Madam Speaker, there was an element in the reasoning of the hon. member from the Conservative Party that I had trouble following. I would appreciate it if he could explain it to me.
He seems greatly concerned with the fate of minorities, a praiseworthy attitude, but he seems to fear the precedent of a constitutional amendment which, he feels, would restrict the rights of a minority group, and he also feels that a referendum is not sufficient. Even if the majority wills it, it is not sufficient, as there must be constitutional protections somewhere. Taken to its extreme, following his reasoning, these protections would have to be in place perpetually, forever.
He quotes someone as saying: “For example, if a referendum were held on French language rights outside Quebec, one could assume these rights were threatened”. But there is a fundamental problem. Are they telling us that minority rights are opposed by the majority? That would be assuming they are given any, but that the population is against those rights, which is extremely worrisome.
It means that Canadian public opinion might be opposed to the rights of francophones, which is the example he gave. And these are the same people who have just told us how they love us, and so on, and how they need our understanding, the love-ins and all that stuff. There is a basic contradiction here.
People in general, I am convinced, are in favour of minority rights. Quebec is a fine example, with its anglophone minority. If there were a referendum in Quebec on anglophone minority rights, I am convinced that the population would vote in favour. Why, then, use this argument and play out this debate against a backdrop of language minority rights, when this does not appear to be pertinent in the least?
There are people who want to modify an education system in order to create one that appears to them to be more modern, more in conformity to reality and to the needs of today. How can the two debates be mixed? Is he trying to tell us, when it comes down to it, that the majorities allow minority rights, but only unwillingly? This demonstrates a substantial underlying problem, and a profound intolerance that appears to exist within the majority groups in Canada.