Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak today in the debate on the Throne speech.
The speech from the throne was delivered on February 27, 1996, approximately two years and four months into the government's mandate. It was an opportunity for the government to confirm its priorities, namely jobs and growth, and to continue on that agenda. At that point over half a million net jobs had been created. Now we are at over 620,000 net jobs created.
The speech from the throne went on to deal with three priority themes: the jobs and growth agenda, the security for Canadians, and the modernization of the federation to ensure national unity. The area where I would like to concentrate my remarks is national unity.
When we speak of national unity, invariably we end up speaking of the Quebec situation. Canadians are aware that national unity is a much broader question than simply the wants and desires of the province of Quebec.
We end up concentrating a lot of our effort and time dealing with the Quebec question because the separatist governments in that province have twice called referendums under provincial legislation dealing with the question of the separation of Quebec from the Canadian federation.
Going back prior to the speech from the throne and the time just before the last referendum, Canadians will recall that in the week before the referendum the Prime Minister became very active in the campaign.
Until then the Prime Minister had been a member of the no committee, constituted under the Quebec legislation. There were other members of the committee, federal ministers, the leader of the federal Conservative Party, the leader of the Liberal opposition in Quebec, et cetera.
The strategy that was arrived at was that the Prime Minister would make certain timely interventions in the campaign. As the campaign wore on it became evident from the polling that there was difficulty, that the result was going to be much closer than polls indicated earlier.
The Prime Minister became much more involved. He made certain commitments to the people of Quebec dealing mainly with the recognition of Quebec's distinctness, the question of regional vetoes and the issue of job training. It had been a traditional Quebec demand that job training be turned over to the provinces so that they would have more jurisdiction in that field. The Prime Minister made those commitments.
In December 1995 the House of Commons passed the motion on distinct society, passed the bill dealing with regional vetoes and in the course of its employment insurance reforms it has been dealing with the job training issue.
As far as the federal government and the Prime Minister's being able to honour those commitments without the participation of the provinces, they have done so.
The government has also indicated and continues to indicate its willingness to entrench the recognition of Quebec's differences in the Constitution as well as the regional vetoes. Of course, that cannot be done unilaterally by the federal government and requires the participation of the provinces in accordance with the amending formula of the Constitution which requires seven provinces representing at least 50 per cent of the population.
The speech from the throne sets out what the government's plan on national unity is. Basically it is a plan of reconciliation, to reconcile all of the concerns of all of the provinces and all of the regions of Canada and to modernize the federation to take those concerns into account.
Much progress has been made with respect to the modernization of the federation. At the first ministers conference in June, steps were initiated and negotiations were undertaken. At the premiers conference in August, there was a resolution passed and agreement arrived at by the premiers that they would work with the federal government in its efforts to try to make arrangements so that the jurisdictions between the provinces and the federal government could be worked out to the satisfaction of all parties.
The federal government has acknowledged that there are certain areas where definitely there should be more provincial involvement. I have made reference already to the job training areas. Another area is the administration of social housing. There are also the forestry and mining sectors. Measures have been taken in the Fisheries Act to allow for the delegation to the interested provinces of responsibilities for management of freshwater fisheries habitats.
Later this month there will be more meetings in the field of the environment. The provincial ministers of the environment will be meeting with the federal Minister of the Environment to try to negotiate the terms of subagreements on environmental assessment to eliminate duplication and the mixed jurisdictions in those areas.
As well, the Minister of Human Resources Development and the Minister of Health are negotiating with their provincial colleagues. They are trying to come to arrangements where perhaps the provinces would have more say in certain areas of jurisdiction and maybe certain other areas of jurisdiction would be turned over to the federal government or their role would be heightened in the appropriate cases.
On the question of future referendums the speech from the throne also indicated the following: "As long as the prospect of another Quebec referendum exists, the government will exercise its responsibility to ensure that the debate is conducted with all the facts on the table, that the rules of the process are fair, that the consequences are clear and that Canadians, no matter where they live, will have their say in the future of their country".
That commitment is in the speech from the throne. The government has acted upon it with the intervention in the Bertrand case when the Quebec provincial government was saying that the rule of law had nothing to do with the right to self-determination, and also with the reference to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Inevitably, as I indicated at the beginning of my speech, we end up speaking of Quebec when we speak about national unity, even though many of the other provinces share many of the same concerns that Quebec has with the operation of the federation and the need for its modernization.
Canada today is not the same place it was in 1867. Much has changed and obviously there is a need to modernize the workings of the various levels of government. We come back to the Prime Minister's commitment on the question of recognizing Quebec's distinctiveness.
