Lucien Bouchard

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, March 16th, 1994]

This is a double standard.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, March 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a constructive proposal to the Prime Minister by guaranteeing the Bloc's full support for a decision to keep a French-language college in Saint-Jean and an English-language college in Kingston by reducing in an equitable fashion the number of officer cadets in both colleges, so as to maintain the opportunity for francophones to prepare for a military career in their community and in their language.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, March 16th, 1994]

I find it very strange to hear him say, in sugary tones, "Who will criticize us for creating a minimum of jobs in Saint-Jean?" It is like the fox saying, "We should still keep a few chickens in the henhouse" after it just finished eating a few of them.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, March 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I will give more of it to the Prime Minister.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, March 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that, despite telephone pressure from the leader of the government, the Quebec Premier will put Quebec's interests before those of the two Liberal parties.

Will the Prime Minister admit that, in case of a likely and quite advisable refusal by Quebec to become a mere tenant of the federal administration, his government will save much less than expected by closing the college in Saint-Jean, as it will have to continue shelling out at least $6 million a year in taxes and upkeep for the white elephant it created?

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, March 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

The government's decision to close the military college in Saint-Jean is ill-advised. The government knows it yet obstinately refuses to reverse its position, despite the fact that it has now had to adjust downward the reported savings it would make as a result of this decision.

Furthermore, in an awkward attempt to save face, it is proposing to strike a fool's deal with Quebec whereby it would lease the college facilities to the province for $1 a year. Since the college would be stripped of its very soul, this is indeed a poisoned gift.

Does the Prime Minister not recognize that there is something shameful about this proposal to lease the empty facilities in Saint-Jean for $1 a year and that in so doing, the government would be shifting the burden of the college's operating costs onto Quebec's shoulders, without even giving the province the opportunity to buy the facilities?

[Job Creation, March 15th, 1994]

The point is not to forbid the minister to have new ideas. Anyway, we know he does not have new ideas. He is only copying old Tory ideas.

The point is that yesterday in the House the Prime Minister told us in a very firm and clear way that his minister would not raise the idea of a tax credit in Detroit. Here he was at the same time doing the one thing he should not have been doing, if we rely on what the Prime Minister said yesterday.

Does the Prime Minister intend to support the proposal made by his minister yesterday? Also, when the minister comes back from Detroit, can we expect a statement announcing a tax credit in favour of businesses that create jobs?

[Job Creation, March 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it gives a measure of the kind of co-ordination that exists in this cabinet.

Could the Prime Minister tell the House whether his Minister of Finance was authorized by cabinet to make such a proposal at the G-7 Detroit summit? Was he speaking on his own behalf or on behalf of the government?

[Job Creation, March 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Yesterday in this House, the Prime Minister denied the possibility that his Minister of Finance would propose at the Detroit summit a tax credit for businesses that create jobs, and I quote:

I do not think that the Minister of Finance will present in Detroit a proposal on Canadian taxation.

As soon as the G-7 summit opened yesterday in Detroit, about the same time that the Prime Minister said what I just quoted, the Minister of Finance made such a proposal to his G-7 partners.

How can the Prime Minister reconcile his statement with the proposal that his Minister of Finance presented to his G-7 partners at the same time yesterday?

[Canadian Foreign Policy, March 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to sound presumptuous but the ideological war has been replaced throughout the world by a trade war. Competition is now at the centre of international concerns and has given birth to a very widespread anti-protectionist movement. We saw that the GATT has been reopened, that free-trade movements are gaining momentum and that we, in North America, are at the cutting edge of this trend, having taken concrete action and signed with our great American neighbour and now with Mexico a free-trade agreement that will be extended, we hope, to other countries of this hemisphere. Chile may be the next country to apply; the last treaty that was signed contains an admission clause. Some very important changes have taken place.

All these changes have created new problems. For instance, since international economic development erases borders, economic boundaries will become the fundamental criteria on which international movements will be based. There are dangers on the horizon. For example, it is not a coincidence that concern for the environment surfaced at the same time as the trend towards global economic development. People saw another threat to the environment. We saw that if economic development becomes the rule, we must find ways to subject it, for example, to the constraints of sustainable development. Develop the economy, sure. Create a huge area transcending political boundaries for the movement of goods and services and capital, sure. But not at the price of increasing the pressure on this planet and our environmental heritage to meet such demands. Economic development should not mean killing our forests with clear-cutting, allowing our rivers and lakes to be polluted with toxic substances for the sake of market globalization or clearing our rivers and the oceans of fish. When you see what is happening on the coasts of Newfoundland for instance, it is obvious that economic development is not a cure-all and that such factors will have to be taken into account as we consider and develop our foreign policy.

