Debates of Dec. 8th, 1997

Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland)

[Bill Matthews, Progressive Conservative, Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to get pulled into a debate between the hon. member opposite and members of the Reform Party. I think I will leave it to the two of them to agree or disagree.

They are ever changing times. Who knows in ten years what the situation will be in the country. Who knows what will happen to the population of Newfoundland and Labrador, what our student population will be, what the economics of our province will be with the new oil and gas industry, Voisey's Bay, and on and on it goes. It is very difficult to answer some of those questions.

I know that is why members are asking them. They know they are very difficult to answer.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the Minister of Veterans Affairs.

This is a very interesting debate because what is happening here is we are seeing the result of some of the policies that have been espoused particularly by the Reform Party but by many people in different parts of Canada in relationship to governing by referenda. You should never ask a question if you are not prepared to live with the answer.

I would not presume at any time to tell the people of Newfoundland and Labrador how they should particularly run their education system. Of course as parliamentarians and Canadians we are concerned about the quality of education from sea to sea to sea, and clearly quality is an issue that we would all be concerned about. But what we are seeing here is governance, an issue of governance.

I was first elected to the Ontario legislature in 1987 and I was appointed as vice-chair of the select committee on education. It is a little like deja vu all over again. It seems that no matter what jurisdiction I wind up in, education seems to become the focus of the day. It is very much a political issue.

I remember the concern that too often we are pulling up the roots of the tree of the education system and examining it, not leaving it planted, allowing it to grow. That had very much to do with the pedagogy, with the quality of education in the classroom, but a great deal less with the governance.

The people of Newfoundland have answered a question and I was fascinated to hear the member for one of the ridings in Saskatchewan say that he would not want to go back with a 70-plus vote in favour of one system in his province and tell a certain minority that it could no longer send its children to the schools of their choice. The result would be that the decision based on the referendum that would have hypothetically taken place in Saskatchewan would have to be ignored. This is clearly one of the problems we have when we think we can simply, in black and white, govern by referendum.

I recall a marvellous speech given by a member of the Ontario legislature. It was around an education system. He was from the riding of Simcoe. I will not mention his name, for his own purposes. He stood up and said I have done a poll in my riding on this particular issue and 50% of my constituents are in favour of this amendment and 50% are against, and I am going to vote with my constituents. Interesting comment.

That is the push-pull. That is why we were sent here. I suggest it is a very unusual issue where you can get a kind of clear answer to a question. We have to ask ourselves was the question legitimate.

I have heard the question read in this place and it is pretty legitimate and pretty clear and pretty understandable. Something impresses me even more than the 73%. I hear everyone saying that maybe they voted out of fear, maybe they voted because they did not understand it. There was a low voter turnout, all of this. Let us set aside the issue of the referendum just for a moment.

Although I would agree with my colleagues who have spoken from Newfoundland and Labrador very passionately about this, I would agree it is something they must listen to. The numbers that impress me the most are the ones when I look at how the legislature voted in Newfoundland. There are 48 members. Thirty-five of them are Liberals, obviously a clear majority. Eleven are Progressive Conservative, one NDP and one Independent.

I served for five years in a provincial legislature in opposition. Members from the opposition would understand what I am talking about when we can say we can vote against the government on this and it will still carry. God forbid that there would ever be a vote cast in this place with that kind of thought, but if it is a matter of political expediency, we can stand against the government and it will still happen. It has a clear majority.

Did the Tories do that? Eleven of them voted unanimously with the government. Did the New Democrats do that? Obviously a party with a tradition in opposition in this country that understands what it means to oppose and quite often just gets up in an opposing mood, it voted to support this. And the Independent? I do not know the person. We have one in this place. It seems that someone who is truly independent, who is elected as an independent, who would be sent to a legislature as an independent member, would find very little reason, in my submission, to generally vote with a majority government.

It seems to me that they would want to put forward the opposing view, that they would see it as an obligation to stand in contrast to the majority view of the government. Did that independent member in the Newfoundland legislature do that? That member voted with the government.

The fact that the duly elected representatives of that legislature voted 100% in support of this tells me something that very clearly is important. The debate took place. We know there was a royal commission. In 1992 the royal commission recommended this.

Newfoundland is a wonderful part of our land in this great country. One of the real advantages Newfoundland has, I would submit, is that in spite of the vastness geographically, it is probably possible to talk to everybody in the province.

