Mr. Speaker I will be sharing my time with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice.
We are given an opportunity for debating today a concept-social union. It is important to note that it is not tabula rasa. It is not a new concept. It was first used in continental Europe in the 1970s. Members can find it applied in a practical sense in countries like West Germany. One should draw a lesson from that that the attainment of a social union, which is a pragmatic term, requires institutional changes and adjustments in many levels of government. In the European case it involved bringing in three levels of government, federal, provincial and municipal, and some consequential constitutional changes. It is not something that can be legislated overnight by a wave of a magic wand.
In Canada we have had some experience, not all of it necessarily successful, with varying conceptions of the locations of social policy making, sometimes helped by court decisions and sometimes hindered.
What I am saying is that the issue is complex and cannot be resolved in a quick snap debate and knee-jerk reaction to events in other places.
The motion before us is an official opposition motion and a very specific motion. It sets an artificial deadline of December 31, 1998. Why? It urges the conclusion of an agreement with provinces, to legislate in other words. It is also predicated on what is stated to be a unanimous resolution of provinces, although we have already had suggestions from the member for Winnipeg—Transcona intervening in this debate that while there was a consensus there was not an identity of views on all subjects.
The motion strikes one as perhaps something that was put forward in good faith by people who stayed up too late watching television and television events but could have benefited perhaps by more examination of the problem area. What we are dealing with is a process of ongoing negotiations between heads of government. It is not for strangers in the process to intervene without carefully considering what is already there.
In fact, constitutions change, federal systems can change by constitutional amendments and by great acts of legislation. But the experience is of course that those are rare events and rarely come to successful fruition unless in periods of national euphoria, the experience of other countries after a great revolution or military victory or something similar.
What worries me in this motion is that it ignores the fact that there is an ongoing process involving heads of government talking to each other in good faith and basing themselves on a reality that since the 1982 Constitution Act it is very difficult to change our Constitution by a formal amendment. To make legislation or an amendment or an agreement which presumably would have to be legislated, the be all and end all, one puts aside the very effective and pragmatic opportunities and processes for changing a federal Constitution.
What we are seeing in action is executive diplomacy being exercised between heads of government.
If one listened to the debate this morning one would see that while everybody approaches with enthusiasm the general notion of doing something new in social policy, there are wide divergencies in what should be done and how it could be done.
One heard from the leader of the third party a very strong call for constitutional changes involving the federal spending power. We heard from the member for Winnipeg—Transcona who was, I think, reflecting the views of his provincial government, not as a spokesman but simply because he is aware of them, a strong opposition by his province to opting out.
These are the crucial details, the crucial elements of a new agreement on a social union that would have to be worked out and before any formal agreement could be made. They are being worked out. There is a give and take in executive diplomacy and that is what it is all about.
That is why I come back to the basic issue that we have an ongoing process. If there is consensus at the end it can lend itself to administrative structural changes in the system of government without the need for a constitutional amendment. With a constitutional amendment if an agreement can be reached but without it with the elements of flexibility built in to accommodate different provincial positions.
We have models for that in the Pepin-Robarts report which I think the leader of the third party commented on and which was helped considerably by the intervention of Léon Dion.
Those particular agreements build in the possibility of a pluralistic federalism that allows different arrangements for different provinces. Would this be the conclusion of the process of discussion and negotiation on the social union now taking place? I cannot foresee that result until the negotiations come to an end.
To put it into an a priori agreement now, here are the blueprints, how are they outlined, I think would fetter and confine a process of adjustment, a process of give and take that is the lifeblood of any dynamic federal system.
My statement to this motion would be that it is premature, it interrupts an ongoing process and may hurt or delay its successful completion. I think in particular the deadline is something that puts an unnecessary time limit on it.
What I would urge this House to do is accept the spirit of the motion that we are committed in Canada, as we have been ever since 1867, to a concept of a constitution as a living tree, the words of Lord Sankey uttered much later, that a constitution is continually evolving, that executive diplomacy, the give and take of negotiations between heads of government is part of that. It introduces a degree of flexibility and an ability to meet special conditions in one province or region rather than another that formal constitutional amendments do not do.