Evidence of meeting #45 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was countries.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
Chair, before we go any further, as engrossed as we all are, I'm wondering whether Mr. Goldring is wanting to provide an amendment or just wanting to continue to filibuster.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
I'm just asking the question through you, Chair, whether he's wanting to remove “constitutional” from the motion or whether he's just...
If he wants to filibuster, that's fine; he can do it. I'm just asking whether there's a motion that he may want to provide—
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Jim Abbott Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
I have a point of order.
This is not a point of order. This is debate.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Mr. Goldring has the floor.
I think you're trying to help. Mr. Goldring doesn't have to give us his reason, whether there's an amendment coming or some ideas for—
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
I just wanted to know whether the government was wanting to amend this or just wanting to filibuster, or whatever.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Hopefully we'll find out eventually, but Mr. Goldring has the floor.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Goldring Conservative Edmonton East, AB
Thank you very much.
I think it's far too premature; I do have more commentary to make on my concerns for the wording of the motion.
Thank you very much for your interjection there, Mr. Dewar.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Let's have some order so that we can hear Mr. Goldring.
Continue, Mr. Goldring.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Goldring Conservative Edmonton East, AB
Where was I? Should I start over?
It says that if the offence has been varied between the time of commission and the time of sentencing, the benefit of the lesser punishment should be given to the person found guilty.
Once again, we're talking about the niceties, I guess.
Really, we should be very cognizant that the charter and the Constitution that we have here in Canada are probably world-respected as being a great charter and a great Constitution. But in terms of many countries of the world, could they enact the same? I think many countries of the western world do have their own constitutions and charters. My understanding is that certainly Commonwealth countries have similar constitutions, from Australia to other countries.
I'm not sure whether they have charters of rights. I believe our Charter of Rights was designed, drafted, and brought together in a Canadian fashion. It is Canadian-made, if you like. Paragraphs like 11(i) I would expect to be distinctly Canadian. I would certainly not expect to find that in developing countries of the world. As I touched on before, many of the developing countries of the world have difficulties feeding the people, let alone drawing up the niceties of charters of rights and freedoms. That in itself is very problematic.
For some of the developing countries of the world, to have a charter of rights and freedoms such as this would just not be workable. They don't have the wherewithal to do it. You have to be able to feed your people. You have to be able to afford to pay a judiciary system. You have to be able to afford to pay a good policing system. You have to be able to afford to pay a good legal system to be able to enjoy the luxury of a charter of rights and freedoms. If you don't have this judiciary system built, if you do not have the fair legal system built, if you don't have fair and reasonable lawyers available to a person, this charter is meaningless. It goes nowhere. But here in Canada we do have it.
Once again, I have difficulty with this motion because it rather implies that countries around the world will have their own charters such as this. Probably more difficult is that this motion states that the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs would enforce Canada's charter around the world in places where, I would have to guess--I really don't know, but maybe my colleagues do--that two-thirds of the world do not have charters of their own. They probably don't have them for very good reasons. If they had them they wouldn't be able to enforce them.
So we're going to enforce the nicety of one of the leading countries in the world, Canada, enforce our charter into another country of the world that is struggling with its democracy, struggling to feed its people, and struggling to exist from day to day. But we're going to enter into that country and order our foreign affairs minister to go in there and give protection under Canada's charter to those people. We're going to tell those people that they should have this charter of Canada, and if they do not have it they should abide by it. They must do as our Canadian foreign affairs minister says, because he's been ordered to go there and say this. So once again, we have this difficulty all the way through on this.
Now I'm on article 12.
9:35 a.m.
An hon. member
How many more to go?
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Goldring Conservative Edmonton East, AB
There are some 55 articles. There are another 150 articles under the 1867 charter. I estimate that there are probably 30 articles under the capitulations of Quebec City, Montreal, Quebec conference, and London resolutions.
And don't forget, we'll be doing a review of the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights, because I really feel there might be possibly something in there, and that was constituted here by the Right Honourable John Diefenbaker. So that's an important one to review through too.