I represent a riding of 140,000 people. By the time the next election rolls around, 50% of my constituents could be brand new to the riding. It is a very fast growing, volatile changing community. I would say, having spent some wonderful time in St. John's, Newfoundland, that it is easy to communicate if you represent that part of the country. You could probably, if you really wanted to and I say this with tremendous love for Newfoundland and Labrador, call everybody in a reasonable period of time and get hold of them. There would be an opportunity for people to voice their opinion.

With 48 members of the provincial legislature having that opportunity, given the results of the vote in the legislature and the results of the referendum, we have no right to oppose a constitutional amendment in this regard.

Having said that, I know that my folks at home in Mississauga are a little frightened of this. They are a little concerned that this is the thin edge of the wedge. That catholic education in the province of Ontario could be in jeopardy. I want you to know that I do not believe that. Our separate school system, a system which I went through—I went to our Lady of Sorrows Elementary School and to St. Jerome, a boarding school in Kitchener with the Resurrectionist Fathers—has tremendous roots in our province.

We now have full funding of both the public and the separate school system. I believe we are secure in the catholic education system which exists in the province of Ontario. We should not be worried that a precedent would destroy that. We should support our brothers and sisters, our friends, our legislative brothers and sisters in Newfoundland and Labrador. We should adopt this very historic amendment to our constitution.

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very impressed with the confidence the hon. colleague opposite has that this will in no way ever affect the catholic education system in Ontario. What evidence does he have that makes him so positive that this could never happen in Ontario?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, having spent eight years in the Ontario legislature, having been the vice chairman of the select committee on education under the David Peterson government, having served in opposition for five years, I feel I have some comfort level in our province.

No one can ever say never. The point of the matter is that we have a very strong and secure system of education, catholic and public, in the province of Ontario. We then balance that with the fact that we have a very clear message from the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. We have a clear message from the members who represent that part of Canada in this place. We have an enormously clear message from the people who represent Newfoundland and Labrador in their provincial legislature. Frankly, I think—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

We have at least two more questions and comments. We will go to the member for Edmonton East and then the parliamentary secretary.

[Peter Goldring, Reform, Edmonton East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite mentioned the unanimity of the voting of the legislators. I refer to newspaper articles of the time where discussions were reported that the legislators were mentioning that some would be voting no in the referendum. The comment was that after the referendum they would feel compelled to vote in the legislature the will of the voters. This indeed happened.

It was reported in Hansard of that legislature that some members made speeches and talked to the effect that they had indeed voted no, but now they felt compelled to vote yes. Those are the individuals who are on record. I suggest there were probably more. That is the reason for the unanimity. Would the member possibly explain this?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if it was in the newspaper, it must be true.

We cannot have votes of convenience. We cannot say that we should have a vote on this issue, have it carry and they say “Ya, but I don't like the reason you did it”. There are members in this place who will speak against and vote for this because they have concerns, but the bottom line is that they feel they must support this because of the clear decision of the people. For the Reform Party not to want to listen to the people is clearly astounding to see.

We have the message and we have a duty and an obligation to live up to it.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to this House that I am a member of the Roman Catholic faith and I voted in the referendum in a particular way. However, when it comes time to vote on this issue I will vote as a member of the House of Commons who is speaking on behalf of my constituency.

For the record, as a member of the Roman Catholic faith, I voted personally for the amendment. I will vote as a member of the House of Commons for the amendment because that is what my constituency said.

On another point, I would suggest the following to those members who are concerned this will have an impact on other constituencies and other provinces in the country. I point out one simple fact.

In 1987 we added the Pentecostal denomination to the schedule of denominations that were provided with specific rights. We did not at that time add other denominations in other provinces. We did not add the Pentecostal faith to the Ontario schedule. We did not add it to the Manitoba schedule. We did not add it to the Alberta schedule so—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The last word goes to the member for Mississauga West.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, probably the greatest single thing about Canada is the diversity in our regions and our provinces and the fact that they are so different in many ways. I believe that what we have here is a constitutional amendment for one area of this wonderful country. It is an amendment we can support. The evidence is in and I will be proud to stand and vote and support my colleagues and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Fred Mifflin, Liberal, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Secretary of State (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency)]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that there is such a good diverse debate on this subject. It is a subject that has been debated in Newfoundland and Labrador for many years. It has been debated at length during the last month or so here.

