Madam Speaker, I want to begin today by reading to you from the column by William Johnson which appeared in the Montreal Gazette last week. In it he wrote:
Removing constitutional rights from a minority is a serious undertaking. Ottawa showed its contempt last year by trying to ram through Parliament the amendment to Newfoundland's Terms of Union as it affected religious control of the school boards. The result was a constitutional mess, and Parliament will have to deal again with the issue of Newfoundland's schools.
Well here we are again for a second time in as many years dealing with the issue. Members of the House of Commons did not travel. They did not even hold hearings. The government rushed it to judgment and the result was, as Mr. Johnson noted, a constitutional mess.
I am new here and I would certainly not want to make snap judgments. I do not wish to insinuate that the Liberals are heartless and that they are acting with no regard for others. I do not wish to insinuate that the Liberals are not doing a good job in keeping an eye on the provincial authorities and allowing them to do their jobs as they must. And I particularly do not wish to insinuate that the Liberals have mishandled the Constitution in a cavalier manner. That would be to make judgments and that is not my purpose.
What I do know is that the other place did hold hearings. Members of the other place travelled to St. John's. The Senate wrote an outstanding report. The chair was Senator Sharon Carstairs.
This government called a snap vote late one afternoon to dismiss the work and the will of another house of Parliament. In fact I am told that voices from every part of the Chamber were yelling “dispense, dispense” when the Speaker was informing this House of the message from the other place. This House did not take the time to listen, to consider and today this is the result. It is back before us again.
If we are going to do something, we should do it well. If we are going to amend our Constitution, we should do it right. If we are going to remove minority rights, we had better be certain that the affected parties are heard from. It is their right and our duty.
I want to take the time now to speak to the amendment put forward by the Reform Party. I am currently sitting on the special joint committee to amend the Constitution with regard to Quebec schools. The players are different but the same important debate remains: the protection of minority rights.
I spent one week on this committee but I have to tell this House and the Reform members who sit on this committee with me that I value the role the senators have played so far. The other place does more than provide sober second thought. The other place provides expertise. Whether it is the Constitution, human rights or education itself, the other place shares with a committee experience that is far reaching.
What we are speaking of is amending Canada's Constitution. This is serious business. Reform should understand how serious this is and should support the other place's role.
On March 3, 1896 Sir Wilfrid Laurier made what some consider his best speech. He spoke in defence of minority rights in Manitoba. At second reading of Bill 58, the Remedial Act, Wilfrid Laurier, who was not yet prime minister, asked, “Is the government impelled by the desire of doing justice to the minority?” He continued, “In a community with a free government in a free country like this, upon any question involving different conceptions of what is right or wrong, different standards of what is just or unjust, it is the part of statesmanship not to force the view of any matter but to endeavour to bring them all to a uniform standard and a uniform conception of what is right”.
None in this House approach Sir Wilfrid Laurier's eloquence and leadership, but today's Prime Minister need not be eloquent. He need only ask himself whether an amendment to term 17 is necessary to achieve the provincial government's stated intention of reforming the educational system.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier knew so long ago that rights are aimed at limiting and domesticating state power in attenuating its outcome. Does this Prime Minister understand what Laurier understood?
In contrast to the Unitarian point of view in which the ends justify the means, human rights offer an ethical approach setting constraining limits on authority. As expressed in a letter dated May 27, 1996 from Archbishop Francis J. Spence, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, to the Prime Minister, the primary responsibility of the Government of Canada is not the reform in Newfoundland's education system, which all parties agree is necessary, but the protection of minority rights under our Constitution from the arbitrary action of the majority.
The Constitution and the charter can either be worthless pieces of paper or very real and binding instruments of guidance. A true standard. Whether these documents will be one or the other does not depend on governments alone. It is up to all of us to determine how seriously these guidelines will be taken, how they will be implemented and made real.
It is necessary to recall these documents that guide Canadian society and try with new energy to ensure that the government acts according to their spirit. Governments must accept the indivisibility of human rights and respect constitutionally entrenched minority rights.
The Newfoundland terms of union are enshrined in the Canadian Constitution. Premier Tobin appears to no longer respect those terms. The Prime Minister appears to accede to a historical approach to public policy making. Together they appear disrespectful of the rule of law and delicate balance that must accompany a state's intrusion into a matter expressly outside its jurisdiction.
Has the will of the popular majority been a safe haven for safeguarding the rights of the minority? No it has not. Nor indeed has the majority's will always been when one considers the history books and the many clashes between minority and majority.
This is precisely why Reform Party's policy of blind adherence to government by referendum is seldom in the true public interest and hardly ever in the interests of legitimate minority interests. There are some issues that legitimately require majority action and others which lie outside the proper arena of majority determination.
Majority rule implies a great deal about civil rights, such as free speech, free assembly and free association. I might add that the word majority means major part, and so connotes the presence of other parts in one as several minorities.
Some would say that minorities constitute the margins of society. Others would say that minorities are the practical manifestations of a society's ability to accommodate and provide safe alternatives.
Rather than build on Canada's proud heritage and respect for minority education rights by extending rights, perhaps to the francophone minority in Newfoundland, Premier Tobin and the Prime Minister have actively pursued a diminution of minority safeguards.
His Eminence G. Emmett Cardinal Carter in writing to the Prime Minister on May 21, 1996 said: “I am disappointed, like many Canadians, because I took you at your word and the Liberal Party is a party of principle and a champion of minority rights”.
I take no pleasure in drawing to the attention of the House the following curious examples of political leadership. On March 12, 1993 just before an election, the then premier of Newfoundland made a statement in the House of Assembly: “In response to the church leaders' concerns that implementing certain recommendations of the royal commission report would jeopardize their traditional rights, government has assured the leaders that it is not seeking change to the Constitution that would remove the constitutionally protected rights of classes of people specifically provided for”.
Canada's great advantage over other nations is our tradition of diversity which was born of the historic necessity of English and French speaking Canadians working together and which has blossomed into a basic respect for the multitude of cultures which make up Canada.
The Canadian tradition has been one based on the obligations of history and respect for cultural, religious and ethnic minorities. That tradition is in a certain degree of peril with this latest incursion into the Constitution to strike down the valuable education rights of the religious denominations in Newfoundland.