Madam Speaker, first, I want to thank my hon. colleague, the member for Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia.
I support the spirit of his bill because I absolutely believe in the powers of the provinces and I respect these powers inherent in the Constitution. The same cannot always be said of the federal government, which thinks of itself as the major leagues, with the provinces being the minor leagues.
I do not believe that is the case. According to the Constitution, both levels of government are equal. Their powers are different, of course, but both levels are equal.
That is why I can support the spirit of what my colleague is saying.
If we had a federal government that more properly understood the sensitivities of the provinces, especially the province of Quebec, and acted on that, then my colleague might not have been provoked to bring forward this particular piece of legislation.
This is the policy of the Conservative Party should we be honoured to win what is hopefully the upcoming election. We have stated our policy very clearly. When it comes to international treaties there would be a fully consultative process in place, not just token consultation but genuine consultation, regarding the times and the moments when the rights of provinces are being affected.
Those times of consultation would include a number of things that in fact my colleague has articulated in his bill, which I believe a responsible federal government would do without having to be forced to by law. We would in fact integrate the proper use of committees of the House in a process of discussion related to international treaties.
As other opposition parties have, we have argued consistently for a far more democratic process when it comes to committees in the House of Commons. Issues would not be constantly bantered about based on partisan politics. What is good for the country and what is good for provincial rights would be the factor, and voting and discussion could be across party lines. We would activate that type of committee process. It would be genuine. It would be truly consultative.
My colleague talks about public meetings. We would absolutely look at the potential of public meetings and how we could hear from the grassroots, the citizens, in terms of how various international treaties might affect them where they live.
As a matter of fact, in the prospective legislation there is a designation as per the number of days that something would have to sit before the House if related to international treaties. The member is proposing that this be designated in law. We would not be subjected or cemented to a particular number of days. If something had to be before this Parliament for discussion, there would not be an attempt by a Conservative government to abbreviate those discussions if there were concerns from one or more provinces.
A strong country comes about when the provinces themselves are strong and when the provinces are having their rights according to the Constitution respected. We would see any number of days, whatever would be required, before Parliament itself while these various elements were being discussed.
The federal government often talks about consultation or wanting to hear from the provinces. Our policy goes farther than that. We would want the consultation with the provinces to be intensive and extensive. We would want provinces to take the initiative, do the necessary study and bring forward areas of concern related to international treaties and the impact upon them.
This is a partnership based on equality. It is not based on the federal government having the sense that it somehow has a greater constitutional weight than the provincial parliaments. We would want what is in the best interests of the provinces. If the provinces' interests are being respected and cared for, then in fact the country's interests are being respected and cared for.
I might add that we would not pursue the provinces just before potential non-confidence votes. We would be there at all times, on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis, working closely with provinces, not just when our future as a government might be in peril because of losing a vote here or there or possibly gaining one in the House of Commons in facing a non-confidence vote. That kind of activity on the part of the federal government actually causes provinces to lose confidence in the House of Commons. We would see a Conservative government being genuine and being constant in its attempts to work with provinces in all areas, really, but especially as related to international treaties.
There is some history here, which I can reflect on to show what I believe would be a responsible approach to international treaties. In the development of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Conservative government of the day, and I will give it credit for this, recognized that there were varying jurisdictions between Canada, the United States and Mexico in terms of responsibility of governments.
For instance, in the area of labour law, in Canada that was clearly a provincial jurisdiction. The Conservative government of the day made a point of surveying the provinces before NAFTA was signed to explore what differences there might be from one province to another and what problems might evolve if the federal government were to assume responsibility for labour law.
At that time I was a provincial minister of labour. The other provincial minister who had some difficulties with what was being proposed in NAFTA was in fact the minister of labour from the province of Quebec. We worked very closely together to make sure that labour laws which were a provincial jurisdiction would be protected and respected. We worked out a proposal and took that forward to the federal government.
The federal government of the day said, “We respect that and we will have side agreements, not just in the area of labour but in the area of the regulatory regime related to the environment”. That was also a provincial jurisdiction. Thus, there is some history of past federal governments acknowledging and respecting the areas of constitutional jurisdiction that fall to the provinces. That is the approach we would take. For a country to work well, to be cohesive and to recognize that there are differences in different parts of the country, there has to be that kind of flexibility at the federal level. We need to have a federal government that respects the areas of provincial concern.
At times, concerns in the province of Quebec may be different from those in the province of British Columbia. In the province of British Columbia, I can tell members, there would be respect for the differences and the concerns related to Quebec of how an international treaty might affect it, just as I am sure the people in Quebec would respect that from time to time there would be international treaties which would have different implications in the province of British Columbia.
That is the key. It is the spirit of recognizing the intent of this type of legislation. That is why I can say we support the spirit of the legislation. When we get down to the study of this legislation itself, there may be particular technical items on which we would obviously have some differences of opinion.
I believe that if we had had a federal government in place that truly understood what it was to respect provinces, then we would not have had the provocation and we would not have had the motivation and the causes for this type of legislation to come forward.
We would have a far more cohesive, cooperative, coherent and principled approach to dealing with the provinces, recognizing them as equals in the Constitution, not as the federal government lording it over them. I look forward to listening in future debate to my colleagues on this and to advancing the concerns that are expressed in this bill.