I congratulate my hon. colleague from Mississauga West for giving such an excellent presentation. I also congratulate my colleague, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources, for the leadership role he played in co-chairing the joint committee of the House and the other place.

Those who know me will know that I have given this topic considerable thought. I made my wishes known in the last round. I will speak in support of this amendment before the House because I believe it will be beneficial to the children of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Members will recall that there are no public schools in Newfoundland and Labrador. As is the case in all provinces, our education system is a part of our history. Our first schools were sponsored, fostered and indeed promoted by the churches and the clergy. Governments did not assume responsibility for education until much later in our history. Even when public funding became available, the Newfoundland system was still directly and exclusively run by the churches.

I want to use the example of my home town in Bonavista which is an historic fishing town. I think this year at the Cabot 500 celebrations it became known as the landfall of John Cabot. Bonavista is famous for that but it is also famous for something that is not quite as well known.

In 1722, Reverend Henry Jones came to Bonavista where he supervised the building of the first church in Newfoundland. Four years later, he organized the first school in Newfoundland, in my home town. There is the connection.

By the time of Confederation, six individual denominations had been granted the right to operate schools. They still possess that right. It was pointed out in the previous debate that one denomination was added in 1987.

Today in Newfoundland and Labrador, there are four separate, distinct and individual school systems with overlapping boards in a province with 575,000 people and 110,000 students, roughly the size of Calgary.

The people of Newfoundland and Labrador have now asked Parliament to give the provincial legislature the authority to make changes in the denominational education system. That will be the effect of our amended term 17.

Simply put, the legislature would have the authority to decide and to direct educational issues and the individual denominations would not. While the denominational school system was incorporated in the constitution in 1949 for reasons that certainly those from Newfoundland and Labrador would be aware of, the people of the province through their government now wish to make a different arrangement.

They believe that changes must be made to the schools for the sake of their children and for their children's future. The decision to make change was not hasty, not arbitrary and came as a consequence of a long process of public discussion and negotiation.

Just to quickly summarize for the record, six years ago the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador appointed a royal commission on education. More than 30 years have passed since such a study was made.

The commission was chaired by Dr. Len Williams, a very experienced and respected educator. The commission recommended far-reaching changes designed to give the children of Newfoundland and Labrador greater opportunity to prepare themselves to lead full, satisfying and productive lives.

The provincial government decided to negotiate arrangements very quickly and then Premier Wells and several of his senior colleagues had a series of discussions with representatives of the denominations.

They could not reach agreement and eventually the provincial government was essentially faced with three options: to abandon the project to make changes believed necessary, to agree to the much less far-reaching changes which the leaders of the churches were prepared to accept, or the third option, to seek a constitutional amendment to give the legislature powers with respect to education similar to those already vested in every other provincial legislature. They chose the amendment.

Changes were so important to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that a referendum was held. There was a majority of 54.8% of those who voted and endorsed the government's reform proposal.

The government then asked the House of Assembly to decide on the issue and every member of the House, except the Speaker, voted on the proposal. All three parties voted in favour.

In June 1996, for those of us who were here at the time, this House debated and passed a resolution amending term 17 as per the request of the Newfoundland House of Assembly. The resolution then went to the Senate which held public hearings as a single Senate committee and passed the resolution with amendment.

When the resolution returned to the Chamber, the members decided not to accept the Senate amendments and passed the term 17 resolution for the second time in December 1996.

On January 3, 1997 the Newfoundland legislature passed the new schools act to implement the new education regime in light of the new amendments of term 17.

The 1996 amendment represented the compromise arising out of three years of discussion with the denominational education committees. The attempt to implement this new compromise failed. It failed after catholic and protestant committees sought and received a court injunction in July 1997.

The provincial government complied with the terms of the injunction which led to a complete disruption of plans for the 1997-98 school year. Those members from Newfoundland and Labrador would certainly recall that with great disappointment.

At this point the province had to decide to go back to the people to hold a referendum on December 2. It asked the following question: Do you support a single school system where all children regardless of their religious affiliation attend the same schools where opportunities for religious education and observances are provided? As we have heard in the House, 73% of those responding said yes. On September 5 the Newfoundland legislature moved unanimously to approve the resolution to amend term 17 and to seek the resolution which the House is debating tonight.

