Mr. Speaker, like my colleagues from the Bloc, I would like to speak to Bill C-297, an act to revoke the conviction of Louis David Riel.
A few days ago, it was the 111th anniversary of the hanging of Louis Riel. That crucial and much debated event of Canadian history still haunts this Chamber. It is said that history is "the science that studies things that do not repeat themselves", but it is also said that knowing history is essential to understanding the present. Furthermore, the lessons of history help to better anticipate the future. Louis Riel's actions have an exceptional historical significance in the development of western Canada, not only in his struggles on behalf of minority rights and of the establishment of real provinces in the West, but also in his campaigns for the strengthening of our border with United States.
History cannot be rewritten. However, we can redress the wrongs done to that great man, condemned to death in a mockery of justice. We have the duty to defend and rehabilitate Louis Riel's memory. His cause was our cause. He wanted all communities to be treated fairly and be allowed to develop freely.
Who was Louis Riel? Let us go back to history to make a portrait of the man. Louis Riel was born in St. Boniface in 1844; his parents were Metis. After his studies, he began his career in Sir George-Étienne Cartier's law firm in Montreal.
Shortly thereafter, he returned to Red River to take up the important role of leader of the Métis in their fight against the expansionist powers of the government in Ottawa. Louis Riel devoted himself not just to the cause of defending the rights of the Métis, but also to protecting the rights of all the inhabitants of Red River at a time when the traditional equilibrium of the colony was threatened by outside factors.
Indeed, in 1867, the British North America Act had created the new Dominion of Canada, whose leaders were looking to extend their rule from one coast to the other.
Manitoba and part of the Northwest Territories, which then belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, were run by governors appointed by that company. At that time, the government in Ottawa was concerned about the expansionist leanings of certain Americans and decided to negotiate directly with the Hudson's Bay Company to buy Rupert's Land-and this is where the problem lies-completely ignoring the concerns of the local population, who, at the time, felt like so much cattle for sale.
There were then almost 12,000 people in the Red River area; the Métis, mostly French speaking and Catholic, and long time settlers, mostly English speaking, of English or Scottish descent. Buffalo hunters and farmers, these groups that were different in every respect, language, religion, and livelihood, had still learned how to co-exist. The territorial ambitions of Ottawa, and the attitude of certain new colonists from the East would destroy this fragile balance.
It rapidly became apparent that the strategy of the hardliners within the Canadian government was to provoke civil war in the western colony and to lay the blame for it on the Metis, so as to reduce their influence and destroy their political power. Emerging victorious from the battle of 1869, the emissaries of Louis Riel negotiated with John Alexander Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier the terms of a settlement, which became the Manitoba Act in 1870. This conferred the status of province on the new territory, and hence Riel was considered the father of Manitoba.
The Metis approved this settlement in June 1870, but Louis Riel was under accusation of acts of rebellion and unable to obtain amnesty. He was forced to leave the province he had helped to establish. Louis Riel did, however, succeed in getting elected to the federal Parliament clandestinely in October 1873. Out of fear of being arrested and charged, subsequent to the Scott affair, he did not report to the House of Commons.
Re-elected in the 1874 general election, he was expelled from the House that same year on a motion from an Anglo-Protestant member. Re-elected for a third time in the byelection required by his own expulsion, he was again expelled from the House. Prime Minister Mackenzie then obtained the approval of the House to grant Riel amnesty, conditional upon a five-year exile.
Seven years later, in 1882, the Metis of the North-West, fearing loss of their lands to the Canadian Pacific, again rebelled and called upon Louis Riel.
As we know, the rebellion ended in the defeat of Metis troops at Batoche in 1885. Riel was taken prisoner and transferred shortly afterwards to prison in Regina.
But the worst was yet to come. There are many indications that the trial of Louis Riel took place in circumstances that were unfavourable from every point of view. His trial was to be held in Winnipeg, in a bilingual court before an independent judge of the Superior Court, and probably half of the jury members would be francophones.
Prime Minister Macdonald's cabinet ordered the trial to be held in Regina, where the court would function in English only, where the territorial magistrate could be removed at the discretion of the
federal government and where it was unlikely any of the jury members would be French-speaking.
A number of historians agree that Macdonald was intent on making Riel take the blame for everything and having him convicted and executed as soon as possible.
The trial of Riel was held during the summer of 1885. He was accused of high treason under an English law dating back to 1352, according to which the penalty for treason was death. However, we know that Louis Riel could have been tried under a Canadian law passed in 1868, which provided that the penalty for attacking the security of the state was life imprisonment. On August 1, the jury declared Riel guilty and recommended clemency. The judge sentenced him to death.
Another important aspect of this question is that the federal cabinet could recommend that the Governor General use his royal prerogative to pardon Riel. However, Ontario wanted Riel's head, while French Canadians in Quebec and Manitoba demanded that he be pardoned.
The government, faced with these two waves of protests, calculated the number of seats it would lose on either side in the next election. The pardon was denied, and Louis Riel was hanged on November 16, 1885 in Regina.
This is not about rewriting history, as I said earlier. Louis Riel was convicted and sentenced to death for treason in 1885. However, more and more people, including historians and politicians, believe today that the cause Riel defended at the time, the rights of the Metis, Native people and the francophones of Western Canada, was a just cause.
In 1992, this House acknowledged the unique and historic role Louis Riel played in founding Manitoba. And yet, in legal terms, Riel is still a traitor. This is the paradox that the bill of my colleague from Rimouski-Témiscouata aims to eliminate.
In the past 15 years or so, no fewer than seven bills have been tabled by various parties in the House of Commons in order to restore Louis Riel to his rightful place.
In 1985, on the 100th anniversary of his hanging, the member for Hamilton, today the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Deputy Prime Minister, sought a posthumous pardon for Riel. Our colleague concluded her impassioned statement by saying, and I quote: "Louis Riel, who died unnecessarily, deserves to be exonerated by the government and recognized as a victim of wrongdoing".
Bill C-297, which calls for the conviction of Louis Riel to be overturned, is in the end an act of restoration. It is this House's recognition of an injustice to a citizen who paid with his life, at the age of 41, the cost of his devotion to defending human rights.
He was also a pioneer at that point. Unfair and unjust treatment warrants exemplary reparation. This is what the bill before us calls for today, and it speaks to all members of this House.
Neither statues nor statements in the House will suffice; what is required is legislation overturning the conviction. I ask my colleagues on both sides of the House to support the member's bill.
