Grant Hill

[House Of Commons, March 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, for me, what is at stake here is not the Speaker, but the legislative counsel. If the legislative counsel had the privilege to review the circumstances in this case, the rules have to be changed.

I have confidence in the Chair in this instance, but I think that there must be a special relationahip with the legislative counsel.

[House Of Commons, March 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I also feel a little chagrined at being asked to rule on my own confidence in the Speaker. I look upon the Speaker as a referee and arbiter of the rules.

I remember quite well that one of the first things I did when I came here in 1993 was to meet the various candidates for Speaker, yourself included. I had an opportunity to query you on an issue that I thought was important. I tried to decide whether or not you would be impartial. You convinced me that was important at that time. I am frank to admit that I gave you my vote. It was a secret ballot so no one would have ever needed to know that, but that is the way I voted.

I have found myself a little frustrated with some of the democratic processes in the House lately. I did not enjoy the process of debate, time allocation and restriction on the committee work on Bill C-20, the clarity bill. I believe there were mistakes made on both sides. There was obstruction going on in the House. I am not sure how I would have responded, if I were on the government side, to that obstruction. I did think that some of the things that were done were hasty and more heavy-handed than they needed to be.

On the processes of the House, in the last little while we have had two major bills where there has been significant opposition pressure brought on the government. We did bring those pressures to bear on Nisga'a to express our concern with the way this new bill had come through. The Bloc did the same thing with Bill C-20. It brought every mechanism that it could to bear to express its vigorous displeasure with that bill.

This, however, does not come down to whether or not the vigorous opposition that can be mounted should somehow be stifled. Neither does this come down to an issue of friendship with the Speaker or personal admiration for the Speaker. To me this comes down to the issue of whether or not these legal counsel, these officers who are there to give us help in crafting and organizing our affairs and to give us advice on making amendments to make sure that they are technically correct, can do their job if there is not the confidence of the members in them. I believe and echo the comments of my colleague who just spoke that this is the central issue we are debating.

I am not a solicitor. I know little of solicitor-client privilege. I am a physician. I know a lot about doctor-patient privilege. I know if I broke that privilege when I was practising and doing my job that I would be censured to a degree where I could not practise. I do not see the difference between solicitor-client privilege and the very sacred privilege between the physician and the patient.

In my view there is one way that I as a physician could release information on my patient, and that was with the patient's permission. It needed to be written and dated. Then I could share the information with the health team, with specialists, with the technicians doing blood tests, with those doing the tests that we ran and with the nurses in the OR. That is the only way I could share that information. If the patient gave me documentary evidence I could send the records to a solicitor, and only then.

I believe that our table counsel need to have the permission directly and specifically of the member for whom they are working before they release that information to the team. It would be very straightforward.

There are times when the team should know every word that is being proposed. There are times when that is not appropriate, where for strategic reasons or for whatever reasons the information should not be shared by the team.

At the heart of this issue is not Bill C-20, not the Nisga'a treaty, and not all the mechanisms we have for expressing our displeasure. At its heart is that very issue. Can legislative counsel function properly if they share every piece of information with the team? My comment is that they cannot.

I feel that legislative counsel will have to withdraw from those duties and keep their oath of office if that is what is expected of them. I would ask that this not just be looked at by the Speaker but by the table officers themselves, by the individuals who direct the affairs of the House. I believe that this ruling needs to be reviewed and revisited. I expect that this will be a healthy review of that specific ruling.

I will be voting my personal confidence in the Speaker tonight when we vote. I do not say that in any way to ingratiate myself with the Speaker, but only because I have found the Speaker to be partial on issues where I expected partiality and impartial where I have expected that to take place. I share those thoughts in sincerity with the Speaker and with the table officer. I appreciate the opportunity to do so.

[House Of Commons, March 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I admire the member for St. Catharines. I think he has been a pretty good and calm individual in the House. He has obviously expressed his friendly relations with the Speaker.

The issue to me is really one of the legislative counsel. The legislative counsel brought this concern to the House. I would like to know from the member if he thinks that legislative counsel should be able to keep a bond of client-solicitor privilege with members it has received documents from. This is one of the things that causes me concern. I believe this is a very special privilege and somehow it seems to have been eroded a bit with this issue.