There are other risks as well. Who will benefit from this economic development? If we are not careful, is there not a risk that only the mighty will gain? Is it not to assert the "survival of the fittest" principle in a new way to allow unrestricted, unrestrained economic development and trade? We must therefore look for ways of making all of this work. We are in favour of free trade. We know this is the way of the future, but we must make sure large, powerful nations are not the only ones to gain. So, we have to ensure that we too, in Canada and in Quebec, can

benefit from this arrangement and that the mighty, such as Japan and the USA are not the only ones that stand to gain from this.

We must look for solutions. What can be done? I will come back to this in a minute. But there is a risk. If commercial interest becomes the golden rule, what will become of the third world? The minister mentioned earlier the widening gap between developing countries and ours. That is a fact we are aware of, but mentioning it does not solve the problem, especially since the Western economy, the have nations are largely responsible for this problem. Take our international development programs for example. We did spend a lot of money on supporting development efforts abroad. Yet, the gap widened. On the whole, we can see that what we have given third world, developing countries in terms of assistance is less than what we have gained from that investment in terms of commercial interest.

So, if market globalization means allowing free trade without taking any of that into consideration, there is a risk. A new economic order is required. So we must think about it here in our country and take concrete action to provide a minimum structure not only for making speeches deploring the widening gap between south and north but also for ensuring ways to remedy the deficiencies which we have observed.

Another very obvious problem also arises. Since international relations are no longer governed by two superpowers confronting each other, we have witnessed a great increase in the number of players on the international stage. I believe that the UN now recognizes 175 sovereign countries. Some claim that there may be nearly 200 or 275 by the end of the millennium in a few years. And it goes on. It goes on because the small and middle powers who had little say now have the opportunity to act themselves-it is no longer just a monologue between the Soviet empire and the Americans. It is growing because the natural lines of force have resurfaced. As the imperial structures break up like the Soviet Union, we see nationalism coming to the surface again, this old nationalist feeling which sets political boundaries. So there will be more participants in international life.

What should we do about it? Obviously the situation is more complex than it was. It has become more difficult than it was in Mr. Pearson's time, for example. It is no longer a question only of managing a relationship with two players confronting each other; now it is a matter of establishing a certain order in relations among nearly 200 actors. Imagine all the permutations of bilateral relations.

There are two dangers there. First is the danger of disorder and disorder leads to threats to peace. We finally realize now that in this tense face-off that we lived with during the cold war, there was a sort of stability, the stability of deterrence; we know how we learned to live with it and it worked in a way that prevented direct confrontation between the two superpowers.

Now we are hundreds and it is not so easy, especially since there are many more sources of conflict and I would say in a way, paradoxically, that the conflicts are somewhat less rational since they involve religious, territorial or ethnic conflicts. Sometimes the irrational takes the upper hand so that the sources of tension and threats to peace are increased. They may be less serious because those countries are not armed with the destructive capacity that the nuclear powers confronting each other had, but there is still a danger.

The other danger is standardization. As you lower economic barriers and have one large area where all kinds of goods can move around, cultures also circulate, but which cultures? The issue has been raised and I think that we will have to discuss it thoroughly in committee. Cultural and identity issues will become more important than ever, because it is dangerous to have a standardized culture take over national identities. The one thing everyone needs when confronted with an intrusive culture is to have familiar anchor points.

It is here that the debate will have to take place regarding the concept of nationalism. I know that this concept has often been debated in this House. It has also been the subject of a recent debate in the Senate. Not long ago, I read a speech on the word nationalism made by a senator from the other place, and I think such a debate will have to take place because there are all kinds of nationalisms.

I was pleased to see earlier the minister allude in his speech to the emergence of this element in international relations and refer to ultranationalism. The minister talked about the bad consequences of ultranationalism, including the resulting intolerance, while in the copies distributed a little earlier the word nationalism and not ultranationalism was used. There is a big difference, because those two concepts are opposite.

