Pierre Brien

[Fiscal Dividend, December 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, from the minister's replies it is obvious that the dice were stacked from the start, the decisions have already been made, and if the provinces do not bow to the federal government's point of view, the conference will be a failure.

In that case, what is the point of the provincial premiers coming to Ottawa?

[Fiscal Dividend, December 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. All the evidence points to the fact that the federal government cannot resist the temptation to sprinkle the anticipated fiscal dividend here and there, despite the consensus of the provinces.

If the federal government has that much difficulty resisting temptation, is it not because it is constantly seeking to justify its existence and sees going over the heads of the provinces and delivering services directly to the population as an easy way of doing so?

[Quebec's Sovereignty, December 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, now that the minister admits there will not be an immediate breakup following a referendum, will he also agree that the best attitude for everyone during this period will be one based on common sense, openness and mutual respect?

[Quebec's Sovereignty, December 8th, 1997]

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

Last weekend, the minister said that the federal government would not immediately leave Quebec following a referendum victory for the yes side.

Are we to understand that the minister finally realized that the sovereignist project does not provide for an immediate breakup following a winning referendum, but for a year of negotiations between Quebec and Ottawa, before sovereignty is proclaimed?

[Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland), December 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, that is the argument that the minister wants to bring into this debate. We have never thought along these lines. He should be speaking with his colleague from the Reform Party, his new constitutional colleague with whom he is working hand in hand. I invite him to have good discussions with him.

Earlier, I heard the leader of the Reform Party say that, according to them, this was an extension of a fundamental right. According to me, that is not the issue. The issue is the choice between a public system and a denominational system, and the people chose a public system. They have chosen it with a majority, they have expressed this in a consensus during two referendums, in a report by a commission, in provincial elections, and with everything else. According to me, this should be sufficient, and it is based on such support that, hopefully, a resolution should be unanimously adopted by this House to respect the will expressed by the people of Newfoundland.

[Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland), December 8th, 1997]

Yes, it is a very academic debate. But let us come back to the case of Newfoundland. If we follow the minister's logic, we should be against this amendment because obviously members of the Pentecostal Church are opposed to this.

The issue to be resolved is whether this is a fundamental right or a less than fundamental right, and whether we can withdraw a right from a minority if it is a bit less fundamental than what we consider to be fundamental. But where can all this lead us?

I can understand the people who are concerned that the minister is making a judgment on the definition of what is fundamental by stating that appropriate support is required from the minorities, by trying to state what the debate should be in Newfoundland. I am sorry, but when he quoted the minister from Newfoundland, when he was asked the question directly, he always said that as far as he was concerned, 73% of the people had voted for the project. He never started with 32, 38, 27, with assumptions and everything else. He said that according to him the issue was the following: a public system or a denominational system, and the majority had expressed itself.

I invite the minister to be a bit more straightforward when dealing with the cases he is referring to, to be specific in his comments and to be careful not to be always obsessed with his idea of meeting the commitment that he had already taken before the referendum. We must remember that it is he who said that he wanted to make Quebec suffer. We can see by what he is doing today that he is applying what he said at that time.

[Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland), December 8th, 1997]

No, no. The removal of rights in a referendum exercise is being discussed. I am sure that Quebeckers would be against removing what the Quebec anglophone community has now. I am sure it is the same thing in the New Brunswick. So I think these things are completely hypothetical because the values people have—

[Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland), December 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time we disagree, but I would like to give him again the example of anglophones in Quebec and of linguistic rights.

[Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland), December 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I heard the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs say that he was anxious to get back to teaching. We see today that he already has a question prepared for asking his students some day. Moreover, my wish for him is that he can get back to where he says his strongest preference lies as soon as possible.

In my opinion, the fundamental rule in a democratic society is the following: respecting the wish of the majority. I would like to go further with this. I recall hearing the minister open a debate with the question “What, for example, would happen if New Brunswick held a referendum calling for abolition of the language rights of francophones?” He said he would padlock the doors of Parliament, that he would be in the forefront of those opposing it, and that the government would never consider such a thing. Perhaps he could do so. Yet the fact remains that there would be a major problem if one province had such a desire, one that had been expressed and measured in a democratic exercise.

