Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to participate in this debate both as a minister and as a member of the House, in my capacity as minister responsible for the administration of the Canada Elections Act and as a member of the House.
We should all rejoice on this great day. This is the day we commence the debate on the creation of the new territory in the great land of Canada.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the hon. member for Nunavut, who is doing such a good job of representing her constituents in that beautiful part of the country, the Canadian North.
The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader said in his remarks a while ago that we were by way of this legislation creating a territory which is much greater than my own province of Ontario. The province of Ontario is so large in its territory east to west that it is greater than most European nations. And here we are creating a territory that will be even larger than that province.
I wish the people of Nunavut well on this great day. I am here to join with my colleagues in cabinet, as did the minister of Indian affairs earlier today, in wishing them the very best on the beginning of this brand new and great adventure which is the creation of this new territory. I am already looking forward to April 1, 1999 when the map of Canada itself will change to reflect the coming into existence of Canada's third territory.
I also believe that what we are seeing today is a continuing process of constitutional change, an evolution of this country, the creation of provinces, of territories. We make changes from time to time to accommodate the fact that we are very much a living society which changes all the time. We are not stagnant. We have not remained the same as some people sometimes pretend. We have in fact grown, evolved and made this country better for many Canadians, hopefully for all Canadians. The process we are starting today will contribute to that.
What I find disappointing, however, on this big day is the speech by the Leader of the Opposition, not the earlier one by the hon. member for Souris—Moose Mountain. His was a fine speech.
I was disappointed by the speech by the Leader of the Opposition, earlier today. His diatribe lasted nearly two hours. He used as his excuse for taking up half a day for his litany to the House of Commons that he was refused unanimous consent to table his speech. So it was the fault of the people who refused to allow him to table his speech if he spoke too long.
Most Canadians will have trouble understanding his reasoning. Why? Simply because it is not all that logical.
What happened a little earlier today is this. We have seen an opposition party which has been, I would say, unsuccessful in its attempt to criticize the government effectively. It has done a miserable job of doing that. It has failed miserably in criticizing the government. Polls and so on will demonstrate that and the result of a byelection only a few days ago confirms it.
We now have the situation where having been unsuccessful in attacking the government, the Reform Party has commenced attacking the institution. This manifested itself a few weeks back on the appointment of one member of the other place. The Leader of the Opposition made remarks and was challenged to repeat them outside the House. They were outrageous. He refused to do so. He was embarrassed. A little while later, we saw the despicable event of the same person attacking the occupant of the Chair in this Chamber. There were attacks upon the other House, the flag flap and so on.
What we have seen today is part of an attack against the institution of Parliament. It is bad enough that this vicious attack would take place, but it took place on this great day for so many aboriginal Canadians. That is what upsets me as a member of this House.
I am sure some members across, including the member who gave an excellent speech moments ago, cannot feel all that good about what the leader of the Reform Party did earlier today.
That is how I think. I am sure there must be members of the Reform Party who also find what happened earlier today to be extremely distasteful. If there is no member of the Reform Party who finds what happened earlier today to be distasteful, then it is even worse than I thought it would have been.
I will get back to the leader of the Reform Party in a moment. We heard the Reform Party's comments on constitutional reform. Some of us remember what Reformers said a little while ago. Some years ago we had the Charlottetown accord which was designed by the premiers and the prime minister at the time, who certainly was not the leader of my party.
The day after the draft agreement it was decided that the people of Canada would have a direct say in the process. Most of us in this room, including the leaders of all parties except one, put partisan politics aside and went to the people of Canada. The leader in question had just become an avowed separatist after being a federalist, but we will leave that one for another time. Except for that particular leader, all other political leaders in this House joined forces and went to the people of Canada, along with all the premiers and the head of aboriginal federations in Canada, to speak in favour of the draft constitutional amendment and seek the approval of Canadians.
When we in this House put everything aside, when we shifted everything and put Canada first, there was one aspiring political leader, a hot button political leader, who chose to do otherwise. He campaigned against the accord, pontificated from afar as he did. The accord was eventually defeated. That is fine. I accept that.
The accord in my own constituency had the largest majority in favour of it from the Quebec-Ontario boundary to Vancouver. I campaigned for it every single day, rain or shine. I am very proud of the fact that in my constituency there was favour for the accord, the document which I thought would have contributed to the strengthening of our country.
I remember at the time when the accord was eventually defeated the same person, who is now the Leader of the Opposition, say “Let us put all constitutional discussion aside for at least five years”. I hate to quote the man using his own words but that is what he said.