Ted McWhinney

[Supply, March 12th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for that thoughtful question. Let me personally excuse myself. When I criticized the provinces I should have exempted the poorer provinces of the Atlantic region. They have invested in education. They have set an example for wealthy provinces like British Columbia, Ontario and others that have shortchanged the educational system.

Prime Minister Trudeau once remarked when he got an honorary degree from a Nova Scotia university: “It is amazing that I became a prime minister without being an alumnus of Dalhousie University”. The maritimes are poor provinces but they exported their wealth, their educated people, to other provinces.

The member has identified a key problem. It is out of date and wrong in our federal system to put education essentially in the hands of people who are the creatures of the provinces, the municipalities. A modern federal system recognizes three levels of government: federal, provincial and municipal. Under the German system the three levels of government all share the tax revenues, the tax sharing agreements.

The municipalities are underfunded. I have already suggested to the minister of immigration that we make grants for English as a second language training directly to the municipalities because the burden is impossible.

I think the member identified one of the key problems in education.

[Supply, March 12th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his thoughtful question. I am glad he cited section 93 which, interpreted literally, would have made Quebec a prisoner of a religious school division system. Quebec came to us—and it was arguable on constitutional grounds—and said that it wanted to switch to a language system of school organization.

The better, the modern and the progressive constitutional view, but not the most accepted view, was that we could not do it. It was in the spirit of Lord Sankey that the notion of the evolutionary interpretation of constitutions was applied. As I recollect, the House virtually unanimously accorded that change. We did it under the simplest form of constitutional amendment, a federal-Quebec resolution.

In that area I think we have responded to the notion of the evolution of a constitution. The member is right that the imperatives are now world standards in medicine, engineering, science and languages. The notion that one can be bilingual and that is sufficient is dead. The student of tomorrow will have to be trilingual and quadralingual. Every Canadian student will need an Asian language in addition to English, French and other languages.

[Supply, March 12th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I would first like to thank the member for Lac—Saint—Jean for a bright and interesting intervention. If I may say so, he has a promising career ahead of him. I will be sharing time with the member for Waterloo—Wellington.

Let me enter into the substance of the debate. The Prime Minister has stated, and it is the reality of our times, that the next century is the knowledge century. Without knowledge, we are left behind in the competition of historical forces, not simply the economic forces and the social forces, and education is the key to that. The key to this element in the federal budget strategy was the recognition of a national emergency, that we have fallen behind other countries and other post-industrial societies in the educational battle.

This has no specific relationship to Quebec, but the provinces have not fulfilled a constitutional mandate in education. They have invested federal moneys in many cases that were intended for education, in highways or other projects that were no doubt interesting, but they did not direct it to the main element of the time, that is to say education.

Facing this situation of national emergency the Prime Minister, with proper constitutional advice, decided on the series of measures members have seen in the last federal budgets; the Foundation for Innovation which is dedicated to creating new infrastructures for medicine, science, technology, engineering; the centres for network excellence, the moneys again for advanced research in science, medicine, technology; the greatly ameliorated programs for student assistance, student loans and aids to their parents.

Now, you would say if we were addressing this to all the provinces, where is our constitutional base. If I may say so, one of the elements of sadness that I have with the constitutional debate as it has developed to date is that it began so promisingly and has dissipated into rather sterile and mundane arguments over constitutional divisions of power.

I can remember the early days of the “quiet revolution”. I can remember my students from the University of Toronto Law Faculty saying to me, as they came to give evidence before the Bilingual and Biculturalism Royal Commission, why do we not have a revolution ourselves? What a pity there is not a “quiet revolution” in English Canada because the thinking is not enlightened, the thinking is not exciting and there are no new feisty ideas.

I hearken back to the days of Paul Gérin Lajoie, Gérard Bergeron, my dear friend Jacques-Yvan Morin, Jacques Brassard, Claude Morin and Gérald Beaudoin, who is in the other chamber here. The “quiet revolution” had a lot of interesting ideas. I do not see much advance in federal thinking in either English speaking Canada or French speaking Canada. This is one of the “what might have beens” of the “quiet revolution”, the lack of contribution to a general process of constitutional modernization.

I took part in the B.C. unity panel. The Prime Minister was asked to delegate a member. He asked me to sit on this. The message we conveyed to the members of this panel was that in this period, act with generosity, do not seek quid pro quos, recognize the uniqueness of Quebec, recognize it generously without demanding return, and that was done. It is a dramatic reversal of the 70%:30% vote against the Charlottetown accord in the referendum in British Columbia. It is a unilateral act of good will.

One might ask on the other side could you not offer something in relation to federalism.

The reality of federalism is that the studies in Canada as a whole have been sterile studies rooted in the a priori truths of British scholars who never themselves lived under a federal state. Their new prime minister, Mr. Blair, has taken them kicking and struggling into a new century by recognizing that perhaps Scotland and Wales are unique societies and that they should do something about it.

The British have never lived under federalism. They exported it to their dominions and gave us essentially a very rigid sterile system of federalism in which the debate was about division of powers in the abstract without focusing on the fundamental issues which the European Union is now facing.

