Mr. Speaker, I am speaking to Motion No. 23 which would change the oath of citizenship as it is in the current bill to another version.
I have to correct the member for Lakeland. The second version that I will read presently is very much a version that was created in this parliament in answer to the fact that after extensive consultation with Canadians the government failed to listen to what Canadians were saying about their oath of citizenship and continued with an oath that is essentially the very same British oath that has been with this country since the expulsion of the Acadians in the mid-1750s.
I will read the oath that is in the bill now. Then I will read the oath that I propose. The oath that is in the bill now says:
From this day forward, I pledge my loyalty and allegiance to Canada and Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada. I promise to respect our country's rights and freedoms, to uphold our democratic values, to faithfully observe our laws and fulfil my duties and obligations as a Canadian citizen.
To repeat, this is a direct descendant of the British oath that began two centuries ago. This is in its tone and content an oath that is not born in Canada.
After all the consultation that occurred—I was on the citizenship committee in 1994-95—we received many, many Canadians and many, many ethnic groups that spoke about the current oath and made suggestions. The citizenship committee cycled through this discussion yet again just a couple of years ago and the government did extensive studies. All said that the oath containing the allegiance to the Queen was no longer something that resonated with current Canadians, much less with those new Canadians who come to our country and have to take this oath.
When the citizenship bill was first presented to parliament last year as Bill C-63, and we saw this oath that I just read, a number of us on this side were scandalized. We were absolutely scandalized. Right here the member from Brampton West on this side and the member from Dufferin—Peel—Wellington, we put our heads together and we wrote a new version of the oath based on what we believe in our heart of hearts as parliamentarians is what Canada is all about and based also on what we heard people tell the citizenship committee over three years.
What we came up with is an oath that has three components. It eliminates reference to the Queen. It restores reference to God and it attempts to summarize the principles that are contained in the charter of rights and freedoms which I believe are the principles that motivate Canadians and describe our unique identity. The oath that we came up with, and I will read it now, is this:
In pledging allegiance to Canada, I take my place among Canadians, a people united by God whose sacred trust is to uphold these five principles: equality of opportunity, freedom of speech, democracy, basic human rights, and the rule of law.
I propose to deal with each of those three elements and first the Queen. One of the themes that came out of the hearings on citizenship that was absolutely consistent was that people come from all over the world to Canada and when they come to swear an oath of citizenship to Canada they cannot understand the reference to the Queen. In fact the government's own opinion polls find that most new Canadians coming to Canada cannot understand the reference to the Queen.
The Queen is a foreign monarch. It is certainly true the monarchy has a role in Canadian society in terms of our legal entity and our functions as parliament and eliminating the reference to the Queen, as the Australians did in 1993, in no way affects our parliamentary traditions or the operation of this parliament or the governor general or anything else.
The reality is, as we heard in testimony, that many people come to Canada from other lands in which they associate the British monarchy with slavery. Indeed I point out that the original oath of allegiance that was required of francophones, of French Canadians and of Acadians, was required in 1755 and when they failed to swear allegiance to the monarchy of the time the Acadians were expelled. They were taken out of Nova Scotia and scattered down the coast of the United States.
I think most Acadians would now refuse to take an oath containing a reference to the monarchy, because of this dark period in our history.
What are we doing having the Queen, the monarchy, in an oath that describes Canada when we are inviting these people to Canada? I think what I am saying here is that the Queen no longer captures the spirit of what it is to be Canadian. In fact in the context of an oath of citizenship I wonder whether the Queen ever did.
I do not think it is out of place to eliminate the Queen from the oath of citizenship. I think when we do so we repatriate the oath of citizenship, because new people coming to this land realize that it is Canada that they are coming to, not Britain, not to some foreign monarch, not to the British monarchy. They are coming to Canada. That is the first point.
The second point is the oath I propose has the words that new Canadians come and take their places among Canadians, a people united by God. I was very careful in using this reference to God. I point out first that all the other major oaths of citizenships, in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain have a reference to God. What happened in Canada was when we last went through the oath of citizenship we took the reference to God out.
In proposing to put the reference back in, all I am doing is reflecting the fact that we have the reference to God in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I am not suggesting that a new Canadian coming to Canada should feel that in taking this oath that the person is indicating he or she believes in God or the person is assigning an association with one religion or another.
The reality about the Canadian history, our life, is that every kind of Canadian has had an association with God. Whether we are a Christian, or a Muslim, or an aboriginal, actually 80% of Canadians believe that there is some sort of higher authority. We as Canadians owe our good fortune of having one of the most wonderful countries in the world to something more than just NASDAQ, the stock exchange or our mining riches.
Canadians are more than meat and potatoes. This land is more than fire and water. This land is something that is above our human intellect. Generally speaking, Canadians as a society have held that belief. What we do here is say that a new Canadian who comes to this land is going to be a part of this tradition of a faith in God. This is not an ideology. It is still open to opportunity. The person does not have to believe in God because this is a land where we accept people of all points of view. That is one of the reasons why we can have a room of such tolerance here. We can have separatists and people of different ideologies. That is the genius of this country.
Finally, there are the five principles of equality of opportunity, freedom of speech, democracy, basic human rights and the rule of law. These derive directly from our charter of rights and liberties. This is what we are as Canadians. This is the spirit of being Canadian. This is what defines our tolerance. It is not just being equal, it is having equality of opportuntiy. That is why we believe in medicare and why we believe in universal education. Freedom of speech, democracy and all these things are essential to the Canadian spirit.
I say to you, Mr. Speaker, these are what define Canadians; these are the principles that define Canadian. I urge all party leaders to allow a free vote on this issue. I heard the member for Rosemont and respect his point of view. But for heaven's sake, this opportunity to repatriate the constitution, to repatriate the oath of citizenship and to bring it back to Canada should surely be a free vote allowed by all party leaders.