Eugène Bellemare

[Parliament Of Canada Act, March 14th, 1994]

Only members of the Bloc Quebecois said no to the country.

[Parliament Of Canada Act, March 14th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, thank you for letting me reply at the end of the debate. I would like to challenge the sense of loyalty of all Canadian members of the House present here today. I ask that we waive the Standing Orders of the House, as I will move at the end of my reply, so that we can vote on my bill.

What a wonderful opportunity to have MPs declare publicly that yes, they want to vote on my private member's bill, to swear allegiance not only to the Queen but also to Canada, Canadians and the Constitution, and that they are loyal and patriotic citizens.

A few minutes ago, the member for Bellechasse made a presentation on the legal aspect of my bill. He took us into the history of Canada in 1867 and spoke about the Constitution and Queen Victoria and all the regulations of 1867. He overlooked all the changes to the Constitution since 1867. He overlooked the patriation of the Constitution in 1982.

Above all, the member for Bellechasse did not mention that in 1976, I believe, in Quebec, Premier René Lévesque wanted to respect the Constitution, as I do and all hon. members here, especially the member for Bellechasse and the other members of the Bloc Quebecois, wanted to tell us they do want to respect the Constitution. With reference to the Constitution, the then-premier, who was a member of the Parti Quebecois, added that once elected to the Parliament of Canada or a provincial legislature-the Quebec members in the Quebec legislature would swear allegiance to Quebecers and to the Constitution of Quebec.

I congratulate the former premier for that. Why not?

Members of the Bloc Quebecois were elected to the federal Parliament. Very often they seem to forget that they are not members of the Quebec provincial legislature, which I esteem and respect greatly, but members of the Canadian or national or federal legislature, let them choose the term they like.

They have come here to help make life in Canada better, and let me make an aside on this point. I often hear members of the Bloc Quebecois refer to French Canada, to English Canada, to Quebec, but what is English Canada? I would say to them that it includes the province of Quebec. What is French Canada? It includes Quebec and also Ontario, New Brunswick, the Yukon, the territories, the other provinces, all of us.

We must be proud of being Canadians and I challenge all members of this House today to proclaim that pride.

In closing, I invoke the Standing Orders of the House which allow me, as a member, proud to be what I am, a Franco-Ontarian, a French Canadian, or if Reform Party members prefer, a French-speaking Canadian, a fourth-generation Franco-Ontarian whose ancestors came from France in the 17th century, and call upon all my colleagues here in the House to let me have a vote on this bill by overriding the Standing Orders. We can do so with unanimous agreement and I call upon the patriotism and loyalty to Canada of all members of this House.

Long live Canada. Long live Canadians.

[Parliament Of Canada Act, March 14th, 1994]

moved that Bill C-201, an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (oath or solemn affirmation), be read the second time and referred to a standing committee.

Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to introduce Bill C-201, the first Private Members' bill of this session. It concerns the oath of allegiance we swear to the Queen, to which I would like to make some changes.

On October 25, 1993 I was honoured and proud to be elected to Parliament for the second time. On November 9, 1993 at my swearing in ceremony I had the honour as an elected member of the Canadian Parliament of pledging allegiance to the Queen.

Having been elected to Parliament by the electors of my riding of Carleton-Gloucester by a record 46,800 votes in my favour, about 35,000 votes more than my nearest challenger, I felt proud but above all I felt honoured at having been elected to serve so many Canadians.

For this reason I want to add to the present oath of office, that is to say the one that pays allegiance to the Queen, a pledge of allegiance to Canada and its Constitution.

After swearing allegiance to the Queen on my family Bible and signing the parliamentary documents handed to me by the Clerk in the presence of my wife and children, I requested that the Clerk of the House of Commons let me read the following affirmation:

I, Eugène Bellemare, member of Parliament for Carleton-Gloucester, swear and solemnly affirm that I will be loyal to Canada and that I will perform the duties of a member of the House of Commons honestly and justly in conformity with the Constitution of Canada.

I was extremely proud to add this affirmation to my pledge of loyalty to the Queen.

Since I first introduced this bill in 1993 when it only went to first reading, I have had many discussions and conversations on this topic and received many letters from across Canada from my constituents and colleagues applauding this bill which adds to our present oath to the Queen. It adds to our allegiance to Canada. It is with this support that I present the bill to the House today.

