Ian McClelland

[Canadian Human Rights Act, April 30th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I concur with much of what my friend from Halifax said. He reinforced much of what I said in my dissertation. I do not argue with the member opposite.

My concern is that I do not think this bill will do what he and others expect it will do. I do not think there is even the remotest possibility that by adding two words to the Canadian Human Rights Act the intent will come through. This is more window dressing.

Be that as it may, on the issues raised earlier and the notion of dehumanizing people, we are in another age of enlightenment and that ages of enlightenment are ongoing. Major societal changes are evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

On the very issues we are debating here today, as I look in my constituency people of younger generations have a different mindset by and large than people of older generations. That does not mean the people of the older generations should not be respected. That means very likely the very issues which are so troublesome today will evolve and 10 or 20 years from now will not be at issue at all because society is in evolution. Changes do not come rapidly, much as this institution is protected from rapid change by the way it functions. That is probably good. It is a check and a balance.

I suspect our culture and our country and our society at large are far more sensitive to the notion of genocide and to dehumanizing people than other generations that preceded us have been. We spoke to that at great length in the debate last week concerning the Armenians and genocide and the term and the use of the word genocide.

I do not think we are all that far apart. People who have a different and just as passionately and strongly held view are worthy of the same respect as people on the other side of the issue.

[Canadian Human Rights Act, April 30th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, for some members in the House today this vote will be very easy; it will be just a matter of coming in and doing it. For other members in the House today this vote is going to be much more difficult and that is on both sides of the issue.

The one thing that does unite all members, at least I pray it does, is that all Canadians share a bedrock value and do not discriminate against one another. It is our shared values that at least give me hope that our country and our legislatures including this one will fumble on into the future and things will turn out just fine, perhaps even in spite of us.

As my colleague from Rosedale just mentioned, today we are privileged to be speaking to a very important consideration that strikes at the heart of the deepest convictions and personal values of many people. These should not be taken lightly.

When I spoke earlier I mentioned my friendship with the member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve which I enjoy and value very much. This friendship might seem passing strange, the Bloc member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve who is gay and proud of it, and myself, a member of the Reform Party from Edmonton Southwest neither of whom could speak each other's language very well when we arrived at this place, and I still cannot. The thought of voting against a measure that would cause him pain hurts me. I do not want to do it because I would never vote in favour of a measure that in my view would add to discrimination against any human being.

All of us in the Chamber if not in our immediate family as is my case, have members of our extended family who are gay. It is a fact of life and something we cannot pretend does not happen. None of us would want to see persons whom we love and our friends discriminated against for any reason.

I concur with the member for Rosedale when he mentioned that people who would throw out the red herring of pedophilia are not bringing a measure of dignity or worth to this debate. Pedophilia is a criminal offence that has nothing to do with sexual orientation. Pedophiles can be heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation.

As well, if we were to rank a threat to the family, certainly amending the Canadian Human Rights Act to include sexual orientation would not rank as high as tax policy. The tax policy is a far greater threat and far more damaging to the traditional family than adding the term sexual orientation.

Why then would I speak against the motion? I do not think that by adding the two words sexual orientation to the Canadian Human Rights Act will change anything. It will not change discrimination against gay persons one iota.

If I felt there was any evidence to support the notion that by amending the Canadian Human Rights Act to add those two words would somehow magically change the Canadian populace so that there would be no more discrimination against gays or anyone else, then I would vote for it in a minute. But it will not. All that will possibly change that is education and enlightenment.

Members who have spoken expressed concerns saying that the enhanced dignity of gay people would be achieved through amending the human rights act are already there. As a matter of fact, the Canadian Human Rights Act is particularly eloquent in its defence and the statement of values that we as Canadians share:

The purpose of this Act is to extend the laws in Canada to give effect, within the purview of matters coming within the legislative authority of Parliament, to the principle that every individual should have an equal opportunity with other individuals to make for himself or herself, the life that he or she is able and wishes to have, consistent with his or her duties and obligations as a member of society, without being hindered in or prevented from doing so by discriminatory practices-

That is, at least in my opinion, an eloquent statement of values that virtually every Canadian can share.

Then regrettably, again in my opinion, we add a list:

-based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, marital status, family status, disability or conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted.

Now we want to add sexual orientation.

The statement of values that preceded the list is of such magnitude and beauty that if we could somehow imbue Canadians from coast to coast with those values as an obligation and right of citizenship, none of us ever should fear being discriminated against. As citizens we would know that we have an obligation not

to discriminate against anyone for any reason. Then we would not be quibbling over whether a particular group is on or off the list. It is not the values that some Canadians have a problem with, it is the notion of a list. There is the concern that having made the list, this will then evolve into affirmative action.

