Mr. Speaker, we are beginning to get to the heart of the matter. It is about Newfoundland and Labrador. It is not about the province of Saskatchewan, the province of Manitoba or the province of New Brunswick. It is about Newfoundland and Labrador.
The president of the home and school federation of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador put it quite clearly when he said “We knew what we were voting for. This is what we wanted”.
We heard expert testimony from other organizations and other institutions across the province. They said, “This is what we as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians want”. Mr. Steve Wolinetz, head of the home and school federation said, “We are religious people in Newfoundland and Labrador. We are a spiritual people. We understood categorically that that is what we were voting for. To subscribe or to make the assertion that this is in context of what should happen in other provinces is fundamentally incorrect. This is what should happen in Newfoundland and Labrador”. There is no suggestion whatsoever that this is what should happen in other provinces.
Quite frankly if someone were to come forward with unanimous consent in another legislature, in another province on a particular issue, then I think that we as parliamentarians would still have to look at that. We would still have to make sure that there was enough consent within the general populace of the province.
This is exactly what the issue is. There was unanimous consent in the provincial legislature of Newfoundland and Labrador. Members of particular denominations, who may or may not have had a particular opinion, voted in favour of this amendment; 47 of 48 districts within the province of Newfoundland and Labrador voted in favour of this particular amendment. That makes it unique to that province.