Mr. Speaker, when I read Bill C-64 for the first time I could not help but wonder if George Orwell might have had something to do with its drafting. Most people have read the book Animal Farm and would remember the pig who made the famous statement so often quoted: ``All animals are equal but some are more equal than others''.
That is the sort of thing the bill will create in Canada. The bill is not about equality. It is not about putting people on an equal footing. It is quite the contrary. It is about creating divisions among us. It is about creating different classifications of Canadians. That is wrong.
We have long had a public policy of hiring and promoting by merit. It is also generally the policy in private industry. A speaker earlier said if we do not hire by merit we will very quickly go broke. When we hire by merit and if the meritorious person happens to be within one of the designated groups in the legislation, obviously the person should and would get the job.
Rather than being about the equality of persons the legislation is about the Liberal propensity for regulating, controlling, creating bureaucracy and in general getting in people's faces. Why do we not leave people alone? Canada is working very well. Canadians are basically good people, people of goodwill. We are friends. We have a multiracial society. It is working. Why do we have to poke our finger in a wound that the government will create by itself? It is nonsense.
I worked overseas both in a private capacity and for several years with the United Nations on a large number of highly motivated, highly skilled technical teams. They were multiracial. They were not multiracial because somebody wanted them to be. They were multiracial because applicants had been selected from all over the world for these jobs and they took the best. We were the best and we were proud of it. If they had been created by affirmative action programs I would not have had anything to do with those groups. I would have slunk away and hid.
This will happen in Canadian society if affirmative action is enforced. We will see very good, capable people belonging to minority groups that have jobs either in private industry or in government but feel self-conscious, demeaned and patronized. There will always be a question hanging over their heads about whether they got their jobs because of qualifications and ability or a bit of tokenism. Were they hired because of colour, race, language, gender, or whatever? Government has no place getting involved in telling people who they can or should not hire. It is offensive. It is wrong.
I was probably campaigning for equality of races before most members of the House were born. I recall when I was a young teenager collecting the occasional lump because of my curious attitude on the matter. I find it terribly offensive that some members opposite who spoke earlier had a self-righteous and smug attitude toward me and my fellow party members. They inferred that because we opposed their racist legislation we were racists. They are turning sociology on its head.