House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2004, with 48% of the vote.
Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland) December 8th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, it would not only create chaos, it would also create a society in which there is so much conflict that nothing would get done.
What it would do is open the road for tyranny to take place. In fact, it is a perfect building block for tyrants to become the governor of the country.
Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland) December 8th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed having the hon. member as co-chair of the committee. I learned to respect him.
I also learned from the question he has just asked that sometimes he does not listen as well as he should. Had he listened well he would have heard that I talked not about catholic laws, not about the values held by the Pentecostals, the Baptists or any other group. What I said was that for a democracy to persist and for a democracy to flourish it was necessary to have a common set of principles, a shared set of values and a shared set of ethics. That is what I said.
There was no denominational significance given to the particular set of values but there had to be agreement on what there ought to be. I will put it in the context of the provision that exists in Ontario curriculum where there is no such common principle or set of values.
History has shown that these agreements on the common principles and values are held within the particular religious groups. Many of them are shared.
However, to deny them and to simply say you have these particular sets of values but the school comes along and says really it does not matter, there is this clarification that takes place and you can choose any one of them, it does not make any difference.
It does make a difference and that is the point I was trying to make. If the hon. member did not understand that, then he has a problem.
Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland) December 8th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to enter the debate on term 17 and its amendment. My remarks will not be directed toward the democratic process, the legality of term 17 or the amendment thereof. My remarks will be focused in an attempt to build the case that the national interest is being jeopardized by the amendment.
I will do this from three perspectives. The provisions of the amendment prejudiciously affect the rights of parents to educate their children, a right which was declared in the 1948 convention by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It endorsed the rights of parents by stating that they had a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given their child.
Second, the political precedent that this creates in Canada could be significant. I will not dwell on that much more except to say what I did just now.
Third, it creates a severe problem, maybe a series of problems, and perhaps even denies the development of a common core of values and ethics that underlie a democratic form of government.
Turning to the first of these points, the prejudicial effect toward parents to determine the education of their children, it expunges the denominational schools but denominational schools teach a particular set of values and ethics.
The provisions for religious education that are not specific to a religious democracy are to be clearly differentiated from courses that have a particular denomination. What is being proposed is not a denominational kind of religious education but something else.
The question, then, that needs to be asked is what kind of a religion course will it be. Will it be the state view of what religion ought to be? Will it be the presentation of a menu of values from which individuals may choose whatever they wish?
There is reason to believe that it will probably be the latter. I refer in particular to the provisions of the Ontario curricula and here I refer to the common curriculum, policies and outcomes, Grades 1 to 9, 1995, a document that is in place and operative at this time, which reads in part:
Adapting to changing attitudes is a difficult process for all of us and one that can place special demands on students who are just beginning to develop and test their values. It is important, therefore, that schools and their programs provide both clear guidelines and a climate of flexibility and understanding in which independent thinking can thrive and in which students can develop values that they themselves consider relevant for the life they envisage. The common curriculum with its emphasis on responding to a variety of needs provides the basis for such a climate.
Two principles emerge from that statement in this curriculum. The first one is that schools do not teach shared principles or values. Instead there is a climate of flexible, personal values.
The second principle is that students develop the values which they choose, based upon their own perception of the relevance of the values to their lives. This is predicated on the fact that there is no right or wrong.
Nowhere in the common curriculum is there a statement that students in grades 1 to 9 in Ontario should be taught right from wrong. That is a serious implication. It is at the heart of our justice system and the criminal element in our society. People should know what is right and what is wrong, particularly at the beginning of the school system in grades 1 to 9.
Many will argue that values are best transmitted in the family. I agree. That is the most efficient and the most effective way. The difficulty is that if a family believes there is a set of virtues, ethics and values that should be held, the family challenges the state's view which seeks to impart to the young that values are after all merely a menu choices and that individuals are free to pick what is relevant in what they consider to be relevant for the life they envisage. Such a view is also supported by at least on supreme court judge who sits today. That judge states quite bluntly that there should not be any one conception of the good life.
It is rather clear from such a judge's position that parents teaching a particular set of values of the good life is unacceptable. Such a view does not just have implications for education. It removes the basis on which laws themselves are formulated. It removes the basis on which one can judge a good law from a bad law, and it eliminates the distinction between needs and wants of human beings.
This elimination implies that there is no right desire and there is no wrong desire. There is then also no need to develop the ability or the skill to decide what is or what is not a right desire.
There could have been in the Newfoundland situation an avoidance of this whole problem. It could have been dealt with if the opportunity had been presented to the parents to let their tax dollar follow their child so that the parents would be able to choose the kind of school that they wanted their children to attend. That would have avoided the morass that exists there.
I agree the Newfoundland school system was a mess. The organization and administration was a tremendous problem. I have known that for a lot longer than this debate has been going on. That had to be fixed. There was a way to fix it.
We heard many hon. members say the government had no choice. That is to suggest that the government had no imagination. It had a choice but it chose not to make that choice. That is what it did. It chose a particular way and said we had no choice. It is wrong, it is misleading and it is false.
Quite aside from the need to have a particular teaching of what is right and wrong in the schools, this also I believe has an implication for democracy itself.
I would like to suggest that one of the requirements of a democracy is that children know and be taught a program and the proper limits of human behaviour. Unless we know what the proper limits of human behaviour are democracy in itself is in danger.
