Ian McClelland

[Speech From The Throne, February 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, what we have to do is stop this whole notion of lists. We are all equal by virtue of the fact that we are human beings.

When we gathered under the oak tree and decided that for our mutual comfort and support we were going to have governance and that we were going to work as equals together for this governance, we did not say: "Oh, by the way, you are going to be separate because of the colour of your skin, your sexual orientation or because you are male or female". We said that for our common

good as human beings we were going to come together and have governance.

In my opinion that would be the single thing we should do to make us work together and to say we are all equal, period.

[Speech From The Throne, February 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, we cannot on one hand say we want to have the most efficient world class industries and businesses and on the other hand say by the way, do not make a profit. The business of business is business.

Let us talk about the banks because banks are organizations that people love to hate, by and large with good reason. Why are the banks making these outrageous profits? Are they making these profits because of their lending practices or because they are so smart at what they do and they are finding opportunities to make money? Partly. However, every time we go to the bathroom we end up paying the banks something somehow. It is like a utility. They have service charges on everything. There is a service charge for opening the door. They are also making huge profits because of the amount of credit we are all using through bank credit cards.

One of the reasons business is slow is the per capita consumer debt in Canada is 88 per cent of the average Canadian's expendable income. Everybody is in debt. Ten years ago it was 65 per cent.

The way to ensure there are not obscene profits in any industry is to ensure fair, open competition. Bank are owned by shareholders who then get the profits and reinvest in the country. If we think the banks are making too much money, let us open up the flood gates of competition.

I do not think the banks should be in the direct selling of insurance unless insurance companies can be in direct selling of banking. We can open up the competition of the banking industry to everybody in the insurance business by saying if you want to be in business, fine, get in the business. However, the new people who get into business should not do it on the backs of the taxpayers. If I am to get involved in a business I should be paying for that. I should be able to reap some of the rewards and I should be able to keep some of the profits, which is the nature of free enterprise.

It seems when we get involved in and start talking about this we have to look at our tax system. We need to see if everything in our tax system motivates people to invest and risk their lives, their livelihood, their security and their capital in getting more, which then creates employment. That is the kind of foundation we should have if we want to create jobs. We need a foundation that rewards entrepreneurship, risk and initiative. We do not need a foundation that rewards passive investment.

[Speech From The Throne, February 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join this debate, the first in this second session of the 35th Parliament.

I would like to confine my comments on the throne speech debate to two items that in my opinion are serious land mines in the future of our country. These are land mines planted by the government and referred to in the throne speech that, sooner or later, our country will encounter going down this road and boom, we are going to have an explosion the likes of which we have not envisioned.

The problems to which I refer are two. That is the notion of enshrining within our Constitution a veto and the concept of distinct society.

When I was first elected a couple of years ago, along with everyone here, I received a letter from a constituent. The constituent's letter was to wish me well. It was a letter of support. The constituent wrote in the body of that letter that there are two kinds of people who get involved in politics. There are politicians and statesmen. The distinction was drawn between a politician and a statesman thus: a politician thinks about the next election and a statesman about the next generation.

I thought about the words and the feeling put into that letter by that family from Edmonton Southwest. A thought occurred to me as I was watching my four and a half year old grandson last week as he was speaking on cellular phone to his uncle at the same time as he was shutting down a Windows '95 program on a computer. He is four and a half years old.

I was thinking about our responsibility as statesmen, what my responsibility is as a statesman and what our collective responsibility is to future generations. Our responsibility is not to our grandparents. Our responsibility is to our grandchildren. Our responsibility is to the future, not to the past and that is where we should have our eyes firmly fixed.

I was thinking about my responsibility to my grandson and to our grandchildren, the future generations of Canada. I was thinking about this veto. I was thinking, what does that do? I put it into the context of the great debate that raged in the land south of us in the United States.