We went through an affirmative action debate recently and another debate that had to do with hate crimes, Bill C-41. In that bill crimes were defined as worse and subject to more severe penalties if they were committed against persons identified on a list. That list included sexual orientation.

The net result is that if someone is lying in a ditch with a cracked skull it is a more serious crime if the person happens to be one of the people on the list than it is if a person is not on the list. That is absolutely preposterous.

This brings us to this bill. By amending the human rights act to include sexual orientation are we doing the same injustice to Canadians by suggesting that somehow we have to have a list about whom it is wrong to discriminate against?

It is the act of discrimination that is wrong. It is not determined to be wrong by whom the discrimination is against. It is every bit as wrong to discriminate against a person that is gay, a female, a person of colour or religion as a white male. Discrimination is discrimination.

If we did not have a list how would we go about having recourse if someone is discriminated against? If we did not codify what is right or wrong as we have been doing through the charter of rights and freedoms, but had a sense of what is right and wrong through our common law heritage, where would that put persons that are discriminated against? How would there be recourse and wrongs be righted?

That is the problem, the nub of the question. By adding the term sexual orientation to the Canadian Human Rights Act that is not going to be addressed. Nothing is going to change as a result of the change. We are going to be in exactly the same situation tomorrow as we are today, not one bit further ahead.

How do people who have been discriminated against find justice under the current system? A complaint is filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. What happens then? Well, you grow old, that is what happens. It might take three years or more before anything happens and justice delayed is justice denied.

If someone is discriminated against in employment or for any other reason, it is no different than from stealing from that person. If you steal a person's potential and future that is the same as taking money from their pocket.

We need all Canadians to share a common value that we do not discriminate one against another and that common value should be clearly understand and shared on a federal, provincial, municipal and corporate level. As the member for Rosedale said earlier, corporate Canada is light years ahead of public Canada as far as its relations with its work force is concerned. This is an absolute non-issue as far as the vast majority of Canadian business is concerned.

How do people who have been discriminated against get recourse? It would seem to me that it would be worthwhile if we could contemplate a situation whereby a person having been discriminated against would be able to go to a tribunal or a justice of the peace or some such body that greater minds than mine would determine, and make his or her case that he or she has been discriminated against. By convincing that body in short order that the person has a case, the person who has been discriminated against should be able to sue then and there. The benefit of that would be to bring community values into play.

For example, in Alberta there was a recent case everyone should know about of a gay person who was teaching at King's College, a religious institution. When he came out of the closet he was fired. He complained to the human rights commission in Alberta. His case was not supported.

On the surface this would seem to be a pretty clear cut case of a person being discriminated against because of his sexual orientation. However, I put to the House that in exactly the same situation, if that person had been working and teaching at the University of Alberta, which is a public institution, not a religious institution, then that person would not have been contravening the basic precepts of the institution for which he was working, and exactly the same jury in exactly the same circumstance would have found for him.

Common sense does come into play in the interpersonal relationships of people in the country. If we find the outcome of every single circumstance that we as citizens find ourselves in is determined because it has been codified and is written in law, then we will be removing the opportunity for the people to have their own community standards and community values.

That is not to say we would find ourselves in a country of patchwork where the strongest would survive here and the strongest would survive there. That is not my point at all. I am saying that there are two sides to every issue. Most Canadians live and let live and will look for reasons and ways to accommodate each other.

As we progress more and more into the realm of codifying relationships, the opportunity for discourse and settling things is taken away. This brings resentment and fuels reverse discrimination. To a large degree that is why affirmative action has been

discredited in the United States and is being reversed at exactly the same time we are implementing it here in Canada.

I had occasion to speak about just this. It has troubled me for quite some time. I have agonized over my approach, how I would speak to it and the position I would bring to this debate. A couple of weekends ago I had coffee with a friend in Minnesota who is gay. He told me that he almost ran off the road driving past the Humphreydome, the home of the Minnesota Vikings. On the billboard which flashed a sign to buy tickets, there was a slogan "remember gay pride week next week".

He said he could not believe it. He drove around the block to see if he was really seeing that sign, but there it was. He said that even 10 years ago he could not have visualized the remotest possibility of seeing a sign like that.

His life has not been made easy by the fact that he is gay. I asked him: "Are you gay because you want to be gay or are you gay because that is the way you were born?" His response was: "Why would anybody in their right mind choose a lifestyle like mine? Why would anybody go through the same grief I have gone through in my life, in family, in job, in housing and in everything people have talked about?" However, he said the wrong way to change this is by codifying or driving it through legislation. The right way to change things is through education and enlightenment.