I am borrowing here to some degree from David Brown, a Toronto lawyer who specializes in commercial litigation with particular emphasis on the constitutional provisions in Canada. He says we need to have recognized that a common set of values is fundamental to the existence and operation of a democracy.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 injects legal rights into the relationship between parent and child. This was ratified in Canada in 1991. Justice Wilson, to paraphrase this position, observes that these legal rights erects an invisible fence around each child which parents will not be allowed to penetrate. We can begin to recognize what the situation is here. There is now a clear distinction here that the role of the family in the life of the child is clearly reduced by the UN convention.
Now we have the strong possibility that term 17 will also have the effect of reducing the role of the family in the lives of our children. Why do I say this? There is a contemporary view in 1997 thinking that democracy depends on a core set of values and ethics to set the proper limits of human behaviour. There is also historical thinking on the very same point.
In fact, it goes back to 1835 when Alexis Tocqueville travelled through the North American continent and concluded that in order for the American business to complete itself and to reach the proper conclusions of democracy there needed to be a safeguard and the safeguard came from the religious and ethical beliefs of the people of America. That is what gave democracy its strength and that is what gives it its base. That is the foundation on which our laws rest. That is also the basis on which we can evaluate a good law compared with a bad law.
On this particular amendment, term 17, to the constitution of Canada, not now, in fact maybe not for the next two, three or even five years, but the time is coming when we will point to this and say that was the beginning of a major rift and a major problem with the democracy itself in Canada because our youngsters do not have a clear understanding of what is right and what is wrong, what is moral, what is ethical and the principles with which we should govern our behaviour and set limits on our desires.
Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland) December 8th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, I am very impressed with the confidence the hon. colleague opposite has that this will in no way ever affect the catholic education system in Ontario. What evidence does he have that makes him so positive that this could never happen in Ontario?
Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland) December 8th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, I understand my hon. colleague correctly when she says the religious observances will be at the request of a parent. However the proposed amendment in term 17 does not extend to the provision of religious education. She is perhaps in error and should reread that provision in the amendment.
Since the member thinks that everybody agrees on all this, would she then contradict Justice Wilson who said that there should not be any one concept of the good life?
Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland) December 8th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is an experienced legislator, perhaps not in this House but in another house, and is no doubt aware the curriculum that exists in the province of Ontario does not teach particular principles, values or ethics to children in grades 1 to 9. In fact that curriculum suggests that a menu of values and principles be adopted, depending on what children think ought to be right for them. There is no particular shared position.
Does the member suggest the religious education that will take place in Newfoundland under the new terms will be a menu of values and principles so that there is no particular common consensus? In other words it will be difficult to determine what is right or wrong, given the curriculum.
Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland) December 8th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member to please answer the question.
The point is that there is a political precedent being set here. There is no legal precedent and I think everybody knows that is the case. Is there a political precedent and will it guarantee, as my hon. colleague has suggested, that this will not in any way jeopardize minority rights in other provinces?
Telecommunications Act November 4th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, when the government brings that legislation forward I hope it will have consulted widely, honestly and with integrity, and listened very much to the experience of the privacy commissioner over the last number of years. He has a lot of good advice to give us all.
Telecommunications Act November 4th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, it is a superb question, one that is not addressed in this bill or in any other bill.
If he is asking for my personal opinion, I think that is one of the crying needs that must be addressed in the House as the electronics and telecommunications industry develops. We must guarantee the integrity, the privacy, the security of personal information and confidential information of a business nature. As we go to electronic banking, transferring funds from one organization to another via electronic means, the security of that information is paramount.
The time is ripe to bring forward that kind of legislation. In fact we should do it tomorrow morning.
I thank the hon. member for the question. I certainly support the idea.
Telecommunications Act November 4th, 1997
Madam Speaker, I picked up a key phrase the hon. member opposite mentioned. He said we should let the industry determine. That is exactly right. Let the industry come into it rather than the government. I think he really believes that and that is why he said it.
That is not what the bill says. I wish the bill would say that. If he could prove to me that the bill says that I would wholeheartedly agree with him. The issue he has raised is the right one.
I would like to mention, because it is brand new, that he said the lesson has been learned and the CRTC knows it. Let me focus on what was said in the 1997-98 estimates that we are now working under. The mission statement reads:
For communication in the public interest we aim to help Canadians better understand how their values and diversity shape Canada's unique personality in the world. We do so by regulating our broadcasting and telecommunications industries in open, flexible ways to foster creative freedom and strengthen the prosperity of all our citizens.
Let us now read the mandate of the CRTC and compare the two statements. The mandate reads:
The CRTC is vested with the authority to license, regulate and supervise all broadcasting undertakings within Canada and to regulate telecommunications commentaries that fall under federal jurisdiction.
It goes on. Is this not interesting? It has made a regulatory body its mandate but its mission is to help Canadians better understand their values and diversity and to have open, flexible ways to foster creative freedom and strengthen the prosperity of all our citizens.
It looks to me as if the regulation on the one hand and the mission on the other, if not in contradiction are certainly running in different directions.
If the lesson has been learned the CRTC should demonstrate it. It has been known for years that the CRTC has not been the facilitator of private enterprise and competition but rather the protector of monopolistic interests.
I am glad to see a shift here. I think it is good. I have raised the competitive issue before. I have talked about convergence before. That is a good idea. There are vestiges in the new provision for licensing ability that move the CRTC back further into the regulation. I think it is a backward move into the future.