I want to remind the House that not everybody thinks the same about nationalism. In fact, there are all kinds of nationalisms. It is somewhat like the comment made by the Greek poet Aesop when, referring to the human language, he said that it was the source of all evil but also the source of all good. It all depends on how you use it.

I want to refer to a speech made by Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the current UN Secretary-General, in Montreal, on May 24, 1992. If you will allow me, I would like to quote two excerpts of this speech made by the UN Secretary General, in which he wonders about the different connotations of what we call nationalism. He begins with this quote: "The best contribution one can make to the world is oneself", which is from the French writer Paul Claudel.

Mr. Boutros-Ghali goes on to say: "To enter into a relation with someone else, you must first be yourself. This is why a sound globalization of modern life is based on strong identities, since the globalization of a standardized culture could crush other cultures and melt them together, something from which the world has nothing to gain".

In order to communicate you must have something to communicate: To have a dialogue, you must have something to say. So, when you are present on the international scene and you want to transmit your culture to others, as the minister mentioned earlier when he said that he intends to spread our cultural values abroad, you have to know that culture. You have to preserve it, because it must exist. In other words, our identity must be affirmed at some level in our rapport with others abroad.

Mr. Boutros-Ghali also said this: "Each individual needs an intermediary between the universe which is greater than he is and his solitary condition, if only because he needs a source language to understand and decipher the outside world. An individual needs practical interdependences as well as a set of cultural references; in short, he needs an access code to the world. It is in the context of those needs that nation-states operate, in the sense that they go beyond the immediate interdependences of family, clan and village. A nation is a common will to live together which is the first step towards universal civilization. In today's world, if you destroy nations, you will not have a vast universal solidarity; rather, you will have tribes and primary links, whether ethnic or religious, such as in Somalia or in Yugoslavia. You will also have super states to exploit or dominate the former".

There is such a thing as chauvinistic nationalism, the ghetto-building kind, which is turned inwards. There is also the kind that produces great nations, like the United States, France, Great Britain, Germany, Spain and Russia, people who live their identity through political structures adapted to their needs and concerns and their relation with the rest of the world, and who in the process become assets to civilization. Nationalism, if properly understood, is a link to the universal. It is the bridge between the individual and the universal, between the individual and others.

No one will ever say anything against nations as such. Canada can hardly criticize nations because it is one. There is in English Canada a nation which to me consists of people who have a culture and language in common, people who speak English and have an anglophone culture, and the majority of whom occupy the rest of Canada.

In Quebec, there is a nation, predominantly francophone with a francophone culture, which has a francophone vision of the world but at the same time is linked through its language to a universal language, French, just as anglophones are connected by English. That is what culture is about. Culture is a way to reach the universal from what one happens to be, and we are not all the same. We are not all the same as individuals, and we are not all the same as communities.

In Canada, the problem is we have two communities. We have two groups that define themselves according to different elements. The basic elements in this case are language and culture. As long as we have not resolved this problem, we will have to live with the political consequences.

To support what I just said, I would like to refer to a passage from a report on UN activities, covering the forty-seventh session of the UN General Assembly and dated September 1993. I am not quoting a pathological nationalist but people who live at the apex of the pyramid of world diplomacy and know everything about relations between nations and countries. I will quote two short passages: "Individuals find their identity in a nation. Nations find their identity in universality. There can be no international communities without nations. Hence, the so-called incompatibility between the nationalist and the internationalist perspective is merely an illusion". A second and last passage from the same page: "Sovereignty is the art of making unequal powers equal".

I think that in the course of the discussions we will have in these committees, which should be held at the appropriate level, we will have to examine these issues, because the Canadian problem, the problem of relations between Quebec and Canada, the problem of our two nations, is, in my opinion, not unique. It is a universal problem. It can be found at the centre of all international relations, and if we are to define a new international policy without taking this into consideration, it will not be long before we have to start the review process all over again.

Earlier on, I spoke of the international disorder to which we become vulnerable when fragmentation occurs among players. We cannot oppose or prevent this phenomenon because there is some good to it, namely that it reflects reality and the will of the people. To this extent, we must respect it.