About 220 years ago, they were in the midst of putting together their constitution. It starts with the words: "We, the people-". One of the architects of the American constitution, Thomas Jefferson, had as one of his primary advisers a man by the name of Thomas Paine, who wrote the book that many will know,

The

Rights of Man. I believe the central thesis is contained in the phrase: "Each generation has the right and the responsibility to govern for its time and should no more bind future generations than past generations should bind today". He referred to the notion of binding future generations to decisions of today as the greatest tyranny of all, the tyranny of ruling from beyond the grave.

We in our generation and the generation that preceded us are already ruling from the grave in one respect. We will be saddling future generations with a debt we ran up, a debt we used so we could live beyond our means and live better today at the expense of future generations of Canadians. That is wrong. That is tyranny.

To put a veto for any particular group, no matter how well meaning or no matter how well deserving, into the Constitution of the country binds future generations to decisions of today. It will be virtually impossible to change our Constitution. The beauty and the majesty of a Constitution is its ability to change and to evolve, to represent the people of today.

By putting a Constitutional veto into our Constitution we remove the ability of future generations to adapt and to change the Constitution and our relationship one with another in the future.

What is the natural consequence of removing the ability to accommodate change in the future? Imagine today if we did not have the ability to evolve, to change the relationship one province to another. Would we be able to even sit at a table with Quebec and say this is how we think we can make the country work better for everyone? We would be removing the ability to be flexible in the future. That is a significant road block, a significant land mine in the future destiny of the country.

In the immediate future the effect of a veto for regions in the country that do not include every single coequal province is this. I guarantee House and the people of Canada that the day Albertans become second class citizens because we do not have a veto, just as the individual provinces in the maritimes do not have a veto, or the Northwest territories or Saskatchewan or Manitoba, all hell is going to break loose.

Guess what, folks? We in Alberta get to give, give, give: "You are just about equal but you do not have a veto like everybody else. You do not have a veto like Quebec, but by the way, send money". How long do we think that will last? That is a very real and a very significant problem which the government does not seem to want to address.

It is wrong for future generations because it ties their hands; it makes it impossible to change. It is wrong because it puts a red flag in front of one of the most prosperous, dynamic provinces in the country which will be so upset that if the government thinks it has a problem with Quebec, it will look back at its problems with Quebec now as the good old days. I guarantee that is what will happen.

I did a little figuring the other day. The Prime Minister once again mentioned that he has been in the House for 32 years, which is quite remarkable. I added the number of hours in 32 years. If we divide the number of hours he has been an elected politician by our national debt it works out to $2,090,000 an hour for every hour he has been elected. We cannot stand any more of that. It is too expensive. We must have some fiscally responsive leadership. Two million dollars an hour for the last 32 years; that is our national debt.

The other real problem is distinct society. I am not raising this for the first time. I have raised it before and I use as my authority of the problems with distinct society Eugene Forsey. Eugene Forsey, as many people know, was Canada's pre-eminent constitutional scholar. There is no single Canadian acknowledged to have a better understanding or who has done more work in determining or considering what brought Canada together.

Eugene Forsey left the New Democratic Party at its founding convention because the New Democratic Party embraced the notion of two nations. He could not abide that and he left the party because of it. The New Democratic Party at the time was trying to make inroads in Quebec. It figured that if it embraced the notion of two nations somehow it would help. Look what happened to the New Democratic Party in Quebec-nothing. It did not help.

Eugene Forsey constitutionally went right back to ground zero and the Fathers of Confederation, especially the French speaking Fathers of Confederation, including Cartier. They made the point that Canada did not work as two separate entities. That was the whole reason we came together.

Let me read a quote from his book: "The Canadian Fathers of Confederation, French speaking, English speaking, made it plain emphatically in both languages that they considered they were founding a new nation, a single great nation, a political nationality independent of national origin. Cartier and Macdonald spoke of joining these five peoples into one nation". The five peoples being the French, English, Irish, Scottish and others, perhaps the aboriginals.

