Contined from Part 1

If the SIRC report that the Solicitor General releases to the public is not complete then the credibility of CSIS , of SIRC and the minister and of the government will all suffer. Yes, CSIS needs a certain amount of secrecy to operate efficiently, but it cannot operate without the confidence of the Canadian people.

The release of the report is all about confidence. If it is thorough and completely public, confidence in CSIS will be there even if CSIS is guilty of some minor indiscretion. However, if the report is heavily censored in the interest of national security there will be little public confidence even if CSIS is vindicated. Any evidence of any significant censoring of SIRC's report will automatically be viewed as a cover-up. If this is the case, not only will the Reform Party be joining the Bloc in a call for a royal commission, we will be leading the demand.

The accusations that have been made are extremely serious, striking at the very heart of the democratic process. To us in Reform the most important question that must be answered is: Did the previous government use CSIS for partisan political purposes? At the very least we have a Conservative Solicitor General who was aware of the efforts of the Heritage Front to infiltrate the Reform Party and he chose not to advise the Reform Party of such.

Some may ask if he should have. I asked somebody who should know. I asked Jean-Jacques Blais, a former Liberal Solicitor General and one of the first members of SIRC. Mr. Blais replied that if he had the information when he was Solicitor General he would have notified someone in the Reform Party. When asked why Mr. Lewis did not, Mr. Blais said he could not answer for the previous government.

It will be interesting when the former Solicitor General appears before the subcommittee on national security in October to answer this question himself. However, there are questions that CSIS must answer itself.

Who made the final decision permitting Bristow to attend the Reform Party meetings? I cannot imagine the source handler himself making this type of decision. Just the mere fact that Bristow, publicly known to be a member of a white supremacist, neo-Nazi organization, showed up at a Reform Party rally had a detrimental effect on the party. CSIS officials must have known that his mere presence could have a negative effect on the party.

Since he would not have been sent there without high level approval, we need to know who approved his attendance and why. We need to know why Grant Bristow urged Heritage Front members to take out Reform Party memberships. We need to know why Grant Bristow even paid the $10 membership fee for some of these Heritage Front members. We need to know why Grant Bristow was so intent on getting Heritage Front members into the Reform Party when he refused to take out a membership himself.

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We also need to know if any of this had to do with Bristow's allegiance to the Progressive Conservative Party as indicated by his work on the hon. Otto Jelinek's 1988 campaign.

These are the types of answers that we are expecting in the SIRC report and we will not be satisfied unless these questions are definitely answered. We will also want the answers to some questions like why did Wolfgang Droege frequently show up at Reform Party meetings after he had been expelled from the party? Why did he just come and sit at these meetings without trying to say anything, without trying to distribute any of his literature and without trying to make any contacts with people in the crowd? Why did he usually have a local Toronto television crew there to film him sitting in the audience at these Reform Party meetings? Most important, why did Wolfgang Droege appear to have some money on him when he was attending all of these meetings?

Let us not stop with Bristow and Droege. Less than two weeks ago, another Heritage Front member, Max French, announced that he was running for mayor of Scarborough. At his press conference, he proudly announced he was a member of both the Heritage Front and the Reform Party; a proud member of the Heritage Front, yes, but he certainly was not a proud member of the Reform Party.

After the expulsion of other Heritage Front members from the Reform Party, Max French stated that Reformers were race traitors and would be lined up against the wall with the rest of them when the revolution came. He does not sound like an enthusiastic member of any party when those kinds of statements are made. Why did he keep his Reform membership?

It is answers to these questions that SIRC must provide. The Solicitor General must release these answers if it is to maintain any credibility.

I mentioned earlier that what is at stake here is the entire democratic system. Let me explain to the House why I say that. I have talked to a number of Reform candidates from southern Ontario. They advised that they had great difficulty overcoming the smear campaign that Reformers were racist. This campaign was led by the Conservative Party. In four ridings, none of which had a sitting Liberal MP, the Reform Party finished second by less than 5,000 votes. If just 10 voters per poll in those ridings had voted Reform instead of Liberal but did not because they were worried about the racist smears we would be sitting in a very different House today.