I am convinced, if the opposite position were taken, if a referendum were held in Quebec on anglophone rights—regardless of context, regardless of whether or not we had a Bill 101 in favour of the development of French—there would be a massive vote by Quebeckers in favour of the language rights of anglophones. Moreover, that was included in what was submitted to the population last time.

If the majority wants to oppress its minority, which is what he says this comes down to really, that will happen regardless. Do you sincerely believe that, if they express this in a democratic exercise, they will not express it in their everyday lives? So there is another kind of problem, one of tolerance, which involves significant problems. Respecting the rule of the majority therefore, in my point of view, does not lead us to a dangerous situation.

I am convinced that he will want to continue the debate and I am prepared to continue it at any point with him, on the basis that the majority decision is a desire clearly expressed by the people, and at that point a government has a duty to take this into consideration and to act responsibly in such situations.

[Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland), December 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I will take my turn in speaking on the motion before us, concerning amendment of section 17 of the Constitution, which relates to the Terms of Union of Newfoundland. This motion will enable the people of Newfoundland to modify their education system as defined by them. Since they initiated this change several years ago, culminating in a referendum a few months ago, we shall today be supporting this motion in order to allow Newfoundland to move ahead with this as promptly as possible.

I am going to place this constitutional amendment in its context. Then I shall move on to speak of the work in committee and of the one submission to the committee which left me confused, and still does, that of the Government of Canada, by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. I must say that it opened the door to an analysis in committee which moved the committee members to question the level of support. We have heard the speech by the leader of the Reform Party just now; Reform will support the motion, after having taken the time to thoroughly analyze all of their recriminations relating to the very basis, or the potential scope, of the amendment. All of this was a result of what the government's representative, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, had to say.

We have to understand right off that term 17 makes specific provision about Newfoundland's union with Canada. It accords constitutional rights to various religious communities in Newfoundland, which enabled them to manage their school system. In 1987, through the same constitutional amendment procedure, the rights were extended to the Pentacostals. The result was a school system that was run by religious denominations.

In practice what that means is that there are actually four school systems in Newfoundland. There is the integrated system, the Pentecostal system, the Roman Catholic system and the Seventh Day Adventist system. The integrated system includes the Anglican, Presbyterian and United churches and the Salvation Army. So this is what we were faced with, and let us look at what it means in practical terms.

In some regions in Newfoundland there is a single religious community essentially. In such cases, there is little debate. There are other places, such as urban areas and cities where there are two or three secondary schools of different denominations within a very small radius, and the children attend school according to their religion. In some instances, there are schools near them, and they have to go to a school that is further away, because the school close by is not of their religious denomination. There are teachers who cannot teach in certain schools because they do not belong to the same religious group. There are certainly some very able people who experienced difficulties because of this, and we have all heard about the fact. Hiring was not based on one's qualifications but on the religious group one belonged to.

Newfoundland is the only province that did not have a public education system but rather a system belonging to different religious denominations. How did the people challenge this system? They used different means. In 1992, a royal commission submitted its report and suggested that considerable changes should be made to Newfoundland's school system. Later on, there were extensive negotiations between the government and various denominations in order to find an arrangement to reorganize the school system. The first choice was not to adopt directly a constitutional amendment. People sought to achieve a balance, to find a way to reorganize the school system.

After lengthy and unsuccessful negotiations, in 1995, the government came up with a compromise that was submitted to the population. That referendum was approved by 54% of the population. Later, there were court challenges and an injunction was requested. The Government of Newfoundland closed some schools, reorganized its school system, and parents supported by special interest groups succeeded in obtaining an injunction.

The Government of Newfoundland did not choose to argue on the substantive issue. It decided then to redesign its proposal and to go to the people a second time; another referendum was held on September 2, 1997, and this time it received the support of 73% of the population. The government therefore decided to refer to the people in order to move forward and to avoid getting involved in a very lengthy legal battle, which would have delayed implementation of a reform that people had wanted for a long time. This was obvious from the level of support expressed by the people of Newfoundland twice, during two referenda.

What was the question asked at that referendum? I will read it to you. The question was: “Do you support the establishment of a single school system where all children, whatever their religion or religious affiliation, attend the same schools while having access to courses in religion and to religious observances?” So the objective was not to throw religion out altogether nor to eliminate courses in religion, but instead to ensure that the school system would be managed by the government. It is the Government of Newfoundland that will make the decisions on the structure that will be implemented, on parent committees and everything else, so that from now on it will be a public system and no longer a denominational system.