Article 12 states that everyone has the right not to be subjected to “any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment”. Now there's an article that can be interpreted many different ways. What is a cruel and unusual treatment or punishment? I had the occasion, when I was visiting Acapulco once, to learn of their interesting way of dealing with illegal parking. This just gives you kind of an example. They cut the licence plates off, and in order to pay your parking fine, you visit the local jail. They have a wall of these licence plates up on the wall. You pick out your plate and you pay your $2 fine or whatever it is. But during the occasion, it was very apparent that I would not want to be a resident in that jail. Even being a resident in that jail I would say would fall under this Canadian charter's description of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment because, by golly, a Mexican jail is not a Canadian jail. That could be construed right from the get-go. That's not to be critical of Mexican jails. I mean, jails in many countries around the world are pretty basic, pretty bare descriptions.
When we were in Haiti with the committee, we visited the jail there. One of the jail cells had wall-to-wall people. I think it was something like 70 people in one room, and they're just like cordwood, up one wall, down another and three feet in between, and then a pot over in the corner where you did your duty, your daily ablutions, or whatever you want to call it.
Now, is that cruel and unusual punishment and treatment? I dare say that we would certainly consider it to be cruel if there was a Canadian in that jail cell with the 70 other people.
9:40 a.m.
An hon. member
That's the idea of the motion.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Goldring Conservative Edmonton East, AB
Yes, yes, but you know, that's how they do their judiciary system. So do we go into that country and say that with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada—in other words, our modern way of looking at things—we insist that a person be in a six-foot by ten-foot cell on their own, not even with another person? This debate is coming up on some of the prisons in Alberta. So do we insist that we have this, that we have western-style meals? What is being construed here as cruel and unusual treatment or punishment? This can literally go on and on.
Then we get into the issue here that we want to order the Minister of Foreign Affairs to go into that country to give protection to this person who is under the judiciary of that country, who is serving or doing or is incarcerated. But the Minister of Foreign Affairs, because it's not up to Canadian standards, it's not up to snuff in Canada, is ordered to go into that country and to interject, to protect that Canadian. How is he going to protect that Canadian in that jail? Once again we have the great difficulty here of how we enact such a motion. Or is this motion meaningless? I mean, do motions have any meaning? Do bills have any meaning? Or are they not supposed to be taken seriously? If we take this motion seriously, it's an impossible thing to do. It affronts every article. I'll carry on here in a second. But so far it's affronted every article that I've gone through. It makes it just absolutely impossible to be able to consider that this motion could be taken seriously.
We'll leave off with article 12, subject to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment, and go on to number 13, which states:
A witness who testifies in any proceedings has the right not to have any incriminating evidence so given used to incriminate that witness in any other proceedings, except in a prosecution for perjury or for the giving of contradictory evidence.
These articles here are Canadian-made and Canadian-built for Canadians in Canada. To expect that you can have the niceties of this in countries around the world, in Iran, in Iraq... We could literally go up and down the countries of the world. Some day I'd like to know from my colleague the names of those countries that he has and what he would think of whether these would be applicable to any one of those countries.
It would be presumptuous even to look at a Western type of country here and ask if this would be applicable in the United States, for example. The argument could be made by many Americans that this is a Canadian constitution. It is not the American constitution, and quite frankly while they would probably like to help us out and say that, yes, we think it conforms to some of the American constitutional provisos, this is a Canadian constitution, and they might be affronted by us, insisting that the foreign affairs minister adhere to the letter and the dotted i and the crossed t of the Canadian Constitution in an American scenario. Even there, it could be problematic. Certainly to send in the foreign affairs minister, ordering him to provide the letter of protection of the Canadian Constitution in the United States, I can well imagine what the response to that just might be from Washington.
Once again, we're going through article by article on this.
9:45 a.m.
An hon. member
Are you finished?
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Goldring Conservative Edmonton East, AB
No, I'm not finished. I'm catching my breath here. Excuse me while I have a little drink of water.
