Lost his last election, in 2000, with 42% of the vote.
Bill C-20 February 21st, 2000
Mr. Speaker, the more we question the government about its clarity bill, the more its answers are evasive and confusing. The clarity bill is becoming less and less clear.
My question is for the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. Can the minister tell us what the value of the distinct society motion passed by his government is, considering that 49 of the 75 federal members of parliament representing Quebec are about to vote against Bill C-20?
Bill C-20 February 18th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Quebecois is becoming more and more convinced that Bill C-20 is undemocratic, but it is also becoming more and more obvious that the process by which the government wants to get it passed is still more undemocratic. It does not want to allow all of the party witnesses to speak.
Is the government prepared to hear all of the witnesses on the lists provided by the parties, as well as all of the increasing number of others who are asking to be heard by the committee?
Supply February 17th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak in English in the House. I do not need to excuse myself. As a sovereignist it is useful to speak English for people who want a partnership with Canada. I truly believe that will happen in the near future when Quebecers choose to opt for sovereignty.
My question to my colleague is to some extent a question I wanted to put to the parliamentary secretary. We understand now that there are supposed to be 45 witnesses. That is the quota that was given to our party. This is unprecedented in the history of parliamentary democracy in the House of Commons.
Apparently only 23 witnesses have accepted. The debate is supposed to last until next Tuesday. Does my hon. colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona believe the work of the committee should be prolonged to hear at least those 45 witnesses and time should be allocated to hear more people? Does he believe that the Liberal Party and the government want something like this to happen and want us to hear more witnesses?
Supply February 17th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I found the remarks of my colleague, the member for Mercier, very interesting. I would like to ask her if the government opposite is likely to find support within Quebec's civil society.
It is clear that the three parties in the Quebec National Assembly reject Bill C-20. It is clear that here, in the House of Commons, more than 60% of members are also against Bill C-20. But what about the various groups within Quebec's civil society? What is their reaction to Bill C-20?
Supply February 17th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, my colleague is giving me an opportunity to inform the House, if it is not already aware, that it is very difficult to interest witnesses in appearing before the committee on such short notice. Since it began its work, the committee has had great difficulty getting witnesses to appear.
There were supposed to be witnesses yesterday evening, and none appeared. Some were scheduled for 9.30 this morning, but the first were heard at 10.15 a.m. We have no agenda for this afternoon because no witnesses could be recruited. I do not know what is on the agenda for tomorrow or next week.
The haste with which the government wishes to proceed is an affront to Canadian democracy, which usually permits parliamentary committees to give citizens notice and invite them to appear and present briefs, which in many other instances has allowed committees to travel abroad, in Quebec and Canada to hear from witnesses.
The prognosis for democracy in Quebec and in Canada is not good. That is why we want this bill withdrawn.
Should Bill C-20 be passed anyway, it will not have any legitimacy because 60% and maybe more of federal members from Quebec will have voted against it.
Supply February 17th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, when we realize that the bill talks of borders in the clause my colleague has cited, we truly understand that the issue of borders is raised not to enlighten Quebecers on what will happen, but to frighten them, to intimate that the territory of Quebec may likely or possibly be partitioned.
Although the minister has said—and he repeated it yesterday—that it is perhaps a matter of border correction as was the case in Slovakia or in other countries that achieved sovereignty, I am pleased to note that bill 99, currently being debated in the Quebec National Assembly, reaffirms the Quebec consensus on this matter, which involves all provincial political parties, be they the Parti Quebecois, the Quebec Liberal Party or the Action démocratique.
This bill reaffirms that Quebec's territorial integrity must be preserved and that all the political party leaders are unanimous in saying that, in the event of separation, Quebec must keep its borders.
I think that this is a healthy thing. In most, all—I should say—of the recent cases of declaration of independence, even those involving minorities or native populations, the new republics of the USSR, Yugoslavia or Slovakia, for example, kept their borders. This makes good common sense.
Supply February 17th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I also rise on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois to support this motion I will move an amendment to, at the end of my remarks, and to explain that Bloc Quebecois members really want Quebecers and other Canadians to have the opportunity to be heard on Bill C-20.
We have made this request repeatedly in the House. It has always been refused by the Prime Minister, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and the Leader of the Government in the House.
We tried again in the committee Bill C-20 was referred to. The Liberal majority rejected this proposal, which was supported by the three other opposition parties.
For the last time in this House, we would like to try to convince the government members that Canadians should be given the opportunity to air their views on this bill, whether they agree or disagree, in a place where it will be easier for them to do so, that is in their own town or city, in the town hall or community centre where they usually take an active part in the democratic process.
My remarks will deal with the undermining of democracy by Bill C-20, but also by the process by which the government wants to have it passed.
The architect of this bill, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, does not like it when we tell him about the undemocratic nature of his bill. Nor does he like it when we talk about the extremely undemocratic nature of the process, which is under way, whereby this bill will be considered and passed by the House of Commons.
I want to talk about the undemocratic nature of this. I am not shy to talk about it, and I believe a great majority of Quebecers share this view. In this respect, we, of the Bloc Quebecois, are very representative of what Quebecers think both about this bill and about the process by which the House wants to have it passed.