The question was basically whether the people wanted the denominational system to be maintained or instead wanted a public system. This debate gave the people an opportunity to express their views and, on September 2, they made a decision.

On September 5, the Legislative Assembly of Newfoundland unanimously passed a motion to go ahead with the constitutional amendment requested. I will come back to this because the Pentecostal members' support can be interpreted a number of ways; the Pentecostal community is probably one of the minorities whose support for the proposal was weakest, at least as far as we could see in committee. I will come back to this later.

Now, I move to the Bloc's support. We expressed support for this proposal in this House from the outset, even before it was referred to committee. Why? We thought it was quite obvious. It concerns education, which is under provincial jurisdiction. Support was expressed as part of a democratic process, and the people of Newfoundland decided what they wanted to do.

In that sense, it seems to me that the role of the House of Commons is to adopt this motion, unanimously I hope, thereby respecting the wish of Newfoundlanders. The government saw fit to establish a committee to study it and so on. We did not think this was a necessary step that would add anything. As it turns out, we did not hear much that we had not heard before. There is always a risk with holding hearings: people want to start the debate all over again. Opponents made their case again hoping that Parliament would finally agree with them. There was a campaign, there were opportunities for people to express their views.

In the chronology of events, I forgot to mention that there was also a provincial election held in Newfoundland. The government of the day never made any secret about its intentions and was re-elected. It too went through the democratic process. Granted, this was not the only issue in the provincial election, but still those opposing the proposal had numerous opportunities to come forward.

As for the conclusion reached by the committee, I am very pleased to see that the committee did not venture beyond making a recommendation to the House of Commons and to the other place to adopt the resolution. It did not get into the kind of overly political analysis the Reformers and perhaps the minister would have hoped for regarding every conceivable potential implication on other aspects of federal-provincial and constitutional relations. I know some were tempted to do so, but the committee's level of consensus might have been lower, since there were already dissenting opinions from Conservative senators. The process might be delayed somewhat by the Senate, which would be unfortunate. Still, while we may have to wait for the Senate once again, it will merely slow down the process.

I told you earlier about the Bloc's support and about potential hurdles; the Senate is one of them. Another one is the possibility of legal challenges. Witnesses, and also some people during the last campaign in Newfoundland, mentioned the possibility that certain aspects might be challenged in court. People can do it regarding all sorts of issues. There is a legal system in place for this, but it does not justify not going ahead with what is proposed to us.

There is a clear distinction to be made here. The constitutional amendment is one thing, but it will up to the Government of Newfoundland to decide how it will organize its school system. We cannot say, as some Conservative senators—among others—might be tempted to do, that there may be challenges, that we have to be careful, that we should draft the amendment differently, look for alternatives, etc., because, in the end, it will all depend on how Newfoundland implements its school reform. Of course, if there is non-compliance with the Constitution or the charter, then it is a different matter. But, as the minister explained, the constitutional amendment as such will not contradict any provision in these acts. Similarly, the charter will not contradict what is in the Constitution.

However, the part of the government's statement that concerns me and that opened the door to a debate is that of the support of most of the minorities or of support by minorities.

There are a number of denominational groups involved. When the level of support is examined riding by riding, it seems fairly clear that it was very high everywhere, without always being a majority. While it received the support of a good number of people, that support was visibly lower in areas where there were more Pentecostals. Many people came and presented all sorts of arguments, but there is no way of knowing exactly how they voted. That having been said, every indication is that opposition in the Pentecostal community is quite strong.

Once the criterion is reasonable support from the minorities, we have something that is completely subjective. Earlier in the House, the minister came back to this as well, saying that the level of support from the minorities affected depends on the nature of the right involved. That is subjective. There are two things about this that are subjective. He naturally has his definition, based on sources, of what constitutes a fundamental right and what does not.

In this regard, however, I must point out to him that his view differed widely from that of his new constitutional colleague, the Leader of the Reform Party. The two do not share the same view of what constitutes a fundamental right. He says that, when there is freedom of religion, then it follows that running the school system on a religious basis is an extension of the fundamental right of freedom of expression and of religion. But there is a difference of opinion. And there may be many.