Once again, we go through the very problematic scenario here of trying to adhere to...or insist that Canadian law, the Canadian Constitution should take precedence in other countries. Really, it's rather ignoring...and I think it's setting a poor precedent, because it's giving Canadians the false hope or the false premise that their Constitution takes precedence, so they will be protected regardless of what the laws of another country say. Is that really what we want to do?
I think more than this--we had the discussion in an earlier committee meeting here--is perhaps the question of whether Canadians are aware of the laws of other countries. A lot of Canadians travel internationally. We have Canadians all over the beaches in Mexico and the Caribbean. Are they aware of what the laws of those countries are? Their laws are different. Even former British Commonwealth countries have their own laws instituted. What we should be doing here rather than saying and implying by a motion like this, which rather implies that Canadian constitutional law is instituted internationally--it is not, and that is completely in error--is educating Canadians.
I suppose you could say that while this Constitution is Canadian-made, Canadian-built, and Canadian-instituted, it is not internationally instituted. You'd better be aware when you travel to another country that you have a responsibility not just to conform to the laws of the other country but to be cognizant of some of the differences that those countries might have in their legal system.
If you're not cognizant, you might inadvertently fall into problems in the other country. Do not depend on the Canadian Constitution or Canadian law to be able to bail you out. That's hugely problematic.
Now I'll move on here to article 14, where it states the following:
A party or witness in any proceedings who does not understand or speak the language in which the proceedings are conducted or who is deaf has the right to the assistance of an interpreter.
Once again, we're speaking about an enlightened constitution, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms from the 1980s, taking advantage of the enlightenment earned by a country that has been very prosperous and probably one of the world's leading countries as far as civil society is concerned and has the luxury of being able to write these things into written law. I have to go back to saying that must be understood in all other countries on the face of the planet earth.
It's very presumptuous ordering the foreign affairs minister to go into a country because someone there has a problem understanding the language and laws of the country and the proceedings that are being conducted. It is presumptuous; and this one not only says that but goes into who is deaf and has the right to the assistance of an interpreter. I'm not sure whether that's considered to be a right in other countries or not. Certainly here in Canada we go out of our way in our judicial proceedings to be able to help people with sign language, and indeed to help the blind so that they can follow the proceedings. We also take the time here in Ottawa, not only for our official languages, but to bring in interpreters of other languages. We do this, but we have the capacity to be able to do this. That's not to say that all judicial systems around the world have that capacity or have that capability to do that.
Once again, we have a scenario here where, yes, this certainly is in place in Canada, and we certainly do appreciate it, and probably in the United States, and probably some of the western world countries have provisos like this, but when we start looking into second and third world countries, do they have that capability? Is it proper for Canada to insist that this be done, and to what level? This says, in my understanding, we take it to all levels of criminal justice. This really doesn't spell it out, because we don't spell it out here in Canada, but what about other countries? Does that mean you're going to order that somebody with a parking ticket in some obscure country be provided interpretative services? Is that what we're really saying here? We don't have to clarify here, because we would, but what about in other countries?
Then, of course, with the parking ticket and no clarity on the language, we're going to order the foreign affairs minister to go in there and give the protection. So it gets to a ridiculous level here on what we're trying to compel the government to appreciate and accept.
Now I'm up to article 15. And I do appreciate the time to be able to go through this and give these explanations.
Article 15 states,
Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
Once again, this does work here in Canada, and that certainly has been well developed and well thought-out, but it is a made-in-Canada charter. It's a made-in-Canada Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Other countries can have different understandings, and so be it. Other countries around the world may have different understandings.
Article 15(2) here is the one that really spells out the differences on it. It says,
Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
What that article really compels is that even here in Canada we're saying everybody has the right and is equal before the law. It really says “except for”. Here in Canada, we're giving except fors. You can imagine, with some 200 countries around the world, how many except fors they would naturally have within their own system.
