Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 11th, 2006

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Thank you.

[Dr. Charles McVety]

I do not believe in it. I think it's nonsensical for the government to pay people to sue itself.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Thank you.

[Brian Rushfeldt]

I would disagree with the concept in principle as well, because I don't believe we should be paying with tax dollars to encourage people to actually use the court process to resolve issues when we have a democratic Parliament to do that.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Could I ask one last question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

You may ask one short one.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Maybe I'll ask this to Ms. Landolt.

We've heard about substantive equality today, and we've also heard about restrictive application of rights. Do you believe the work you've been doing falls within this category of restrictive application of rights?

[Gwendolyn Landolt]

Do I believe it has been what?

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Do you believe it falls within the category of restrictive application of rights under the charter?

[Gwendolyn Landolt]

No, not at all. We've been very broad, and we're very inclusive. It's the radical feminists and the homosexuals who are being very exclusive. We've been just absolutely the opposite. We want to expand rights to families. We want to expand them for children. We want to expand rights.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

And you also believe that the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

This is your last question.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

This is the last one.

You also believe that the legislation should remain in the realm of parliamentarians, yet you've called for a disbanding of the status of women committee. Could you explain that?

[Gwendolyn Landolt]

Yes, because the status of women committee funds, again, only an ideology that clearly and unequivocally does not represent women, because many of us women are not at all suffering discrimination. Some are. But they are funding an ideology, and that should be eliminated because it's totally and profoundly unfair and discriminatory.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Kotto.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The violation of the basic rights of minorities by the majority is not part of Quebec's democratic vision. This is not in keeping with our values. Consequently, Mr. Chairman, we will simply say that the witnesses' statements speak for themselves. We have no questions, we will pass. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming today. As I said to our earlier witness, there's been an interesting process over the last few days, because we are starting to talk about various visions of rights.

I've heard from the group basically two arguments. One, from Ms. Landolt, is that the program is ideological and corrupt and run with a homosexual agenda--which is her viewpoint, but I'm not interested—

[Gwendolyn Landolt]

And by feminists.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

And feminists, sorry. I forgot the feminists.

I'm more interested in following up with the gentlemen here—and I don't want to be seen as anti-feminist—because the gentlemen have spoken more on the issue of rights and how we pursue rights in a democratic society. I'm going to just go through a bit of a process here and ask you a question about it, because I think it is a very interesting question.

Mr. Carpay, you said that equality between various groups can only be accomplished at the expense of true equality before the law for individuals. I studied the briefs in detail beforehand, because I've thought a lot about this.

In my region, I have a very large francophone population. Now francophone language rights and school rights--minority rights--are guaranteed by the courts, but those rights were never enacted unless people.... I mean, the francophone community continually had to go to court. They always had to go to court. I've often heard the argument that these rights are coming at the expense of everybody else. No offence. I'm not trying to imply anything here, but the people who would say that to me were anti-French. They didn't mind French rights as long as they spoke French at home, but they certainly didn't want to have the French getting rights in court or in the schools or anywhere else. So these rights had to be fought for.

The other issue, in terms of giving one group rights that other groups don't have.... I was a Catholic school board trustee, and we in Ontario fought for the right to maintain Catholic school board rights. Those were minority guarantees, and it was not up to the democratic will of Parliament—in this case, Queen's Park—to take those rights away from us. Those were guaranteed, historic rights. We were willing to fight for them in court, time and time again, because we accepted that notion.

Now last week we had a delegate from a deaf organization who came before us. I've heard this program portrayed as frivolous and as undermining other rights, but if we follow the logic I'm hearing.... Mr. Rushfeldt, you basically asked why we don't fund people with left-handed scissors or who drive Ford cars. This man was fighting for the right to access basic rights as a deaf person that he would never be able to get anywhere, and he had to go to court because they would not give him those rights. So the question that he is somehow above everybody else is an issue that I think is really interesting.

The question I would see here is about having a program that gives government financial assistance to selected applicants. I myself have a deaf child. Taking this on the broad scale, we had to fight for special funding for our deaf child to have access. I remember one time when the teacher said he wasn't going to accommodate her, that it interrupted his teaching. He asked my daughter why she didn't look beyond herself. What about the 26 hearing kids? Didn't she ever think about them? I remember thinking at that time that his concept of rights.... Well, sure, she was one student who was interfering with classroom teaching, because the teacher didn't want to accommodate her. As long as a 14-year-old deaf child has to accommodate a $60,000-a-year teacher, how is she ever going to be on the same playing field as those other students?

I'm taking the issue of court challenges to the broader issue, which we're discussing, of individual rights, because all individual rights are not equal, because some people can't access those rights.

The viewpoint I'm hearing is certainly not a viewpoint I support or that the New Democratic Party would support. I'm sure you would already have figured that out. I don't know if my colleagues support it, but it definitely is a viewpoint that the Conservative Party seems to support, the notion of individual rights versus collective rights.

So my question is quite simple, having done this long roundabout. Would you feel that you have a much better ear for your viewpoint under the leadership of Stephen Harper, who is a former head of the National Citizens' Coalition, than you would from a party like ours or the Bloc Québécois or the Liberals?

[Dr. Charles McVety]

First of all, I take offence to this sort of arrogance that states that the New Democrats or the Liberals or you, as opposed to us, somehow have a lock on the understanding of human rights—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I wasn't being arrogant. I said that I—

[Dr. Charles McVety]

—and that we're the only ones who do not care.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I said that I disagree.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Let him answer.