When we think of it, this bill is undemocratic because the democracy it is creating will disallow what the national assembly and the Quebec people decide. This is also democracy that gags the work of the House and the work of the committee considering Bill C-20. Let me explain.
This is a democracy of disallowance, a sick democracy because it wants to disallow the national assembly, to disallow a national assembly that always had the privilege and the authority to adopt a question, to decide what Quebecers would be consulted on, to frame a question which was debated by the national assembly for 35 hours, which was debated by majority and opposition parties, sovereignist and federalist parties, and which was finally adopted by the assembly, the seat of the sovereignty of the Quebec people, who must continue to freely decide its own future.
Bill C-20 would allow the House of Commons to disallow a question adopted by the national assembly. Despite all the rhetoric about the respect of the national assembly's right to determine the content and wording of the question, this bill confirms the right of the House of Commons to determine that a question adopted by the national assembly is not clear.
The House of Commons tells and, in a way, orders the national assembly not to ask a question dealing with a mandate to negotiate, or referring to an economic and political partnership that Quebec would generously offer Canada.
Such a democracy is a democracy that disallows the jurisdiction and prerogative of Quebec, its national assembly and its people when it comes to deciding its future and how to shape that future.
While a breach of the national assembly's prerogatives is very serious, a breach of the Quebec people's sovereignty is even more serious because under this bill the federal government could challenge a majority vote by which the Quebec people would have decided to have its own country.
Indeed, Bill C-20 is totally confusing in that respect, the very opposite of the principle of clarity it proclaims. For instance, clause 2(2) sets out a number of criteria that give no clear indication of what would constitute a real majority.
This democracy disallows the people of Quebec and the choice it would make in a referendum. As the Premier of Quebec said a few days ago, such a bill shows the will of the government to give this House a true power of disallowance and reservation regarding resolutions passed by the national assembly and decisions made by the Quebec people.
This is unacceptable, it is undemocratic and we will repeat it both in this House and in committee. We will have no reservation denouncing Bill C-20 as an undemocratic measure.
This democracy is also characterized by closure. The Leader of the Government in the House will not like to hear us say that, seeing as he introduced time allocation motions to end to the debate on the bill before the House after only a few hours of debate at second reading, when only seven members from the Bloc Quebecois had the opportunity to speak.
That gag order introduced by the government House leader is unacceptable and all opposition parties condemned it at the time of the vote. A democracy that gags debate on such an important bill for the future of Quebec people and in fact all Quebecers and other Canadians is a very troubled democracy indeed.
We can see the same kind of closure attitude and democracy in the committee that was set up to study the bill. At its very first sitting, members were informed that only 45 witnesses would be heard. Quotas were imposed on the parties. Each party is allowed to call in a certain number of witnesses: 15 for the Liberal Party, 12 for the Reform Party, 10 for the Bloc Quebecois and 4 for the Progressive Conservative Party and the NDP. We were even refused the right to inform the citizens of Canada and Quebec that hearings were being held and that the committee was prepared to hear their views and receive their briefs. The work of the committee was gagged.
Today, we know that the government is determined to move extremely quickly and to steamroller the opposition even though it represents 62% of Canadians in this House. The Bloc Quebecois represents a lot more Quebecers than the majority government party.
On behalf of my party, I want to move an amendment to the motion. I move:
That the motion be amended in the French version by adding after the word “nombre” the following:
“possible”
To conclude, I will cite the August 1998 opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada. In reference to democracy, the supreme court said:
No one has a monopoly on truth, and our system is predicated on the faith that in the marketplace of ideas, the best solutions to public problems will rise to the top. Inevitably, there will be dissenting voices. A democratic system of government is committed to considering those dissenting voices, and seeking to acknowledge and address those voices in the laws by which all in the community must live.
There are many dissenting voices concerning this bill. There is a clear majority of dissenting voices. The government should listen to these dissenting voices and withdraw Bill C-20.
Bill C-20 February 14th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, again yesterday, in Montreal, there were groups saying that what would be reasonable would be for the committee to be able to come to Quebec to hear from them. There are also groups in Canada who have said the same to the government.
Given the increasing number of groups in Quebec and in Canada that are wanting to be heard, does the Prime Minister not feel that it is the responsibility of this House to hear these groups, and that this objective will be better met if the committee travels to Quebec and to Canada to hear them?
Bill C-20 February 14th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, we will continue along the same lines.
Parliamentary committees travel a lot as part of their responsibilities. When, for example, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs wanted to make recommendations on the WTO Seattle round, it went to Quebec for four days. It travelled to Montreal, Quebec City and Saint-Hyacinthe.
If a House committee can travel to take the pulse of Quebec on an international issue, why is the legislative committee on Bill C-20 deprived of the right to travel to Quebec and to Canada?
Criminal Records Act February 11th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, we have come to the end of a week of parliamentary work marked by interesting and less interesting moments, including the adoption of a closure motion to shorten debate on Bill C-20 and second reading of this bill, which the Bloc Quebecois considers anti-democratic.
The Bloc Quebecois would nevertheless, as is its practice, want to show the people of Quebec and Canada that it knows how to act constructively before this parliament and give its support when it is appropriate to do so to bills introduced here.
This is why the Bloc Quebecois is saying once again in this House that it supports Bill C-7, an act to amend the Criminal Records Act.
There can be no doubt—