Jean-Pierre Goyer

[14] The full extent that the murder of the Quebec Labor Minister Pierre Laporte had alienated Quebecois public opinion from the FLQ was not appreciated at the time, and the Trudeau government in late 1970-early 1971 saw itself under siege.

[17] Côté complained that Goyer had appointed his mistress as his chief of staff despite her manifest lack of qualifications and awarded her privileges such as a free pass with the Crown corporation Air Canada, allowing her to fly anywhere she wanted at the expense of the taxpayers.

The next day Goyer attended an emergency meeting of the cabinet chaired by the acting prime minister Edgar Benson (Trudeau who had just married Margaret Sinclair was on his honeymoon in the West Indies).

Six months before in October 1970 the Trudeau government had invoked the War Measures Act which suspended all civil liberties in Canada in response to the FLQ kidnapping James Cross, the British trade commissioner in Montreal and Pierre Laporte, the Quebec Labor Minister who was later murdered.

[22] In approving a military assault on Kingston penitentiary, the cabinet gave permission for lethal force to be used with the soldiers being ordered to shoot to kill in the event of resistance.

[22] Later, on 15 April 1971, a task force of 130 soldiers from the Royal Canadian Regiment arrived at Kingston Penitentiary marching up with fixed bayonets on their automatic rifles.

[25] However, later that night, Goyer undermined the agreement by holding a press conference that was broadcast on national radio and television saying the Crown would make no deal with the rioters.

[25] Three members of the citizens' committee, namely Ron Haggart, William Donkin and Desmond Morton were shocked that Goyer had just torpedoed the deal that he had initially approved of a few hours before with his press conference.

[27] The faction led by Beaucage attempted to kill the hostages, and unable to do so engaged in a torture-murder session of the so-called "undesirables" (prisoner slang for child molesters).

", saying the Solicitor General had undermined the agreement that the citizens committee had reached and was in part responsible for the torture-murder session, which had would have been avoided had it not been for Goyer's press conference.

[35] Morton stated he knew from speaking to Knight and the other inmates' committee members that the prisoners were most insistent on receiving promises that they would not be beaten if they surrendered peacefully.

[35] Morton complained instead of giving that promise, Goyer had marched outside of Kingston Penitentiary with a megaphone shouting abuse at the prisoners inside and warning them the Canadian Army would kill them all if they did not surrender.

[45] Peters argued that the best way of preventing a repeat of the Kingston prison riot at Millhaven would be to investigate the reports, but Goyer exploded in fury at him, saying: "If you don't know the truth, keep quiet!

On 27 May 1971, the Ontario Provincial Police charged 11 Millhaven guards with 24 counts of assault causing grievous bodily harm in connection with the mass beatings on 18–19 April 1971.

[55] Later in June 1971, Starnes wrote a memo to Goyer asking for permission for the RCMP to review tax filings and requests for unemployment insurance, which he stated was necessary for his intelligence-gathering.

[60] The barn-burning was to be one of the more controversial acts committed by the RCMP, but was justified when it emerged under the grounds that the FLQ and the Black Panthers were working together to launch a cross-border guerrilla war against the United States and Canada.

In October 1972, the Mounties broke into the Montreal office of a separatist publishing house, the Agence de Presse Libre du Québec (APLQ).

Goyer was to claim at the McDonald commission hearings that because the Quebec Justice Minister Jérôme Choquette had denied in a press conference that any police forces were involved in the APLQ break-in that for him it settled the matter and he did not ask Higgitt or Starnes about it.

[1] Goyer told the House of Commons when introducing his bill: "For too long a time now, our punishment-oriented society has cultivated a state of mind that demands that offenders, whatever their age, and whatever the offence, be placed behind bars.

[66] A recurring theme of Trudeau's time in office was his wish to "rationalize" the governing process by changing the bureaucratic structure in a manner intended to make for greater efficiency.

[66] The political scientist Michael Tucker wrote that the long range patrol aircraft procurement was marred by "bureaucratic mismanagement ensuring from ill-defined responsibilities, poor communication, and misinformation".

[70] In October 1976, the allegation was made of a RCMP "blacklist" of federal civil servants who were to be watched because their views were aimed at "the destruction of the existing political and social structure of Canada".

[68] Thus it was on the technical grounds that in the Westminster system that is ministers rather than civil servants who are the ones ultimately responsible for what occurs in their portfolios that Lieff ruled in favor of Stopforth rather than on the merits of the case.

The McDonald Commission discovered that in 1972 that Goyer along with the Justice Minister Otto Lang were informed by Higgitt and Starnes that the RCMP were staging break-ins to plant bugs on Quebec separatists.

[72] He testified that the RCMP had a culture of institutionalized chauvinism as the Mounties were overwhelmingly male, white, Protestant and of British descent, and his efforts to recruit more women and people of non-British background were unsuccessful.

"[1] By contrast, the journalist Jeff Sallot expressed skepticism about Goyer's claims of ignorance made at the McDonald Commission, noting that he was shown a memo in 1972 saying that the RCMP was engaged in "perhaps illegal" activities.

[16] Sallot also noted that Higgitt had in the same memo wanted the solicitor general to have the power to approve bugging operations under the grounds that judges when faced with a request for a warrant asked too many questions about the "perhaps illegal" sources of RCMP intelligence, which should have been a warning sign to Goyer.

[16] Fogarty described Goyer as a something of a failure as a politician, a "protégé" of Trudeau of whom great accomplishments were expected, but who instead was almost continuously embroiled in controversy with "constant demands" being made for his resignation due to his actions as a minister.

Rescigno sued for wrongful dismissal and won $290, 00 dollars with a judge ruling that Goyer had fired Resicgno in "a brutal, abrasive and malicious manner.

"[1] Justice Sylviane Borenstein also ruled that the remarks made by Goyer about Rescigno as a conductor at a press conference on 9 March 2000 were "false," "insulting," "gratuitous," and "malicious.