House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 1997, with 53% of the vote.
Canadian Armed Forces March 18th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Canadian public is demanding that the government do its job and govern this country, which it is not doing.
We know two things. One, the Bloc Quebecois member said that officers were prepared to create a Quebec defence staff. Two, the Bloc Quebecois member said these officers confided this to the hon. member for Charlesbourg.
Canadians want to know why the Minister of National Defence refuses to do anything about these admissions.
Canadian Armed Forces March 18th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, the Bloc's defence critic has confessed, and I quote: "There were officers who were already prepared to create the nucleus of a Quebec defence staff. There are people who have confided this to me already. Absolutely, even officers".
On Friday, the minister told the House he expects the Bloc member to come forward and give us proof. Canadians were surprised to learn that the minister expects the Bloc member to voluntarily come forward with the names of these officers.
Canadians want to know why the Minister of National Defence does not exercise the due process available to him and compel the member to tell Canada what he knows and to name names.
Canadian Armed Forces March 18th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, on Friday the Minister of National Defence said he had investigated claims of high level agreements between Quebec officers and the PQ government to establish a Quebec defence staff headquarters after a yes vote. The minister added that both he and the chief of defence staff were satisfied that the allegations were unfounded. It will go down as one of the fastest investigations in history.
Canadians want some assurance that his investigation into these serious allegations was not just a few hours, as the minister said in the House on Friday. How extensive was the minister's investigation into the confessions of the Bloc member?
Privilege March 14th, 1996
Where were you? You did nothing.
Privilege March 14th, 1996
Because the government would not act.
Privilege March 14th, 1996
The hon. member is wrong in his assertion. Those people spoke French on board ships and they worked alongside anglophones as a unit, a team for Canada.
I have asked myself many times over the last couple of days and months since the referendum in Quebec what those young Canadians would say about this communiqué. I know those young Canadians would find this communiqué offensive to them.
Over the last five months I have heard from Canadians from coast to coast telling me Canadians found this communiqué offensive. It crossed the line. It brought those men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces into a debate of secession of a province. They should not be brought into this. They have sworn allegiance to the whole of Canada, not to one part.
Over the last couple of days some questions have been raised in the House about my motion. The motion represents the views of Canadians who have consulted with me for some five months now on the subject.
I am not a lawyer. I stand here and say I am an ordinary Canadian. I do not practice law and I never have practised law. I am an ordinary Canadian. With the resources at my disposal I put together the feelings Canadians expressed to me through letters, telephone calls, faxes. I put those feelings into a motion I presented in the House which the Speaker found to be in order and also to be a prima facie case.
If there is anything wrong with my motion, it is not in the drafting or in the spirit of the motion. It is in the way it is being interpreted by some people in the House who would have been against any motion that draws the line in the sand for Canadians which says clearly: "If you cross this line, it is wrong". That is what I was trying to accomplish. I believe I did in the intent of the motion.
The Liberals are trying to ignore the original charge of seditious and offensive behaviour. Let us talk about that for a moment. There have been accusations in the House that I have prejudged, convicted the hon. member for Charlesbourg. There is nothing further from the truth. In my remarks when I introduced the motion I said this was to be an opportunity for the member to have his day in court, for due process to take place.
If we go outside these hallowed halls and talk to the police, the first thing that must happen when a crime is committed and there is a suspect is that a charge must be laid. That is what I did in the House. I laid a charge.
How can we be certain the Liberals will investigate the specific spirit of what my motion intends to do? We cannot. Once again the Liberals are worried about the politics of this thing. They are so afraid of offending someone from Quebec that they are willing to abandon the possible criminal aspects of this matter and put politics first. They are seeking to once again pursue the mandate of the status quo. They are concerned only with what is politically correct.
As Canadians how do we make our laws? How do we choose what is right and wrong in society? The answer is clear. The answer lies in what is morally acceptable to Canadians. That is what it is all about. It is about what is morally acceptable to Canadians, whether it be in the Criminal Code, whether it is a murder charge or stealing. That is where we draw the line in the sand. That is when we say if you step over this line you will be charged. That is what we are doing here. If that is not what the House is for, this place where we have come to represent our constituents, what are we doing here?
My motion's intent is clear. It is aimed at the House to decide if what the hon. member for Charlesbourg did was over that line. That is what I was asking. The charge had to be laid because there is no way to proceed unless a charge is laid, as there is no way to proceed in a case outside these walls if a policeman comes across a crime and a suspect. Otherwise he would have no vehicle to make his charge.
That is what I have done. I have used the vehicles and the resources available to a member of Parliament to bring this matter forward and debate it in the place it should be debated, the most open forum in Canada represented by every corner of the country, the Parliament of Canada, the highest court in the land. We should all be concerned with the integrity of the House. We should be trying to decide if what has been done is appropriate.
Yesterday I offered to co-operate with all sides of the House to get to the bottom of this situation. I discovered the Liberals had the intent to gut my motion, to rip it apart, to pull the life out of it. At the hands of the Liberal whip my motion has been torn to shreds,
which is a shame for the House, a shame for the men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces and a shame for all Canadians.
Canadians are not getting what they wanted here. Canadians wanted to draw that line to ensure that when there is a threat of secession again members of the Canadian Armed Forces do not get drawn into that debate.
It is not the same as the post office, it is not the same as a crown corporation. Those people are not the same as that. Why? Because of the oath of allegiance they have sworn to their country and to lay down their lives if they have to for their country.
I will shift to what the Liberal government has done with this matter. As a private member of Parliament on the opposition in the third party I took it upon myself to do something that should have been done right over there by the Liberal Government of Canada, which ignored the issue and did nothing. It says it did something.
