Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address Bill C-53, the reorganization of the Department of Canadian Heritage. I have two suggestions to make on this bill.
First, the minister, or the new minister, should consider eliminating funding for multiculturalism to achieve a savings of $30 million to $40 million. Multiculturalism is creating divisiveness in the country. It is creating confusion and it is creating prejudice in the country. I will come back to this point shortly. The second suggestion is that the Minister of Canadian Heritage resign.
Going back to my first suggestion on multiculturalism, I am a first generation immigrant of Hungarian parents born in Vöcklabruck, Austria. We came here in 1951. I was close to six years old. I am proud of my ethnic background. I am also proud to be Canadian today. The fact that we came to a new country, that we had to learn a new language and that we had to learn to get along with people were all things which helped develop and build my personal character and my outlook on life.
Some of the rules we had back then were a lot better than the rules we have today. Many of the rules back then still allowed for some prejudice, still allowed for some confusion, still allowed for some divisiveness, but overall for all intents and purposes immigrants were welcomed into the country.
Our current program of immigration which I do not want to dwell on leads to multiculturalism and the funding for the immigrants here. The various ethnocultural groups get funding to represent their specific ethnic groups and they are not even reaching out to the people they purport to represent.
There was a food fair in Ottawa about three or four months ago. Various ethnic backgrounds and cultures were represented. I attended because I like to see various heritages and cultures. I like to try foods from different parts of the world as well.
As I was circulating and meeting people visiting the various booths I came upon two different ethnic groups, one from Columbia and one from Asia. As I talked to them I revealed that I was a member of Parliament but I did not tell them that I was also an immigrant. During the course of our conversation I asked if they were associated with any of the ethnic groups and they said no. I asked if the groups were helping them and they said no.
The family who came here from Columbia worked part time. They picked up any job they could. They went back to school and got themselves re-educated as engineers. As a matter of fact both of them work for the government. They have three children 8, 10 and 11 years old, who are presently going to school in Ottawa. They are picked on and called names. The blatant discrimination is obvious. The rest of the kids in school have the impression they are being treated differently, that they are getting something they should not be getting.
This is what I mean by divisiveness and the confusion we are creating. The intent of the program although it may have been honourable and worth while has certainly deteriorated to a point where it is not helping the ethnic groups that come here, it is hurting them.
I really believe that funding to learn English is unnecessary. Funding to have them retain the language of the country they left is a complete waste of money. I still speak Hungarian. There was a 10-year period when I never uttered one word in Hungarian but I have retained and still remember quite a bit of it. I am not as fluent as I should be but I am proud of the fact that I can still speak it, that I am bilingual and do not speak just one language.
Multiculturalism is not so much to save money but it is also to start to respect immigrants who come here, to work with them to fit into our society. Just throwing money at groups and organizations is not necessarily the best way of doing it.
Some of the rules we apply to immigrants should be revisited. Some of the rules we had in the 1950s and 1960s could probably be reintroduced. Perhaps the government would like to strike a committee. It likes to strike committees; it is up to about 25 now. Perhaps it would like to strike number 26 and look into ways and means of improving multiculturalism and immigration and looking for ways and means not to just throw money at people but to help them fit into society through better mechanisms.
The second suggestion I have for the Minister of Canadian Heritage is that he resign. The gentleman has had this position for a year. When he took his cabinet position he was told the same thing all ministers of the crown are told when they swear an oath of allegiance to uphold to the best of their ability their responsibilities. They are briefed on what is proper behaviour and proper conduct. They know full well when they accept that job what lines they are not supposed to cross over, what constitutes conflict of interest and what constitutes impropriety. They are told all this and they accept the job knowing that if they commit a serious mistake, they have no choice but to resign.
Using ministerial stationery the minister wrote to CRTC chairman Keith Spicer last March asking him to "give due consideration to an application to start a 24 hour Greek language radio station". The minister also asked Spicer to keep him abreast of developments adding: "Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require additional information". The full letter was tabled earlier today.
I would like some more information. I would like to know how the minister can rationalize what he did in this situation versus what he was told he could or could not do. Was the minister not listening when he was being sworn in? Was the minister not listening when he was told what the proper rules of conduct are for a cabinet minister and what he has to do to pull himself out?
I am sorry but there is no way the actions in this matter are not examples of the worst kind of incompetence and impropriety. It is my humble opinion-and I feel the House should really speak out on this today-that he should do the honourable thing, not only apologize to the Canadian public, not only apologize to his peers as he did today. He has shown he is incapable of listening to instruction. I know financially he is incapable of handling that huge budget with all the areas that fall into his department.
I feel I have no choice. I know I am supported by a lot of members of our party and other members. Perhaps even members of the government would feel they could have a better minister running the Department of Canadian Heritage than the current minister. The man should not only reorganize his department but he should just resign and get out of the way.
