Mr. Speaker, I deem it an opportunity to speak to Bill C-110 which gives a regional veto and to the amendment which changes the number of divisions from four to five.
The question I ask today in rising to speak on report stage of Bill C-110 is why we are here in this situation. Why are we here at this time? What has led us to this discussion?
If we look back to the beginning of this parliamentary session in October 1993 and the spring of 1994 we had certain expectations. I had an expectation of the Liberal government. For nine years it sat in opposition. The rules are clearly set out in Beauchesne's. Any group that sits in the place of official opposition is there to prepare to take over government and to be ready to take on the responsibility.
I asked a question early in this session that I ask again today. Was that Liberal opposition ready to be the Government of Canada? Clearly it was not, for in the first session of the spring of 1994 the government did not move on its fiscal policy. There was no plan to reduce the deficit of the country. There were complaints about what the Conservatives did previously but nothing in terms of a plan to deal with the deficit of the country and on a long term basis to bring the deficit of the country to zero and balance the budget. That was it.
In other areas, for example social policy, pension issues and justice issues, there was a whole string of committee reports, sittings and studies done. The House leader for the Liberal Party mentioned over and over again that he had to study something. It became an item of humour in the current House, in the 35th session, that things were being studied and no decisions were being made. That is what happened and things have been allowed to drift because of it.
It has been a do nothing time since 1994. A huge social policy review has now come forward and produced nothing. There is still a white paper on pension reform that is 20 months overdue. That is the setting in which the discussion on Bill C-110 is placed.
The government made it up as it went along. It has resulted in ill conceived policies that do not work, for example the policies of the human resources minister on employment insurance. The question is: Will it really get anyone back to employment? We question that.
They are hollow, symbolic policies that do not attack the real problems which have been presented to us. The best example of that in this current House is the justice minister's gun control bill which is supposed to stop crime when a gun is registered. As we have said over and over again, that is the most foolish thing we have ever heard.
If we look at the current piece of legislation in that context, we again find that even the Prime Minister's referendum strategy that occurred before October 30, 1995 was a fly by the seat of your pants stewardship. There was no plan for any renewed federalism, only more of the status quo. There was no effort to dispel the separatist myth of a painless divorce, only silence. There was no concept of a referendum strategy, only a hope that if nobody said anything it would turn out all right. We know that the vote was very close. It almost cost us the country of Canada because of the Liberal government being ill prepared and only knee jerk reacting to every one of its responsibilities.
We look at this legislation and the Prime Minister has done it again. Having made a desperate promise in the last week of the campaign that Daniel Johnson would not let him forget, the Prime Minister and three or four of his advisers huddled on the third floor of centre block and came to the conclusion of providing a unity package. They put that proposal before us to study.
The unity package is going to do more to divide Canada than to bring it together. Looking at it within Quebec, what has it done within Quebec? Has it brought Quebec into Canada? No, it has not. The potential new premier of Quebec has said in this House regarding the proposal: Is this all that Canada has to offer?
The federalist cupboards are bare. It has not satisfied that seemingly unquenchable thirst in Quebec at all. It has caused more division. Other Canadians are asking: "Why do you keep giving it things when you are not treating the rest of Canada in an equal way?"
Is this package any better than the Meech Lake or Charlottetown proposals? Many of us have called it Charlottetown light because it promises less to Quebec. As such, how is it ever going to do more for the federalist cause in Quebec?
Outside of Quebec what is it doing? Outside of Quebec we feel this legislation and the distinct society resolution will only divide Canadians, rather than unite them. For example, with this regional veto proposal, even after the government amendments which are being proposed here to change the divisions from four to five, British Columbia and Alberta are still opposing the bill. There must be something drastically wrong when the regions do not accept it, even after they have had a little more say in the outcome of the veto. Through its own actions, the Liberal government is creating what we think are first and second class provinces. This is more of the old style traditional politics of tired old federalists.
Over the course of a week or two the Prime Minister and his cronies cooked up a Quebec package. Now they are trying to shove it down the throats of not only Parliament, but of all Canadians. We
must remember that we each stand in our place as representatives of all Canadians.
We have to recognize that the provinces were not consulted. The people were not consulted. Not even all the members of the Liberal caucus were consulted in terms of the process in reaching a final conclusion or proposals that were presented to the House of Commons.
As my final point, I raise the matter that there has been some confusion over Reform's own proposal on constitutional ratification. Some people have misunderstood the regional aspect of it and have asked about the difference between the government's proposal and Reform's proposal. The difference is that we believe there should not-