The Minister of National Defence in many newspaper articles and many media interviews called this act outrageous, that Canadians should be outraged at this communiqué. He said it was inappropriate. He went so far as to say the hon. member for Charlesbourg should be removed as the official opposition defence critic. He also said that he would consult with the Minister of Justice. He said that he would consult with the judge advocate general of the Canadian Armed Forces. He did that and we heard no more.
What did we hear from the Minister of National Defence? We heard nothing. We heard not a word. Now the government says that the judge advocate general has issued a report. Canadians are waiting to hear what this report has to say and we are told: "We are not going to tell you. We are simply not going to tell you what is in the report".
The judge advocate general wears two hats in this country. First and foremost his job is to administer the military justice system in Canada to make sure it operates properly. The second hat he wears is as legal adviser to the executive management team at the Department of National Defence and he is the legal adviser to the Minister of National Defence.
That is why the judge advocate general cannot release the report he was asked to write. He is the lawyer for the Minister of National Defence. He would be betraying a confidence if he did. The Canadian people are out of luck because of this situation with the judge advocate general.
It is a sad situation. Canadians would naturally expect that if the judge advocate general felt there was no basis for a charge in this regard, then what is the problem with releasing the report? One would think there would be no problem at all and it would be natural to release the report saying that nothing has been found. I guess that will not be done unless considerable pressure is put on.
I will go back for a moment to the issue of laying a charge. If for instance a police officer came upon a murder scene and he had a suspect, would he charge the suspect with murder or would he charge him with the misuse of a blunt instrument or the improper use of a pillow or a rock, or probably under this administration poor storage of a handgun? I would say that the charge would have to be murder. There may be other charges but the main charge would not be ignored. Only in this place is that done.
I ask that each member of the House consider if the action of the member for Charlesbourg was offensive to himself or herself. People watching at home, Canadians, ask yourselves the same question. Then each member of this House should do the right thing and vote against the amendment the government has put forward and endorse my motion as originally placed before the House.
Privilege March 14th, 1996
Madam Speaker, like most of the members who have participated in this debate, I feel this is a very serious matter. That issue has not escaped anyone in the House. We all feel that way.
What we have been debating over the last few days is also a very emotional issue. It is an emotional issue to me. It is an emotional issue to the members of the Canadian Armed Forces; indeed it is an emotional issue to every single Canadian.
I applaud the Speaker for the leadership he has given us by immediately recognizing the seriousness of this matter.
This debate is much more than about the hon. member for Charlesbourg. It is much more than a debate about the former leader of the official opposition. It is much more than a debate about the separatist caucus in the House. This debate is about Canada.
I am a federalist. I love this country. It is not just one part of this thing we call Canada that makes us Canada; it is the sum of the parts. It is all the provinces. It is all the people. It is every citizen. It is every man, woman and child from coast to coast to coast that makes this country Canada. If I might use the term, Canada is truly a distinct society.
Five times in my life I have had the privilege of swearing my oath of allegiance to the sovereign of Canada. The first time I was 17 years old. It was in Calgary, Alberta when I was joining the Canadian Armed Forces. I was going through some things last night, thinking about the debate we are having in this, the highest court of the land. I pulled out some old papers to see if I could find my oath of allegiance from when I joined the Canadian Armed Forces. It states:
I, James A. Hart, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and successors, according to the law, so help me God.
It was signed on April 12, 1973 by me and the attesting officer at the Canadian Armed Forces recruiting centre in Calgary, Alberta.
That was an important time in my life. Every member of the Canadian Armed Forces, regardless of whether they are anglophone or francophone, swears the same allegiance today. That is significant. It says they will abide by the laws of Canada.
During the time in the navy I served on three Canadian destroyers on the west coast of Canada, I worked with francophone people. I worked shoulder to should with people from Quebec. Every one of those young people who worked on those ships with me had a very important job to do for Canadian sovereignty. They did not speak of themselves as being francophone or from Quebec or from Alberta. They talked about being proud Canadians.
Privilege March 14th, 1996
No one will ever be charged.
Privilege March 13th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, I am listening very carefully to the debate and I appreciate very much the hon. member's intervention this afternoon.
On the question of whether or not it is in the purview of Parliament to deal with this, I would point out that the communiqué was written on the letterhead of the official opposition. That makes it very much an issue that this Parliament should deal with.
The Speaker of the House ruled yesterday that it, in fact, does. I would like to point out a couple of citations that may help the member. I would like to say first that Parliament does whatever it wants in the context of contempt of Parliament.
Citation 28 of Beauchesne's sixth edition states:
Parliament is a court with respect to its own privileges and dignity and the privileges of its Members.
Citation 49 states:
It is not necessary for the courts to come to a decision before the House acts. In 1891 charges were laid in the House against Thomas McGreevy relating to scandals in the Public Works Department. The Committee on Privileges and Elections examined the evidence and concluded that the charges were amply proven-The House judged Mr. McGreevy to be guilty of contempt of the House as well as certain of the charges and ordered his expulsion.
This House ordered his expulsion.
There are other references to support the right of Parliament to charge a member with whatever it wants. I would refer the House
to Joseph Maingot's "Parliamentary Privilege in Canada" at page 192, which states:
While privilege may be codified, contempt may not-there is no closed list of classes of offences punishable as a contempt of Parliament.
I would refer the House to the Speaker's ruling of October 29, 1980, which stated:
The dimensions of contempt of Parliament is such that the House will not be constrained in finding a breach of privilege of its Members or of the House. This is precisely the reason that, while our privileges are defined, contempt of the House has no limits.
I hope that helps the hon. member in his deliberations this afternoon.
Privilege March 13th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, it appears that the government's amendment guts, completely destroys and negates the motion I brought forward yesterday. We went through the procedure yesterday. I laid a charge and this totally takes away from the process that the Speaker ruled on yesterday in the House of Commons.
I would think that this was out of order.