Yes, I know. But I am afraid that other things might happen before you get your turn again.
But I really appreciated your presentation, setting the Official Languages Act in a historical context. If we became afraid that you might not be able to finish your historical overview, which seems to me to be really essential, we should perhaps think of some other solution that would allow you to do it. I would willingly agree to read for you and you could then add your pertinent comments.
When Ms. Michaud comes back, I will offer her my thanks.
I am going to start with a little story this morning. You probably know that, before being elected, I taught for 25 years. When I am back in my riding, scarcely a weekend goes by without someone asking me if I miss teaching. I give more or less the same answer each time: I don't miss teaching, at least not yet, but I often think of teaching fondly.
In my last four years of teaching in Quebec, I taught a course called Monde contemporain - our world today. It had a lot to do with politics.
When I was teaching music, which was for 21 years before that, a music teaching job became available at one point. I called a musician buddy and asked him if he wanted to teach with me. I offered him the vacant position. He asked me to give him a few hours to think about it. He called me back the next day and told me that he was going to decline the offer. He said that he felt there were two types of musicians; the ones who talk about it and the ones who do it. I understood that he was coming down on the side of those that do it, because he had been a pianist all his life. But his answer hurt me a little because it was as if he was telling me that I was not a real musician, just one of those who talks about it. I rationalized it all by telling myself that I was teaching and having a parallel career as a musician at the same time.
A few years later, when I was teaching the Monde contemporain course, I said to myself: “Darn it, here I am in exactly the same situation.” There are politicians who talk about it and those who do it. There I was again, one of the ones who talk about it. I had been intrigued about going into politics since I was a teenager. I told myself that maybe the time had come to at least give it a shot. The stars aligned themselves, with the result that, last May 2, I found myself one of you.
This morning, I get the curious feeling that this debate is taking me back to square one and that I need my teaching skills again. For the next few minutes, the next few hours, or maybe the next few days, I need to teach Politics 101, about the basic right of politicians in this House, on these committees and in this Parliament. That is the right to speak.
Clearly, in part, the situation is a little unique. When I was teaching, the challenge was always to keep the students' interest. Everyone who has taught knows that it is not easy. In a school setting, we had tools and methods of keeping their attention. For example, cell phones were not allowed in class, meaning that people basically had the choice of sleeping—and I confess that did happen in some of my classes—or of following what was being said. Most people have trouble doing three things at the same time, although I am beginning to have my doubts about that. In fact, since I got into politics, I have realized that it is not only possible, it is necessary to be able to do more than one thing at the same time here on the Hill.
But I will try to be as pertinent as possible in order to keep you all interested in this debate. That is not always easy, I am sure that you will agree; the length of the presentations often means people get worn out. But I will try to keep things moving along in order to rally the troops and so that we do not lose sight of our objective, which is to try and understand this motion.
I know we first have to debate the amendment to the motion; I accept that, but we cannot really debate the amendment if we do not recall the essential nature of what led us to this point.
Let me say again that this motion, moved by a member of the government party, proposes: “that all committee business of the committee be conducted in camera”. If we analyze the grammar of the sentence, we see that the key word is “all”. The word “all” tells us exactly what is meant. It means that there can be no exceptions. Given that there can be no exceptions, it means that we might get into difficult situations. Our situation is doubly difficult because sitting in camera, though it is desirable and unanimously agreed to on occasion, must not become the general rule. Sitting in camera must be the exception, an exception that is necessary under certain circumstances.
But the motion proposes exactly the opposite. It proposes a 180-degree turn after which the exception would be not sitting in camera. In fact, the wording of the motion would no longer even permit that: “that all committee business of the committee be conducted in camera”. How can we go back once a motion like that is been passed? It seems problematic to me to say the least.
It seems quite clear that the central elements of the committee's work should be conducted in public and that, if some circumstances require it, we can ask to sit in camera. This corresponds to the spirit of the amendment proposed by my colleague, Mr. Harris. It asks that the motion be amended by adding after the words “in camera” the following: “with the consent of at least one member of the opposition…” That starts to make things clear. It has already been said on many occasions, and I am repeating it here: the opposition has no wish to systematically oppose all requests to sit in camera. But there should be at least be an attempt to demonstrate the relevance of a request of that nature.
I know that, when motions are introduced, they cannot be debated. I do not want to rewrite the book on procedure; that would be a long and tedious job and I am probably not up to the task. But I have wondered for many a long minute about the reason behind a motion like this. Why come to the committee one fine morning and introduce a motion of such a categorical nature when nothing seemed to be of any particular concern? I came up with two possible answers. They remain hypotheses because, of course, I am not inside the head of the person who made the motion.
