Michel Bellehumeur

[Supply, February 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we are debating this morning a most important motion, probably the most important that the House will be examining during the 36th Parliament, since it deals with the foundations of our political system, democracy, and aims at allowing a people to express itself freely.

The goal of this motion is to obtain the acknowledgment of the consensus reached in Quebec, according to which it is for Quebeckers to decide freely their own future. Faced with this Liberal government, which is trying to hijack democracy, we could not stand idly by. We could not allow what they are doing to democracy.

Every party in this House has a civic and political responsibility to rise against this dangerous political manoeuvering by Ottawa. As the Leader of the Bloc Quebecois said earlier, other parties in this House will have to make their position on this issue known. Reformers, Conservatives and New Democrats alike will have to take a stand on this most important issue, democracy. When the time comes to vote, we will see on which side those parties stand. Will they be on the government's side, which is trying to use the supreme court for political ends?

If they vote against this principle, they will become accomplices and players in this machiavellian plan of the government. Their hands will be stained by their rejection of a democratic principle recognized throughout the world.

However, Quebeckers have understood what is at stake. In the last several weeks, we have seen and heard men and women from every political background condemn the government for what it is trying to do. Since I have little time left, I will name only a few of them. Claude Ryan, chairman of the no committee during the 1980 referendum and former Leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec; Daniel Johnson, leader of the no committee in 1995 and present leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec; some senators, and among them Jean-Claude Rivest; former Conservative ministers, among them Monique Vézina; reporters who are not always on our side but who have vigorously condemned what the federal government is doing. There were also members of the church hierarchy, namely Mgr Blanchette, bishop of Rimouski; Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, who delivered the same message, namely that it is for Quebeckers to decide their own future.

Liberals, Conservatives, civilians, the secular clergy and members of religious orders, former ministers, senators and even present politicians, all have in common a sense of democracy. The consensus was reached in Quebec and it is still there. The government must take note of that. As Claude Ryan rightfully proclaimed on February 4, 1998, “democracy is more important than anything else”. The future of Quebec is not a legal but a political issue. It is not a legal debate for lawyers or judges but a democratic debate for the people of Quebec.

I find the actions of the federal government, the way they use the Supreme Court of Canada, revolting and shocking. I am not the only one to think so.

Let me just quote the Chairman of the International Law Commission of the United Nations, who is not a sovereignist and who is not beholden to Quebeckers. I doubt anyone will question his credibility and expertise in international law. In a brief to the Supreme Court of Canada, he said that he was deeply disturbed and shocked by the partisan way the questions were asked and suggested that it was the duty of a court of justice to react to what clearly appears to be a blatant political manipulation attempt. This is quite something.

However, if Mr. Pellet had gone over all the decisions made by the Supreme Court of Canada throughout the years, he would have seen that this is not the first time Ottawa has tried to manipulate the Supreme Court judges on issues dealing with the Constitution and the division of powers.

In Quebec, we have a saying: “Don't bite the hand that feeds you.” The Supreme Court judges probably feel like saying: “Do not argue with the people who appoint and support you.”

It seems like the learned and distinguished judges sitting on the Supreme Court of Canada, or rather the loyal servants of the central power, have always been trying to distort the 1867 Constitution.

Ernest Lapointe, who was justice minister and attorney general of Canada in 1925, a long time ago, once made the following statement, to which, I think, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs should listen carefully. He said that the federal power is a creation of the provinces, and not the opposite. That is quite easy to understand. However, through the years, we have noticed that the Supreme Court judges, in collusion with the federal government, do not see things the same way.

There is another consensus in Quebec about the legal impasse we have reached. People feel that things have never been so bad, and it has been like this for a long time.

The Supreme Court is like the Tower of Pisa, because it always leans the same way. This is more than an image, it can be proven. You only have to review the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada to get the picture.

Quebeckers cannot expect anything from the Supreme Court of Canada. It is biased when it comes to protecting Canada and centralizing powers.

Following the patriation of the Constitution, René Lévesque said, in 1982: “What it does for Quebec is that it simply makes it virtually impossible to resist centralization every time the federal government wants to impose it”. Unfortunately, history has proven him right.