The consequences of the racist smear campaign on Reformers are enormous and questions must be answered. With regard to the investigation into CSIS , we are prepared to wait for SIRC to complete its investigations and to make its report. We are prepared to wait for this report to be filed with the minister. We are also prepared to wait until the minister makes the report public. However, what we are not prepared to do is to wait for a cover-up.

If the SIRC report that is made public does not answer our questions we will then be more than happy to join with the member from Bellechasse in calling for a royal commission.

There are a number of other issues that do not fall under SIRC's responsibilities. There are a number of other issues in this controversy that have to be brought to light. Those issues are the handling of documents by ministers' aides within the former Solicitor General's office an antiquated Official Secrets Act and the way it is enforced. The way that government information is classified leaves a lot of room for discussion.

These issues can and will be examined by the subcommittee on national security. While we have similar concerns as the Bloc about the political make-up of SIRC, the make-up of the subcommittee does reflect the current Parliament. It is the subcommittee on national security that should first deal with these issues of classifying information, of handling high security documents and of reviewing the Official Secrets Act.

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If the subcommittee cannot resolve these issues in this House then another royal commission into Canada's security intelligence service would be warranted.

First this House must make every effort to get to the bottom of this to avert the additional cost to the Canadian taxpayers of a royal commission. We have the vehicles in place. We have CSIS doing an internal investigation. We have SIRC doing a watchdog report and we have the national security subcommittee to investigate it.

What we do need is to have the will to be fully accountable to the Canadian people, for only in being fully accountable will we maintain the support and the confidence of the Canadian people in the job that we are trying to do.

Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Solicitor General of Canada): Madam Speaker, there are problems, to say the least, with the Bloc's motion.

One of these problems has been identified by the Bloc itself when the proposer of the motion conceded there was the unfortunate absence in it of a key word, allegation. The motion originally spoke about illegal activities of the CSIS as if it had been proven that such activities in fact occurred.

As I have said in this House and outside the House the many allegations made recently about CSIS activities are so far just that, allegations. By the way, it is important to stress that these allegations relate to a period well before this government took office and before I assumed the responsibilities of Solicitor General.

To conclude that CSIS acted illegally requires analysis and conclusions based on solid evidence, that is based on definite facts, related to the legal framework created by this Parliament for the operations of CSIS and other relevant laws as well.

That is why I believe that Canadians should await the conclusion of the work, the investigation of the Security Intelligence Review Committee. SIRC, when Parliament passed the legislation creating the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in 1984 was designed to provide Parliament, Canadians generally and the Solicitor General with an independent review of CSIS activities.

This body has over the years provided insight and analysis for ministers, Parliament and the public regarding the operations of CSIS and has made recommendations to ensure that CSIS continues to operate as Parliament intended when it adopted the CSIS act.

A reading of successive SIRC reports over the years, and I am talking about reports available to the public, shows that the SIRC as a permanent body at arm's length both from the CSIS and the government has found areas for improvement since CSIS was created over 10 years ago. It has also found reason to confirm the value of the work of CSIS in the interests of all Canadians.

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The point is that the SIRC was created exactly for the task that the Official Opposition in its motion says we need a royal commission to perform.

The SIRC exists to provide the review of all CSIS duties and functions. More specifically, under section 54 of the act the SIRC can investigate any matter that relates to the performance by CSIS of its duties and functions, and then provide the Solicitor General with a special report of this investigation.

A review of any such matter and the production of a special report is precisely what the SIRC has undertaken to do in response to the recent allegations. It has also stated that it intends to have a report as soon as possible. It has said that it intends to have a report available, in other words in the coming month of October.

SIRC has built up a body of expertise and experience that I think will prove extremely valuable to this present investigation.

The Official Opposition in its motion calls for the creation of a royal commission. What is a royal commission? It is an individual or a group of individuals independent of government, appointed by order in council, that is by the cabinet, with wide powers to look into a matter or matters of public concern.

The Security Intelligence Review Committee is a body of individuals appointed by order in council, by the cabinet, under the CSIS legislation to look into and report on an important matter or matters involving the activities of CSIS.

