Serge Ménard

[RCMP Commissioner, December 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, there is more. All the ministers who handled the Arar affair have said that the commissioner did not inform them of the error his subordinates had made. They have all said that this information could have helped the government in its decision making. I believe that, too.

How could the minister have confidence in an official who hid essential information from the minister he reported to? Did the minister want to send the message that he prefers to be kept in the dark, or does he have another reason that he would like to conceal from us?

[RCMP Commissioner, December 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the government has just woken up to the contradictory testimony by Commissioner Zaccardelli before the Standing Committee on Public Safety. It is a little late in the game.

As early as September 28, he acknowledged that he had done nothing to stop the suffering of an innocent man, whom he believed to be innocent and whose incarceration in squalid prisons, where he was tortured, was probably due to misinformation the commissioner's subordinates had given to American security services.

Why did the government not demand his resignation then?

[Maher Arar Inquiry, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, we must look back much further than just yesterday's contradictions. Commissioner Zaccardelli had admitted that he hid essential information from his predecessors in their political decision making. He let an innocent man rot in prison because of errors made by his agency, without informing the ministers.

Perhaps, deep down, the minister himself would have preferred to remain in blissful ignorance?

[Maher Arar Inquiry, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, we must look beyond these contradictions. The confidence that this government has maintained in the RCMP commissioner is incomprehensible and unfathomable. That individual changed his version of the facts as he saw fit and was contradicted by three former solicitors general.

Why has the Minister of Public Safety maintained his confidence in Mr. Zaccardelli, despite the seriousness of the negligence revealed during his first testimony?

[Firearms Registry, November 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, clearly, this is not enough. The consensus in Quebec in favour of the gun registry is growing every day, yet the minister is refusing to continue updating the registry.

Does the minister not understand that a registry that is not kept up to date is not very useful to police and that, in the short term, it will no longer be of any use at all because it will be too incomplete?

[Firearms Registry, November 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, today, the victims of the shootings at Dawson College are here to again pledge their full support for maintaining the gun registry. The National Assembly is also unanimously calling on the government to maintain the registry. True, the registry was difficult to set up, but it is in place now and it is useful to police.

Why is theMinister of Public Safety determined to abolish it?

[Business of Supply, November 23rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I really wish the member who has just spoken would explain to us why he absolutely wants to make this a debate on sovereignty, which is certainly not our intention.

That is a question that had been dealt with, throughout history, as has the fact that the Quebecois nation has always been a nation.

As far back as April 1946, Maurice Duplessis spoke of the Canadian confederation as a contract of union between two nations. In November 1963, Jean Lesage referred to the Quebecois as a people, as a nation. In February 1968, Daniel Johnson Sr. said that “The Constitution should not have as its sole purpose to federate territories, but also to associate in equality two linguistic and cultural communities, two founding peoples, two societies, two nations”.

It goes back to before the arrival of English-speaking people in America. In 1667, Jean Talon already recognized that the French who were here constituted a different people. That is not far from a nation. In 1756, de Bougainville, on his return from Quebec, said: “It seems that we are a different nation”.

There is more, and it is also significant. In October 2003, when the Liberals had just taken power in Quebec, the National Assembly adopted a unanimous resolution reaffirming that the people of Quebec form a nation .

Why are you so bent on adding “within a united Canada”, unless it is because you want to reopen the debate on sovereignty? Without doubt, we could have that debate, but that was certainly not our original intention. It is not the Bloc Québécois that put the nationhood issue in the news. It was the candidates for the leadership of the Liberal party. I do not understand why you insist on having this debate. I wish you would explain it to me. Why are you so determined to add something? When, without that addition, you say, “We would be saying exactly the same thing as the unanimous National Assembly with a federalist majority”.

[Business of Supply, November 23rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very simple question for the member for Outremont.

Would Quebeckers no longer form a nation if Quebec were no longer part of Canada?

[Criminal Code, November 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there are fewer drugs or less pornography, but in my experience, I do not think I know anyone who prevents their children from going to the park for fear they will be attacked. And if that really happens in Quebec, the reaction is instant: more police are sent on patrol. I think that is a lot smarter.

The solution is not to hit hard, but to hit effectively. Being effective means trying to understand why people commit crimes and to address the root of the problem.

I do not have a lot of time to explain it, but that is the difference between Quebec and Canada. Thank God we have less crime in Quebec. It would be possible to have even less if they took our example.

[Criminal Code, November 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the person who asked that question already knows the answer. There is obviously another solution.

I am a bit saddened to say so, because I have personally always been a proponent of a sovereignty-association, like most Quebeckers, I am sure: we do not hate Canada or Canadians. What we do not like is the Canadian Constitution, which is assimilating us slowly but surely. That is what we want to separate from.

Generally speaking, we would like to maintain relations with the rest of Canada. I have always believed that we could, among other things, share the same criminal law, but not if Canada wants to continually align itself with the United States, which is going down a terrible path. The United States now incarcerates people as much as Russia does, which was once unthinkable. We could explain why the things that seem to happen in Wild Rose do not happen where we are from, but I suspect the hon. member for Wild Rose may have been exaggerating.