Since 1982, we have witnessed a systematic consolidation of federal powers and prerogatives to the detriment of provincial constitutional jurisdictions. This tendency is not only because of Ottawa's political will, but mainly because of the many decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada.

A statistical look at all the cases heard by the Supreme Court that came from provincial appeal courts between 1987 and 1996 reveals a pretty astonishing fact. Almost six out of ten judgements from Quebec are reversed, whereas the national average for all the provinces is about four out of ten. It must be, on the part of Supreme Court judges, a special treatment for a distinct society.

The year 1981 was a very dark moment in Canadian history since it is the year when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of the federal government's decision to unilaterally patriate the Constitution. That opened the door to the largest possible centralization of powers by federalists.

In 1981, judges of the Supreme Court said that the federal government had the right, despite the provinces' opposition, to ask London for a patriation that would affect provincial powers, but that it would violate a constitutional convention by doing so. Therefore, the unilateral patriation of the Constitution by Trudeau and by the present Prime Minister of Canada was viewed by the highest court in the country as legal but illegitimate under a constitutional convention.

Today, to render judgement on the three matters submitted them by the federal government, the judges will not even have to examine constitutional conventions because these questions are based solely on the Canadian Constitution of 1982.

Time really flies. You are signalling me that I have only one minute left. I will certainly have the opportunity at some later point to say more on this subject and to refer to several judgements, dealing with matters ranging from Hydro-Quebec to intergovernmental affairs, to show that, more and more, centralization of powers by the federal government is done with the blessing and the complicity of the Supreme Court.

I would like to propose an amendment to the Bloc Quebecois' motion on this allotted day:

That the motion be amended by adding the word “alone” between the words “Quebecers” and “to decide”.

In addition, a comparison of the French wording of the Bloc Quebecois' motion with its English translation in today's order paper reveals a number of what I hope are unintentional translation errors. When reading it, it is obvious that the English and French texts differ substantially.

In the interests of clarification, I have translated the motion for the House and I would like to table it so that both the English and French versions reflect our original intent.

[International Law, February 5th, 1998]

He has nothing to say.

[International Law, February 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs has always maintained in the House that, in democracy, governments always act within the law.

Today, the minister has said, after hearing about certain statements made by his prime minister, that governments sometimes take action that is plainly outside the law.

In the face of these blatant contradictions, are we to understand that the intergovernmental affairs minister says whatever he wants, whenever he wants, solely to justify his government's political actions?

[Reference To Supreme Court, February 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, not only is the Prime Minister repudiating is former boss, he is repudiating himself. On October 31, 1995, he said, and I quote: “In a democracy, the people are always right”.

My question is for the Prime Minister. What has changed since 1995 for the Prime Minister to no longer accept the legal framework that applied then and that he himself recognized?

[Reference To Supreme Court, February 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

On the evening of the 1980 referendum, Pierre Elliott Trudeau said “this evening we are experiencing both the most beautiful and the most painful sides of democracy”.

By now trying to impose a new legal framework for the next Quebec referendum, is the Prime Minister not in full contradiction with his former boss, who recognized that the referendum of 1980 was held in an eminently democratic fashion?

[Quebec's Future, February 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister and I hope he will rise to reply.

Does the Prime Minister realize that even his federalist allies in Quebec feel that he is headed straight for a political impasse that will have even more serious consequences than the mess he created in 1982?

[Quebec's Future, February 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

Quebec federalists are strongly condemning the federal strategy calling on the Supreme Court of Canada to debate Quebec's future. According to them, this is an essentially political issue.

How can the Prime Minister convince all Quebeckers that his strategy is legitimate, given that his own political and federalist allies feel that this approach is dangerous and unacceptable and that it will lead to an impasse?

[Criminal Code, December 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I too, as a representative of the Bloc Quebecois, would like to congratulate the Reform Party member on this bill.

It reflects a concern in his riding and throughout Canada as well, even in Quebec. However, I think that examining section 227 from this angle is not perhaps the best approach.

