Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Manitoba for giving up some of his time so that I could speak.
I am pleased to speak on the issue of this whole business of uniting our country.
I am greatly perplexed and disappointed that after 30 years of all kinds of wrangling, this whole business has not yet been resolved. Actually, I am not surprised that an agreement to our national dilemma has evaded us. Hopefully this will become evident in my comments.
After all this time, energy, money spent and lost opportunities, where are we in our national debate? Where are we in our national discourse on the Quebec separation issue? After all these talks, where are the results? After three decades have our discussions led to new goals and a new vision for our country? Have we as Canadians developed a sense of patriotism toward our homeland? The questions beg the answers.
Indeed, our country certainly seems to be in a quandary. For almost two generations our country has been adrift like a rudderless vessel on a stormy sea, tossed hither and yon by the forces of deceit, dishonesty, deception and destruction and all the time undergirded by the contradictions of apathy and appeasement and all the time bringing our nation closer to the brink of disaster where the very fibre of our country is being stretched to the breaking point.
Through all these years what really has the fuss been all about? What has been that elusive thing that seems to be beyond our reach and our grasp? Has the 30-plus years of a one-sided debate centred around the issue of equality, the equality of provinces or the equality of citizens? Has the debate been centred on the devolution of federal powers? Has the ongoing debate been about the building of a new Canada? Or, has this long, drawn out debate, unbalanced I may add, centred around the rebuilding of Canada based on the two founding nations concept and its ill-conceived child, a distinct society?
Is that what the debate has been about? It certainly seems to me that that is precisely what the debate has been about for about 30 years. Debate has been about the notion of two founding nations, two societies based on language and culture, on French and English, on making one language and culture in Quebec, on making Quebec a distinct society.
It should be no surprise, based on these concepts, the concepts of two societies and a distinct society for one of them, that the whole notion was doomed to a dismal failure. The focus has been misguided and the mark was missed completely.
The outcome of the two nations concept was predicted 35 years ago by a former Alberta premier when he stated “You talk about this two nations idea long enough and that is probably what you will end up with”. Just look around. Some would say that is pretty much where we are today.
The two nations concept and its manifestation, distinct society, produced the idea that confederation was to serve the ends of two language groups, French and English. If we follow that kind of reasoning to its logical conclusion, what do we come up with? It would mean that Canada would not really be a federation of 10 equal provinces at all but consist instead of two societies, one being a distinct society, Quebec, and the other nine provinces combined to be the other society.
The spokespeople for the old line federal parties argue that to put such a clause in the constitution would be to merely recognize the sociological fact that Quebec is the homeland of the French language and culture and that Quebec has its civil code which is of course distinct from the English common law. No one can dispute these sociological facts. They are there for everyone to see, but that is largely irrelevant. It is irrelevant to the debate on whether this kind of clause ought to be in the constitution.
The problem arises when describing these sociological facts, civil code, French language and culture, denominational schools, with a broad brush definition like distinct society and to put these words in the constitution.
This is the nub of it. If we put Quebec as a distinct society in the constitution, we are then asking the courts to give those words meaning. There is no constitutional basis or constitutional history to give support and credibility to the concepts of two founding nations and distinct society. No Fathers of Confederation, not even the French speaking Fathers of Confederation, said anything of two nations and distinct society. They talked very little of language as well.
There is no ringing declaration in the BNA Act that Canada wants to be a bilingual and bicultural country. Nothing in the Constitution of 1867 suggests bilingualism or biculturalism. There is one important section in that act on language. It is section 133 which states that English and French may be spoken in the House of Commons and in the courts established by the Government of Canada, in other words the Supreme Court and the federal courts, and that the two languages may be used in the National Assembly in Quebec. Subsequent language and cultural laws came much later under the hand of Mr. Trudeau, with little constitutional basis for it until provided for in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982.
Entrenching distinct society in the constitution for Quebec would encourage provincial governments and that province to carve out more jurisdictional areas unavailable to other provinces. For example, Quebec could establish its own radio and television commission.
The great constitutional expert Eugene Forsey wrote that Quebec could assume powers in banking, copyright, patents, railways, citizenship, criminal law, foreign affairs, plus others possibly, if the distinct society clause would be entrenched in the constitution. Legislation will be passed and when challenged by the courts, Quebec will argue “This is a necessary ingredient for us. We must have that because we are a distinct society”. Quebec marches onwards toward separation a phenomena dubbed as incremental separatism.
There is a much better resolution to this issue of unity. It will ensure that legitimate constitutional aspirations of Quebec are met.