Madam Speaker, to understand what we are doing, we are simply voting on a resolution to set up a joint committee of this House and the Senate to further study this issue.
I thank my colleague from St. John's East for sharing his 20 minutes with me. Under the strange rules of procedure, we know we are not going to discuss a lot in our 10 minutes but we do want to make our point. I assure you we will be taking a very active role in committee.
As the leader of the opposition has suggested, we would like to see the committee travel to Newfoundland to take presentations and to listen to the people most directly involved. I know we have a December 5 deadline and it does not provide very much time. The issue is crucial and important to many people in Newfoundland and I think we should have the courtesy of allowing the joint committee of the House of Commons and Senate to visit Newfoundland.
In 10 minutes it is pretty hard to discuss an issue that takes into account minority rights, majority rights, the responsibility of government to govern as it sees fit and to take into account religious rights and freedoms which may or may not be impinged on by this whole process. One also has to take into account a group of people I do not often hear very much said about and that is the students of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The issue debated first by the government of Premier Wells and later by the government of Premier Tobin is on who controls what, who has the power and who has the authority. These matters have become all-encompassing for the individuals involved, both on the church side of the argument and on the government side. In many cases the persons who are lost are the tens of thousands of students in Newfoundland schools. They are the ones that first and foremost must be considered.
I agree with my colleague from St. John's East on certain of the points that have been made. I do not believe the referendum process was done fairly. It was not done the way it should have been done. The referendum was held quickly and in the middle of the summer. It was held in great haste because the public opinion polls of Mr. Tobin showed that this reform could be rushed through to get it over and done with. I do not think that was fair to the churches, to the parents or to many of the other participants in the program.
The result did get the objective that the government wanted at the time. It did get a reform vote that said 73% of those who voted were in favour of reform. They wanted the system changed. A lot of people did not vote. In our democratic system we really have to discount those because, as we often say, if you do not vote you really do not have a say. We cannot come back here and say in total only 54% of the people voted. This House of Commons could never be filled if those were the rules. No one would ever be elected. It is not just who voted, it is how they voted. We have to take that into account.
The referendum passed. However, one thing the referendum showed loud and clear was that a lot of people wanted change. They wanted reform. The other side of the coin was that Newfoundland, under the Liberals in 1989 of Premier Wells and later Premier Tobin had gone through very significant cost cutting measures in the Newfoundland education system.
People are very sceptical of a government that says “Give me this great new power so I can reform the system” when it spent nine years gutting the system, laying off teachers, closing down schools and raising the pupil-teacher ratio. It did not support the Newfoundland Teachers Association requirement for teacher retraining or for students to have access to decent equipment, which you now need in schools.
Newfoundland has many schools. My district has 800 students and 30 computers. That did not happen overnight. These 800 students in the high school system are expected to compete in this new information age. It simply will not happen. It is substandard.
Part of this might be the responsibility of the churches or their bureaucratic system and the waste that went on in the denomination educational system. The fact is they did not co-operate nearly as much as they could have or should have. We do have an integrated system in Newfoundland where Anglican, United and some other Protestant faiths work together. They have an excellent system of education. When that was established back in the 60s and 70s a lot of people thought an integrated system was going to be terrible for Anglican and United students. It did not happen that way. The teachers are still Christian, the community is still Christian and the teaching is done in a slightly different way.
The Government of Newfoundland deserves a significant amount of blame for the confusion. It did not say in one simple way what it wanted to reform toward. All it has done is find a way to lay off some teachers, balance the books, cut the deficit. But the government has not done what it wanted to do for education which was to reform it. The Newfoundland system is in significant need of help.
Everyone in the House knows what the Newfoundland economy is like. We have the highest unemployment rate and the lowest per capita income. Newfoundland is always at the wrong end of every scale. Education, a lot of us believe, is probably the only way matters can be resolved. It will not be resolved by putting more money into income supporting programs like TAGS in the long haul. We will not solve that problem by simply allowing Newfoundlanders to out migrate and become a problem in Calgary or in Toronto or somewhere else. We will not help Newfoundland society unless we give the Newfoundland students the tools to contribute and compete within Newfoundland.
That is really what the whole reform business is all about. It is about how we get a better school system. I have come to the conclusion, having looked at the referendum results of 73%, that the majority of Newfoundlanders are willing, albeit with some significant question marks attached, to give the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador the responsibility to deliver and implement a new education system.
For the benefit of all Newfoundlanders, it has to work. If it does not work, then an awful lot of Newfoundlanders are going to be very seriously handicapped in the future by not being able to earn a decent living, not having the educational tools to do it.
With no side voting 27%, it is a grave concern. Many of them are in my riding. Many of them have previous concerns about the trust they can place in any government, that is, the government in Newfoundland or the government here in Ottawa.
In my case, I am willing, as I think most Newfoundlanders are now ready to give them the benefit of the doubt, that a new system has to be implemented in Newfoundland, but it has to be a new system that is significantly reformed.
If anybody is going to be on the hook after the amendment and the resolution are passed by the House of Commons and the Senate, it will be the Government of Newfoundland and Premier Brian Tobin. If a better system cannot be delivered, if a higher percentage of people do not finish high school, if the university participation rate is not higher, if the unemployment rate is still high after the education system is reformed, it will be a terrible shame to all those persons involved, in particular the Newfoundland government.
I just hope there is a willingness in the Government of Newfoundland to forget the idea of deficit reduction at all cost. That deficit reduction means our schools are going to be much less better served. If it is just going to be deficit reduction, laying off more teachers, then this reformed school system in Newfoundland, I assure all the people in this House of Commons, will not serve our people any better.
It is important for everyone in the House of Commons to realize that every Newfoundlander wants to contribute to Canada. However, they cannot contribute unless they have the tools so to do. One of those fundamental tools in our modern society has to be an excellent education system.
As a former teacher, I am convinced that we can have a better education system. It is most unfortunate that we have to come this route to get it. One advantage is that we are here, in a democracy and basically we have a chance—as the member for St. John's East and I disagree on this issue—to come here to express our ideas, our values and our viewpoints. We will make the decisions and live with them as best we can. At least we can do it that way.
I can only say again that I am voting in favour of the resolution because I think it will give a better school system to the students of Newfoundland and Labrador.