Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking on Motion No. 277 which is sponsored by the hon. member for Beaver River. It is an important motion because it deals with an issue which was brought to my attention by many people in my constituency during the time of the last census.
The people who came to me were concerned that they were not given a choice on the long census form when they were asked about background. They were not given the chance to choose Canadian. Many of these people who contacted me, in fact all of them, were upset because Canadian is what they are and is what they consider themselves to be.
Why was Canadian not given as a choice? It has been talked about by some of the hon. members who have spoken on this issue before me. One of the reasons of course is that if that choice is given it is too difficult, you do not get accurate information for employment equity legislation. That is certainly one of the key reasons.
Employment equity legislation insists that in government agencies and agencies regulated by the federal government people be hired based on quotas. Many provinces of course have employment equity legislation as well.
Many of the people who support the idea of employment equity argue that we are not talking about quotas at all. All we are talking about is giving everybody a fair chance and a fair shot at things. Clearly some groups, in particular some visible minorities or gender or someone with a certain sexual orientation have not been given a fair chance. We only want to make that fair but we are not talking about quotas.
A young fellow, the son of a person I have come to know through Reform, came home when I was with his parents. I asked this young fellow what he was working on. He said he worked with computers. This was a job during the summer. I knew he was in university and would be going back. I asked him what kind of work he did. He said he was doing a project for the Ontario government with regard to employment equity. I said that is interesting and asked what the program is for.
He said it is to determine how many people should be hired by chartered banks. Actually the work he was doing was going to be sold to chartered banks so that the banks know how many people to hire from each group. I said: "Do you think that is right, that you would hire based on quota?" He said: "It is not about quota at all. It is just information for the banks so they can determine how many people they should hire".
After we pursued this a little the young man came to realize this is quota, and that is what we are talking about here, quota. He did acknowledge this after a bit of discussion. I found it really surprising that this young fellow had been so brainwashed by the people who were promoting this employment program he was working for never to refer to this as quota when clearly that is what is was.
What does this have to do with this motion sponsored by the hon. member for Beaver River? The connection is that the reason StatsCan is getting these numbers and is not including Canadian as one of the groups to choose is that the numbers are needed for employment equity. That is one of the reasons. It has everything to do with quotas.
When the statistics are collected and it is found out how many people there are in each of the visible minority groups, in the other categories, the different colour groups, once that information is obtained, that information is applied directly to government hiring and to hiring by agencies that are regulated by the federal government, such as banks. They will be used in the provincial employment equity programs where they are in place. That is without a doubt the most important reason these statistics are collected.
When these people came to me during the last census and after the last census that is why they were so upset. They knew the reason this information was being collected. They knew it had everything to do with employment equity, that it had everything to do with quotas. It upset these people.
Many of these people had immigrated to this country themselves from some other part of the world or their parents had emigrated from some other part of the world. They did not want to be referred to by their ethnic background. They did not want to be categorized based on ethnic background or skin colour or any other visible characteristic. They wanted to be referred to as Canadians. That is why this motion has come forth. It would give Canadians a chance again, no matter what ethnic background, what skin colour to just be Canadians.
It certainly is one reason this information is being collected. There are other possibilities. One of course is to determine how much funding should go to different multicultural groups, multicultural spending. Polls have shown and certainly people who talk to other people in large numbers would know that Canadians do not accept spending taxpayers' money on promoting certain cultures. The general principle that people believe should guide spending on culture is that the money should come from the people who are interested in preserving that culture.
Certain groups have done this extremely well. They have protected their culture. They have promoted their culture. They have put their culture to others in the neighbourhood in a way that has fascinated people. It has not caused resentment because they know it is not taxpayers' money that is doing this.
One group I can think of is the Ukrainian group. In my constituency there is a large group of people who emigrated or their parents emigrated from Ukraine. Long before multicultural grants were available they did a super job through the church and through work in the community of keeping their culture for themselves, for their children and for the interest of others in the community. Because people knew that they were doing it with their own money, there certainly was not any resentment.
Now that there are multiculturalism programs a resentment has built toward the people from visible minority groups themselves who are funded with taxpayers' money, who are promoting their culture with the use of taxpayers' money. That is what causes the resentment.
There are some other possible reasons for wanting these numbers. I wonder. Leading up to the last election the Liberal Party chose women candidates, it just chose them. The Liberals did not allow the proper nomination process to take place because there were not enough women to become members of Parliament who were going to be running for the Liberals.
I am wondering if part of the intent of getting these numbers is that the Liberals are now going to appoint candidates for the next election based on the numbers obtained in the census. I say that kind of tongue in cheek but I am not so sure it would not happen. Let us all hope it would not. Let us let the best person for the job get the job.