Madam Speaker, congratulations on your elevation to the chair. I commend the learned and honourable member for his presentation. He is a distinguished constitutional authority and an asset to this place as such an authority. I would however take issue with some of his conclusions.
The hon. member suggested the amendment would not create a precedent for other provinces. I agree this will not create a legal or constitutional precedent but it will create a political precedent. It is for that reason organizations such as the Canadian Catholic School Trustees Association, the Ontario Catholic School Trustees Association and dissentient separate school boards across the country are opposed to the amendment.
What they see is not a legal precedent that affects them directly but a dangerous political precedent which they feel will affect them in the future, that precedent being the willingness of this place to give up its constitutional role to protect minority confessional educational rights.
I have several questions for the hon. member in that respect. He said the matter had been considered for nearly 30 years in Quebec. Given that virtually every witness before the committee agreed the amendment to section 93 is a relatively recent proposal, what evidence does he have to support the contention that it has been considered for 30 years?
What does he mean when he says there is now a movement toward “new, more plural approaches to education?” Does he mean by that approaches to education which preclude confessional education? Does he mean more secular approaches to education?
Given his understanding of constitutional issues, will he admit that without the protection of section 93 the charter of rights and freedoms will apply in toto to the Quebec education system; that given the precedents in the Ontario courts, namely the Zylberberg and the Civil Liberties Association cases, the charter has been proven to be rather unfriendly to public funding of sectarian education; and that without the protection of section 93 it is likely, as virtually every constitutional expert appearing before the joint committee suggested, that Quebec's confessional education system as guaranteed in various statutes the Quebec charter and the Quebec education act would be found to contravene the Canadian charter and would be snuffed out?
Does he not agree this is a very real threat of removing the constitutional protection of section 93, that the charter poses the ultimate threat to the confessional school system which Quebeckers still support, by a very large margin?