However, it increases the need for international relations which are more multilateral in nature. Fewer relations will be of the bilateral kind. Major international organizations will be called upon to play an increasingly important role. This is especially true of the UN which will become increasingly important, even essential.

Within this community of several hundred sovereign nations, there will have to be forum in which discussion can take place, general policies formulated, ideas on common values shared and

peacekeeping operations conducted. I believe that the UN will increasingly be called upon to serve as this forum.

Here in Canada, we are facing a dilemma, as the minister alluded to a while ago in his speech. Our dilemma stems from Canada's geographic location as described by the minister. Our country borders on three oceans and is open to the Atlantic and to the Pacific. We also have the United States as our neighbour. And, although it is true that we must participate more and more in multilateral relations, that is relations where everyone speaks within a common international organization such as the UN, we cannot overlook the United States.

We are fortunate to have the United States as a neighbour. We have to recognize that this country is a considerable asset to Canada. We also enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world and this is due, at least in part, to the fact that we are part of the vast North American continent which has an extremely prosperous economy. We should not lose sight of the fact that the United States are on the receiving end of 80 per cent of our exports.

Let us not forget that Ontario's economic development is closely tied to the Auto Pact. Let us not forget that the United States are vitally important to us. Most of our large companies that succeed are based on US capital. We must not forget this. In some ways, it will be impossible for us to avoid having bilateral relations with the United States. In our committees, we will have to find a balance.

So, I say yes to the UN and yes to multi-faceted relations with all international players. Obviously. There must be a more open relationship with Asia and Europe, too often forgotten in discussions at the Lester B. Pearson Building. But our relationship with the United States calls for a very delicate balancing act. I think there is a lot of work to do in this area.

I do not want to take too long, as my colleagues will speak after me. I think we can draw a few conclusions anyway. The first one is that we have the nation and we have the individual and that the individual now has a place in international life. In the past, we did not talk much about the individual in international relations but that has changed. We are now talking about it to the point of invoking the duty to intervene, as the minister was saying, in sovereign foreign countries that violate human rights.

I think that our policy should be centred on promoting individual rights. We must also realize that there can be no valid policy on individual rights without a national policy. Individuals form communities. It is very difficult to separate one from the other. Communities bring us to the subject of democracy. Democracy and human rights are, of course, the foundations of the international policies we must define together.

If we are looking for a role that Canada can play, it is to continue to promote democracy in concrete terms at the international level. To travel, for example, to the site of an election so that foreigners can benefit from the expertise of Elections Canada in this field. The Director General of Elections in Quebec also provides expertise and advice abroad. We must actively participate in operations like that in Eritrea, where we have to ensure that the referendum on access to sovereignty is held in a democratic fashion.

The second conclusion is that we must respect democratic rights everywhere. We must recognize the democratic decisions made by others in an appropriate framework under criteria we deem compatible with democratic principles.

Third, we must define methods of intervention. This is not easy because the concept of security has changed, too. For a very long time, security was seen as the need to protect ourselves against foreign military attacks or invasions. I would venture to say that the whole Canadian defense system is directed at the North where the threat has almost disappeared. So we must rethink all this and look at the new, very insidious threats to security, in particular social inequities.

The problems of overpopulation, illiteracy and poverty throughout the world will exert very strong pressure on immigration and create a gap so large that it could lead to all kinds of disasters. There is also the issue of the environment. In a way, the environmental issue is a matter of territorial integrity or should I say ecological integrity. In that context, the enemy is not only others but ourselves mainly. We are the first ones to pollute our lakes and rivers and to clearcut our forests. We are. So, a totally new concept of environmental safety and environmental threat is required.

As for the extremely important but sensitive issue raised by the minister, namely the right or duty to interfere, I think that refinements will nonetheless be required, absolutely, in certain cases. Which ones? Not everybody should have the right to interfere and arbitrariness should not be the rule. The nation exercising the right to interfere should not be the one setting the conditions under which it can be exercised. I think there should be an international process. It is imperative, in my opinion, that some screening be done, by the United Nations say, to determine when, how and by whom this right can be exercised. I would not want superpowers to decide for themselves where and when they can use it.