During the last couple of months this issue has been the subject of much discussion. In the last three weeks the joint committee of both Houses once again held public hearings. As a result of these hearings the joint committee has recommended that both Houses of Parliament adopt the resolution to amend term 17 of the terms of union of Newfoundland and Labrador with Canada in the form tabled in these Houses in November of this year.

There has been a lot of debate. Quite frankly, as a product of that system, I am more than fully persuaded that the amendment is an appropriate and proper change. I have no hesitation in recommending it, as I did the previous one, to Parliament. Although it is different, it is really asking members on both sides of the House and those in the other place to support it for the reasons I have given.

I believe, as do most of my colleagues, that the result will be a better education system for the children of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The case for this amendment requested by the Newfoundland legislature is compelling in my judgment. Anything which is unanimous in that House is compelling. I speak also as a Newfoundlander, as a Canadian and as a member of the Government of Canada. I am convinced that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador will be able to provide the children of my province with a better education if we adopt this amendment.

I have family in Newfoundland who will go through that system. It is a very personal decision which I have had to come to. Each time I have examined the pros and cons, and I am pleased to have heard them again in the House tonight.

I am persuaded on the merits of the amendment. I am persuaded also that it would not threaten or harm the rights of any other Canadian. I am persuaded that its adoption would not require a future Parliament to adopt an amendment which would unacceptably change the rights of any Canadian.

I am going to vote for it for these reasons and on that basis. I am going to vote for it because I believe it to be in the best interests of the children of my riding of Bonavista—Trinity—Conception and in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. I believe they deserve the best that the education system of Newfoundland and Labrador can provide. I believe that this amendment if adopted will help to make this so.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member could enlighten us as to whether he knows anything about the members of the legislature of Newfoundland and their voting patterns. He mentioned that the vote was unanimous. There must have been among those members some deeply religious people, perhaps many who had similar concerns to what we have heard expressed today from some members of this House.

Does the member opposite have any intimate knowledge or does he know any of the members of the Newfoundland legislature? Can he explain why they would have voted for the amendment even though they have very deeply held religious beliefs?

[Fred Mifflin, Liberal, Bonavista—Trinity—Conception, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. Yes, I do know most of the members of the Newfoundland legislature. I know some of them very well. Some voted one way in the referendum, but upon reflection when they returned to look at the system and what the system was trying to achieve, I think they saw it in a different light. I know one member who had second thoughts.

Those of us who serve the highest courts in the land whether they be in the provinces or in this House sometimes have to decide whether they want to represent the views of their constituents or the views which they believe they must exercise on the part of their constituents. If they are lucky, they will be one and the same. With some difficulty sometimes they can be different.

I will not prolong the answer, but if I may, the case of capital punishment I think was an issue where sometimes members of this House voted with their constituents and other times they voted with their conscience.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Broadview—Greenwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a short question to my colleague whom I have always held in high regard. I have deep affection for his service to his community and country.

I come from downtown Toronto and I consider that we are an advantaged community economically. I have been to the member's province many times and know of the deep economic pain that exists in the member's community. Does the member think that the deep economic pain and the lack of economic resources had something to do with so many in the minority not supporting their traditional system?

[Fred Mifflin, Liberal, Bonavista—Trinity—Conception, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I have worked with the hon. member for Broadview—Greenwood over the years on many difficult issues and on many difficult subjects. I want to thank him for the passion that he feels for the subject.

While we agree on most things, there are certain things we do not agree on. I am not sure how he is going to vote, so I will not presuppose this, but I do know the hon. member has concerns with this issue. As I have always done, I respect his concern for this issue as passionate as his concern is about most issues, but this one in particular.

When people decide to vote yes or no on any particular issue, there are many reasons for it. I believe the main reason for the resounding vote of 73%—and you cannot question the majority of that—stems mainly from the torment that people had with respect to putting in place once and for all a system that was more in line with the rest of the country and in fact in line with the rest of North America. The system in Newfoundland and Labrador was unique in all of North America. I know the hon. member knows that.

There was a torment of those people who had to vote on this issue to once and for all put in place an educational system which their children would benefit from. The system would operate in a clear cut and decisive manner and would avoid this great discussion for 10 years where we have had yes and no and referendums and votes in the house of assembly—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I am sorry, the time for questions and comments has expired. Resuming debate. The hon. member for North Vancouver.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Kelowna.