There are social problems and the problem of community decision making. If we try to solve the problems and agree on the solutions, the issue of who has the power will fall logically in place. That is key to the concept of subsidiarité that the European Union is concerned with. It is already clear in Canada that many of our problems were viewed by the privy council and others in the old days in watertight compartments, either federal or provincial, which do not yield themselves to intelligent, useful, long range solutions if one government acts alone.

Co-partnership, cogérance and co-management are the order of the day. All the new federal systems, the non-Anglo Saxon federal system, realize that. I regret that in some ways this debate remains an abstract exercise in a priori concepts instead of facing up to the modern issue of what to do about solving the problem.

If there is an approach to power sharing in this area, come and join us. The facts are that no province has moved substantially to modernize its educational system to face the demands of post-industrial society. That is the real tragedy.

Who can object to money being spent on students? Why cannot any government take the initiative? Why cannot other governments join in and say “we will join with you; we will share with you”? That was the real challenge.

I noticed my colleagues, the lady members of the House, are honouring the people involved in the persons case with a monument on the Hill. Not to denigrate the ladies, but I would say the real hero of the persons case was Lord Sankey, an unknown British Liberal lawyer in the House of Commons who was suddenly promoted to lord chancellor. The Labour government did not have any Labour lawyers so it put him there. Lord Sankey discovered the elemental truth that it is obvious that women are persons. He gave the ruling.

Later he announced the doctrine that the constitution is a living tree. It is not rooted in the concepts of 1867. The period at the end of the century we are approaching requires a new attitude to constitutional powers, a new emphasis on power sharing.

In the last few days, in his response to the B.C. unity panel on the fisheries issue, the B.C. premier who was widely viewed as intransigent on fisheries matters indicated areas of co-operation with the federal government. If we are to beat the Americans on the Pacific salmon treaty the federal and provincial governments have to work together with no issue of division of power.

On the immigration issue, Quebec and Ottawa have worked together. René Lévesque signed the Cullen-Couture agreement with Prime Minister Trudeau. Quebec and Ottawa share power on immigration.

With respect to education the question is come and join us in this new adventure. Education is the key element in constructing the new society for the new century. That is the challenge in my view that this debate has not fully responded to.

On that particular attitude I will end my formal comments.

[Supply, March 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member.

Did he consider the possibility of applying to this issue the principle of subsidiarity advocated by the European Union, and applying the principle of joint management or association between the two levels of government, as regards scholarships?

Also, did the hon. member consider the possibility of a bilateral agreement on education between Quebec and Ottawa, patterned on the 1978 Cullen-Couture agreement?

[Kosovo, March 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, that rests as a possibility, but I would also remind the hon. member that there are other countries not so far present in the resolution of the Bosnian issue that are involved. It may well be that the peaceful resolution will require widening the boundaries of discussions to include these too.

[Kosovo, March 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Foreign Affairs at this very moment is in discussion with the Secretary of State of the United States on measures to resolve the Kosovo crisis.

The measures announced are those that are within our present grasp, that is to say the termination of the export credits to the Export Development Corporation, the cessation of discussion of bilateral arrangements with Yugoslav airlines and the interdiction of any export of arms to the region.

Other measures can be discussed further. We are in continuing contact with countries in the region which are also directly affected.

I would ask the hon. member—

[The Budget, February 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of the facts as the hon. member describes them. I do not believe we have cut money from higher education.

Frankly, if the member examines the policy on tax points, he will find that the position we made is that the provinces have exercised their option for the extra tax points and not to spend money on education.

We think that is the wrong policy. I am sorry to say that British Columbia has not been one of the better provinces in showing a constructive attitude to education but we hope to change that.

[The Budget, February 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is always difficult as I have said before to the hon. member opposite to make invidious comparisons.

With what we spend on foreign affairs, we are already being criticized by the OECD and others for not spending enough. We try to get good value for our money in foreign affairs. That is why we use quiet diplomacy. We would not send off intercontinental ballistic missiles even if we had them.

On the health issue, it is certainly a high priority in my area. Within the government I am one who certainly is arguing for the increasing of expenditures in the medical field.

[The Budget, February 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for a very thoughtful question. I would take notice of the fact that he also has devoted a great deal of his life to higher education at the very low financial remuneration which we know that occupation offers in comparison to other professional fields. I congratulate him on what he has done.

The issue of student loans is a very vital one. My first executive assistant had a $55,000 accumulated loan because he had taken three senior degrees. This is a crippling debt and the obvious situation is that people with those sorts of debts will go down to the United States. We will have a brain drain.

We have addressed this in the previous budget and the pressures within the government will continue. I do believe that this is a necessary and inevitable follow-up to what we have done in terms of grants for education in this budget. It is the signal that higher education, all education is a matter of national concern.

We understand the constitutional divisions of power. We have made the necessary nexus in terms of higher education. We can justify that constitutionally. It becomes greyer as we get below but we want to work with the provinces. The key to federalism in the next decade, once we get rid of the constitutional battles of the last 30 years, is in partnership between the provinces and the federal government, and in education we are ready and willing.

[The Budget, February 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member opposite invited me, I will speak for British Columbia and for Canada. There is no dichotomy there.