This private member's bill in no way negates or removes our allegiance to the Queen. Our parliamentary monarchy is part of our Canadian Constitution, our Canadian history and our Canadian heritage. The Constitution cannot be amended by Parliament without the consent of the provinces and territories.

My proposed oath for solemn affirmation to Canada and the Constitution is a proposed amendment to the Parliament of Canada Act, not the Constitution, and therefore is in proper order. It comes as an addition to swearing allegiance to the Queen.

The wording of my private member's bill was prepared according to parliamentary rules by the legal experts of the House of Commons.

Some people think this bill is redundant, in that the oath of allegiance to the Queen already implies allegiance to Canada and Canadians and it would therefore be unnecessary to add a pledge of allegiance to the Constitution. In my experience, however, what is implied is often interpreted differently by different people.

I think it is important to affirm what we believe in when we pledge our loyalty, and in this case, I pledge my loyalty to Canada and to Canadians, and I am not afraid to tell the whole country and the whole world.

Canada, as a member of the British Commonwealth, is headed by the Queen. The existing oath sworn by members of Parlia-

ment is the swearing of allegiance to the Queen. I was as proud as any member of the House in pledging allegiance to the Queen during my swearing in ceremony.

However, the oath sworn by all members of this House is practically identical to the oaths sworn in all Commonwealth countries.

I may point out that we were all elected by Canadians in Canada, and I assume that we all represent Canadians and not people living in other countries like Australia, Bangladesh, Ghana, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Tanzania, and so forth. These are all Commonwealth countries whose members of Parliament pledge allegiance to the same Queen.

Canada is a distinct society and is different from other countries that belong to the Commonwealth and are represented by the Queen. The pledge I made to my constituents clearly indicates that I represent Canadians, not citizens of the whole Commonwealth.

Since the bill I introduced in the House today is not votable, this will prevent me and my fellow members from taking a position and stating whether we feel patriotic about Canada.

I was very disappointed to hear that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which is responsible for deciding what happens to a Private Member's Bill, has judged that my bill would not be votable.

Even though my bill answered all 11 criteria for the selection for votable items as set out in the rules of the House, I had submitted a positive written reply to all these criteria when interviewed by the House committee. It told me the interview would be five minutes. It seemed interested enough to prolong the interview to over 20 minutes and the attitude was very positive. I do not know what has happened since the time I left that committee when it decided in private to make the bill, unfortunately, non-votable.

I want to make it clear that the bill is an amendment to the Parliament of Canada Act and is not intended to replace the current oath but rather to add to it. The pledge to Canada and the Constitution is in addition to the pledge to the Queen.

Members of Parliament, present, past and future, I am sure are proud to be Canadians and are proud to serve in the House of Commons.

Several other Commonwealth countries are presently studying the need for an oath such as the one I am presenting today. Members of the national assembly in the province of Quebec already pledge allegiance to the people and the constitution of Quebec. They do this because they feel the need to affirm their loyalty to the people they represent. They also, as everyone knows, swear allegiance to the Queen.

I would therefore urge all members, who wish to pledge their loyalty to Canada and Canadians or who feel the need to do so, to do this in the form of a pledge of loyalty to the Constitution and to this country. I would be delighted to meet anyone who would like to discuss the pledge of loyalty to Canada I made when I swore my oath of allegiance after the last election.

In concluding, I can inform all hon. members that I am proud that at my swearing-in after the last election, I added my pledge of loyalty to Canada, to Canadians and to the Constitution.

I believe that all of my colleagues presently sitting in the House of Commons would like a chance to individually go on record and officially tell their constituents that they are proud to be Canadians. Giving all members of Parliament a chance to vote on this bill in the House of Commons is the perfect vehicle for such a patriotic statement.

Madam Speaker, in concluding, I wish to say that yes, I was elected by 46,800 Canadians in a Canadian riding, and I have a responsibility to my constituents in Carleton-Gloucester.

I have a solemn commitment and I am conscious of my responsibility, to use my judgment to serve all Canadians, and I would ask my fellow members to do likewise. I know from discussions I have had with them that in their hearts they want to pledge allegiance to their country, in addition to pledging allegiance to the Queen. They want to pledge allegiance to their Constitution and their people.