He added: "We make the confederation one people and one government instead of five peoples and five governments, with local governments and legislatures subordinate to the central government and legislator".

Mr. Forsey said if we recognized a distinct society for anyone, it is not to say we do not understand there are differences in Canada, that we have special status for different provinces. We do. The maritimes have special status. Different provinces have different requirements. To base a distinct society on race and language is in

itself racist tribalism. That is the bottom line. If we have a country based on race and language, that is what it is.

Eugene Forsey's point was that the minute we as a nation give the official imprimatur to the notion of two nations, we are giving it legitimacy. Guess what? He was right. We gave the nation of two nations legitimacy. Now we will give distinct society legitimacy so that every law, every consideration based on the province of Quebec will be based on its notion as a distinct society. It might as well be a different country.

What we are trying to do is form a country of equal people in equal provinces where equality is the defining feature, not differences. We need to get rid of the hyphens.

There are a lot of things in this throne speech, most of which are motherhood window dressing that do not mean a whole heck of a lot.

In debate we have heard from time to time references to the fact that government has cut back all this spending and how it did its part and now it is up to the private sector to carry its burden. To some degree that is correct. The problem is that the cuts really have not taken place yet and the business of the private sector is to create profit. Profit is not a dirty word.

When corporations make a profit and if their profits are excessive what we should be doing is ensuring there is competition because competition keeps prices down. Competition prevents excessive profits and creates employment.

Let us be very cognizant that we are in real trouble with distinct society and the veto.

[Points Of Order, December 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, what is happening today is perhaps the most important consideration that will be faced by this Parliament. Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker, the point has been missed thus far in this debate. The fact is that our country is at peril, every bit as much as if we were facing an enemy from without. We have an enemy in our midst. We have given the Trojan horse in our Parliament the ability to subvert the actions of the House. The really important consideration is we are going into a life and death battle for the future of the country. The separatists, the Bloc, have a democratic right to be here. They have a democratic right to fight this on any battlefield they can get and to do so with passion.

We have the same right to use everything in our power, every resource we have, to fight them. For the last two years our fight has been one of retreat. Every opportunity the country has had to face the separatists, to stare them down, we have retreated. That is what damn near cost us the country on October 30.

The time to start facing down the separatists is now in the very centre of the country, the House of Commons. They have no right to be the official opposition. They do not represent the continuation of the country as a whole and complete entity.

[Constitutional Amendments Act, December 11th, 1995]

A member opposite says read the bill. It does not rest with the people. It rests with the federal government which may at its pleasure make the distinction of how that decision is arrived at. It is not required that it be by referendum of the people in the province, which is what I am saying it should be.

My friend opposite earlier in his comments made brief reference to the distinct society. Very few people would recognize Quebec as being anything other than a distinct society, one which the vast majority of Canadians cherish as a fundamental part of Canadian identity. Most every Canadian recognizes that.

Our amendments essentially reinforce that first, recognizing Quebec as a distinct society would in no way confer on it powers or rights not be conferred anywhere else; second, that there would be no chance to abuse minorities; third, one nation, the affirmation that we are one nation. These were the things we felt must be affirmed in the distinct society status.

I thank the House for the opportunity to share a few thoughts. I ask the government to consider one other change to the legislation: make sure it is a popular ratification by the people.

[Constitutional Amendments Act, December 11th, 1995]

No mandate. None whatsoever. That is why in the regions the veto power must rest with the people and not the legislators.

[Constitutional Amendments Act, December 11th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, if ever there was an occasion when one should not have been generous in allowing an extra minute, that was one. It is water under the bridge and we cannot veto it, which brings me to the whole point of the discussion today.

Any one of us in the House could have vetoed the opportunity for the member opposite to add that couple of minutes to his presentation. We could have prevented him from coming forward for a host of reasons, some of which could have been petty, some of which could have been meaningful. Any one of us would have been able to prevent that member from finishing his speech. That is the nature of a veto and that is why there is no place in a constitutional democracy for a veto for anybody.