I will not give the historical context, as those who spoke before me have done, particularly the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, but it should be pointed out that section 227, as it stands, makes it easier for the crown to establish the link of causality. I do not want to go into great detail and give a lecture on law, but there are three things the crown must establish beyond a reasonable doubt when faced with an offence of this type or in any other legal case.

There is mens rea, actus reus and causal link. In the first two instances, I think that the crown, through witnesses, through various means, through factual elements, can establish proof. But without section 227, the crown would sometimes have trouble establishing the causal link.

Section 227 is, therefore, not necessarily there to protect the accused at all times, as the Reform side has said so often. Sometimes, in Canada's legal history, since section 227 has been in existence, it has helped the Crown to demonstrate a causal link, when death did not occur at the precise moment the offence was committed, but days, weeks or months later.

The amendment presented by the Reform Party would remove this prescriptive period that prevents the Crown from using this causal link to prove its case.

The bill is very clear, it removes all time limits. It states:

—regardless of the time within which the death occurs after the time of the occurrence of the last event by means of which the person caused or contributed to the cause of death.

With today's medical technology and everything else the health system has to offer, a person can last two, three, four or five years, hooked up to machines and all manner of other things.

If the Reform member's bill were passed, we would be left in a kind of legal vacuum with respect to the offence, because the individual can be charged with culpable homicide but also with other very serious offences under the Criminal Code.

This year and a half limit makes it possible for the Crown to take position and get its act together. If the person cannot be charged with culpable homicide, he will be charged with something else, as I said before, with very serious offences. But with this bill, we would be left hanging until the victim died or his condition stabilized, before we could institute legal proceedings. I do not think that is what the legal system wants.

I am not saying that there are not some very specific cases like those listed earlier, the revolting nature of which casts doubt on the entire system, but if one is going to question the system, the approach must be comprehensive. We must examine the system with experts and look at legal precedents. The approach must be one of comparative law, rather like what the parliamentary secretary has done.

We have a British tradition. What happens in Great Britain, for instance, with its far longer history in this connection? What about certain of the Commonwealth countries? What is happening in Europe? What is happening with the Americans, who are very much at the forefront in technological terms, perhaps more so than Canada? How do they operate?

Perhaps we will conclude that a longer period of time will have to be set. I would be surprised if we were to conclude that no time period need be set. We might even conclude that section 227 no longer serves a purpose. I do not know, but it is surely following an in-depth study that we could make our mark as legislators in this House.

In short, my conclusion is that we consider the rule provided in section 227 of the Criminal Code to serve a purpose at this time. In fact, establishing a time period enables us to determine whether there is indeed a causal link between the act of the accused and the death of the victim. This is why we oppose Bill C-215 as written, since it removes any time frame.

On the other hand, we must still take into account the social, economic and scientific realities in which the provisions of the Criminal Code must apply. It may be relevant, in the short or medium term, to look at the length of time currently provided, that is the period of one year and one day. Perhaps, in the not too distant future, we will consider new provisions to try to ensure greater fairness, and I am sure everyone is working toward the objective of making our system fair and just.

[Revocation Of Mandate Of Inquiry Commission, December 9th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, let me start by saying that the position taken by the government on Motion M-20 did not come as too much of a surprise.

To take a different position would have been tantamount for it to admit it made the wrong decision regarding the Somalia inquiry. It would also be against their principles, that is to act to cover something up. If there is one thing that this government does not seek it is to shed light on certain administrative decisions.

I am not too surprised that the government is not in favour of this motion. Something worries me and bothers me to some extent, though, and that is the fact that, when a member of the official opposition asked that my motion be made into a votable item, government members said no.

In a way, that both surprises me and does not surprise me, because we must understand that, with the support of the Reform Party, the NDP and the Conservative Party, all that would have been required for my motion to pass would have been the support of five Liberal members. I can understand that, to be on the safe side, they would rather this motion not be put forward or not be voted on in this House, just in case there were five members on their side who would vote against the party line, as some have done on other issues.

