Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for presenting this motion and welcome the opportunity to give my views on the question of establishing a new national holiday.
Since the early seventies, this House has been asked several times to consider proposals for the creation of a new national holiday. The date most often suggested is the third Monday in February since there is a long period without a national holiday between New Year's Day and Easter Sunday. It is argued that a holiday in this long winter period would do a great deal of good to Canadians.
Proposals for the name of the new day have been wide ranging. Some have suggested the celebration of common elements of our heritage. Examples include proposals for a heritage day, a communities day or a multicultural day. Others, like my hon. friend, have proposed that the contributions of specific Canadians be celebrated. Examples here include Macdonald-Cartier day, Baldwin-LaFontaine day, prime minister day and national heroes day.
The proposal to create a Baldwin-Lafontaine Day is surely of great interest to my learned friend since it would mark the contribution of Robert Baldwin and Louis Lafontaine to the establishment of responsible government.
My colleague will surely not want to overlook the richness and originality of the contribution made by the first champion of responsible government in Canada, the great Nova Scotian Joseph Howe. Howe was the one who established the first form of responsible government in the colonies which were to become the great country that is Canada.
While I agree that Canadians should celebrate the achievements of those who contributed to the establishment of a system of responsible government, I have two difficulties with the proposals of my hon. friend. First, I do not believe that we should narrowly focus on the contributions of individuals he refers to as patriots. Second, I do not believe we need a formal national holiday to celebrate responsible government.
On the first point, I have already pointed out that the proposal of the hon. member for Verchères ignores the contribution of the father of responsible government in Canada, Joseph Howe. It was his courage in facing the executive branch of government in Nova Scotia that led the executive branch for the first time in Canada to be fully responsible to the elected members of the House in 1848.
As Howe stated: "This achievement came without a blow struck or a pane of glass broken". Many Nova Scotians already celebrate his achievement each year. All Canadians should take pride in his critical contributions".
In fact, thousands of Canadians have played a role in the process which led to the establishment of responsible government. They came from all regions of Canada and they contributed in various ways to the establishment of a more genuine democracy.
Real responsible government was not achieved merely by adopting a model in which the executive branch is accountable to the legislative branch. Women did not have the right to vote in Canada until relatively recently. The efforts of Nellie McClung and others resulted in Manitoba being the first province which gave the franchise to women in 1916. Only on May 24 1918 did all the women in Canada acquire the right to vote in a federal election.
Thérèse Casgrain played a major role in the fight to obtain for women the right to vote in provincial elections in Quebec, which was granted to them only in 1940.
If we want to celebrate the establishment of democracy and responsible government, we must also recognize the contribution of great Canadians like Nellie McClung and Thérèse Casgrain.
Our First Nations people were denied the right to participate until much more recently. For example, status Indians were not granted the right to vote in federal elections until 1960. I suggest that if we were to celebrate responsible government we should celebrate the breadth of contributions by the many Canadians who made true responsible government possible.
My second point is that I do not believe that Canada should declare a new national holiday at this time. There are a number of reasons for my position.
First, the federal government only has about 10 per cent of the Canadian workforce under its legislative control. Thus the creation of a national holiday would only directly affect the employees of the civil service, the banks and the crown corporations. I ask hon. members if most Canadians would not be annoyed rather than celebratory if they had to work while our banks, government offices and post offices were closed.