That is the reason, although I am troubled, I feel confident that when I vote against this measure I will not be voting against people who are gay. I will be voting in the greater light by saying we must speak to the root problems of discrimination, not the surface symptoms.

I know the people in my constituency are divided on the issue. I know they are not divided on the notion of extending benefits to people because of their sexual orientation. I know people in my constituency are very concerned that I do the right thing and that I represent them in a way they would feel comfortable with and in a way they would be proud of. In this instance I know I am representing not just the people who voted for me but all the people of my constituency.

I am very conscious that the country is divided on this issue. Parliament is divided on this issue. It is a very difficult decision for many of us.

[Canadian Human Rights Act, April 30th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I will be standing for my intervention shortly, but before I do I will take this opportunity to say a few words through you, Madam Speaker, to the member who has just spoken on this issue.

In the last two and one-half years I have been in Parliament I have come to know the gentleman as a very fine individual. I am very proud to have him among my friends here in the House. I hope we will be friends as our lives progress no matter where our paths may take us. I speak and think very highly of the member, but we come at this from slightly different perspectives.

I concur and agree with him 100 per cent with regard to discrimination and the prevention of discrimination. Where we would divert is in the affirmative action that is bound to follow.

As a direct result of this change in the legislation, is it the opinion of the hon. member that eventually we will be recognizing same sex marriages?

[Supply, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the kind words.

The only way we can possibly affect the way a particular country might work within its own borders as far as human rights are concerned is if we have a dialogue. There are situations in which if all countries work in unison we may be able to force an issue as far as human rights are concerned. We have far more to gain by ensuring that we can work with a country to somehow imbue that country with our notion of what is correct and right as far as human rights are concerned.

When the situation is one where a ruler or a regime goes beyond what is right, then the only way Canada can show it will not participate or will not countenance a particular situation is to cut

off trade and dissociate itself from that. As long as there is the possibility of improving the relationship with a particular country then I think we have the right and the responsibility to trade and work with it while constantly trying to improve its human rights record. If it cannot and will not be done, then we have a moral responsibility to have nothing to do with that country.

[Supply, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, that question speaks to the nub of what is going on here today. It also speaks to the difficult position the government is in.

I am quite certain that the vast majority of members opposite would like to support a resolution which includes the word genocide, but do not because of geopolitics or whatever.

As I understand it, the Government of Turkey would go a long way to address the problems concerning this by recognizing what has taken place. Turkey applied three years ago for admission into the European community and was refused admission because it has not recognized its complicity in the events of the genocide of 1915.

That was a condition of entry into the European community and Turkey will not do it. It will not because it feels that they were wartime casualties and that no deliberate mass slaughter took place. Turkey says that the Armenians who died had aligned themselves with Russia, were enemies of Turkey and that the relocation of Armenians who perished, because the relocation took place in the winter, had been collaborators in the Russian army. There is also concern that by admitting guilt or by admitting complicity the Turks would be leaving themselves open to judgments or to claims against them.

I believe the very best thing the Government of Turkey can do at this time is to say: "We were wrong. We would never do that again. It is a blight on our history. We recognize it as being wrong". That is exactly what the German government has done.

I attended a wedding on the weekend. The minister said there are nine words which should never be forgotten in making a marriage work and last. At least six of those words could be used in our relations with other countries and six of those words could be used by the Government of Turkey in addressing the Armenians. Those nine words were: "I am sorry. Please forgive me. I love you". I suspect, as the minister said in conducting the marriage service, that if the Government of Turkey were to say to the Armenian community: "I am sorry. Please forgive what has happened and let us live together in peace," it would be the beginning of a first step to a new future.

[Supply, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of those at home who have not been following this debate, once in a while there is a debate that speaks to the very heart of what Parliament is all about and what the world parliament should all be about and how we relate one to another.

The Bloc put forward a motion today that would call on the Government of Canada to use the word genocide in condemnation of what transpired primarily in the years around 1915 by the Turks, addressed primarily to the Armenians.

The motion was amended by the Liberals to take the word genocide out. Liberals opposite would concur with the notion that genocide did take place but for political reasons cannot use the word genocide. Our position was to insert the word genocide in a subamendment so as to be true to the meaning the Bloc originally put forward.

This is a particularly important debate. While the events took place many years ago and half way around the world, they affect each and every one of us every day.