We should compare the American constitution with what we are trying to cobble together in Canada. The very fact that a constitution has flexibility allows it to live. The ability to change and evolve over time is the lifeblood of a constitution. That is what allows it to speak to the people and the people to speak to it.

Thomas Paine, in the mid-1700s, was an adviser to Thomas Jefferson. He had a lot to do with the gist of the American constitution. In Thomas Paine's book "The Rights of Man", from which I have quoted in the House in the past, he makes the point that every generation has the right and the responsibility to govern

for its times and should no more bind future generations to today than past generations should have been able to bind today to the past.

A veto to any specific province puts our Constitution into a strait-jacket. It puts the feet of the Constitution into a bucket of cement. It also states that from this day forward future generations will be stuck with what we give them today. For all Canadians watching this debate, wondering why we are debating the Constitution when our country's economy is in such a state, that is the reason we should not have a veto in the Constitution for any province.

If we are to have an amending formula in which a super majority is required to amend the Constitution, we should stick to something like the seven out of ten provinces representing 50 per cent of the population.

Given that we will not be able to change this, because it is not a perfect world, in the Canadian barnyard we are all equal but some of us are more equal than others. It has to do with the residents of our province. We could all have a veto if we all moved to a province with a veto. That would satisfy that little problem. However, that is not likely to happen.

What is the nature of the veto we are stuck with, the effective veto? The government has stated it does not have a whole lot of meaning or effect in some parts of the country. It has stated right here in the House that the next government can simply remove this legislation. However, it states that in Quebec it is extremely meaningful.

I believe it is extremely meaningful legislation because once we have gone down that road and given the commitment of a veto to the people of Quebec, there is no going back. There is no way we will be able to go back on that ground.

The Prime Minister has cobbled this together to try to save his political skin in Quebec or perhaps to save the political skin of Daniel Johnson in Quebec. He has effectively put our Constitution in a strait-jacket, which will make it impossible to change in the future.

Why on earth would any Prime Minister give a separatist government in Quebec a constitutional veto which would prevent change of our Constitution for evermore? Surely if we must give a veto to a province we should give that veto to the people in that province, not to the government or to the legislature.

Most legislatures are elected with a minority of the votes cast. A case in point is this Chamber. The Liberals have a massive majority with 175 seats but received only 43 per cent of the popular vote. The same thing can happen because of vote splits in every legislature. Therefore a legislature with a veto could use that veto even though it has not received a plurality of the votes cast in that province to put it into power in the first place.

A legislature could be elected three or almost four years prior to the constitutional issue about which it is being required to make a decision. Here we have a situation in which a province could have the right to veto constitutional legislation. The legislature could have been elected with a minority of votes cast and have been elected three years before the question at issue came to the floor. Its election, the fact that it is there and has the ability to veto the legislation would have absolutely nothing to do with its popular right to do so.

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, December 11th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the problem is that it was American law enforcement agencies that had taken the ball and were running with an investigation of what was essentially a Canadian problem.

In relation to the Eagleson investigation, in 1992 a request was made by American law enforcement agencies that the RCMP execute two search warrants to seize the records of All Canada Sports Promotion Limited in Toronto. The search was not carried out for a full two years after the U.S. agency requested a search warrant be executed.

Canadians have a right to know the reason for the delay. Will the solicitor general commence an investigation to determine if the delay was caused by political interference by the previous Conservative government?

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, December 11th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the problem, Mr. Solicitor General is that Canadian-

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, December 11th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General of Canada.

In 1992 Kim Campbell, then Minister of Justice and Attorney General, advised the House that an investigation into the activities of certain individuals and Hockey Canada was under way. She said: "The solicitor general has indicated that this matter is currently being investigated by the RCMP". In fact, the investigation did not commence until 48 days later.

Has the solicitor general initiated an investigation into the cause of the foot dragging by the RCMP under the previous Conservative government to determine if there was any political influence or interference in the RCMP investigation?