Like an ordinary royal commission it is independent of government. It is independent and at arm's length from CSIS and the minister. It has wide powers to carry out its mandate. That is why I say that in my view it is in effect like a permanent royal commission with the mandate of keeping under review the activities of CSIS and carrying out special inquiries into these activities, either of its own accord or at the request of the minister.

We have in effect already in place what the Bloc is calling for in its motion. The spokesperson for the Reform Party made the important point that since CSIS is already carrying out this work, there is no need for the creation of another body that, looking at what the history of royal commissions indicates, would involve considerable additional expense for the taxpayer.

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Parliament created SIRC precisely to ensure that so-called wrongdoings such as the ones which are being raised in this House today undergo objective investigation.

Moreover, SIRC was given important statutory powers to carry out its mandate. SIRC is authorized to obtain from CSIS all necessary information to fulfill its responsibilities, including documents, reports and explanations. Obviously, SIRC has the abilities and the powers required to investigate the allegations being made.

The Official Opposition was unable to prove that we should set up another review agency to do exactly what SIRC is authorized and able to do.

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As I have said, it is my intention, my objective, to make as much of the CSIS report into the recent allegations as public as possible, subject of course to the requirements of any relevant legislation. In fact, if the legislation permits me to do so, I certainly would like to make the entire report public. Mind you the spokesperson for the Official Opposition herself has pointed out there may be some justifiable reasons for some of a report of this nature not to be made public and her views should be taken into account.

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I believe the SIRC investigation and the preparation of its report should continue. While it should take the time it needs to do the job properly, as I have said SIRC has already indicated it wants to complete that work as soon as possible. It expects to have a report available in October.

I should also mention that the CSIS Act provides for an Inspector General to report to the minister about CSIS . The Inspector General has been quoted publicly as saying that he himself is undertaking reviews with regard to policies and procedures governing the use of human sources by CSIS and the handling of CSIS documents. These reports will be another valuable source of information and analysis for me to use as a basis for seeing if action should be taken with regard to what has been alleged over the past weeks and months.

I want to stress as I have done before that I will not hesitate to have corrective action taken where such action is in fact necessary on the basis of real proof that there are definite problems to be corrected with regard to the work of CSIS.

However, I do not think it is fair or reasonable to make judgments in advance, as the Bloc has done in its motion, as to the value or the quality of the work of SIRC in this matter before that work is even completed.

To conclude, I submit that what the Bloc's motion calls for is not, in fact, necessary since Parliament in passing the law creating a framework for the operation of CSIS created an oversight mechanism for it. This involved the creation of SIRC, which I have said I look on as being very much like a permanent royal commission with a specific mandate for the ongoing review of the work of CSIS.

I believe we should allow this body to complete its work on the recent allegations. Then we should make use of the report which as I have said I intend to make public as much as it is possible in the light of the requirements of the relevant legislation. Then decisions can be made on what action may be necessary to take in the light of definite proof, if there is any, with respect to problems regarding the work of CSIS.

However, I submit that at this time the motion presented by the Bloc calls for action that is not necessary. It duplicates the work of a body created by Parliament which is like a royal commission. We should allow SIRC to complete its work so that its report can be completed and we can have access to it and take any action necessitated by that report.

Ms. Val Meredith (Surrey - White Rock - South Langley): Madam Speaker, I was pleased to hear the hon. Solicitor General acknowledge that he will take into consideration my comments about how much of the report should be made public. I hope he notes that the only exclusions I made were the names of additional sources other than Grant Bristow. I feel all else should be made public.

My concern is that some of the legislation he may be looking at to see how much flexibility he has is outdated. I would like some assurance from the hon. minister that he will use some flexibility in the interpretation of these outdated pieces of legislation so that he is not restricted and bound by classifications of material that do not apply in this case.

I would like some assurance from the hon. minister that he will be open-minded in the interpretation of this legislation to allow a more open process.

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While I have the opportunity I would also like to ask for the minister's assurance that he will support the efforts of the subcommittee on national security to further investigate this issue beyond that which SIRC can do. I hope the minister will give full co-operation to and persuade the government members of this House to support the subcommittee in its efforts to get to the bottom of this.