A couple of years ago I was at a dinner party. A person there, now in his sixties, a great raconteur, was regaling us with stories of his youth. He name is Jack Cohen. He was telling us of the time when he was in an orphanage in Montreal. When he was four years old he and his twin brother saw this great man come into the orphanage to pick out a child. They knew, just like a bunch of puppies I guess, they had to get up and catch the attention of the person coming into the orphanage if they were to get a home.

He and his brother were a little older than some of the other children in the orphanage. When this man came in each of them grabbed Jack Cohen's father by the leg and would not let go.

We were laughing about the word picture of these two little boys holding on to this man who had been sent to Montreal from Edmonton get a little girl, as it turns out. They would not let go. When he came home he was telling how his mother found she had twin boys rather than a little girl.

It was one of those stories that we laugh at but inside in our hearts we are kind of crying at the tragedy that caused this to take place. It is funny because of the ability of Jack as a storyteller to make what is really a tragic story palatable and something that we could understand.

Jack and his brother were not alone. There were thousands and thousands of children just like him who were survivors of the death camps. Every relative Jack and his twin brother had was exterminated. Because they were twins they were put into a special compound and for one reason or another they managed to survive. What does this have to do with the debate at hand? How do we get to that?

We get to it because of the notion of denial. This is the elemental concern behind the government's position and why the government is in great difficulty voting for this motion when it incorporates the word genocide. Even though the Governments of Quebec and Ontario in 1980 passed unanimous motions stating the Turkish government should be made to recognize what had gone on, when we as a government aid and abet a denial we are participating in the cover-up.

I know Canadians do not want to be part of it. I am sure the vast majority of Turks today would not want to be part of a cover-up. The only way we can possibly learn from history is to recognize it and go on from there.

For people watching not all that familiar about the events that took place, let me go back through a bit of history. This really did not start in 1915. It started even before the late 1800s. The Chinese built a great wall to protect themselves from the Ottoman hordes, as they are described. The Armenians had been occupying that part of the world for 3000 years. The Turks came into that part of the world and began moving them out. It really started to take definition in the late 1800s.

In 1915 all men between 16 and 60 were drafted into the army. There being two sides to every story, and there always is a shade of grey, it is important to understand that the Turks' position is that the Armenians joined the Russians and were fighting with the Russians against the Turks. That is why the genocide took place. That is why they were moved out and moved offshore.

There is a good deal of dispute about the exact numbers. However, does it matter if it was 1.5 million, 1 million or 800,000? If it was one it was one too many. Genocide, as defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary is the mass extermination of human beings, especially of a particular race or nation. Any mass slaughter is by definition genocide. One cannot whitewash genocide. We cannot use words to make it sound better. Genocide is genocide.

The ground zero of the genocide that took place against the Armenians in Turkey is when, on April 24, 1915, the interior minister of Turkey said in 50 years the only Armenians will be in museums.

Today all that remains in Turkey of the Armenians, who were the people who were there first, are between 30,000 and 50,000, most in Istanbul. Today the situation in Turkey for the Armenians left is such that when their churches, schools and cultural institutions need repair the Armenians must apply to the interior ministry of Turkey to have them repaired.

What is the link between my story of Jack Cohen and the situation that exists today? It is this. Hitler, when asked before the holocaust what would mankind say in light of what he was doing, responded: "Who remembers the Armenians?" The genocide against the Armenians was the foundation of other genocides to come. It was the foundation for the mass extermination of the Jews of Europe.

What is so chilling, so frightening, so repulsive about what is going on in our world today and how does it link to the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians? In my view the link is denial.

Who will speak for all of the dead? Who will speak for those who will die in future genocides if we do not recognize and honour those who died before us? In my view it is the denial of what took place that is the most reprehensible aspect of what is before us today. We know we cannot change history. We know we cannot reverse the hands of time. We know that what happened, happened. We know that Canada has a relationship with Turkey today. We know and understand that the vast majority of people in Turkey had nothing to do with what happened in 1915 and would be just as repulsed today as we are.

Basically people are good, but genocide goes on day after day all around the world. We do not seem to learn from our mistakes. Perhaps that is because in one way or another we try to pretend that it does not exist because it is just too hard to bear.

That is what is going on in Canada and around the world with the holocaust denial. That is why it is so important that light is brought to this situation so that those who went before us are not forgotten.

In Canada, even as we speak, people deny the holocaust. They say it was impossible. How could mankind be so cruel? How could a cultured and enlightened people perpetrate such a horror against mankind, such a horror against the Jews and others, but specifically against the Jews? How could the people of a whole nation turn their eyes or not see it?

Perhaps there is a germ of a reason for that in what is happening today. Perhaps we do not believe what we do not want to believe. Let me give an example of what is going on today in holocaust denial and link it to the events which took place in 1915 in Turkey.

