Now, on a less happy note, I wish to condemn the odious approach taken by the government in Bill C-20, an act to give effect to the requirement for clarity as set out in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Quebec secession reference.
With this bill, and I am choosing my words carefully here, the federal government is using the law for purely partisan reasons and is making a sham of it.
First, I must remind the House that the Supreme Court of Canada never gave the government the responsibility and the power to give effect, as it says, to the requirement for clarity, which the court allegedly set out. jugement de la cour. J'ai donc traduit.
In light of the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada, and I quote “It is up to the political actors to determine what constitutes a clear majority and a clear question”. Contrary to what the federal government claims, the court has given no exclusivity or precedence to any political actor regarding the definition of what would be a clear majority and a clear question. Thus, the federal move blatantly exceeds the scope of the supreme court's opinion.
Besides, concerned by the fact that Quebecers are attracted to the concept of partnership, the federal government claims that is has the power to order that an eventual referendum should deal with only one issue, what Ottawa calls secession, which, again, would go against the spirit and the letter of the supreme court's opinion.
Members will recognize that this is not the first time the federal government violates established constitutional conventions and its own constitution. We need only think of the numerous encroachments by the federal government on provincial jurisdictions.
The choice of terms is not, of course, ever neutral. The court stipulates in fact as follows:
—conferring a right to initiate constitutional change on each participant in Confederation. In our view, the existence of this right imposes a corresponding duty on the participants in Confederation to engage in constitutional discussions in order to acknowledge and address democratic expressions of a desire for change in other provinces.
Thus the future proposals for constitutional changes referred to by the supreme court would not, contrary to federal claims, be limited solely to secession.
In its opinion, the supreme court also takes great care in making it clear that it is speaking of a clear majority in the qualitative sense of the word. It is therefore wrong to claim, as the federal government does unreasonably, that 50% plus one would not, in the eyes of the court, constitute a clear majority. In democracy, 50% plus one is a majority, and in a democracy a majority is clear.
In this connection, I would point out that in a 1991 supreme court decision it was stated that:
—each vote must be relatively equal to every other vote. To water down the importance and significance of an individual's vote is to weaken the democratic process.
This is therefore the court's constant opinion, since it has also concluded in the past that a system which dilutes one citizen's vote unduly as compared with another citizen's vote runs the risk of providing uneven and unfair representation.
We must, therefore, conclude, based on precedents established by the supreme court itself, that the federal manoeuvre is not only potentially illegal and unconstitutional, but also basically undemocratic.
This bill is unacceptable also because the House of Commons would be deciding the acceptability of the question even before the debate on that same question in the Quebec National Assembly is over, and the latter is the legitimate decision-making centre for the entire process leading up to the decision by the Quebec people on its own future.
I would like to raise another profoundlu undemocratic element of the process followed by the government, namely the hearing of witnesses during study of Bill C-20 by the legislative committee. If it wants to have a minimum of credibility when claiming that it intends to preserve the integrity of democratic institutions, the federal government must adequately consult the people on a bill that has such an importance for its collective future.
How could the government impose closure on the study of Bill C-20 at second reading? How could it so outrageously limit the number of witnesses that the legislative committee can hear and decide that only those who are duly chosen by one or the other of the five recognized political parties in this House will be heard?
How could it refuse to allow the committee to travel in Quebec and Canada to meet all those who would like to be heard on an issue as fundamental as this one? How could it flout normal parliamentary practice and the most elementary principles of parliamentary consultation, if not because it knows that its tactics does not meet with the approval of the Quebec people and because it wants to proceed quickly enough to prevent any organized opposition to this infamous bill to organize?
Quebec does not have any democracy lessons to receive from anyone, especially not from the federal government. Quebec's democratic institutions are respected and admired all over the world. Furthermore, the level of democratic ethics in Quebec is far superior to the one seen on the federal scene and which sometimes take us back to the dark ages. This is evidenced by the partisan appointment process used by the party in office to select returning officers responsible for the administration of federal elections in each riding, and by the permissiveness that exists at the federal level regarding the rules for political party financing.
Some democracy, when it promotes influence peddling and always allows the affluent to be the strongest voices heard by people's representatives. When one lives in a glass house, one should not throw stones.
“Do as I say, not as I do” goes the old saying. I tell the minister sponsoring Bill C-20, and also government members, that the question asked by the federal government to the Montagnais in the Lac Saint-Jean region is not exactly a model of clarity, a clarity allegedly being sought by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs with his bill.
We are talking here about a rather complex question with two components, with only one possible answer, and with references to an agreement and to two sections of an act.
So much for the clarity of the question. How can we presume that the Montagnais of the Lac Saint-Jean region would automatically give the same answer to the two questions?
Why does the government demand a single answer to these two questions? This government, which boasts about having the monopoly on clarity, is asking a very ambiguous question that lends itself to very different interpretations by voters. Sure, the federal government will claim that the 1995 referendum question was not clear. But another saying provides that when in doubt, do nothing.
Since the turnout for the referendum on sovereignty-association on October 30, 1995 was 93%, we conclude without a doubt that Quebecers understood the question put to them and its issues very well.
In order to show that the federal government is not a prophet in its own land, I would add that, for the referendum it is organizing for the Montagnais of Lac St-Jean, the majority acceptable will be 50% plus one of the voters.
The former chief returning officer for Quebec, Pierre F. Côté, said the following when he appeared before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in connection with the study of the proposed reform of the Canada Elections Act, and I quote:
For democracy to exist, there must be the appearance of democracy.
In the matter before us here, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and the Prime Minister have shown us eloquently that they are striking another undemocratic blow against Quebec.
The day will soon come when the black clouds of federal pettiness will disappear from the democratic landscape of Quebec, the day the government stops mocking Quebec democracy.
We have to recognize the fact. In democracy, all the rules of the game are set in advance. They are clear and remain unchanged from start to finish. We intend to ensure this is the case now and on the day Quebecers democratically create for themselves a country that reflects their abilities and their aspirations. And that country is Quebec.