The term 17 amendment we are debating today offers an opportunity for some MPs to take the position that voting their conscience is appropriate. That was mentioned by the hon. minister who spoke before me. They do that even if it is opposite to the position taken by their constituents. They say they will vote against the amendment for the most part because of the need to protect minority rights and/or entitlements from the tyranny of the majority.

Without those MPs being here, there really would not have been much of a debate so far, so I thank them for that. But as a result of the position they have taken, they are obliged to criticize the term 17 referendums and some unfortunately have been doing so using factually unsupportable material or opinions that they are representing as fact taken from letters from people who were disappointed with the result.

If members had taken the time to call the office of Elections Newfoundland to discuss the mechanics of holding those referendums, they would have found as I did that a lot of the criticisms were completely baseless or were totally inaccurate.

Before sharing some of that information with members, I would first like to remind the House that prior to the first term 17 referendum, seven specific religious groups controlled pretty much all the public schools in the province. Meanwhile Jews, Muslims, Baptists and a whole host of other smaller religions, the true minorities, were deprived of any similar right or access to the public purse.

The voters of Newfoundland appear to have recognized that this situation was unfair and have voted to level the playing field for all religious groups in Newfoundland. They rejected in two referendums an entrenched entitlement of seven major religions to reach their hands into the pockets of taxpayers while the other religions, in fact the minority, had no such right. The changes contained in the term 17 amendment if anything improved the situation for minorities.

Furthermore, in terms of those minority rights, the two referendums on term 17 offered more than enough opportunities for both sides of the argument to make people aware of their interpretation of the effects of the proposed changes. The issue was thoroughly discussed at home, in restaurants, at work, on television, on radio talk shows. It is insulting to the intelligence of voters to suggest that they did not understand what they were voting for or how the rights and entitlements of majorities and minorities would be affected by their vote.

As for the complaints by critics that a mere 32 days was allowed for the actual campaign, 32 days is not an unusually short time for a referendum campaign. The last federal election was only 37 days of campaign and that was to change the entire government of the country with a multitude of issues and complex judgments that went along with it. Besides, the term 17 issue had been floating around under deep public discussion for many years, as has already been mentioned by other members.

The associated complaint that the government failed to inform the public of the text of the amendment until August 25, just two days before the advance poll, also has little relevance in terms of either the mechanics or outcome. The fact is that the vote was on the question and not on the legal wording of the amendment which would enact the question. There was no obligation whatsoever on the government to produce or release the wording of the actual amendment at any time and it is questionable how many voters would have wanted to read it anyway.

To keep this in context, compare the situation to that of placing a clear question to Quebeckers in any new referendum on separation. It would be impossible to have a clear question if you had to put the entire bill on the ballot paper. As I mentioned, in most cases the average voter is not interested in reading those legal mechanics anyway.

In the case of the recent term 17 referendum, the text of the question was released on the very same day the referendum was announced. The minister who spoke before me read the question into the record so I will not do that again, but the referendum related to that question and not to the actual legal wording of the amendment which was subsequently voted on in the House.

Some members will have received letters complaining that the Government of Newfoundland used its resources and finances to support the yes position during the referendum campaign but that opponents had no such resources and should have been given public money to fund their opposition. Opponents were completely free to use their own resources to counter the government position and they did so. There was no limit to how much they could spend on their side of the argument and they did advertise and promote their position very widely just as the government did.

The Newfoundland government said that it spent around $300,000 to promote its position, but the other side to my knowledge has released no figures. In my opinion there is no convincing argument to support the contention that opponents to a government position should be given public funds to counter that position. If we were to approve of such a measure in general, Canada would soon be bankrupt and governments would be paralysed by special interest group activities totally funded from the public purse. Besides, there is absolutely no evidence in any jurisdiction that employs public referendums that the amount of money spent on the issue by one side over the other affects the outcome in any significant way.

For example, in Canada the Charlottetown accord yes side spent 10 times as much as the winning no side and it still lost. In the 1993 election the PC Party spent something like $40 million and had access to huge amounts of free media time but just elected two members. The Reform Party spent a fraction of that amount, had hardly any free media time and elected 52 members.

In Newfoundland, members will be interested to learn, the single most common complaint received by the chief electoral officer during both referendums had nothing to do with spending. It was that too many polling stations were on church property and that religious symbols, statues and materials were being used in attempts to influence the vote.

