Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the distinct society motion presented by the Prime Minister and his government with respect to the province of Quebec.
The reason we are debating this motion late tonight is because of the Prime Minister's last minute Hail Mary promise to Quebecers during the dying moments of the referendum campaign. With this motion, combined with a constitutional veto and a transfer of manpower training to Quebec, the Prime Minister feels that he has now made the best and most significant contribution to national unity. We are all going to live happily ever after.
I am afraid I cannot agree with his logic, his proposals and the timing of them. He has resurrected the constitutional ghosts of Christmas past and will witness the same results as was had with Meech and Charlottetown: failure.
First, in analysing the components of the distinct society motion I have to ask the question: Does the Prime Minister truly feel this really satisfies Quebecers' desires, hopes and needs? The Prime Minister is a Quebecer himself. If anybody should know what Quebecers want, it is he.
However, during the referendum campaign he misread, he misunderstood and he misrepresented to the rest of Canada what should be done. He said: "Thank you very much for staying quiet. Don't worry, they won't leave. Just don't say anything to upset them and everything will be fine". He almost blew it and he knew it.
He got the minister of fisheries, Captain Tobin, to use his turbot popularity and throw together a unity rally in Montreal asking everybody from sea to sea to get to Montreal. He then turned around and made promises to the separatists, promises to the sovereignists, promises to the nationalists, promises to the federalists. Aside from the fact that keeping promises is not one of the Prime Minister's strong points-he promised to renegotiate NAFTA, but did not; he promised to eliminate the GST, but has not; he promised to eliminate patronage appointments, but will not; he promised free votes, which maybe is something he is not allowed to deliver on-now we have him promising to recognize Quebec as a distinct society in Canada.
As a Quebecer he should know what Quebecers want when they say distinct society. He knows what they want is for the rest of Canada to recognize Quebec as one of two founding nations. He knows that Quebecers who want distinct society do not feel there is any cost in acknowledging the fact that they are one of two founding nations. They want a distinct society clause that will protect their rights over language, culture and civil law while keeping the province French.
I personally do not disagree with some of these aspirations. What I do worry about are the consequences if the definition of distinct society is not spelled out. If distinct society means that Quebecers are different because of their language, culture and civil law, I recognize that. That means they are unique and distinct from other provinces and people, just as other provinces and people are unique and distinct from them.
However, if Quebecers want this distinct society clause to mean that not only are they different but they also get special legislative powers above and beyond the rest of Canada, then I am against that. I am sorry but the answer is no to one province getting special treatment over another.
While Reformers can agree to recognizing differences, we cannot agree to giving Quebecers some form of special status over and above other Canadians. That is fundamentally unacceptable and I truly feel that most Quebecers understand that point.
All Quebecers want is something that gives them satisfaction that they will not be tromped on, stamped on, kicked on as is currently being done by the Minister of Human Resources Development with his new employment insurance program.
The frustration in Quebec is based on the fact that we have too much federal interference in matters of provincial jurisdiction. Quebecers want the federal government to get out of their lives in a lot of areas. That is where the solution to national unity lies. Give the powers to the provinces that they want and need, regulated by the federal government and let us make government the right size doing the right thing. Let us have a smaller and more open government than what we have.
Simply put, all provinces want control over their purse strings on programs closest to the people, delivered at a lesser cost than is currently the case with the bureaucratic nightmare in Ottawa.
I am not against the distinct society motion which recognizes Quebec as a distinct society within Canada, provided it is fully defined and does not make them the biggest kid in the playground. That is why I would ask the Prime Minister and the government to support Reform amendments to this distinct society motion so that he can get more support from all across Canada, including from those people in Quebec who look on this motion very suspiciously. It would give the people of Quebec and the rest of Canada what they want: recognition with powers, but not special status.
I ask the government to support our amendments because what we are trying to do is please the majority of Quebecers, not the minority. If we keep trying to come up with programs and with definitions to please the separatists it will never work. It has not worked for 25 years and it will not work for the next 25 years. The separatists act like spoiled children, not all Quebecers, just the separatists.
Most Quebecers want what is in their best interests and that is no different than myself as a distinct and different person from the province of Alberta. I want the best for my province just as people in Quebec want the best for their province.
Let us design a motion that appeals to the majority of Quebecers, that appeals to the majority of Canadians. That is how we can build on national unity. For the sake of national unity I ask the Prime Minister to please consider the input and information that has been coming to him through the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs on the constitutional veto. I hope the government listens. There has been some valuable input there.
We can debate sharing the federal government veto with four regions or five regions. That is not really the issue. I believe there are five regions because British Columbia is more like the Atlantic provinces than it is like the prairies.
That is not the point. The point is that this veto should be for the people of Canada and not their legislative assemblies. We already have the seven provinces out of ten representing 50 per cent within the constitutional amendment clause. The separatist Parti Quebecois will now have veto power over changes to the Canadian Constitution. This is ridiculous. The veto should be given to the people of Quebec and not to the politicians.
We should be and I think we are a country of 10 equal provinces committed to similar goals and objectives, each with the same rights, privileges and powers. If we want to change those rights, privileges and powers, it should be one one way or another through a national referendum from the bottom up, not necessarily by elected officials from the top down.
We have to look at the situation very seriously. We have to conclude that a lot of people in Canada want change, not just the province of Quebec or the people who had the referendum. People across the country want change for the good. They do not want change to justify the status quo.
We have to look at issues like changes to the Constitution or granting one province recognition in a way that the rest of the country worries might give it special powers. We have to address those issue. What is wrong with addressing them? We all have to work together to bring the country together from sea to sea to sea.
We have to make amendments to the Constitution to give it the ability to live and the ability to be changed. It should be difficult. It should not be easy to change the Constitution once we define the powers, the levels of responsibility and the way we will work together as 10 provinces. We should think about how we can make changes to it. We cannot give a veto to every province, or there will never be change. We cannot put that Constitution in a vault, let it die and gather dust. We have to give it life. It has to be a breathing document. It has to be tough to make change but we have to allow change to happen.
We have to look at different provinces and different regions and try to recognize their specific needs and wants. There is no reason we cannot accommodate them. There is no reason we cannot come up with a mechanism to give Quebec what it wants and recognize it as a distinct society. It is different. It is unique. It has made a valuable contribution to the building and the nurturing of this great country called Canada.
If that means that Quebec should also get special powers over and above being recognized as distinct, that is not right and we have to tell Quebecers that. The separatists really want this. It is not all Quebecers. Those who want it want to protect their French language. We should be able to help them protect their French language and their French culture.
They in turn should protect minority rights within their province, the English and any other immigrant, and how they can interface with their provincial problems. They do that. What I am saying is that we have ways and means of producing a collective agreement if we just identify the right problem.
This is a panic effort by the Prime Minister and the government to fulfil a promise that he made in the dying moments of a game that he thought he would lose. The game is called unity and he was afraid he would lose the country. He did not want to go down in history as the Prime Minister who lost the country after having told all of us: "I am from that region. Don't worry. They won't vote to go", and they almost did.
It is sad. Now that it is all over they almost look at us and ask: "What did the Reform Party do?" We kept telling them all along to tell Quebecers the consequences of separation, the price of separation. They did not do it then. We will do it now and never in the future will any province look at itself and say it will separate and everything will be perfect. We will tell them the cost of separation.