I would like to thank the opposition parties, that is to say the Reform Party, the New Democratic Party and the Progressive-Conservative Party, for truly grasping the meaning and, more importantly, the significance of this motion. What I heard was also repeated often and dealt directly with the objective I was pursuing, namely the legitimacy of the commission, the importance of knowing the truth, the search for that truth and the protection of the population. I think that all opposition parties understood that. It is unfortunate that the government opposite is refusing to be responsive to an extremely important issue.

The government often says that opposition members are here only to criticize and do nothing that is positive. I think that this was an opportunity for the government to acknowledge that an opposition member was right on an extremely important issue, namely that when a commission of inquiry is created, considering how important that is, a vote of two thirds in the House should be required to end the inquiry. This is how the opposition parties are being thanked.

There is perhaps only one thing that they did not understand, and I would like to come back to that briefly. Members from the Reform Party and from the NDP mentioned that they did not really understand, at least the Reform Party did not, the two thirds requirement, for two reasons. The first was that this would limit the influence of the Bloc Quebecois on government decisions because the Bloc Quebecois does not have enough members to bring about an end to the commission.

In this respect, it was not undue influence that I was looking for with this motion, but fairness, and I think that the two thirds rule would allow to demonstrate clearly that all members in this House wish to end or to continue an inquiry. My objective was absolutely not to give the Bloc Quebecois special influence over Parliament. I believe that with 44 members, we have more than enough to do to represent Quebeckers properly.

The other point that bothers me a bit more, and I would like to mention this, is that members of the Reform Party and the NDP claimed not to understand why it took 66% to terminate a commission or allow it to continue, while it took 50% plus one in the case of a referendum for Quebec to become a sovereign nation. I hope that they said this off the top of their heads, that they did not think before they spoke.

I believe very sincerely that there is a difference between a vote by elected officials on an administrative matter, such as the continuation or termination of a commission of inquiry, whether it is important, as I was saying, or not, and the democratic vote of a people. I think there is a fundamental difference between the decision of a people and an administrative decision.

I did not pluck the two-thirds rule out of thin air. All members know, if they listen to their constituents occasionally, that in order for non-profit organizations to be able to change their by-laws they often require the consent of two-thirds of their general assembly. This is not a criterion selected out of the blue, but one that I think is generally recognized in administrative circles.

However, 50% plus one in a democracy is a criterion that is also recognized internationally. When a people vote in an election or a referendum, the majority, the 50% plus one, rules. There is nothing contradictory about this and I think that, if members give a little thought to their position, to what they have just said, they will understand that there is a fundamental difference between the two, and that the 50% plus one is the principle that Quebeckers defend each time a referendum is held in Quebec.

I will close with that. I again offer the government an opportunity to agree to a vote on this motion.

Once again, I ask the government to agree to put Motion M-20 to a vote, so that we may really know what this House of elected representatives, this House representing Canada and Quebec, among others, thinks of the motion I am moving.

I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House that this motion be made votable.

[Revocation Of Mandate Of Inquiry Commission, December 9th, 1997]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should obtain the consent of two-thirds of the said House before revoking the mandate of an inquiry commission.

Mr. Speaker, the motion I am tabling today, Motion M-20, refers directly to events that occurred during the 35th Parliament and that continue to have repercussions today. The aim of this motion is to correct a practice by the government opposite and by the governments before it.

My motion reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should obtain the consent of two-thirds of the said House before revoking the mandate of an inquiry commission.

You will understand that this motion is in reaction to the problems that occurred during the course of the latest commissions of inquiry set up by the government, more specifically, the Somalia inquiry.

You will recall that on July 2, the Minister of National Defence published the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Deployment of Canadian Forces to Somalia, better known as the Létourneau Commission. The work of that commission became extremely important because of the events that were being revealed, but also because the media was following it closely.

In their final report, the commissioners expressed strongly their concern over the major obstacles they had to face in carrying out the work of the commission. So that the scope and the importance of my motion can really be understood, I will quote some parts of the report, including from the chairman of that commission, Mr. Justice Létourneau.