Let us come to defining moments in our history as Canadians, and I think I can take note of two events of great interest. One is of course the role of the United Nations secretary general in the peaceful settlement of the gulf conflict. We will note here that the primacy of the Canadian policy of settling international differences by negotiation, quiet diplomacy, has been reaffirmed. It should be noted the foreign minister was very active in New York at the United Nations in the week before leading up to that.

I will take notice and with pleasure, because it involves the co-operation of an hon. member opposite, that B.C. spoke out for Canada, got rid of some of the old shibboleths. A British Columbia panel on national unity found that British Columbians have no hang-ups about understanding that Quebec does have civil law, that it does have a French language and culture and that a strong united Canada recognizes that fact. It is an interesting and total across the board expression of opinion in British Columbia without any demand for quid pro quos or reasoning arguments in return.

On the budget, it is a defining moment again in our history. It is not simply that after so many years the budget is balanced, but that it has been achieved ahead of the schedule that we projected when we first took office in 1993. From a $42 billion annual deficit, a disgrace, the budget we inherited, we are back to a balanced budget and that will be the reality of our times from now on.

Second, it has been achieved by using the theme which we campaigned on and I campaigned on in British Columbia in 1993, that the best way to balance a budget is to create new jobs, to create new meaningful employment. That is where we get more tax revenue. We tax the incomes. That is the way to do it and this is the way we are going.

Mr. Speaker, I forgot to say that I am sharing time with the hon. member for Kitchener—Waterloo.

I will say that the keynote in this budget is the emphasis on advanced education and research. That is a distinctive British Columbia contribution to this budget.

We fought the battle five years ago in support of TRIUMF, a pure research project. We had to face the inherited $42 billion annual deficit situation to make the case that pure science pays off. It is not simply some abstract ivory tower concept. The scientific ideas of today properly tested and properly applied mean jobs in industry down the line. With the German and Japanese syndrome the key to their economic recovery was to invest in higher education.

We took the minister for science and industry, one of our most imaginative cabinet ministers, to B.C. and we said that is a very distinctive laboratory. He said that it looked to him like a run down laboratory. We said that that was where the Nobel prize winner worked when he first came to Canada. He worked there and it is still in the same condition as it was 25 years ago. Something has to be done about scientific infrastructure. We cannot engage in advanced research, we cannot engage in research that is oriented eventually to production technology and everything else, without building up the infrastructure. The point was well made and in a period when we were still staggering economically because of that inherited deficit, the money was allocated to TRIUMF, $167.5 million.

We have basically been selling the idea that the next century is the knowledge century. Our universities, our graduate institutions have been allowed to run down in a real way by benign neglect by provincial and other financing authorities. It is time to correct it.

We see the response in terms of the grants for infrastructure, the Foundation for Innovation, to encourage medical research. By the way it should be known that British Columbia leads in areas of biomedicine and pharmacology. We lead in North America in these areas. We have already developed consortia style research arrangements with neighbouring American states. The networking of centres of excellence and the millennium scholarship foundation are other examples.

I had people speak to me about the millennium foundation when the idea was first in circulation. They asked “Isn't that elitist? Is it only for graduate institutions?” We explained that first of all there is a constitutional issue. We have no doubt that we can constitutionally put the money into advanced research. It is getting beyond that. We need the co-operation of the provinces. We are trying to get it, but they are not as active in education in all parts of the country as they should be. Some provinces like to spend money which we think should go to education on highways or something else.

We are basically stressing in this particular issue the need for federal leadership. In the budget the finance minister used a very delightful phrase. He did not simply speak of our great universities which now have international status and they really are leaders. He also mentioned the community college in northern Alberta and the institute of technology somewhere in rural Ontario. It is reaching down. Frankly, our hope and our intention is, with the co-operation of the provinces, to get into the secondary education field.

Education is our investment in making sure that the jobs created are meaningful jobs. Look at the statistics. People without advanced education, without college degrees, have very limited chances of finding employment. The opportunity to grow is with the people who have diplomas. That is why we are investing in this area. It is a dramatic, radical doctrine in that sense. It reflects the inspiration of ministers like the science industry minister, his very bright secretary of state who is no longer with us because of electoral vagaries, the finance minister himself and the Prime Minister, who accepted the notion that it is the knowledge century and that is where this budget should make a breakthrough.

We have learned the lesson of the Germans and the Japanese. If we want to recover, we have to invest in knowledge.

I would like to acknowledge the assistance given to us by the university faculties, in my province the University of British Columbia, the science faculty and deans, and also the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, the association of university professors and the community colleges who are coming to us. We want to reach out to the community colleges. They have helped to make this a very dramatic budget which will put us firmly into the position where we can lead in the next century.

When we took office, the reality was that we were lagging behind the countries with which we were competing in world markets.

The telling point concerning TRIUMF was that it was not simply pure research. We have already seen a $200 million export contract spinoff from TRIUMF. We are outbidding other countries in Indonesia and elsewhere. We have brought $200 million of business to British Columbia. That is where the link was made. I compliment my caucus colleagues and the caucus committee on higher education and research for the work they have done.