In today's debate I heard one of the members from the Reform Party mention Charlottetown and that the concept of a distinct society was rejected when Charlottetown was rejected and that the people had their say. There were so many things in the Charlottetown accord. No one can say with any degree of certainty which of the components of the accord people were voting against when they voted no. If they were voting yes, they had to agree with every component. It was a flawed process and I think we have learned our lesson.
The Prime Minister has indicated on several occasions in this House that his strategy is to deal with these issues separately one at a time so we will know exactly what the acceptance of a particular concept is. It is not correct to say that the people of Canada rejected the distinct society because it was one of the components of the Charlottetown accord.
The polls tell us that 60 to 65 per cent of Quebecers feel an attachment toward Canada and want to see the difficulties that are being expressed by many of the provinces and not just Quebec resolved within the Canadian context. We need to determine why then did we have a referendum result with 49 per cent voting yes? Was the question reasonable and fair? Did the people understand it precisely?
I think it was more than that. There has to be some other explanation as to why, if only 30 to 35 per cent of people are committed to separating, as high as 49 per cent would vote yes. We need to look at that and determine the reason for that and for those of us who want to see the country stay together, what we can do to deal with that.
That is where we come back to the question of the recognition of Quebec, its difference by reason of its French language, its French culture and its French institutions. Those are the facts. Quebec is the only province in Canada that has a predominantly French speaking population, a predominantly French culture. It has le droit civil. It is one of two jurisdictions in North America that has le droit civil legal system as opposed to the common law system. There is an indisputable difference I would submit and we need to deal with that. A recognition of that difference needs to be entrenched in the Constitution.
People may have noticed that I am not using the term distinct society. When that concept is discussed there is a fear in the provinces other than Quebec that it means there is going to be some advantage, right, power or privilege given to Quebec that the other provinces will not enjoy. That certainly is not what is being proposed by this government. This government is simply proposing a recognition of Quebec's difference by reason of its French language, culture and institutions without granting to it any further rights, powers or privileges.
That begs the question: Of what value is it? Is it simply symbolic? It is not going to fill the bill. It is not going to address the concerns of the Quebec people who are looking for some reason to remain in Canada. I submit it is more than symbolic because it would entrench in the Constitution the existing constitutional convention.
Mr. Justice Brian Dickson, the retired chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, recently published an article in the Globe and Mail . It indicated that presently the Supreme Court of Canada in interpreting grey areas of the Constitution takes into account Quebec's difference by reason of its French language, culture and institutions.
We would be guaranteeing what is existing now. On the one hand we would have something substantial which Quebecers could feel secure about. On the other hand we would not be granting any rights, powers or privileges that the other provinces do not now enjoy. In other words, there would be no preference given.
There is certainly room for that type of discussion, not by our friends in the Bloc Quebecois and members of the PQ government in Quebec because they want a separate country. Offering them any form of guarantee or recognition in the way the Constitution is interpreted today will not be of any benefit to them because it will not lead to separation.
We have to address the other 60 to 65 per cent of Quebecers who are looking for that. It is also a way for Canadians outside Quebec to express to their fellow Canadians in Quebec that they are prepared to assist in the preservation of the French language, culture and institutions which are prevalent in Quebec. It is a way to support them and to alleviate their insecurity.
The Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs has said that if Quebec is the only predominantly French speaking province or jurisdiction in Canada and in North America, it creates a natural insecurity and a legitimate concern with respect to the preservation of the French language, culture and institutions. If we Canadians outside Quebec can show that we are prepared to support them in that preservation, it would have an influence on their desire to remain a part of this country.
As part of my duties for the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs I have travelled to different regions of Canada. I was in three of the four maritime provinces this past summer. I have been to British Columbia and Alberta. I have spoken with people who have formed Canadian unity groups, Canadian citizens who are concerned about Canadian unity. They have expressed frustration at not being able to do anything about the preservation of unity in Canada. They have come together in an effort to become involved in the process.
When I speak to them in the terms I have just outlined, I get very little opposition to the concept of recognizing Quebec's differences by reason of its French language, culture and institutions when it is presented to them in a way that gives them some assurance that it will not lead to any additional rights, powers or privileges. Once the term distinct society is put into the equation however, then there is all of the baggage that comes from the constitutional wrangling of the previous government with the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords.
There is a way to develop that support and to act on it. The government is on the right track. The Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs has spoken to most of his provincial counterparts. In certain provinces he gets a warmer reception than in others. However, we must continue to work on it.