Mr. Justice Létourneau said:

The Inquiries Act provides the authority to subpoena witnesses, hear testimony, hire expert counsel and advisers, and assess evidence. Under normal circumstances, such powers should have given us the confidence to present our findings without qualification. However, on January 10, 1997, while Parliament was adjourned—

Mr. Justice Létourneau continued:

—the Minister of National Defence announced that cabinet had decided that this inquiry had gone on long enough, that all hearings must be cut off on or about March 31, 1997, and that a report with recommendations was required by June 30, 1997.

This was the response of the government to our letter setting out reporting date options and requesting an extension until at least December 31, 1997, a period of time that would have allowed us to conclude our search for the truth.

You must realize that the Létourneau Commission only had one objective, and it was to uncover the truth on extremely serious events surrounding actions by people in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Mr. Justice Létourneau continued:

The unexpected decision to impose a sudden time constraint on an inquiry of this magnitude is without precedent in Canada. There is no question that it has compromised and limited our search for the truth. It will also inhibit and delay corrective action to the very system that allowed the events to occur in the first place.

He continued, and this is important also:

As our investigation progressed, we were able to move closer to the key centres of responsibility as we moved up the chain of command. Unfortunately, the Minister's decision of January 10, 1997, eliminated any possibility of taking this course to its logical conclusion—

The minister, the Liberal cabinet, realizing that the investigations and the search for the truth carried out by Mr. Justice Létourneau were getting dangerously closer to the political decisions of that government, announced in January, on January 10 more precisely, that it had decided to put an end to the commission's work.

Need I remind this House that the commissioners were appointed by the Minister of National Defence, by the government opposite?

These commissioners can certainly not be said to be big, bad separatists or sovereignists who were there to break up the country. They were appointed by the government to seek out the truth. It would be one thing if he had been the only commissioner to make such remarks, but there were three of them saying the same thing.

One of them, Peter Desbarats, even wrote a book entitled Somalia Cover-Up , from which I would also like to quote, because he goes even further than Mr. Justice Létourneau. He wrote:

Before we had a chance to resume hearings in January, after the Christmas holiday, on January 10, the Minister of National Defence announced that the commission would wrap up the hearings by the end of March and table a final report by the end of June—This announcement floored us all. I expected the Minister of National Defence to give us one or two months less than what we asked for, but the decision to put an end to the inquiry was unprecedented. Even four decades of watching politicians did not prepare me for this.

This is not a man totally unfamiliar with how things are done in Ottawa. This is a man who studied political and governmental decisions extensively and was familiar with procedure. After all, he had been appointed to the commission on the basis of his great qualifications.

He wrote in his book that he simply could not believe that the Minister of National Defence would decide to suddenly end the inquiry, without warning, when it was so close to its goal of finding out exactly what had happened. So, the commissioners were about to uncover the truth when the government opposite, in a move that could almost be called dictatorial, put en end to the inquiry.

He also wrote, and I will end with this excerpt:

When observing my two fellow commissioners, I came to appreciate the expression—and this is very important—“judicial independence” as a reality. A government that acts so as to affect the independence of a public inquiry can only be foreign to our political traditions and jeopardize the principles of accountability.

This commissioner in the Somalia inquiry says that the government jeopardized the principles of accountability. This is a very harsh judgment. The author made a comparison with our American neighbours. As we know, Americans are very structured too. They have many commissions of inquiry, even more than here. We also know that the president enjoys a very strong central power. The author points out that:

In the United States, even a president could not stop the Watergate investigation. Here, a simple cabinet can put a stop to a federal inquiry for political reasons, and no one gets upset about it.

As for the in-depth analysis of the motion, all agree that public inquiries are essential elements of a democratic system. It is a universally recognized principle that, without the existence of public inquiries, administrative democracy would be meaningless. These inquiries are tools at the service of those who are governed, that is the citizens, to monitor their administrative institutions. They are tools given to Canadians and Quebeckers to know what goes on in the federal apparatus, since we are in the federal Parliament.

