Mr. Chairman, the hon. member was accurate when he said that we had this debate when we brought in the anti-personnel land mines treaty.
The same basic question remains. This is not a slight modification or amendment. It is a major constitutional change. What it recommends is that we begin moving toward a republican form of government, the cabinet style of government where parliament holds executives accountable, and the executive has to negotiate and deal with treaties. That would change in a very fundamental way.
I am not sure members at this stage, at the clause by clause discussion of the bill on comprehensive treaties, are prepared to undertake the significance and weight of making a major constitutional change. In a very practical way it would substantially alter the capacity of Canada to negotiate and deal with treaties.
It would cause the same kind of problems that the United States is now finding itself in, where it can sign treaties but never have them ratified. Unfortunately, that country has a long inventory of treaties which it is unable to ratify because of the requirement of the Senate to give its approval.
In cases where there is a disagreement between the executive branch and the legislative branch, it is simply not ratifying them. It is not even close to ratifying this treaty, as well as many other treaties that have similar kinds of context.
Fortunately in our system we have that capacity. The parliamentary system, in my humble view, is superior from that point of view. When the government makes a commitment internationally and it has a majority, it has the capacity to hold the pleasure of the House in making that kind of change.
I say to the hon. member, as experience has proven, we go out of our way to ensure that parliament is consulted. We have fundamentally changed the rules by which we work in the House in terms of any international action that we are going to take. We have debates in parliament. If parliament is not sitting or if it is not convenient, we go to the committees. In the case of these treaties, when they require legislative changes, we bring them in for full debate, such as we are having today.
At this point in time it would be very unwise to sneak in the back door, by way of amendment to this particular bill, something that would change the Constitution. If the hon. member wants to change the Constitution, there are other ways of doing it rather than doing it through this kind of format.
I would ask the indulgence of the House to say that the object of this bill is to have a comprehensive test ban treaty, to which Canada is a signatory, and not to change the Constitution.