Madam Speaker, the member asked why in my speech and in the minister's speech we did not list the witnesses who were opposed. I think the report of the committee which was tabled in the House goes through that very, very clearly and in much detail.
No one is suggesting that the consensus was unanimous. The committee heard that it is pretty well unanimous on the question of moving to a linguistic school system. But the consensus is far from unanimous on whether it should be accomplished by the proposed amendments to section 93. There is no question and nobody was trying mislead any member or the House. There were a lot of witnesses who gave testimony that they were not in favour of the amendment that we are debating here today proceeding.
However, from evidence I heard and from weighing the representations of the various witnesses, there is no question in my mind that there is a very strong consensus that the amendment proceed. Members of the committee asked witnesses specifically, given the fact that we are removing entrenched rights, did they still favour it being proceeded with. In my opinion and in the opinion of the majority of the committee, that consensus was very clearly demonstrated.
If the member feels that I was misleading anyone, I certainly wish to assure him that is not the case. There is no question of attempting to mislead anyone. It is still my very strong opinion that there is a strong consensus in the Province of Quebec that we proceed with this amendment.
The member says that reference has been made to this being a 30-year old debate. He is partly correct. We have not necessarily been talking about amending section 43 of the Constitutional Act of 1982 for 30 years. The process is not 30 years old, so we obviously were not talking about using section 43 of the Constitution Act of 1982 for 30 years. However, the whole question of managing the school system in Quebec is a debate that has been going on for approximately 30 years.
The issue has been studied by commission after commission, all of which is referred to in the report dealing with going from a denominational to a linguistic school system. In recent years the question of the process of using section 93 has been reviewed and proposed. There were committee hearings and the Quebec legislature has dealt with it.
In his final question the hon. member asked me about the position of the Catholic Bishops. I think I quite correctly stated in my comment that the Catholic Bishops were not opposed to the amendment. They did not appear before the committee but there was correspondence filed which set out their position which simply stated is that they are not opposed to the amendment. The amendment removes denominational school boards. However, they still favour denominational schools.
I have tabled an excerpt from an interview with a Quebec Bishop saying that he was satisfied to leave it to the state to decide how to implement the required changes and he was satisfied that there were measures in Quebec law, the Quebec Charter of Rights and the Quebec Education Act that would ensure their conditions were met and that there would be denominational schools.
The committee heard evidence that it is a very strong position in Quebec society that people want to retain denominational schools. I think the political realities will ensure that.