[Supply, March 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise with pleasure to congratulate the member for Saint-Hubert on a speech for which she did a lot of research, a speech which dealt with the number of judges in Ontario, Quebec and throughout Canada. I commend her for her research and I support her when she says that the federal government should appoint more and more women judges so that justice is done for everyone, women as well as men.

I congratulate the hon. member for Saint-Hubert.

[Supply, March 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the hon. member of the Reform Party. Did he actually say that men and women who never got married and do the same job have equal pay?

Does the hon. member believe that male and female nurses get the same wages, that female lawyers are paid just as much as male lawyers in some firms, that female and male physicians earn the same income, that female and male employees doing the same clerical work are paid the same salary, that female and male partners in a firm reap the same benefits? In short, does he think male and female employees doing the same job have equal pay throughout Canada?

[The Budget, February 24th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member of the Bloc Quebecois is to be commended for his very sensitive presentation on government administration.

He suggests that once his province is a separate state, which God forbid, he will have all the answers and that Quebec's economy will be the envy of the whole world.

If we look at unemployment insurance, considering the economic situation in Canada today, a Canada which includes the 10 provinces and two territories, I would like to ask the hon. member what he wants to improve in reference to the economy.

[The Budget, February 24th, 1994]

I would like to comment on the remarks of the tough-talking, self-proclaimed crash diet expert from Capilano-Howe Sound. He says we are not going through enough pain in dieting and that we should be on some kind of crash diet. I am not too sure if he confuses the word diet with what my friend just mentioned to me, starvation.

The hon. member said that the Liberal Party is now going into excessive new spending. Then he attacked the system for day care we want to introduce. He talked about overweight Canadians. I react to that with a smile.

He says that the UI changes are not enough, that we should have been more courageous and we should have cut, cut, cut further. I wonder if the member for Capilano-Howe Sound would have further cut the UI.

He talks about letter writing from Canadian citizens. I wonder if he would care to write an open letter to the newspapers in the Atlantic provinces on the UI changes which he would propose. I am waiting with bated breath to hear what his proposals would be.

On old age security he says that we are giving out too much money. I wonder if he has read the budget and if he has had reactions from people who are now seniors and will be paying much more in taxes due to the thousand dollars they will be losing from now on.

He talked about the 17 per cent increase to natives, $300 million a year. I wonder if he could expand on his views regarding the treatment of natives.

I will stop at this point because I believe the member for Capilano-Howe Sound, the tough talking, self appointed crash diet person, probably has a lot on his plate right now.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, they would experience, sitting on a city council or municipal council, that often when petitioning a street people are divided on the same topic. They could get 100 people signing the petition, signing yes. Yet on the same street people would be signing on the no side.

How do we verify the correctness of the signature or the age of the people? Who does all of that? What kinds of expenses would we get involved in trying to make sure that every signature was bona fide, that every person signing was of age, that every person signing was not half drunk, or that we are not getting a bunch of loonies or bigots constantly signing petitions who do not believe in the proper process?

We have seen in the case of the member from Markham that people are banding together like lynch mobs in a village trying to hang someone without due process.

Maybe lynching was good in the thirties or sixties of the 19th century in Alabama. In Canada this is not what we want. We are not made up of bigots.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Elk Island talked about the motion making petitions the subject matter of debate, which I find totally ridiculous, especially the part where it says that petitions will be brought to a vote at the end of the debate.

If Reform members had sat here for the last five years, as I have done, they would realize all the problems this would create. Reform members keep saying that this government and this Parliament spend too much. Does he not recall that the last referendum cost more than a quarter of a billion dollars and does he not realize that holding referendums on almost everything, year in and year out, will cost billions of dollars?

The Reform Party is suggesting that for every petition there be a major debate and major vote. That kind of law or rule could be absolutely divisive. We have heard the Reform Party contest the official languages, for example. It is trying to divide the country further? That is the intent of the Reform Party.

If any of you have ever sat on municipal council, you would probably remember that homeowners on a single street-

[Bilingualism, February 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Reform Party seem to take great pleasure in tabling petitions asking for a national referendum on bilingualism.

When he tabled his petition the other day, an hon. member of that party declared that the official language policy is creating dissension. Another member of the same party maintained that there was too much French in the national capital. He added that everything would go faster in Parliament if less French were spoken.

We now have two separatist political parties in the House: one that wants territorial separation; the other that wants language separation. Both go against the Constitution and against Canadian unity.