It could be for any variety of reasons. We've had our debates here in this country, for example on same-sex marriage. Well, that isn't understood by all countries on earth. As a matter of fact, it's understood by only a very few countries on earth. So even from that standpoint, for a person travelling into many countries on earth they'd better be aware that not all countries are as accepting and enlightened as Canada is. That issue alone could be problematic in many countries.
Once again, we go back to the basis of this motion here. To expect the Canadian government to recognize this constitutional duty... How do we recognize that when it's in conflict with many other countries' stated law? You have an impossible scenario here. I think more than this, there's a responsibility for Canadians to comply with the laws of the country they're visiting, and they have to be prepared to accept that Canadian law, and their understanding of the Canadian charter and the Canadian Constitution... They just may have to be flexible. If they want to visit that country they have to be prepared to accept the standards, the laws, the customs of the country that they're visiting, or else they're going to be in conflict.
Then we go back to the basis of this motion. That's an impossibility. Can you imagine, under a scenario like that, where we'll use that one issue, where somebody inadvertently...? They don't know, or they do know and they just ignore it, and they now are into a problem and a conflict with another country. According to this motion, we're going to order the Minister of Foreign Affairs to go in and fix things. How does he fix things when it's an affront to the laws of the other country?
Once again, it's an impossible thing to do here. I think we have to be aware, if we look around at the various countries of the world... I'll revert again to the suggestion that it's not just countries, it's international understandings, and international understandings of Sharia law. I think there was a movement here in Canada to try to bring Sharia law into Canada, and fortunately, in my humble opinion, that movement was forestalled. Even here in Canada, to bring in customs and laws from other countries is hugely problematic, and Sharia law, of course, brings up the question... When we talk with specific communities and they say, yes, they would like to have the proviso that's in Sharia law that one man can have four wives, that brings up the question of whether that means that one woman can have four husbands. Is that what it means? So we get into huge discussions, and I would guesstimate that those who subscribe to Sharia law would probably take umbrage to the idea of one woman having four husbands. Would that be a fair consideration to say?
So we have a problem even with trying to bring laws of another country into Canada. If we have a problem bringing other laws into Canada, don't you think for one moment that the other countries will have a problem with Canada bringing its laws into their country? I would think that it would be a huge problem.
We could go through other forms of international understandings and laws, and how problematic it would be for other countries, for Canada, to bring their laws into this country.
So we go back again to article 15(2), and here in Canada, yes, we want to have this. We celebrate this Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and rightly so. We just recently published it to all the schools in the country and sent out a very nice format that has the charter in it. And yes, absolutely we should celebrate it. Quite frankly, probably internationally it's widely respected, and hopefully it's being emulated by other countries, and maybe other countries are instituting their own personalized forms of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
So be it. So the world should be progressing. We should be gaining more enlightenment around the world. We're into globalization. We're into internationalism. When we do trade with specific countries around the world, we like to imply that the Canadian maple leaf is on that crate going to another country because it's significant, significant of the enlightenment that Canada has in its laws and in its charter and in its constitution. I'm sure that even the maple leaf flying around the world on the side of an Air Canada plane is respected and regarded as significant.
Canada is an enlightened country and a respected country. When we see other countries that we trade with, we hope that we're not being instructive. I've had people visit, as many of you have, from China. I have to hesitate on it because, as I mentioned earlier, China has a culture that goes back 5,000 or 7,000 years. It's awfully presumptuous of us to say that we and our constitution and our charter know more than that long and wonderful history of China.
However, one thing that cannot be disputed is that our charter and our constitution are an enlightened charter and constitution. It's not perfect, and we're going to work on it. We're going to improve on it and correct it over a period of time. We're going to make it better. We'll make it the best we possibly can, but that's not to say that we cannot suggest, when we're trading internationally with countries that are not up to the high standards of Canada, that we don't encourage them to move along.
That's also not to say that we're not going to trade with other countries that we know have problems in bringing their democratic reforms and institutions up to date. That's not to say that we will not trade with them. No; you trade with them because through development, through trade, through prosperity, they will gain the wherewithal to be able to develop their own institutions and their own judiciary.
