Mr. Speaker, in sharing my conclusions, I would like to address three points dealing essentially with the motion before us. The first one is the education of French speaking Newfoundlanders; the second, public support for this amendment; and finally, our role as parliamentarians, members of the Parliament of Canada and the House of Commons, with regard to this issue.
On the education of French speaking Newfoundlanders, last year, when the House first considered this issue as part of an amendment to term 17 of the Terms of Union of Newfoundland with Canada, I indicated that my support was largely based on the fact that, in the process, the Government of Newfoundland would be fulfilling its responsibilities under section 23 of the charter.
It will be recalled that, with passage of the Constitutional Act in 1982, section 23 of the charter guaranteed official language minorities everywhere in the country, from sea to sea to sea, the right to education in their language. That took a while to happen in Newfoundland. Here we are in 1997 finally seeing them respect that right.
Dare I speculate that the need, desire or will of the Newfoundland government to get term 17 of its union with Canada modified is in part what made it aware it might get a poorer reception in Parliament—if I can use that expression here—if it were not respecting the commitments under section 23 of the charter?
In this connection I would like to quote a portion of a letter from Johanne Lacelle to the co-chair of the joint committee. She was writing on behalf of the Fédération des parents francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador. She said “Since June 1997—not long ago—francophones in the province have a shools act guaranteeing complete control over our school system. At last we can say that language rights are henceforth going to be in line with section 23 of the charter. School administration is now in the hands of the francophones. From now on, under this act, the schools will have the status of non-denominational schools, in line with the proposed reform the province is calling for”.
From this letter and the fact that the Fédération did not wish to appear, did not feel the need to appear, I think we may conclude and state that the francophones of Newfoundland have the management of their school system under control, and we hope that they may use this to promote the growth of their community in, as she so aptly put it, nondenominational schools. This is another element. I do not think that we have said sufficiently in debates in committee and here that the francophone population of Newfoundland seems to agree to having their children educated in nondenominational schools.
As to the matter of popular will, in committee several questions were raised regarding public consultation. Some fairly sharp criticism was directed at the process, the referendum question and the way it was held. The results were often interpreted to mean that the minorities had not agreed to the change. I have a question on that, which has not really been raised up to now. In my opinion, we should give it some thought. It concerns the fact that the denominational classes, if I can call them that, did not insist that the vote be taken along religious lines.
If they had wanted to demonstrate without a shadow of a doubt that their own denomination were opposed to the changes and if they thought they had a sufficiently large number of people within their own denomination that would vote against it, then it behooved the representatives of these denominations to ask that the vote be done by denominational class, and that was not done. We were told in committee by the minister responsible for education that that offer was put on the table, not for this current vote but for the previous one. The offer was not taken up nor was it asked for during the last vote that occurred in early September as a result of the campaign in August.
This is a situation in which those who argue that the minorities did not give their consent to this could have found a way to demonstrate that, yet they failed to even ask for that to be done. They could have been clamouring for this to be done, to have all the Pentecostal votes identified. When someone voted they could have said that they were Catholic or that they were such and such. We do that all the time in Ontario municipal elections when we cast a ballot, yet that was not put forward. It was not requested. I suspect that suggests quite a bit.
We can read into this what we wish. I have read into it that perhaps there is a consensus, even within the denominations, for a change to the system in many instances. Perhaps not in all of them, but in some of them I would suspect that the reason there of no insistence for such a vote was because the result may have been somewhat other than some people of those denominations would have wanted to see.
I wanted to put this on the floor so that members who are opposing it on the grounds that the minorities did not give their consent can reflect on it.
Finally, I want to address what our role is as parliamentarians. It is definitely not to rubber stamp. I am very pleased that the three votes in which I have been involved in my short time here which have dealt with constitutional amendments using section 43 of the 1982 act have all been free votes. It speaks very well of the seriousness with which we address these issues. We rise above partisan considerations. Free votes force members to think about the issue. It removes the cushion, if you will, of the whipped vote. We have to be accountable for our votes. I believe that is the way which we as parliamentarians should address a constitutional change.
Although our role is not to rubber stamp, it is certainly not to be systematically opposed. I have had a chance in recent weeks to sit on two committees, the one studying the bilateral constitutional amendment for the Quebec school boards and this one. I have been pleased with the approach taken by all parties and all representatives of both Houses.
This method of helping our country, of ensuring that some systems and some of our institutions evolve, is very good. Perhaps it has not been anticipated to be that useful, but it is certainly turning out to be that way. I want to encourage the parliaments of Canada to realize that there are certain ways of making systems and some of our institutions progress.
It is not our duty, as I have pointed out, to systematically oppose or blindly approve recommendations put to us. But, having sat on the committee, listened to witnesses and considered all the arguments, I think we can say without fear of error that the amendment is put to us with the approval of the people of Newfoundland and certainly the unanimous approval of the Newfoundland legislature, which is not to be sniffed at, and is one of the most important factors to be considered.
That having been said, I have absolutely no qualms about supporting and encouraging my colleagues to support the proposal before us.