Could the member comment specifically on the issue of client-solicitor privilege as it relates to legislative counsel?

[Human Resources Development, March 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, HRDC is just full of political patronage. This $6 million was dished out just before the 1997 election. This riding in fact was a pretty tight race. The garment industry came along and said “Do not do this. It will mess up the industry”.

Why was generosity to Liberals enough to overcome the complaints and concerns of the garment industry?

[Human Resources Development, March 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, a $6 million grant was given by Human Resources Development Canada to the Bas Iris company, in the riding of Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies. The owner of that company has made a $21,000 contribution to the Liberal Party.

What exactly is the connection between the two?

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, March 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to give the official opposition's comments at third reading of the clarity bill, Bill C-20. We approached this bill with some broad principles in mind. I would like to list those broad principles.

The official opposition supported the issue of clarity of the question. We undertook to try and pin down the majority. We felt that broad consultation on an issue like this was best. We felt that there were many more issues on the table than were listed in the bill. We also felt there were a significant number of positive changes to the federation that would be more useful than rules for a battle. Today I would like to report on how we did with those broad principles.

On the issue of a clear question, this is where I believe the bill has been a success. The old question, the question asked previously was ambiguous and open to misunderstanding. It was a two pronged question. It asked about partnership on one hand and sovereignty on the other hand in the same question. It made it difficult to say yes or no to that question and be certain what one was saying yes or no to. I listened carefully to one of the senior Quebec politicians, Claude Castonguay, as it related to the question. He felt as I did that the question was not clear. It was not unambiguous.

I also used a pollster's comment to bolster that statement. The pollster told me that a question such as this could not be asked and get a legitimate result. He felt that if the question were split in two, it could legitimately be considered clear. In other words: do you want to have an improved partnership with Canada, yes or no, and if that failed, do you want to leave Canada, yes or no. The pollster guided me in the sense that the question prior was not clear.

This bill will result in a clear question. I sincerely hope the House of Commons never has to pass judgment on a question. I believe that a question coming from a province on this issue will never ever be as ambiguous as the last one. Surely for something as serious as secession, the least we can expect is to have a clear unambiguous question.

On the issue of majority, how did we do? We just listened to the minister opposite say that setting a threshold would be a mistake and so a threshold has not been set. I would say that we have failed on that issue. Our position was that 50% plus one of the votes cast was the threshold. I did listen to the debate on that and there were good arguments on both sides. I must say I found some of those arguments persuasive.

I would however like to use the example of Massachusetts as it parted from Maine as to how a particular threshold that was set to prevent secession did not succeed. This was a fairly low threshold. In 1786 independence became an issue for Massachusetts trying to secede from Maine. This was a state. Maine was a district. Massachusetts wanted to become a state. They went through seven referenda, each time asking for secession from Maine. When it looked like it was close to Massachusetts succeeding, Maine raised the threshold to five votes out of nine, or 55.6%. The vote subsequently did not reach that threshold. It reached 53.6% but public pressure resulted in secession of Massachusetts from Maine with a very low threshold of 53.6%. Artificially raising the threshold, leaving the threshold ambiguous in my view is not wise.

The third issue was broad consultation. We felt that broad consultation was better than just a small group of people coming to Ottawa. We failed on that issue as well. There was no travelling. We had but one week of committee hearings. Many witnesses were unable to attend. No amendments were put forth at committee. There were internal reasons that no amendments were put forward. We did gain one thing. The proceedings were televised. That was one concession, one tiny victory on the issue of broad consultation so I would have to say that we failed on that score as well.

On the fourth issue of broadening the issues, the bill mentions debt and assets, boundaries, minority rights and aboriginal concerns. We felt and still feel that there are many other issues here: citizenship, passports, the Canadian dollar, international recognition, an Atlantic corridor particularly relating to Quebec, defence issues including military assets. There is also the issue that was never discussed, the one of rejoining Canada in the event a province seceded and then decided it had made a mistake. All those issues could have been discussed at least.