The first hypothesis suggests that the motion may be the result of a particular ideology holding that all the work of Parliament should be done in secret from now on. I have to say that, if that were the case, I would have a serious problem. It would be serious enough to justify the filibuster we are now engaged in, because it is an affront, to say the least, to our entire democratic system.
Excuse this aside. But I think I am going to become bilingual by speaking and listening to the interpretation at the same time.
The second hypothesis that may justify a motion like this is perhaps that, in the mind of the person that made it, there is something irritating in the way the committee does its work. His solution to end the irritation is to introduce a motion as dogmatic as this one. I also have a serious problem with that.
I know that we do not have to explain the motions that are presented. But, again, it seems to me that, if it were the case—it was one of the hypotheses, remember—it would, in my opinion, be more important for us to talk about those irritants around the table in order to find solutions. If there is no desire to discuss them in public, perhaps we could do so at the steering committee, or perhaps in separate discussions altogether. We could perhaps ask to suspend. If our committee's way of working really does cause a problem, it would seem to be more important to discuss it thoroughly, rather than to lock ourselves into our positions so much that the committee becomes dysfunctional, that parliamentary institutions go out the window and that the Canadians who elect and pay us are no longer well-served. That is quite a problem.
I would like to refer back to my former career as a teacher, because it seems to me that it offers an interesting parallel. We had 20 professional development days per year. The school year in Quebec is 20 professional development days and 180 days in the classroom with the students. It's the shortest school year in the world, I would say, but that is a debate for another parliament. So let's not get into that this morning.
That said, some of those professional development days were absolutely exciting and I followed them with great attention. I have to say that others were longer, tougher to handle and less interesting. Each time, I found myself automatically counting heads. Then I multiplied that number by the average salary. I found out that the professional development day was costing so many thousands of dollars per hour with not a lot to show for it. Honestly, in the last few weeks, I have found myself compelled to do exactly the same calculation: I count the number of members around the table and multiply it by the average salary. Clearly, that calculation would be much lower that the real one. What if you added in all the staff around us, the clerks, the interpreters and so on…?
Do you have any idea how much this committee costs per hour? I won't even dare to say because the number I calculated really threw me for a loop. Anyway, I could be forgetting things because there are a lot of functions that I don't know about, having only been in politics for a short time. Let's just say that it costs several hundred thousand dollars per hour, maybe more. It might even get up to a million dollars, but let's not put a figure to it this morning. I just wanted us to be aware of it.
We are wasting money at the moment. I hesitate to use the word “waste” because, as long as I am part of this filibuster, I really do not feel that I am wasting the salary that voters are paying me as I defend the most rigorous and basic fundamentals of democracy. But I am sad, because I was under the impression that we in Canada had settled that debate a long time ago and that democracy prevails everywhere. But I have to face the fact that, with motions like this one, we may be slipping away from that. It is not just our duty to stop the slide as quickly as possible, it is something we all must do.
If you find anything I say during this filibuster to be at all intelligent, so much the better. You can even tell me so afterwards. The most significant thing that could be said around this table cannot, unfortunately come out of my mouth. So I invite each of the members of the government party to interrupt me whenever they like. All you have to say is that you want to withdraw your motion, to move on, to solve the problem in our way of working if there is one, or maybe to look for a solution at the steering committee. I do not know the solution, but I know that one exists and that solution is probably not to dig in our heels. But that, unfortunately, is how we have to operate.
Democratic rights are fundamental. At a time when we are seeing people around the word paying for the defence of democracy with their lives, I feel that the least I can do is to defend it with my words. I will talk as much and for as long as it is necessary, you may be sure of that.
This systematic obstruction—which has regrettably been going on for weeks, if not months—is not unique to the Standing Committee on Official Languages. It really is a concern. We have seen, for example, a greater proliferation of time allocation motions in the House than probably at any time in the history of British parliamentary tradition. I am not old enough to have seen it all, but, in all the many years I have been interested in politics, I have never seen any such report. We are creating a first which is far from a shining moment for Canadian democracy.
We have seen a proliferation of requests for in camera sessions in committee after committee. Can I say that the Standing Committee on Official Languages is the worst? I do not know. I do not sit on other committees. But, having discussed it with my colleagues, I know that we are certainly not the best.
To make matters worse, I now see bills on the way that seek to restrict the right of Canadians to speak at environmental assessments dealing with major urban development projects. Sadly, I have to acknowledge that, of the two hypotheses I proposed earlier, perhaps the more plausible is the first, at the end of the day. Perhaps Canadians are being gagged from all sides by an ideological approach that I clearly do not share. I repeat that I sincerely hope that the first hypothesis is not the real one and that the second one is more likely. My hope is that we can resolve our differences about the way in which the committee operates.
