Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Vancouver Quadra for his three questions.
First, on concluding treaties and provincial participation in the conclusion of treaties, I did not raise that in my remarks this morning, because I wanted to limit them to the role of parliament in the conclusion of federal treaties.
Since the treaty we are being called upon to implement comes primarily if not exclusively under federal jurisdiction, only the federal parliament may intervene for purposes of legislative implementation.
But, if you want an answer to your question, there would be ways of involving the provinces in the conclusion of treaties, even in a federation like Canada. What is more, Quebec, with its Gérin-Lajoie doctrine, believes not only that it must be involved in the conclusion of treaties and approve treaties concluded by Canada in areas over which the Constitution gives it jurisdiction, but it believes and affirms, as all successive governments of Quebec have done, that, under the present Constitution, it even has authority to act autonomously in concluding treaties in areas that come under its jurisdiction.
It is because of the continual foot-dragging of the federal government—which has often sought to introduce umbrella agreements to limit Quebec's autonomy—that many Quebecers want sovereignty. There is no excuse for this foot-dragging, even within a federal framework, and it will only stop when Quebec becomes a sovereign state with the authority to conclude its own treaties free of intervention by the federal government.
With respect to the second question, when treaties are not self-executing, they have to be implemented by legislation. Here we have an example of a treaty that is not self-executing as far as all of its clauses are concerned, since the Civil International Space Station agreement requires the Parliament of Canada, and the House of Commons in particular, to pass amendments to the Criminal Code in order to implement section 22 of the treaty, which the implementation bill does in clause 11. The treaty not being one hundred percent self-executing, it was therefore important for this House to adopt implementing legislation.
What I wanted to emphasize in my speech, however, was that this legislation implements an international treaty which did not have the prior approval by this House that it ought to have had. It is necessary for the House of Commons to approve a treaty in order for it to have greater legitimacy. Then parliament can move to pass implementing legislation.
Finally in response to the third question from my colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, concerning Australia, I realize that there is a great difference. I would not like to see us with an arrangement similar to Australia's, one which is in my opinion contrary to the federal principle. It is precisely because at one point we had a Privy Council judiciary committee that respected provincial jurisdictions that today we still have shared legislative jurisdiction over implementation.
That is not enough to convince us to stay within Canada, however.