Well, thank you very much. I appreciate drawing attention to the relevancy. I certainly would draw the relevancy to the issue that is right here with this motion.
This motion is written in a fashion that impinges and implies...or it doesn't imply; it calls for the government to do things that are not in the Constitution. And, of course, in other bills that we have seen before us here, too, they also imply, and instruct the government to do things that are extremely difficult to do and can imperil certain segments of society.
This motion here, in particular, I think, because of its written wording, certainly would not just imply; it would impact the Constitution and probably add to the unwritten constitutionality of our country.
So I take objection to it. I think that we as parliamentarians have a greater responsibility here to speak out when we do see things that are written in a fashion that could impinge on our constitutional rights at some time in the future, without having that full debate and discourse that constitutional change should have, involving all of the provinces and all of the territories of Canada to make the Constitution formal.
I would certainly say to Mr. Dewar that if he wished to change the Constitution, there is a written structure in order to be able to do so. I certainly do invite him to put forward the proposals to make those written changes in accordance with how the Constitution is written and its formulas for amending that Constitution.
So I would say from the onset that this motion is so grievously written that it seriously has to be spoken against. In the past session I actually was working my way through the charter to see what was in the charter that might be relative to this, just to give Mr. Dewar the benefit of the doubt that perhaps maybe there was some wording in here that might actually substantiate the wording of his motion. At that time I had gone through the charter paragraphs and I was up to article 6. I believe I completed number 6.
But I'm going to return again here, first of all, to reiterate the 1982 charter from its beginning, so that we have an understanding of how important this document is. It begins:
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Constitution Act, 1982
Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:
Of course, then it goes into the guarantee of rights and freedoms. I will begin my discussion on article 7, because I had left off with number 6.
Article 7 begins with the following:
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
Once again, I want to emphasize that this article very clearly is talking about in Canada. It is not talking about in Cuba, in Mexico. It's not talking about in other countries of the world. It's talking about the rights and freedoms that we hold close here in Canada.
As I said, this Constitution is the result of hundreds of years of other constitutional beginnings, and certainly the 1867 British North America Act. So this right here is very clearly and expressly for people living in Canada.
Once again, article 8 reads as follows:
Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.
Well, once again, it is in Canada and it draws out the question: What is unreasonable search and seizure? And of course, we go through these things every time we go through an airport and so on. There are certain provisos that make it reasonable to have a search--i.e., if we want to board a plane.
Of course, if we're looking at other countries...and who knows, we can look at... My friend Mr. Deepak has far more experience than I do. He has 180 countries on his resumé. He could be speaking about the various peculiarities of various countries and how their rules and laws are enacted.
But certainly, of the 35 to 40 countries that I have visited, I certainly am very much aware that every country has their peculiarities and their individual laws. And so should they. Every country should have their own individual charter of rights and freedoms, their own individual constitution, and we would hope that would be a constitution and charter rights that would be human-friendly, that would be friendly to their citizenry. That's why our forefathers spent so much time crafting our own constitution and bringing about this wonderful Charter of Rights and Freedoms, because it is important.
It goes on that everyone has a right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. Well that, to me, is very friendly and it certainly is a sensible thing to do--