The people at the Ecole polytechnique in Montreal and the University of Montreal will shortly hear a speaker. There will be at Ecole polytechnique a conference sponsored by 15 Muslim organizations. The person speaking is a revisionist historian and anti-Semite, Roger Garaudy. This person is coming to these two institutions. He has a right in a free society to express his views.

The problem is that when someone in a free society is able to expound his revisionist theories which are generally known to be untrue and does so as an academic, that person puts a cloak of respectability on history which was not there before.

We live in a free society and people have the right to say what they will, provided they are not spreading hate propaganda. The fact is these revisionists, these people who are rewriting history, must be challenged and challenged at every opportunity. If we do not, we run a risk. What will certainly happen is that we will repeat the mistakes we made in the past.

I would like to conclude my comments with this thought: Anything that diminishes any one of us as a human being hurts and diminishes all of us. We are all human beings. Regardless of our gender, skin colour, sexual orientation we are all human beings. We are all children of the same God. When any one of us is diminished we are all diminished.

It is desperately important that every time violations of human rights occur, for example, the revisionists who deny history, who try to change history and cloak what actually happened with some sort of respectability, or the apologists for something that is beyond apology, then others must stand up and tell the truth of what happened. We cannot pretend it did not happen. It is important for our grandchildren that we are aware of the foundation and where we came from.

[Supply, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I take the comments of the member for Willowdale at face value and acknowledge the fact that his comments were heartfelt and genuine as all of the comments in the House have been.

However, there does seem to be some inconsistency here. The Bloc, and prior to that, the Parti Quebecois, has been diligent in facing this issue and trying to bring some recognition to the Armenian genocide since at least 1980. The Government of Quebec and the Government of Ontario both in the early eighties unanimously presented resolutions to that effect. Yet, when the issue comes to the federal government it seems to be watered down. Such is the case again today with the removal of the word genocide by the Liberal amendment. I understand that is to make it palatable today particularly to Turkey with whom we have good and mutually beneficial relations.

Could the member for Willowdale expand on the fact that we have to rob Peter to pay Paul?

[The Budget, April 16th, 1996]

We listen to everything you have to say.

[The Budget, April 16th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, as always, the hon. member delivers a reasoned and thoughtful paper to the Chamber.

I would like to follow up on a question and comment to the earlier Bloc speaker. I suggested that regardless of our biases, whether we think funding for social programs should be 100 per cent government funded or 0 per cent government funded, the

quest for the separation of Quebec has cost the country dearly over the last 15 years.

Is our responsibility to the past or to the future? Is our responsibility to our grandparents or to our grandchildren? For whom should we be toiling in the Chamber?

[The Budget, April 16th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his presentation here today. By and large as we are both members of the opposition, our job is to keep the government's feet to the fire.

I have travelled a fair amount in Quebec in recent days and I think that we have a particularly serious problem in our country. As the economy of Ontario or Quebec deteriorates it pulls everybody else down because they are so dominant in the country. Even with the most cursory glance we can see the dynamism that has existed in Toronto and we can compare that to Montreal which at one time was Canada's premier city, the premier city in North America.

When we go to Montreal today, it is with the feeling of unease when we see what has happened in Montreal over the last few years. An illustration of this is taken from the magazine L'Actualité in November 1995. In 1980 before the separatists really started to ruin the economy in Quebec and hurt the economy in the rest of the country, the residential vacancy rate in Montreal was 3.4 per cent. It is now 6.8 per cent. The business vacancy rate was 3.3 per cent and it is now 19.7 per cent. The public debt in Quebec in 1980 was 20.3 per cent of gross provincial product. Today it is 40.9 per cent.

To put this into context, the cost of servicing the debt that the country has is $47 billion, more than all of the social spending put together. Many Canadians define themselves by our social spending and perhaps even more so in the province of Quebec. Yet the ability to continue to spend on the very programs by which Canadians define themselves is threatened by the enormity of the debt and the cost of servicing the debt, which this year is $47 billion.

It is interesting to note that the former leader of the opposition on becoming the premier of Quebec has changed his spots once again. He has now put fiscal responsibility as the number one priority of Quebec rather than separation.

There are examples, evidence and proof that this incessant drive for the separation of Quebec is costing all of Canada, but by far it is costing Quebec and the citizens of Quebec far more than it is costing the rest of the country. It is very hurtful to the economy and to the people of Quebec. Would the member consider that perhaps this is an appropriate time to continue to work within the federation to evolve a new relationship for all provinces and particularly the province of Quebec but to do so within Confederation where we will all end up being winners rather than trying to make winners and losers?