It is not the first time we look at this issue and at the powers of commissions of inquiry. In 1977, the Canadian Law Reform Commission described public inquiries as “a complement to the essential agencies of the state. They can investigate the government itself, a task which must of course be the mandate of a body outside the executive and the public service”.

The quasi-judicial process of which commissions of inquiry are a part is a major guarantee of objectivity, which is of considerable importance when an agency must assess the exigencies of public interest. By setting up boards or commissions with quasi-judiciary powers, the lawmakers institute a mechanism of preliminary investigation and participation by the governed in administrative action.

But these inquiries must be left to follow their course without undue interference by the government. This requires respect for the independence of the judiciary.

And what is the independence of the judiciary? I refer to it because it has already been addressed in this House. It must be understood that what I am proposing in Motion M-20 is a solution to establish some semblance of credibility in our democratic institutions, which suffer from undue interference by the government in the process of public inquiries. It must therefore be understood that the very principle of the independence of the judiciary is what justifies the adoption of this motion. In other words, once a government creates a commission of inquiry, because the situation requires it, because the situation is so important that a commission of inquiry is required, the commissioners must have complete freedom to conduct the inquiry.

And, among other things, the government should have seen to it that Mr. Justice Létourneau, a man with training, a highly credible individual with a law degree and many qualifications, had complete freedom to conduct the inquiry, to ask questions. Above all, there must be guarantees that the executive arm or the government will not interfere.

The legislation, because this is governed by section 2 of the Inquiries Act, stipulates that the governor in council may, whenever the governor in council deems it expedient, cause inquiry to be made into and concerning any matter connected with the good government of Canada or the conduct of any part of the public business thereof. When we look at the powers given the commissioner of a commission of inquiry, we see that the process must have been considered quasi-judicial. And there is a difference between a commission of inquiry and a decision by the superior court, for example, or the supreme court or the court of appeal.

For instance, commissioners have powers to summon witnesses, powers to enforce, and certain special powers associated with the inquiry, such as entering offices, examining documents or whatever.

In addition, section 12 of the legislation stipulates that commissioners may allow any person whose conduct is being investigated under this act to be represented by counsel. And in the Somalia inquiry we saw that, whenever members of the Canadian Armed Forces appeared before the commission, they were all accompanied by a lawyer, which is provided for in the act and which was completely legal.

This shows that a commission of inquiry is something very serious. We must give as much power as possible to those who hear witnesses and who search for the truth.

In conclusion, those who were here during the 35th Parliament, those who witnessed the whole debate on the Somalia inquiry, those who saw certain things the government did during the Krever inquiry and those who witnessed certain things in the past all feel that commissions of inquiry deserve the close attention of the members of this House. Commissions of inquiry deserve that we remove, once and for all, the possibility for the executive branch, the cabinet or a minister to suddenly revoke the mandate of a commission as important as the Somalia inquiry.

To support motion M-20 is to support the improvement of procedures regarding public inquiries. To support motion M-20 is to ensure that our institutions truly reflect the concern of Canadians and Quebeckers to maintain a sound and sustainable administrative democracy. To support motion M-20 is to choose to know the truth rather than to let the interests of the bureaucracy take precedence. To support motion M-20 is to give Canadians and Quebeckers an opportunity to adequately take part in the affairs of our society.

To those who are about to speak against this motion, or who do not really support it, I will simply say that to oppose motion M-20 is to allow the government opposite to once again muzzle commissions of inquiry.

To oppose Motion M-20 is to say that responsible individuals who agree to chair similar commissions could find themselves overnight with less time or insufficient time to really achieve the goal sought, that is, the truth.

To oppose the motion is to allow those who mock their integrity to move beyond all control.

I am convinced that this House, given the appropriateness of the purpose and the fact that the motion is an attempt to find a better approach in this House, will see that its sole purpose is “to obtain the consent of two-thirds of this House”. That means that people on both sides of the House must speak before a commission of inquiry is terminated.

Once a government decides to set up a commission of inquiry, I think it is up to the House of Commons to decide with the pros and cons of a debate here in the House whether the commission should be terminated.

I think that democracy in general would be the winner if this House passed the motion.