Of course it is understood that the intent is to promote human rights, but as we have seen, selective use can be made of this right. We all saw how quick we were to intervene in Kuwait against Iraq. Why was that? Because there was oil under the desert. In other cases, we were not so quick, in Yugoslavia for example. We had to be reminded often of the horrors happening in Sarajevo before we took slightly more drastic actions. Much remains to be done. That is what we see happening in Sarajevo,

but similar things are happening elsewhere in Bosnia, in other enclaves, where there are no TV cameras, and perhaps because there are no cameras.

So, yes to the right to interfere, but let us beware of facile enthusiasm where the obligations and conditions involved would be overlooked.

Finally, about the conclusions to be drawn, I would say that some targeting will have to be done because the minister was quite ambitious in his speech. He gave a very broad outline of what Canada should do, what its role should be in this world. That is all very fine, but there is a need to target our action to be more efficient. I think that very delicate and important work has to be done in that area too and that it should be done in committee.

In conclusion, we should be aware of the fact that one of the radical changes in the international environment is that foreign affairs are no longer foreign affairs. Foreign affairs are very much internal affairs.

When we speak about the creation of jobs in Canada, and we badly need to create jobs, we should know that we will never be able to create the jobs we need if we do not have the kind of international trade activity we need. More than 25 per cent of Canada's standard of living is earned through our exports. It is much less in Japan where it is about 12 per cent. It means that we have to be very active abroad. We have to be innovative. We have to implement a very positive relationship with the rest of the world in order to be competitive so we have a very intimate blend of domestic and international issues.

It would be the same when we talk about the question of identity. The identity question, which we thought was a domestic issue, is a very strong one all over the world right now. We believed it was only a question in Quebec but it is not. It is also a question for Canada because Canada will be a big player in the globalization of the economy. As such, Canada will be threatened by invading cultures. English Canadians will have to be very vigilant to protect their own identity. Quebec will have to do the same thing.

There is quite a rapprochement of issues, whether international or domestic. The fact that we have such a huge deficit should be in our minds when we address those questions. We might have great ambitions as far as Canada's role, visibility, presence, prestige and involvement in peacekeeping missions in the world are concerned but do we have the means? We should take a hard look at that. Until we redress the mess we have in our public finances we will not be able to play any real role in the world.

The government should be very vigilant and realistic and clean up our domestic mess before thinking we can be present all over the world. We cannot do that. We cannot sustain an army. We cannot fight the environmental threats with the finances we have. The government is now trying to sweep it under the carpet but we all know that the deficit is a terrible one. It is a cancer eating up the country. If we do not address it, all those exercises and features are useless.

I would like to conclude with two reservations that we in the Bloc Quebecois have about the process, not about the content.

The first reservation is that we are concerned that two processes are going on in parallel, the defence committee and the foreign affairs committee, to review fundamental government policies.

However, the two are closely related. I would say that they belong together. We cannot define one without defining the other. The ties are so close that we are worried about having two different operations going on parallel tracks, especially since the deadline for producing reports is not the same in both cases. The left hand does not seem to know what the right hand is doing and it is impossible to define a foreign policy without including the basic elements of a defence policy; similarly, it is impossible to define a sensible defence policy without harmonizing it with a foreign policy.

It all goes together. In reality, there is only one policy. We will have four groups working: a group from the House on defence, a group for foreign policy, and two joint committees that overlap the previous two and will consider the same things, without co-ordination and without having to present their reports at the same time. I find that very disturbing. I wonder where we are going with that. We risk scattering our efforts and fragmenting our thinking, which will not lead to as logical and coherent a conclusion as we might wish.

My second concern is the creation of joint committees. First, two committees of the House already exist. I think that is quite enough, in terms of cost and consistency and efficiency, and now we add joint committees with representatives from the Senate.

The Bloc will vote against the resolution. We want to form a committee where we can work, an effective committee of elected members who democratically represent Canada, Quebec and the various provinces, not unelected senators who are appointed for life by an order in council, a stroke of the pen, and do not represent the people.

By their presence, the senators will make the committees more cumbersome, increase expenses and drag out the discussions, because they are not so in tune with the contemporary

everyday reality of electoral democracy; it is not really worth knowing what the senators think. We can do anything and not bother about what the senators think.

I am convinced that it is a very serious mistake to involve senators in these committees. Elected people should do the job. We are mandated to do so and I am sorry that the government decided to include them. I would like the government to rethink this matter, because then we could vote with it on forming a committee of people who should really deal with these important issues.