I think several trade pacts have been signed recently with certain countries. The suggestion is that we should not trade with them because they have certain problems with rights infringements. That's not the way to look at it. You look at it from the basis that prosperity, development, growth as a country, and international engagement provide stronger and stronger encouragement. There really isn't one of those countries that does not want to be a better citizen or that will not become a better citizen and treat its own people better if it has the wherewithal to do so.
I go back to that example of a country in which somebody who perpetrates a crime is beaten up, thrown in jail, and tossed out in the morning. That's because that country doesn't have the wherewithal, but as countries acquire the wherewithal, even they can see that such an approach is a barbaric way of dealing with things. They will improve if they can take the first step of being able to afford to feed their prisoners. That's the first step.
They'll improve further if they're able to afford a reasonable justice system to give some justice to the system and if they're able to afford proper policing and the proper jailing techniques. All these things are additives. When we're dealing with foreign countries and saying that they have some human rights questions, I suggest that those human rights questions will be answered in due time, as their economic circumstances improve and they become able to devote more resources to better management of their citizenry.
That's article 15. I think, once again, that's what we have here in Canada, and I certainly think articles like that would be widely perceived as being desirable in many countries around the world. I'm sure many countries will be advancing towards those stages as their economies develop and as their financial wherewithal develops.
Article 16 refers to the official languages of Canada:
English and French are the official languages of Canada and have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of Parliament and the Government of Canada.
Once again, this is a Canadian aspect. Many countries of the world have multiple languages. Even here in this country we have more than the two official languages. We probably have every language on earth here in this country, represented in our immigrants. I don't think there is another country in the world that has such a great number and variety. I describe it that Canada really has every country in the world represented in this country. That is its strength. Even though the languages are unofficial languages, that is a powerhouse of a capability for this country to be able to compete worldwide. You can pick any one of the ethnic communities and see what a powerhouse of capability that is for international trade and the globalization we're engaging in today. It is an unbelievable asset.
Sometimes, Mr. Chairman, I don't believe we recognize that and appreciate that enough. One of the things we have been doing, as a government, in the past few years to emphasize that is putting more emphasis on foreign affairs.
Once again, I return to this motion. It would have huge negativity to be interfering with other countries at a specific point and juncture in time when we are trying to encourage this. We are trying to encourage this development. We are trying to encourage the diaspora of the multitude of different countries we have in this country to use their assets, use the power of language, use the power of international familiarity to be able to engage in the world and around the world. Even before we became government here, I go back to some of the work I was doing in the Caribbean or in eastern Europe, and you see the powerful diasporas that we have in this country and you really want to know why we aren't using them more.
Our government is getting there. Certainly, our government has done more in the international community than governments in the past. We see this by our Prime Minister's visiting the Caribbean and putting a lot of emphasis on the Caribbean and the Caribbean rim countries. We see this by the emphasis just last week of his visiting China and the good relationships developing there—and, I might add, with the Charter of Rights and with the discussion of rights, not leaving it alone, making the point internationally that we make no apologies that we want to have and protect our rights and freedoms. There are no apologies there, and we will speak out on rights, but at the same time, we will also speak out and say that in the case of China, we have a Chinese diaspora that probably is a million people. It is a huge number of people. We also have an Indian diaspora that would be a million people. It is a huge benefit to be able to engage very large segments of world trade, if done properly, if done forthrightly, and if done correctly.
I believe our Prime Minister really has to be commended for the work he has done, particularly on his trip to China and in how we are engaging India but also for how we are engaging other parts of the world. I believe it was one of our ministers who has set up free trade beginnings with Ukraine, part of eastern Europe. If we look at that initiative, we first recognized Ukraine as an independent country in 1991, and since 1991 it has been kind of left on its own. But we have taken the stance and the initiative in the last several years to put some emphasis on eastern Europe, and particularly in the last month to put emphasis on the Ukraine with the Ukrainian diaspora.