There is therefore a view of what constitutes a fundamental freedom and what does not. Even if there were a definition right now, that does not mean it would not change with time. When the Newfoundland issue is approached with a criterion such as reasonable support from the minorities concerned, the door is thrown wide open to debate. This does not strike me as a very desirable or good approach. Nor was it the approach taken by the Government of Newfoundland.

For that government, it is a choice between a public and a denominational school system, and 73% of voters opted for a public system. I think this is where the greater logic lies. If one starts with the premise that the support of minorities is required, there is no logic in proceeding if support from one of the minorities is missing. This is why Reformers, Conservatives and all opponents from Newfoundland have such serious reservations.

In the rest of the brief, there were a few other aspects more or less along the same lines. One sentence stated that, according to the Government of Canada, the proposed amendment was given a favourable reception by an appreciable majority of the population, and enjoys reasonable support by the minorities directly affected. We shall return later to the words appreciable majority, and the notion of reasonable support by the minorities directly affected.

The statement is then made that the resolution was approved unanimously by the Legislative Assembly. Here again, prudence is advisable. Three days after the referendum, four Pentecostal MLAs voted unanimously in favour of the amendment proposed to the Legislative Assembly. The fact that some Pentecostal MLAs supported the motion after the referendum cannot, by extension, be taken to mean that the Pentecostal community did the same. At that time, the members of the legislature had their own reasons, and they needed to take their political affiliation into consideration, how the rest of their political party was acting, and so on.

They also represented ridings, and had to take the opinion of their constituents into account. If the majority of their constituents had been in favour of the amendment suggested, but that the Pentecostals were not the majority in a riding—they are one group of the population, but not sufficient in numbers to form a majority in the riding—it could very well happen, therefore, that the majority of Pentecostals voted against, but overall the riding was in favour. The MLA therefore finds himself in a situation where he is forced to ask himself how he can best represent his constituents. He has his own personal convictions, but he is also there to represent his riding. We must therefore take care not to generalize or to divert attention from the fact that there was a considerable degree of dissatisfaction in the Pentecostal community.

This is the sort of approach we have to take when we want to look at the level of minority support, when we want to break down the vote or look at support for this referendum by denomination. And it gets more complicated.

The minister had a lot of things besides the situation in Newfoundland in his head when he came to testify. His arrival in politics was motivated essentially by, as he said last night, the Quebec question, and I am sure he had that in mind when he wrote the following: “Given the effect of this amendment on minority rights, a simple majority of 50% plus one in the referendum would be neither sufficient nor satisfactory”. It is strange having the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs make such a statement before the committee studying Newfoundland's school system. I will refresh your memory. Barely two years ago, the House of Commons passed on two occasions, because the Senate took a very long time on the constitutional amendment, a constitutional amendment with respect to Newfoundland, which had just held a referendum that had received the support of 54% of the population.

Although they are now saying that a simple majority of 50% plus one is not enough, 54% was considered to be enough at the time. So the federal government is faced with a problem of logic. I understand their great concern, like that of their constitutional colleagues in the Reform Party, over the possible impact of recognizing 50% plus one.

So, today they are saying “Phew. A good thing the second one passed in 1973. Now we can include it in our presentation. We can include it now, which we could not have done the first time.”

Time is passing, and I would have liked to talk to you about a number of other things. In conclusion, you have to be careful when you try to mix up two things, as the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs is doing in this case. He has opened the door to allow many people to express their opposition and to avoid considering the real issue, which is that the people of Newfoundland indicated what they wanted and did that through a democratic process.

And I must mention in the minute and a half that I have remaining that the people who were against the proposal came up with arguments such as “The question was not clear.” It seems to me that I have heard that somewhere else before. Living in an area where the people were consulted on several occasions, we have often heard this. When the level of support was not as expected, for example in the case of the federalists in Quebec, when 49.5% of the people voted yes, they said “But they did not understand.” The people in Newfoundland reacted in very much the same way.

I know that we will be able to come back to this, and I will conclude by saying that we will support and respect the will of the people of Newfoundland, with the hope that the members of the other parties will show the same willingness when the case of Quebec will be considered.