Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to speak on this bill on the reorganization of the Department of Canadian Heritage.
This department has many extraordinary, important responsibilities but the one I would like to speak about to the House today relates to its responsibility for multiculturalism.
As the House knows, the Department of Canadian Heritage will be responsible for the promotion of greater understanding of human rights, fundamental freedoms and related values as well as multiculturalism.
It seems to me that when we are speaking about this topic we owe it to ourselves to look at it from the point of view of our ridings, which includes our neighbours and our friends, and also our country and the importance which this subject has for the development of Canada. I would like to look at it from both those perspectives.
I have the privilege to represent the riding of Rosedale which includes some of the most complex areas of downtown Toronto. In St. Jamestown, which is part of my riding consisting of about 10,000 people, we estimate there are some 57 language groups represented. Some wonderful communities are there, including the Filipino community. I belong to a group called the Circulo Ilongo which is a group of Filipinos who come from a certain part of the Philippines.
I have learned a great deal about Filipino values and about Filipino food and about Filipino love for one another and their values and the strength they are bringing to my community of Rosedale and to my neighbourhood that I never would have known anything about had I not had the privilege of associating myself with them as their elected representative. I am proud to say to the member for Winnipeg North who is here with us today as a representative of the Filipino community "Mabuhai", welcome and love from the members of the Filipino community. He represents a great contribution that the Filipino community is making to our society.
We have a Tamil community in my riding and there we have located the Tamil resources centre. This centre, located in Toronto, contains the largest collection of Tamil language literature outside of India in the world. In Toronto today we are publishing three books in Tamil. I could go on.
The question is does one see this as a threat, or does one see this evolution in our society as a challenge and an opportunity?
There are two very diverse opinions. I have listened to the speeches in this House on this subject. I listened to the member for Wild Rose who, it seemed to me, considered this as really a threat to Canadian development. I had an exchange the other day with the member for Calgary South who seemed to have the same attitude and who attacked the heritage languages program of the department of heritage.
I listened to the member for Saint-Denis who lives in a complex urban riding in Montreal and who cited the president of the Royal Bank who said that it is precisely this complex, rich cultural linguistic grouping that represents the strength of Canada as we go into the 21st century, that represents the pool of human capital that will enable us to participate in an ever enclosed and more integrated global village in which we live.
I much prefer the perception of the president of the Royal Bank and my colleague from Saint-Denis because it represents the reality of Canadian cultural experience. It represents Canadian values, those of tolerance and acceptance. It represents Canadian interests in terms of how we are going to deal with the future of the world and it represents the way the world is evolving.
One of the members across the way called out that it represents the Liberals. It does represent the Liberals. It represents Liberal values. I am proud to speak for these values and proud to speak for a party that represents those values and insists on them. I am proud to be a member of a party that recognizes the way the world is evolving.
Members opposite can laugh. Are they not watching the way the world is evolving? Do they not know what is happening around them? I have talked to their representatives on the trade committee. I have spoken to other members of the Reform Party. They know what is happening in globalization. Their members came with us when we travelled across the country with our international trade committee. We heard in Vancouver, Calgary and the Northwest Territories, where many Reform members come from, about the tremendous import and export opportunities that Canadians have.
We are living in an age of movement of goods, services and people across all jurisdictions and boundaries. As Canadians we have to be able to meet the demands of markets and complex areas of services. We must have knowledge of those markets. We have to be able to get into them. How do we get into those markets if we do not have the language skills and a knowledge of the culture of those markets in which we want to participate?
We have heard much about China in the House in the last while and for good reason. Many people estimate that by the year 2025 China will be the largest single economic factor in the world. As the former Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew said about China: "It is not possible to pretend that this is just another big player. This is the biggest player in the history of man".
Napoleon said, when China comes on the scene: "Quand la Chine s'éveillera, le monde tremblera". This is true. Again, is this a danger or is it an opportunity for us? It is an opportunity for us. The third largest language group in Canada is Chinese. In Toronto alone there are 350,000 people of Chinese origin and in Vancouver there are more.
This month alone in Toronto we had four trade delegations from China led by senior representatives of the Government of China. All were spearheaded by relations that were established by people in our communities who speak the Chinese language, know the Chinese culture, are Canadian citizens and proud of it.
One of the proudest days of my life was a while ago when I talked to a colleague of mine, a person I consider to be a great friend who lives in downtown Toronto. He is Vietnamese. He told me the story of how he came to Canada 20 years ago as a Vietnamese refugee and how he barely survived. Today he has a prosperous business in downtown Toronto.
He told me of going to the Vietnamese embassy a while ago. He is Vietnamese of Chinese origin and so he speaks Chinese as well. He told me very proudly: "I went to the Vietnamese embassy, not cap in hand as a Vietnamese refugee but as a Canadian citizen who speaks Vietnamese and Chinese. I believe I can build a bridge between this society and the Asian society which is an important power of the future".
Those are the values to which this multiculturalism department addresses itself. The member opposite from the Bloc seems to consider this an invasion into the jurisdiction of Quebec. Quebec citizens do not consider it that. They consider it an opportunity to participate in an evolving, extraordinary world.
We are a bicultural, bilingual, bijuridical society that has become multicultural. By multiculturalism I do not mean dance groups and festivals. I mean the creation of a society where other traditions, values, languages and cultures are respected within the Canadian mosaic and in which those cultures may flourish alongside and strengthen our own.
As I said earlier in this speech, my riding of Rosedale has as many as 57 different language groups represented. All these groups have rich cultural experiences to offer Canada and through Canada to the world. In that sense Canada may be, as has been said by others, the world's first non-nation country.
We are not a nation in the tribal sense of 19th century nations but rather a country which in many ways reflects the global society of which we are a part. Many other older states are now evolving in this direction.
We in this party and in this government are anxious to create instruments of government which reflect this new national and global reality. This bill moves us toward that important goal. I am proud to be a part of it and proud to support it.