Some of those upset by the outcome of the two referendums have claimed that the government would not permit scrutineers at the polling stations, but in fact the government had no power to make that decision. The determination that scrutineers were not appropriate was made by the chief electoral officer as authorized by the Newfoundland elections act.

In the absence of clearly identified yes and no organizations, the chief electoral officer determined that scrutineers would not be authorized in the polling stations for either side. He did, however, provide a returning officer, a deputy returning officer and an official witness at each polling station. The job of the official witness was to ensure the security of the vote at each station, and to date there is no evidence whatsoever of any tampering.

Some people have criticized the referendum process on the basis that only 52% of the people voted, that 73% of that 52% voted yes, and that the equivalent of 39% of eligible voters approved the question and therefore the results were not valid.

The voter turnout was within normal ranges for this type of electoral event in Canada. To argue that the result is not valid leads us down a very slippery slope indeed. Many MPs in the House were elected with percentages well below 50 and percentages in the high 30s are not unusual.

The Liberal government won a governing mandate in 1997 with less than 40% of the vote, a situation that many would argue has a significantly greater negative impact than an amendment to term 17. Yet it stands. I have yet to observe any government member arguing that the results of the 1997 election are invalid, even though the majority of voters actually voted against the Liberals.

As a dedicated believer in referendums, even those in the form of an election, I defend the right of taxpayers and voters to make a mistake; to learn that they made a mistake; and to correct that mistake, if indeed it was a mistake, via a subsequent referendum. Such an exercise is in the end far more productive than having arrogant, self-righteous, genuinely well intentioned, biased or badly informed politicians forcing their will upon the people.

As the leader of the Reform Party said earlier today, Newfoundlanders were well aware the issue involved not only educational reform but the difficult subject of extinguishing, granting and balancing majority and minority rights.

Parliament should therefore be very careful in presuming that its judgment on any of these matters is somehow superior to that of the people of Newfoundland. Let us respect their intelligence, their consideration of majority and minority rights, and their right to make decisions about the way their province operates its system of education. Let us make sure they receive from the House an appropriate endorsement of the term 17 amendment.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Broadview—Greenwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the member's remarks and I would like to put forward a position.

I have always held the view that the Parliament of Canada is a place where we speak for those who need a voice, those who are the most disadvantaged, and in this case we know a group in the province of Newfoundland is having a right diminished by term 17.

Does the member hold the view that we are here to speak for the advantaged primarily, or does he hold the view that there are times, even though it may not be popular, when we should consider speaking for those who do not have a voice?

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member has asked a question which is difficult to answer because he has not used specific examples other than the Newfoundland referendum issue.

I will refer to a paragraph that I used in my speech. I believe in the right of people to make a mistake. I truly believe that in the long run it is a much better experience for politicians and for people themselves. If they make a decision through the tool of a referendum we should be obliged to carry out that requirement. They are the ones paying the bills, and we had better get used to that. If we are to carry out their will we must do what we can to provide them with sufficient information to properly balance opposing points of view.

In the end it is their decision. I defend their right to make that decision, even to instruct me to do something I do not want to do, as I did when I voted for the gun control bill in the last parliament. In the end they will come to see whether or not it was a mistake, and if it was they will direct me to fix the mistake.

[Jason Kenney, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for North Vancouver. He is probably the most tenacious and articulate advocate of direct democracy in this place.

I share much of his commitment to direct democracy. I share the view, to paraphrase William F. Buckley Junior, that I would rather be governed by the first thousand people listed in the St. John's phone book than by the faculty of Memorial University.

Having said that, I do think on matters which affect rights, acquired rights and constitutional rights, a higher threshold is sometimes required.

I like to comment on a couple of the member's remarks. As somewhat of a student of direct democracy and its uses throughout the world, I find it peculiar the hon. member suggested it was not necessary for the legal text to be associated with the question in so far as the referendum was on the question.

The point is that the amendment is before the House. Virtually every direct democracy statute in the world requires that a bill or a legal text be put to the people along with the question, and that was not the case here.

Furthermore, the hon. member spoke quite rightly against public funding for particular sides in a referendum. I do not believe the no side should have had funding in this case. I believe the yes side should have been left to its own resources and not to have had privileged access to the public purse.

Does the hon. member think he is doing his defence of direct democracy any good by defending what I would submit were questionable practices in terms of this referendum?

