Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the Reform Party to speak against this motion on Quebec's right to self-determination. I want to thank the hon. member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve for presenting this motion and thus recognizing the right of this federal Parliament to debate and judge this question.
In speaking against this, it is the position of the Reform Party that Quebec has no inherent right under international law to self-determination because it is neither a colony nor an occupied country, and that the Quebecois are probably not a people within the meaning of international law. For this I cite almost exclusively the work of the Bélanger-Campeau commission on the sovereignty of Quebec. The strongest argument in support of the view that Quebec is neither a colony nor an occupied country is found at pages 382 to 383 of its report:
"According to those who support Quebec's accession to sovereignty, the right to self-determination constitutes the basis of the alleged right of the Quebec people to form a distinct state, but pursuing the same reasoning, many of their opponents and the spokespersons for most aboriginal peoples take the position that:
If Quebec can opt out of Canada then obviously sections of Quebec that preferred to remain part of Canada could opt out of Quebec.
This analysis is based on a postulate we believe to be erroneous, according to which the right to self-determination implies the right to independence".
The report then suggests on pages 419 to 422 that the principle of self-determination implies the right of people to participate in shaping their political, economic, social and cultural future, and that due to the principles of respecting the territorial integrity of states, self-determination could result in independence only in the rarest circumstances.
The report suggests the principle really only applies to non-autonomous or colonized people who have been recognized as such by the United Nations. This is clearly not the case in Quebec.
And this quote again from page 422: "On the evidence, that is not the situation of Quebecers nor that of the various minorities within Quebec's territory".
For non-colonial peoples, self-determination has "at least for now stopped being a principle of exclusion and became one of inclusion; the right to participate. The right now entitles peoples in all states to free, fair and and open participation in the democratic process of governance freely chosen by each state". The report goes on at page 425 to endorse this position.
Another quote: "One cannot reasonably maintain that Quebecers are colonial people nor that they are deprived of the right to their own existence within the Canadian federation or exercise their democratic rights. Consequently, the Quebec people have no legal basis for invoking the right to self-determination to justify a future accession to independence".
The conclusion of the report is clearly stated:
"From the legal point of view, a possible accession to sovereignty by Quebec cannot be based on the principle of the equal rights of peoples and their right to self-determination, which implies the right to independence only in the case of colonial peoples or of those whose territory is occupied by a foreign power".
The second point is that the Quebecois are not a people within the meaning of international law. Even the Bélanger-Campeau commission is not sure whether the Quebecois constitute a people.
At page 418 the commission recognizes that the Quebecois can either be French speaking or English speaking. At page 425 the commission states:
"Some authors have tried, with some success, to establish the existence of a Quebec or, alternatively, French Canadian people".
Although the commission is not explicit, undoubtedly its members were aware that for the purposes of international law, a nation is defined in Black's Law Dictionary as follows:
A people, or aggregation of men, existing the form of an organized jural society, usually inhabiting a distinct portion of the earth, speaking the same language, using the same customs, possessing historic continuity, and distinguished from
other like groups by their racial origin and characteristics, and generally, but not necessarily, living under the same government and sovereignty.
Obviously given the ethnic and sociocultural make-up of modern Quebec society, only the pûre laine Quebecois could arguably be considered a people. While they constitute a majority of the Quebec population, they do not constitute a majority in each region of Quebec. This produces a curious result, that if the Quebecois pûre laine are a people and if they have a right to secede, they could not claim the right to territorial integrity. Therefore Quebec separatists cannot have this both ways.
If the strict definition of the word people is applied, only the aboriginal people in the north would likely qualify. This is clearly not in the interest of sovereignists and quite probably the reason why the Bélanger-Campeau commission did not explore the point further.
While Quebec does not have the right to self-determination, this does not mean that whatever Quebecers decide in a referendum is unimportant from a democratic standpoint. We in the Reform Party have said it is very important. However, the Government of Quebec would also have to admit to the importance of a large number of Quebecers opting for federalism. So far it continues to be a majority. Even if a minority opted for Canada this would also constitute an important democratic fact which the Government of Quebec would have to take into account.
From the standpoint of the Reform Party and I believe from the standpoint of the majority of Parliament, the motion is not based on international law or fact. Quebec does not have the right of self-determination other than by negotiating its future in Canada and with the rest of Canada.