I was at the Embassy of Ukraine just last week and spoke to the many people who were there. There are very enthusiastic Canadian business people looking at what this could mean. They were looking at the fact that Ukraine needs nuclear power. There was a comment from one of them, Lavalin, stating that what that means is 20 or 25 nuclear power stations.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Goldring Conservative Edmonton East, AB
Yes. And this is because of our diaspora and because of our multiplicity of unofficial languages. It's also added to and complemented, of course, by our two official languages.
Our two official languages are notable, because the two official languages, English and French, are predominant languages in the international community and around the world. To be able to have that combination of two official languages so predominant around the world and having the languages of the rest of the world as part of our country is just a huge advantage.
What's the population of the earth? That's exactly what it is. We are in agreement.
Now, article 16(2) says this:
English and French are the official languages of New Brunswick and have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the legislature and government of New Brunswick.
You see, they even break our charter down so that we have provisos to give specific status to particular provinces and particular areas. Once again, where that becomes problematic is in trying to enforce this in another country and not being respectful of their initiations, which might have differences in governing in one of their provinces or states. There could be a breakdown of understanding in another country. To expect that our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our Constitution would apply across the board in those countries is practically impossible to expect. But we certainly, here in Canada, want to have these made-in-Canada provisos, because having them in our Constitution is one of the benefits and is probably one of the reasons this Charter and Constitution would be reviewed by countries all over the earth so they can pick out the points they like and would be able to apply and do.
Article 16(3) says that nothing in the charter “limits the authority of Parliament or a legislature to advance the equality of status or use of English and French”. Once again, we go into the linguistic. We have chosen to have the two official languages be English and French. There have been discussions. If we look at Nunavut territory, I believe they have three languages. I think they have the languages of the aboriginals in the territory. If we look at our aboriginal communities across this country, we probably have 40, 50, or 60 languages.
Of course, very much so, under our Constitution, particularly the 1867 Constitution and indeed in the charter--we'll be getting there in a few minutes--we respect the rights of the aboriginal people. Of course, they were the founding people of this country. They were here before all others. In fact, we are the product of the people that enjoined the aboriginals in a relatively short period of time of a couple of hundred years.
Of course, our Constitution makes good reference to the aboriginal people, and also, under its provisos, it certainly does not limit or discriminate against the aboriginal people. As a matter of fact, our country rather encourages the aboriginal people to develop their own languages. We see that on a regular basis. There's encouragement to actually put in written form aboriginal languages that have never in the past been in written form. Our government has been contributing towards them doing so. I believe that's right, because some of the aboriginal languages are being lost. That's more a product of our country evolving. With so many people and populations, the media, and everything else, it's difficult to keep a language that maybe has been more localized when you have other languages coming in. So we should be encouraging them to put them into written expression and written form so that they can be preserved and the original cultures in this country can have continuity in their languages and keep their languages.
Then there's article 16.1(1), which--
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Goldring Conservative Edmonton East, AB
No, there is an article 16.1(1), which says the following:
The English linguistic community and the French linguistic community in New Brunswick have equality of status and equal rights and privileges, including the right to distinct educational institutions and such distinct cultural institutions as are necessary for the preservation and promotion of those communities.
That's an important one, Mr. Chairman. Once again our Constitution, as enlightened as it is, reinforces that aspect. As I just touched on with the aboriginal communities--we're putting that into words, on paper, and into the record--we also, under article 16.1(1), super-emphasize that we really want to have not only equality of status and equal rights, but the right to distinct educational institutions and distinct cultural institutions, as necessary, for the preservation and promotion of these communities. I think that's an important one.
I think that goes to the heart of what Canadianism is. We want to preserve what we have--our cultural aspirations for the future, preservation of the past. I think article 16.1(1) emphasizes the importance of doing so. It emphasizes that this is a Canadian quality that we want. We want to keep the aspect of not just the linguistic duality, but we want to keep the cultural institutions and preserve the cultural aspects and educational institutions that we have.
Then it says, under article 16.1(2),
The role of the legislature and government of New Brunswick to preserve and promote the status, rights and privileges referred to in subsection (1) is affirmed.