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, those are good questions. The member and I have had plenty of discussions in private on this matter. He knows that I consider these to have been entitlements, not rights. That is a point of debate and difference which I know is shared by other members of the House.

Referendums around the world, particularly those initiated by citizens, rarely have any type of legal text associated with them. Proposition 13 in California is an example. We can look at the Swiss models. There is rarely anything other than a framework of the legal text that is finally put into practice.

I still maintain it is nice to have those tools available. I would encourage that. It is my understanding that the Newfoundland government set about doing that as fast as it could and immediately employed two lawyers to do it. It was released as quickly as possible. It was not a requirement. I would still say the average person on the street probably did not place as much importance on that as they did on the question itself.

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to enter the debate on term 17 and its amendment. My remarks will not be directed toward the democratic process, the legality of term 17 or the amendment thereof. My remarks will be focused in an attempt to build the case that the national interest is being jeopardized by the amendment.

I will do this from three perspectives. The provisions of the amendment prejudiciously affect the rights of parents to educate their children, a right which was declared in the 1948 convention by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It endorsed the rights of parents by stating that they had a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given their child.

Second, the political precedent that this creates in Canada could be significant. I will not dwell on that much more except to say what I did just now.

Third, it creates a severe problem, maybe a series of problems, and perhaps even denies the development of a common core of values and ethics that underlie a democratic form of government.

Turning to the first of these points, the prejudicial effect toward parents to determine the education of their children, it expunges the denominational schools but denominational schools teach a particular set of values and ethics.

The provisions for religious education that are not specific to a religious democracy are to be clearly differentiated from courses that have a particular denomination. What is being proposed is not a denominational kind of religious education but something else.

The question, then, that needs to be asked is what kind of a religion course will it be. Will it be the state view of what religion ought to be? Will it be the presentation of a menu of values from which individuals may choose whatever they wish?

There is reason to believe that it will probably be the latter. I refer in particular to the provisions of the Ontario curricula and here I refer to the common curriculum, policies and outcomes, Grades 1 to 9, 1995, a document that is in place and operative at this time, which reads in part:

Adapting to changing attitudes is a difficult process for all of us and one that can place special demands on students who are just beginning to develop and test their values. It is important, therefore, that schools and their programs provide both clear guidelines and a climate of flexibility and understanding in which independent thinking can thrive and in which students can develop values that they themselves consider relevant for the life they envisage. The common curriculum with its emphasis on responding to a variety of needs provides the basis for such a climate.

Two principles emerge from that statement in this curriculum. The first one is that schools do not teach shared principles or values. Instead there is a climate of flexible, personal values.

The second principle is that students develop the values which they choose, based upon their own perception of the relevance of the values to their lives. This is predicated on the fact that there is no right or wrong.

Nowhere in the common curriculum is there a statement that students in grades 1 to 9 in Ontario should be taught right from wrong. That is a serious implication. It is at the heart of our justice system and the criminal element in our society. People should know what is right and what is wrong, particularly at the beginning of the school system in grades 1 to 9.

Many will argue that values are best transmitted in the family. I agree. That is the most efficient and the most effective way. The difficulty is that if a family believes there is a set of virtues, ethics and values that should be held, the family challenges the state's view which seeks to impart to the young that values are after all merely a menu choices and that individuals are free to pick what is relevant in what they consider to be relevant for the life they envisage. Such a view is also supported by at least on supreme court judge who sits today. That judge states quite bluntly that there should not be any one conception of the good life.

It is rather clear from such a judge's position that parents teaching a particular set of values of the good life is unacceptable. Such a view does not just have implications for education. It removes the basis on which laws themselves are formulated. It removes the basis on which one can judge a good law from a bad law, and it eliminates the distinction between needs and wants of human beings.

This elimination implies that there is no right desire and there is no wrong desire. There is then also no need to develop the ability or the skill to decide what is or what is not a right desire.

There could have been in the Newfoundland situation an avoidance of this whole problem. It could have been dealt with if the opportunity had been presented to the parents to let their tax dollar follow their child so that the parents would be able to choose the kind of school that they wanted their children to attend. That would have avoided the morass that exists there.

I agree the Newfoundland school system was a mess. The organization and administration was a tremendous problem. I have known that for a lot longer than this debate has been going on. That had to be fixed. There was a way to fix it.

