right to apply for parole eligibility after serving only 15 years of a life sentence. Section 745(1) of the Criminal Code reads: "Where a person has served at least 15 years of his sentence he may apply to the appropriate Chief Justice in the province in which the conviction took place for a reduction in

his number of years of imprisonment without eligibility for parole".

This section makes a complete mockery of the so-called life sentence which was a trade-off for the elimination of capital punishment in our statutes.

One parliamentarian in support of section 745 called it "a glimmer of hope if some incentive is to be left when such a terrible penalty is imposed on the most serious of all criminals". This parliamentarian reflects the typical, irresponsible, unaccountable, bleeding-heart mentality that underlines so much of the legislation passed in this House over the last 25 years, including our parole system, our Young Offenders Act, our Immigration Act. The same mentality has created the federal debt of half a trillion dollars and produced a budget that will add $100 billion to that debt in the next three years.

This irresponsible, unaccountable, bleeding-heart mentality has ignored the rights of the victims of crime, their families and society. This is the type of mentality that has betrayed our country. What murderer ever gave a victim a glimmer of hope when he or she viciously tore life from the victim?

Did Norman Clairmont give the 19-year old Potts girl a glimmer of hope when he brutally and savagely murdered her in 1978? No he did not. Did Larry Sheldon extend a glimmer of hope to the nine-year old girl he raped and murdered in 1974? No he did not. Did Charles Simard offer a glimmer of hope to the two teenagers he murdered in the province of Quebec? No he did not.

Now these murderers are lining up to take advantage of a glimmer of hope they denied our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, a glimmer of hope provided by irresponsible politicians and governments.

Murderers, rapists and vandals lose all their rights the moment they launch their deadly attack upon the life of another. In spite of this undeniable fact, we have watched the bleeding-heart politicians restore the rights of these criminals through legislation devoid of common sense, legislation like section 745 of the Criminal Code.

In a judgment rendered on April 28, 1994, Judge Demetrick of the Alberta Provincial Court declared that portions of the definition of a firearm contained in section 84(1) of the Criminal Code is so convoluted as to be "legal fiction" and "twice removed from reality".

How is it possible that the Government of Canada is producing legislation so convoluted that it is declared by our courts to be fictitious and twice removed from reality? The answer to this question is that the thinking that is producing this type of legislation has to be equally fictitious and twice removed from reality. It is the kind of thinking that comes from an ivory tower mentality, the kind of mentality that produced the Young Offenders Act, the Immigration Act, the national debt, this government's approach to gun control legislation. It is the kind of mentality that produced section 745 of the Criminal Code which returns rights to the murders of Canadian citizens.

In March of this year the hon. member for York South-Weston introduced a private member's bill to get rid of section 745 of the Criminal Code which gives convicted killers the right to apply for early parole. I can tell the House that this member has a great deal of support from our party and I believe from Canadians all across Canada. We will watch to see how much support he has from his own governing party.

We will see if the ivy tower mentality, the twice removed from reality mentality identified by Judge Demetrick still controls the agenda in the Liberal caucus. If it does, then the only alternative the people of Canada have is to wait until the next election and remove this government from power as decisively as they removed the Tories from office in the last election. I stand in opposition to this bill.

[Excise Tax Act, June 21st, 1994]

Do not shout.