That simply reinforces article 16.1. I think if we review particularly the Official Languages Act and how we treat and disseminate these issues and articles, it becomes very obvious that the intent s not simply to put down a line or two; it's also to keep reinforcing, to put more and more emphasis on the languages and our cultural institutions as a way of defining Canada.
We hear of the melting pot of other countries, whereas we want to define Canada's originality and roots. We are certainly defining it here in the linguistic duality aspect of it, not just in the language, but also in the cultural institutions that created this linguistic duality.
Article 17(1) says that everyone has the right “to use English or French in any debates and other proceedings of Parliament”. That's one of the issues that the Canadian Parliament in particular has had for a long period of time. I'm wondering, in this electronic age that we have--and we certainly have translation in the Parliament of today--how far back have we had that? What did they do before the electronic age, before they could have translators and earphones? How did they do it at that time? That might have been problematic. But with the electronics of today.... I've been here for 12 years, and we've had what we see here in the back of the room, where our translators doing a great job for us.
That's one of the advantages of Canada. People around the world say, “How do you do everything with two languages and simultaneous translation?” It's actually a marvel to see. It's not just the translators who do this great job on a day-to-day basis here for us--greatly appreciated.
We also have it in the written form, too. We see it in reproductions. We see it in the reports. It is really a marvel when you think about it.
From time to time, our friends from the Bloc remind us that we do not have the translations of every discussion paper before the committee. I have to agree with that. If we can't have the translated material so that everybody can read it equally....
I can read French a little bit, but I am just not good enough at it to pick out all the particulars of it, the significance of it. I try. I do prefer to have it in English, and I am sure, in turn, our friends from the Bloc, and our friends who predominantly were brought through life in the French language, would prefer to have it in that language, too, so they have the proper significance of that.
It is not just our linguistic duality. It is the fact that we actually contribute and build and work together in two languages. We try our best not to leave each other out. Certainly here in Parliament we do a marvellous job of it, but we need to correct it every once in a while. I absolutely agree with any suggestion that we can always do better and that we should be doing our best to have it in both official languages. That's only right. That's how our Parliament of Canada has been operating.
When we go back in history—I've never asked this question—was it so before we had our electronics? Did they have translations at that time? I'm not sure; I'm not sure. With the advent of the electronic age, and with microphones and translations and provisos like that, certainly it has increased the quality of our debates and it has increased the quality of our being able to represent this country as a whole by being able to have these translation services in oral and written form for our country. It is very much appreciated.
Article 17(2) says that “Everyone has the right to use English or French in any debates and other proceedings of the legislature of New Brunswick.” That is kind of interesting, because it is defined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We actually are sure to include that in a provincial legislature that really wants to have those provisos on a provincial basis. I think, once again, it shows that Canadians all across this country have consideration for provinces that wish to have those provisos as well. I am not sure that other provinces have really entertained the thought of having duality of translation and services in their legislatures. As I touched on before, I believe that Nunavut has some translation in other languages. I'm sure provinces wish or would like to be included in that statement, along with New Brunswick. They would probably put forward their initiative if they wished to do so.
As I said to Mr. Dewar, the Constitution is a living, breathing document here. It could be suitably amended at some time in the future if another province wished to entertain that aspect of it as well. Or, if Mr. Dewar wished to entertain a constitutional amendment, he certainly has the rights and privilege to put forward that as well.
Article 18--we're really burning through this today--states:
(1) The statutes, records and journals of Parliament shall be printed and published in English and French and both language versions are equally authoritative.
As I was saying, I was speaking a little bit ahead of myself on this, on the articles, but it certainly underscores and underlines the first article, where everybody has the right to use French and English, because it is important to have it in the printed word as well and have it published in that.
We've all taken advantage of having the published versions. We review them from time to time, and it's only appropriate that they be in both languages. There was a time when, at the end of a session, we would be issued a series of books containing all the bills and discussions in Parliament. I forget what it was called, but it was an eight-foot-long section of black-bound books.