Who else is being gagged? The media is being gagged, the fourth estate, the one after the legislative, executive and judicial sources of power. When the voice of the media is silenced, how will Canadians across the country get their information? I have to say that my concern in this regard is a major one. The media report the work of Parliament. We know that not everyone is interested in our society, for their own reasons. But if the information is not even available any more, democracy is in serious peril.
Now that Ms. Michaud has returned, I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate her for her masterful role in the debate that is occupying our attention. Be assured that I carefully followed, perhaps not every single word, but certainly every single subject you touched on during your remarks. I did not keep exact track, but I know that you certainly held the floor for more than two hours. Perhaps I may find myself picking up on some of your topics, but I will try to give them my own “Robert Aubin from Trois-Rivières” flavour. Everything you said could not have been more pertinent, and I hope that our accumulated contributions will cause someone to raise the white flag and ask to move on to something else. After that parenthesis, back to my argument.
So I was going to say this morning that I am adding my voice to this chorus of outrage. That is what we have been doing since this filibuster started. I am actually inclined to suggest the phrase marathon of outrage, given that the word “chorus” implies something nicer. Maybe even telethon of outrage. Now that would be really extraordinary. It seems to me that, if we had organized a real telethon of outrage during this filibuster, we could well have raised enough money to clear up the Conservatives' deficit, and Canada's. Then we could move on to more positive things. It's not a bad idea, I tell you.
Our telethon of outrage would also let us take calls directly from Canadians everywhere. In both official languages, they would tell us how deplorable they find the idea of conducting all committee business in camera without the consent of at least one opposition member. How much is that to ask? So there you have it. I am adding my voice to the others who are asking.
As parliamentarians, we must also be very conscious of what we are doing at the moment. Whether to solve an operational problem, or to promote an ideology or to defend democracy, we are now—in a wrong-headed way, but what else can we do?—feeding what we should be doing our best to combat in politics, voter cynicism. My impression is that we should not be talking about players from the Canadiens who have not scored a goal in a year; the only goals we are scoring are into our own nets, and that goes for all political parties. We are not going to improve citizen involvement in politics with the matter we are dealing with now. This situation must come to an end as quickly as possible.
My constituency office in Trois-Rivières is next door to the one that Maurice Duplessis occupied until his death. That got me thinking. Is his ghost haunting me? I didn't used to believe in ghosts, but when I see a motion like this, I wonder whether I should start to be scared. I seem to be seeing pretty clearly a kind of return to the time of the Great Darkness, to which I would not like us to return and from which we in Quebec have emerged relatively well. I thought that we were going to be able to talk about it in terms of a time in history, a stage on the path of a people and a nation. Not as a cyclical event that we may see again if we are not careful.
Systematically conducting all committee business in camera is going back to the Great Darkness. How many writers, sociologists and philosophers have written that the best way to govern a country is to keep people in the dark? Those days are behind us—at least I thought so—and, as a consequence, our obligation is now to hold our discussions in public, except for reasonable exceptions on which all members of the committee agree. Those are situations when, not only do we want to hold our discussions in camera, but it is also important to do so.
I left teaching on May 2 last year in order to become a politician. I would say that the period of two months preceding my departure from teaching was the most vibrant and interesting of my teaching career. The teacher standing in front of the class was no longer a teacher; he had become a real politician. No one knew at the time whether he would be elected, but he was already a politician in the sense that he was involved in a campaign. I have always said that this political career, this opportunity I have been given for at least four years, came at an extraordinary point in my life. I do not seek a career in politics for its own sake; I want to serve the people. Heaven alone knows what will happen in four years, whether I will still be a member of Parliament, whether I will be re-elected, or whether I will go back to teaching. That is of little importance because all those opportunities are inherently interesting. Doing the work of a politician is extremely exciting and I want to continue doing it to the extent I can for as long as I can. But going back to teaching would not be a step down. I would go back to teaching after an exceptional experience that few teachers are privileged to have.
When I see what we have been doing for several weeks—this all started before Christmas—I can tell you that I am seriously concerned. For weeks, months and years, I have tried to make young people aware of the importance of becoming involved in civil society, the importance of becoming involved in politics regardless of one's political allegiance, the importance of getting out to vote, the importance of playing a role in our society and our democracy. If I go back to teaching, what are you going let me tell them? I was teaching 15- to 17-year-old high-school students who are developing their own ideas about the society and the world in which they live. A lot of what they hear comes from the mouths of the adults around them. Sometimes it strikes a chord, sometimes it does not.
I have struggled for years to tell them that they have real power to determine what their society becomes. If, as an elected MP, I no longer find any power on Parliament Hill, how do you want me to go back to teaching one day and carry on talking about our political world with any credibility and while providing any support for their young careers? You're really pulling that rug out from under me and I have difficulty…