When I make comments on a bill or process I always like to say how we would have done things differently. How would Reform, if we were the government, have had a different impact on the clarity legislation?

There would have been broader consultation. Not just one province but every province would have had input at the committee level. There would have been more issues on the table. I have mentioned those issues.

Our bill would not be proclaimed. In other words the bill we would have passed would have gone through all the legislative processes and then would have been set on the shelf as an unproclaimed bill only to be used in the event of a secession.

Our bill would have had a 50% plus one threshold in it. That threshold of course would have also been used for that part of Quebec that wanted to stay in Canada in the event of secession.

The haste we went through in relation to this bill was unnecessary and unwise. It gives those who would fight against Canada a little bit of a tool to say that we were not as democratic as we could have been. That is a legitimate complaint. I am afraid that I as an ally of the government on this bill still feel that the haste was unnecessary.

I conclude by saying that the official opposition will continue to support this bill. I have mentioned areas that could have been improved. We support it on the basis and the premise that an informed vote is a powerful vote. I have a simple statement for Quebecers.

Who are afraid of a clear question?

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, March 13th, 2000]

moved:

Motion No. 88

That Bill C-20, in Clause 3, be amended by adding after line 28 on page 5 the following:

“(3) No Minister of the Crown shall propose a constitutional amendment to effect the secession of a province from Canada unless the amendment provides that, where there has been a clear expression of a will by the population of a municipality in the province, who have cast fifty percent plus one vote of the votes cast in a referendum in the municipality, that the province not cease to be part of Canada, the territory of that municipality shall continue to be part of Canada if (i) the territory of the municipality is immediately adjacent to the territory of another province; or (ii) the territory of the municipality is part of an unbroken chain of municipal territories in each of which there has been a clear expression of a will by the population of each municipality, who have cast fifty percent plus one vote of the votes cast in a referendum in the municipality, that the province not cease to be part of Canada, and the territory of at least one of the municipalities is immediately adjacent to the territory of another province.”

Motion No. 89

That Bill C-20, in Clause 3, be amended by adding after line 28 on page 5 the following:

“(4) For the purposes of subsection (3) “municipality” includes a village and a reserve as defined in the Indian Act.”

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, March 13th, 2000]

moved:

Motion No. 82

That Bill C-20, in Clause 2, be amended by adding after line 8 on page 5 the following:

“(5) Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, the Government of Canada shall not enter into negotiations with the government of a province that has submitted a clear question to its voters in a referendum on the proposed secession of the province from Canada unless the population of the province has indicated that it wants the province to cease to be part of Canada by casting fifty percent plus one vote of the votes cast in the referendum.”

Motion No. 83

That Bill C-20, in Clause 2, be amended by adding after line 8 on page 5 the following:

“(5) Where the House of Commons determines pursuant to this section that there has been a clear expression of a will by a clear majority of the population of a province that the province cease to be part of Canada, the Government of Canada shall invite the governments of the other provinces each to name a Minister of the Crown to represent the province in the negotiations and the Ministers of the Crown so named shall participate fully in all discussions and meetings relevant to negotiating the terms of secession.”

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, March 13th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate having the opportunity to speak briefly to Bill C-20.

The clarity bill, as it has been called, is a bill which the official opposition supports in principle. I might say that we support it in principle because we think that confusion is antidemocratic.

However, we disagree with the haste of this process. We disagree with the imposition of time allocation. We disagree with the arbitrary nature that the committee used to decide who would appear as witnesses before the committee. I will not spend a lot of time on those things because that disagreement has been well documented.

We believe that a well informed public is better than a confused public. On an issue as important as the breakup of our country, to be well informed is very sensible.

It is not often that a politician makes a comment about his opposing politician. However, I would like to make a positive comment about the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs across the way. I believe that the minister has been forthright on this issue. He has been pretty straight-up on this issue. He has not changed his tune since he made up his mind that he was going to look for clarity from the supreme court and carry it through. I give him credit for that. He has been castigated in his home province. He has been called unpleasant things. He has been made fun of in caricatures. I would like him to know personally that I do not agree with any of those things. I think he has been at least honourable on this subject.

