Michel Bellehumeur

[Reference To Supreme Court, February 18th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the government is getting more and more mired in its contractions every day.

Yesterday, the Minister of Justice said the opposite of what her lawyer was saying in court on Monday. The Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs then said the opposite of what the Minister of Justice was saying in the newspaper, and today what the Prime Minister is saying does nothing to clarify the government position.

With this reference to the supreme court, does the Prime Minister admit that he has loaded all of us onto a ship over which even he is beginning to lose control?

[Reference To Supreme Court, February 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the government across the way has a big problem on its hands. In her statements, the minister contradicts not only her counsel but also Mr. Canada, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.

How can the minister explain, on the one hand, her contention that the Constitution would be of no use in the event of a yes vote for sovereignty in Quebec and, on the other hand, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs' old refrain that Quebec separation would be subject to the terms of the Constitution Act, 1982?

Is that not yet another contradiction?

[Reference To Supreme Court, February 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the minister does not see any contradiction. Let me give her another example.

How can the Minister of Justice state that the court should rule on the rights of Aboriginal people in the event of secession when, yesterday, her own counsel, Yves Fortier, explicitly asked the court not to rule on the rights of Aboriginal people should Quebec secede?

That is a contradiction, is it not, Madam?

[Reference To Supreme Court, February 16th, 1998]

I understand why the Prime Minister is embarrassed to answer, Mr. Speaker?

Does the Prime Minister, who intensified the Canada-Quebec constitutional impasse in 1982 by unilaterally patriating the Constitution, not realize that by manipulating the Supreme Court of Canada as he has done, he is leading Quebec and Canada straight into another impasse?

[Reference To Supreme Court, February 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

Alain Pellet, the lawyer who chairs the UN International Law Commission, stated yesterday that, on an issue like the reference, the answer of the International Court of Justice in the Hague would sound like this: “You are not in earnest, you are asking leading questions”.

How can the Prime Minister persist in asking the Supreme Court of Canada to rule on a political debate in Quebec?

[Yves Fortier, February 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, does the minister endorse the remarks of his spiritual leader Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who said and I quote “Should the British refuse to patriate the Constitution of 1867, we would still have the option of holding a massive demonstration of national will, which would imply on our part a unilateral declaration of independence”.

Does he agree with these words, yes or no?

[Yves Fortier, February 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.

In 1978, Yves Fortier, counsel for the federal in the reference to the supreme court, praised the merits of a unilateral declaration of independence as a solution to patriation, and I quote “In our opinion, proclaiming our Constitution independently of any other country would constitute a solemn declaration of autonomy”.

Does the minister agree with the words of Mr. Fortier, who is serving as his counsel in the reference to the Supreme Court of Canada?

[Supply, February 10th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech of the hon. member, who is a minister as well as a lawyer. He is extremely familiar with the Canadian justice system. I liked his serious speech. However, I would like him to look a little further at what is currently going on in the justice system, and especially at the use that the federal government, of which he is a minister, is making of the Supreme Court of Canada.

I do not know if he had the opportunity to hear me this morning when I made my speech where I tried to demonstrate in the 10 minutes allotted to me that, since 1981, the supreme court, with the unilateral repatriation of the Constitution, has been more than a tribunal that was there to interpret the law. With these decisions, since 1981 and 1982, the supreme court judges became legal scholars; they became tools for the federal government to centralize more powers at the federal level. Let us just think about the veto that was taken away from Quebec in 1982. In 1983, in trade and economy, there were some extremely important judicial precedents.

In 1989, there was the General Motors case, where provinces were told this is not your jurisdiction; everything at the interprovincial level is under federal jurisdiction. There were decisions in 1990 and in 1993. Recently, there was the Hydro-Québec case, where Hydro-Québec was told that environmental studies were not their concern, but under federal jurisdiction.

Each time Quebec went before the Supreme Court of Canada because it had no choice, because it was taken there, even about the language law, even about extremely important institutions in Quebec, it came out weakened. I would like the member, as a lawyer, as a law professional who looks at what is going on in the supreme court, to give me an answer if he has reviewed the supreme court's decisions.

I would also like him to explain to me why decisions made by Quebec's courts of appeal, superior courts that come before the Supreme Court of Canada are reversed six times out of ten by the tribunal known as the Supreme Court of Canada. This is the case for Quebec. But when it comes to decisions made by courts in other provinces, they are reversed by the Supreme Court of Canada only four times out of ten. Why is that? I would like him to explain this to me. Why is it that the supreme court treats Quebeckers and the whole Quebec justice system in such a way?

[Supply, February 10th, 1998]

Oh, yes, they can.

[Supply, February 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. It gives me an opportunity to add something to the argument I was making.

Indeed the purpose of our motion is to have the House recognize the existence in Quebec of a very broad consensus on a very critical issue, that of democracy.

The mere fact that someone like Claude Ryan, a political opponent who headed the no committee in 1980, is now recalling the first referendum held on Quebec sovereignty and now speaking up to seek recognition for the very important principle of democracy, and siding with the likes of Lucien Bouchard and the leader of the Bloc Quebecois, that is very important.

Also when someone like Daniel Johnson, the present leader of the Quebec Liberal Party who will face the premier in a campaign debate in a few weeks or months, takes a stand on the critical issue of democracy, like he did this week, all the political parties in the House should understand that, by rejecting the Bloc's motion they would be rejecting a well-established consensus in the province. Moreover, for the Conservative Party and the NDP, it would mean going against resolutions duly adopted by their members during their convention.

It is for Quebeckers to decide their own future. It is not a legal issue but a political one. It is not up to judges and lawyers, but to the province's population that is of age to do so. Recent referendums demonstrated how the Quebec people deals with such issues properly, in an organized manner.

Answering this question gives me the opportunity to add a very precise point. I could not mention it in my statement for lack of time.

Over the last few years, a new principle has become apparent in the Supreme Court of Canada's authoritative judgments. Someone said earlier that the questions raised by the Court created some fears. It is now clear that those fears were justified since the new constitutional jurisprudence does not simply deal with the division of powers; in some cases, it clearly asserts the constitutional intention to create a single country.

That notion is nowhere to be found in the Canadian Constitution. That is the judges' interpretation. So much so that in her presentation in response to the amicus curiae's presentation to the Court on Quebec's right to secede, in a case now before the Supreme Court of Canada, the Attorney General of Canada declares that it is clearly the intent of the Constitution and the wish of the founding provinces to unite in a federation to create a single united dominion.

I think that this is not the way Quebeckers see the situation. To me, the real meaning of the concept of founding provinces and of two founding peoples that existed at the time has been lost on the way.