Mr. Speaker, just to reiterate, on this side of the House we understand distinctiveness not only in Quebec but throughout our country.
I wish to share my time with my colleague, the member for Mississauga South, although there may not be time.
Only two weeks ago I was at the commemoration of the first time we issued a historical plaque outside of this country at Vimy Ridge. I was taken aback by the ceremony and going through some of the trenches and seeing some of the carvings on the walls that had been done by people who had been shot or killed at Vimy. I realized that both French and English had fought together in that war.
Nobody asked them when they showed up to free France from the invaders whether they were French or English, whether they were Quebeckers or Ontarians, whether they came from the west. They fought together as a nation of Canadians, and very successfully.
Over 3,900 Canadians, if I recall correctly, of all backgrounds lost their lives there. These are some of the histories that we have shared together as a country.
It is with that view in mind that I rise today to speak in favour of not only the Calgary declaration but the motion that has been moved by my hon. colleagues opposite.
We have discussed a variety of issues today and there is this constant issue of decentralization versus centralization. I sometimes do not think that we have given proper address to how our world is significantly changing.
Often the debate is very sterilized because it talks about taking power away from some kind of central authority. I would like to indicate that over the last 10 years Canada has entered into a number of international treaties such as NAFTA, GATT and some of the other treaties that we are now discussing and will be discussing in this House such as the multilateral agreement on investment.
All these treaties, if you will, have resulted in the delegation to a certain degree of authority from the so-called central government to international bodies, often dispute settlement mechanisms.
What I am trying to get at is that we have actually already given up a certain degree of power at the federal level to international institutions to effect more global trade. This is the reality of the world.
If we sit at the other end and constantly try to take power away from this institution that has already given up power internationally, we can understand how we are slowly but surely weakening our system of government and weakening the ties that bind us together.
I was heartened today by the Reform Party's talking about national standards because I very rarely hear it talk about those. I hear it defending provincial rights. Once again, I sometimes do not think we have given enough thought to how our country has changed.
I sometimes wonder if we should be debating provincial versus federal rights or talking more about urban versus rural rights. When we talk about the delivery of services on a local basis, of course large municipalities have the ability to do that.
We have just seen in my own province the amalgamation of the city of Toronto. Whether people like it or not it seems that is a very huge governmental authority that could probably deal effectively with a lot of local issues.
On the other hand, there are communities within our country that have a great deal of difficulty making even the basic services available to their people just because they are few in number or they are spread out over a wide geographical area.
I have often wondered if we should not restructure some of this debate about dealing with how to deliver services directly to the people who require them.
I support the initiative of the Calgary declaration. I think we very much have to continue the dialogue, but I think also we have to start talking about how to build this country. We have to stop talking about how to tear it apart. We have to start talking about how to build a stronger nation as we move toward the 21st century.
We have institutions of government. I have come to believe that there is a role for some kind of reformed Senate. I suspect it has some of the parameters that some of the members are talking about today, guaranteeing some kind of minimum standards and ensuring that our medical system, for instance, in British Columbia is not significantly different in a minimum kind of way from those in other parts of the country.
I have been appalled in some ways to find that people who have a cardiac or a diagnosis cardiac operation in British Columbia have to wait three weeks for an operation, while those in Manitoba only half a week.
Therefore when we talk about things in the Calgary declaration such as equality of people, I sometimes wonder whether we are really addressing those issues and whether, if we are really concerned about the equality of people, we should find ways to ensure there are minimum standards across this country we can all agree to as a nation.
Most people who have studied national unity would say that the things that unite us as a nation are the ways we treat each other. Most people would say one of those things is the health care system. Another is education. Heaven forbid, it says here that belongs to the provinces, but most people would say we should have some kind of minimum standard on which we can all agree that people can move around this country without needing an entry test to discover whether they are in grade two or grade twelve or whatever grade. We should all have some standards recognized which can unite us as a nation.
As my hon. colleague from Mississauga South would like a few words, I will conclude. I am definitely in support of the Calgary declaration initiative and of the motion before us today. More important, we have to find ways to reinvent our country. We happen to think that devolution is the way to do it. There may well be cases where we should be giving power back to the central government in order to create national binding standards in our country.