Mr. Speaker, I rise today to take part in the discussion of this bill to give effect to the requirement of clarity in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada on the Quebec secession reference case.
This caucus has announced its support in principle. That is not to say we are not concerned about some aspects of the bill. We have concerns that in fairness have been heightened by what we can only see as the shenanigans today of the government members opposite with the imposition of time allocation. I note that I will be the second and probably the last speaker of the day from our caucus that will have an opportunity to participate.
I wonder whether other members do not see and share the hypocrisy in all of this. After all, here we are with a piece of legislation that purports to recognize the need to consult all Canadians as opposed to just those living in the province of Quebec on this critical issue of secession. And the government says, “Oh, by the way, we are introducing closure and time allocation and we have a mere day to debate it”. It is hypocritical and offensive to all democratically elected members in the House regardless of which side of this issue members are on.
Surely there are very few issues in any democracy that are more important than keeping the country together. To deny hundreds of democratically elected members the opportunity and the right to speak in the House of Commons about an issue as fundamental as this one, I find to be deeply offensive.
We in the NDP caucus approach this piece of legislation with some regret because it does contemplate the breakup of Canada. We would have preferred to concentrate on the very many positive aspects and proposals to strengthen national unity, to improve democracy and the way in which the country works.
As an aside, I would invite listeners and members opposite to have a look at the social democratic forum on Canada's future which the New Democratic Party caucus and party worked on last year and presented at our convention of August 1999.
In short, we think Canada could do much better and to no small extent we hold the government responsible.
Some of us remember and were observers in person at what can only be described as the pathetic performance of the now Prime Minister when he was running for the leadership of the Liberal Party in Calgary almost 10 years ago. Who can forget him welcoming to the box in the Saddledome the then premier of Newfoundland hours after Mr. Wells had done his bit to sabotage the Meech Lake accord? I note a causal effect of that was the immediate creation of the Bloc Quebecois and the resurgence of discussion of separatism and separation in the province of Quebec. The rejection of the Charlottetown accord two years later gave a boost to the other extreme party in this parliament, the Reform Party. As a result, any prospects for a plan A have now gone out the window and we are firmly charted on a plan B course.
Since the election of the government in 1993 we have seen devolution of powers conferred to the provinces. We have not witnessed to my recollection any first ministers conferences to try to resolve some of our problems on the national unity issue. The social union framework from our point of view has failed to deal adequately with social rights and certainly does not accommodate Quebec's desire to opt out of most national programs with full compensation.
The bill itself talks about two things, a clear question and a clear majority. In speaking to constituents in my riding of Palliser, there is not much debate around the clear question. I think there is a lot of merit in that. A clear majority and what constitutes that however does give rise to more discussion and division of opinion. Certainly the bill to that extent does correspond to the two conditions set out by the supreme court that would have to be met before the rest of Canada is to be obliged to negotiate.
The bill is supposed to address what would need to occur for there to be an extraordinary constitutional negotiation leading to the secession of Quebec or any other province for that matter. The court said a clear majority vote in Quebec on a clear question in favour of secession would confer democratic legitimacy on the secession initiative which all of the other participants in Confederation would have to recognize. However, the court also made a second equally important point, that Quebec's right to self-determination must be exercised within the Canadian constitutional framework.
We see in this decision, or opinion more correctly, that Quebec's right to self-determination must be respected by the other partners of Confederation, but that this right must be exercised with respect for the other democratic values that have guided this country for more than 130 years. In striking a balance between these two key principles, the supreme court specified a clear role for the federal parliament in any secession bid.
As a key actor in the constitutional procedure, parliament does have an obligation to negotiate in good faith should it be confronted with a clear will to secede. It has an obligation to represent the rights and interests of all Canadians in any such negotiating process.
What needs to be debated, and I assume we will now have to rely on doing this at the committee stage, is whether parliament in exercising that right has set the bar on the issue of clarity and majority too high or whether the bill acts in some other way that can be judged as unfair or prejudicial to the freedom of the Quebec people or the rights of minorities in Quebec, such as the aboriginal community. That is what both our party's consultation process and parliament's legislative committee need to address.
I do want to recognize and express the concern we have for the rights of aboriginal people because we do not feel that they are protected adequately in this bill. Clearly, existing constitutional protections for aboriginal rights would be threatened by the secession of any province. The bill does specify that the question of aboriginal rights would need to be addressed, but it does not specify a basic level of protection for these rights that would need to be achieved before parliament could agree to the secession of any province.
The bill also identifies various actors whose views parliament must take into consideration in its deliberations on a secession bid. Unfortunately and notably, aboriginal peoples are not among those specifically involved. New Democrats will therefore be seeking ways to ensure that aboriginal peoples are meaningfully involved in Bill C-20 and that there is stronger protection provided in the bill for their rights.
We find this absence particularly ironic given the fact that there is recognition in the bill to the unelected Senate. As hon. members know, New Democrats on this side of the House have long argued that an unelected, unaccountable Senate has no place in a modern democracy. We see again the hypocrisy of ignoring aboriginal Canadians while involving the Senate in a way that we think is unconscionable.
Over the years New Democrats have often had to take positions on so-called national unity issues. I am very proud of the fact that even at the founding of the New Democratic Party back in 1961 New Democrats affirmed the right of Quebecers to determine their own future freely and democratically. The NDP is proud to have been the first federal party to recognize that right.
At the last convention in August 1999 we did adopt a paper that advocated recognizing Quebecers as a people not in the ethnic and therefore inappropriate nationalistic sense, but rather in the sense of recognizing that Quebecers are one of the two linguistic and cultural realities within which most Canadians live and move and have their social being.
On these occasions, last year being the most recent, we have been able to play a constructive role in forcing improvements to various constitutional initiatives. With the clarity bill New Democrats are presented with another such opportunity. We approach this bill in the same spirit of good faith with which we have approached other initiatives in the past.
