Mr. Speaker, imagine someone coming from another planet, sitting down right here in Canada and finding that they were being asked some questions on a census. People came around and the person who came from outer space to Canada was answering the questions in a census and thought "I better find out where I am".
He got an atlas that said Canada. He checked around and found a hockey team called the Montreal Canadiens. He was watching TV and saw an advertisement for a beer that was called "Canadian" and thought "Canada, hmm".
When it came time to answer the census, the person from outer space looked for the slot that said Canadian and much to that person's chagrin he could not find it.
Imagine the same person sitting down anywhere else in the world. I suppose in England, English would not be there. It would have to be something else; American would not be there.
From time to time we ordinary Canadians sometimes wonder if there is a lack of oxygen in the air in Ottawa. God knows there has to be something that causes this. What other explanation could there be for such a bone headed decision to say in Canada we will have a census form and the person cannot be a Canadian?
It does not matter whether the person has been here for a week, whether they have been a citizen of this great country for a week, a day or whether we go back 10 generations, we are Canadians. Is that not what it is all about? Is that not what being part of the mosiac, of this family from a host of different countries around the world is?
Do members suppose that people came here from Rwanda to be Rwandans forever? Do members think perhaps that our forefathers came from wherever they came from to be where they were? What do they suppose it was that brought them to this magic land Canada? It was the values we have of inclusiveness. It was that in Canada it is possible to be equal before the law, no matter their station in life, whether high born or low born.
There are situations where that is not always the case. We can speak to that tomorrow when we talk about Bob Fowler and Kyle Brown and the difference between those two people who should be equal before the law but who are not.
Generally speaking, one of the magic, marvellous things about Canada is that we are equal before the law. It does not matter what colour our skin is. We are a nation of values. What could possibly be the motivating factor? What could motivate these people at Census Canada who are known around the world for the fact that we really have a good census?
The census information that is compiled is good for the country. It gives us statistical factual information from which we can have a foundation for a whole host of different things, like how the economy is going, the number of children there are, what we should plan for, the number of schools we are going to need, the number of senior citizen retirement homes we are going to need and what happens demographically in a community in response to a particular initiative, financial or otherwise.
The census is good and the census takers are recognized around the world as being first rate. Therefore it does not seem logical for them to say "how can we screw up this census and enrage half the population?" Do we suppose they get up in the morning and say "It is just too easy. Why do we not do something to drive everybody crazy and knock our phones off the hook so that people think that we are the crazy ones, not the people in the House of Commons who represent us"?
If we scratch the surface we will find that there is a method to the madness. There is a reason. The employment equity affirmative action legislation passed by the Liberal government is not worth the powder to blow it to hell, which is where it should be blown to, unless we have the data base from which to explore and make comparisons.
I had the privilege to respond on behalf of our party to the multiculturalism report on the 25th anniversary of the new wave of multiculturalism in Canada. At that time I was proud to say that our country is one heart and many colours. That is what we are. However, when we set up a country based upon division, based upon our ancestry, then we are going directly counter to everything we have tried to do to make our nation inclusive.
We are Canadians because we share common values. Canadians understand that there are some of us who are less able to carry the load and we help them. We measure the quality of our community not by the highest but by the lowest among us; not by the most privileged but by the least privileged. These are the values that make a nation. They are fairness and equality. All people are measured equally, based on merit, and those who need help can depend on that help.
The minute we introduce into our culture the notion that people should have or be declined benefit because of their race, we are introducing sand into the foundation of our nation that we will come to regret.
It is interesting to note that the only country that has ever, to my knowledge and to the knowledge of my researchers, asked for the racial determination of persons in a census was Germany during the horror of the Nazi times. I am not suggesting for a moment that these two are equal. I am not suggesting that the motivation is the same. That would be ludicrous. We all know it is not. However, the fact remains that the racial background of people in this country is nobody's business, period. We are Canadians because we are human beings and that is where our equality comes in.
Everything we do in our country should be based on merit and the values that we share as human beings, and not for any other reason; not because of the colour of our skin, our religion, our sex or our sexual orientation. It should be based strictly on merit.
Introducing this innocuous little change has the potential to take us down further on a path that many Canadians already see as being divisive and harmful to our nation in the long run.
I would ask all hon. members to consider the fact that by putting Canada back into the census we will be helping to build and to mould an inclusive country where we do not look at each other and see the colour of each other's skin, or our sex, but that we look at each other and see who we are as human beings, sharing a common value system, a common destiny, all of us as Canadians.