We heard many hon. members say the government had no choice. That is to suggest that the government had no imagination. It had a choice but it chose not to make that choice. That is what it did. It chose a particular way and said we had no choice. It is wrong, it is misleading and it is false.

Quite aside from the need to have a particular teaching of what is right and wrong in the schools, this also I believe has an implication for democracy itself.

I would like to suggest that one of the requirements of a democracy is that children know and be taught a program and the proper limits of human behaviour. Unless we know what the proper limits of human behaviour are democracy in itself is in danger.

I am borrowing here to some degree from David Brown, a Toronto lawyer who specializes in commercial litigation with particular emphasis on the constitutional provisions in Canada. He says we need to have recognized that a common set of values is fundamental to the existence and operation of a democracy.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 injects legal rights into the relationship between parent and child. This was ratified in Canada in 1991. Justice Wilson, to paraphrase this position, observes that these legal rights erects an invisible fence around each child which parents will not be allowed to penetrate. We can begin to recognize what the situation is here. There is now a clear distinction here that the role of the family in the life of the child is clearly reduced by the UN convention.

Now we have the strong possibility that term 17 will also have the effect of reducing the role of the family in the lives of our children. Why do I say this? There is a contemporary view in 1997 thinking that democracy depends on a core set of values and ethics to set the proper limits of human behaviour. There is also historical thinking on the very same point.

In fact, it goes back to 1835 when Alexis Tocqueville travelled through the North American continent and concluded that in order for the American business to complete itself and to reach the proper conclusions of democracy there needed to be a safeguard and the safeguard came from the religious and ethical beliefs of the people of America. That is what gave democracy its strength and that is what gives it its base. That is the foundation on which our laws rest. That is also the basis on which we can evaluate a good law compared with a bad law.

On this particular amendment, term 17, to the constitution of Canada, not now, in fact maybe not for the next two, three or even five years, but the time is coming when we will point to this and say that was the beginning of a major rift and a major problem with the democracy itself in Canada because our youngsters do not have a clear understanding of what is right and what is wrong, what is moral, what is ethical and the principles with which we should govern our behaviour and set limits on our desires.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I was confused about the Reform Party's position on this issue before and now I am fundamentally confused.

Particular religious denominations are essential, not all, because in Newfoundland we had seven denominations which have entrenched denominational rights in terms of the educational system.

In reference to the process of forming legislation and law, what exactly is the member talking about? I would like to know if there is such a thing as catholic made criminal law and Jewish made criminal law and whether he would subscribe to that view or if there is law in the best interest of society and Canadians, and that law should apply to all Canadians equally, regardless of religious background of the drafters of the legislation.

I also ask if views held by constituents are valid only if they coincide with the views of the members opposite. Clearly this is a classic example, 73% of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador deciding an issue which is basic to their interests and basic to their values. They clearly articulated their values. I think we have some disagreement. We are citing now international charter on why it should not be imposed.

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed having the hon. member as co-chair of the committee. I learned to respect him.

I also learned from the question he has just asked that sometimes he does not listen as well as he should. Had he listened well he would have heard that I talked not about catholic laws, not about the values held by the Pentecostals, the Baptists or any other group. What I said was that for a democracy to persist and for a democracy to flourish it was necessary to have a common set of principles, a shared set of values and a shared set of ethics. That is what I said.

There was no denominational significance given to the particular set of values but there had to be agreement on what there ought to be. I will put it in the context of the provision that exists in Ontario curriculum where there is no such common principle or set of values.

History has shown that these agreements on the common principles and values are held within the particular religious groups. Many of them are shared.

However, to deny them and to simply say you have these particular sets of values but the school comes along and says really it does not matter, there is this clarification that takes place and you can choose any one of them, it does not make any difference.

It does make a difference and that is the point I was trying to make. If the hon. member did not understand that, then he has a problem.

[Jason Kenney, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member from Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte seems to keep referring to members of the Reform Party. Maybe he will understand that this is a free vote where members of different parties are taking different positions.

To try to take cheap partisan shots and to draw inferences about what party is supporting what position is totally inappropriate. I wish the hon. member would be a little more responsible in conducting himself in this debate.

I gather the hon. member from Okanagan is saying that unless there is in the school system some way of transmitting the basic moral values on which any Liberal democracy is founded, they end up with a kind of relativism which is itself inimical to democracy, that democracy is based on the understanding of the inviolable dignity to the human person—