We can disagree with him, and I believe that it is fair to do do, but in this instance I do not disagree with him. I want him to know personally that I think the characterizations have not been accurate nor proper.

I will spend a moment on the committee hearings to talk about what I found most interesting. I attended all of the meetings and found the old politicians to be the most interesting people who appeared before the committee.

First, two of the witnesses I listened to opposed Bill C-20. Claude Ryan, who is a man with enormous prestige in Quebec, opposes Bill C-20, as well as Joe Clark, a politician who has had many years of constitutional battles. I will not make comments about the reasons they oppose the bill. They have reasons which I think are debatable and arguable. However, those two senior politicians both oppose Bill C-20.

I looked at those who came in support of Bill C-20. I found it interesting that some of them fought those constitutional battles with vigour themselves. I will list four of them: Claude Castonguay, le père de l'assurance-santé, the father of medicare in Quebec, is supportive of Bill C-20; Gil Rémillard, a senior politician who has had long experience in Quebec, supports Bill C-20 as well; and two politicians from outside Quebec, Ed Broadbent and Bob Rae, both came to the committee and said they support the bill.

I found it interesting when I asked them this question: “Did you ever during your time battling these constitutional battles ever say that a clear question was something that was valuable?” They admitted that they had not. They battled this without ever saying publicly that a clear question was important.

I also want to reflect on what Reformers think of the clarity bill. I had the opportunity to poll Reformers. It was not a poll which would reflect the views of every Canadian. It reflected the views of Reform supporters.

It is fascinating that when asked if a clear question was important, 98.7% of Reformers who responded said yes. When asked the question, “Should the majority level be spelled out?”, 96.2% felt that the majority level should be spelled out. This bill does not do that. That probably reflects my position that the majority level could and should be spelled out.

When asked about the majority level, as to whether 50% plus one was sufficient, especially if it also was to decide what part of Quebec would stay in Canada, the percentage dropped to 77.6%, still a pretty strong number of people saying that the level should be spelled out.

I tried to reflect, all the way through the committee hearings, on whether the question last time was clear. My way of deciding was not to listen to those who on one side or the other have an axe to grind, but to ask those who are experts in asking questions of the public, and to my mind they are the pollsters, those who do polling all the time. The pollsters told me that when asking loaded questions we cannot expect anything but a loaded answer. They ask “yes-no” questions, which of course the referendum did as well.

When I asked the pollsters if the last question asked of Quebecers was unambiguous or unconfusing, they said no, it was neither; it was both ambiguous and confusing.

I posed to the pollsters what kind of question they would ask. I received some uniformity in their answers, which I will distil by saying that if there are two issues, two separate questions would have to be asked. It would be something like the following: “Do you want Quebec to enter a new economic partnership” or whatever “with Canada?” To that question there would be a response, yes or no.

I think that most Quebecers would probably answer yes, that they would like to enter into a new partnership with Canada. However, if we wanted to go further we would ask: “If that new partnership is unsuccessful within a timeframe, do you want Quebec to separate from Canada and sever all legal ties, yes or no?” On that issue I believe that we would get a different response from that which we had in the last referendum.

My analysis is that there are lots of people within and outside Quebec who would like to have a new relationship with Ottawa, and that relationship with Ottawa could well reflect a country that was advancing, a country that was improving, a country with a vigorous future. However, when asked if that new partnership fails would they want to split up Canada, I think the response might well be different. I know that there is very little appetite for splitting up the country outside Quebec, and certainly not in my part of the country.

Bill C-20 is imperfect. It could have been improved. It is a step in the right direction. In principle it is supportable. The official opposition will be supporting the bill unamended. I think it literally will not be amended, unless there is some surprise awaiting us.

It has been a privilege to represent interests from the western part of the country on the bill.

[Supply, March 2nd, 2000]

Madam Speaker, the member opposite, who also cares about health care as surely as I stand here, needs to answer to his constituents why he chose grants and contributions over health care and why he chose to accept that. If he could explain that to his constituents, he would satisfy me.

There is no way that he and I will agree on whether or not those programs are reasonable. The Liberal government chose grants and contributions over health care. He would have trouble explaining that to me but maybe he can explain it to his constituents.