Keith Martin

[Supply, November 25th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the government member actually recognized what we have been saying all along. There is no interest whatsoever in negotiating with individuals who have no interest in negotiating in the first place.

To show the mythology that has taken place, before Mr. Bouchard asked one of his members to do an economic analysis of the consequences of separation, the separatist individual put forth a document that demonstrated very conclusively that separation would cost Quebeckers dearly. That document was put underneath the carpet and forgotten.

Will the hon. member request in caucus that the prime minister and his fellow members go directly to the people of Quebec repeatedly and continuously over the next few years to spread a message of unity in the country?

[Supply, November 25th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member feels that talking about consulting the people through grassroots and talking about national unity is invective and somehow poisonous, I suggest she look at a dictionary.

We have repeatedly tried to put forth plans to keep our country together. In fact, I introduced last year a letter writing campaign between students in Quebec and students in British of Columbia. What I hope to do is get the young people of British Columbia and Quebec writing to each other to try to dispel the myths between them, for them to understand each other. If we can get to the youth, when they are confronted by myths put out by separatist politicians, they will say “I have a friend in British Columbia. My friend is a good person who talks sense, who likes me, who has very similar concerns”.

That is how we are going to build ties. We are going to build them by building bridges of understanding, tolerance and communication. I have not heard anything from the New Democratic Party, any message whatsoever on how to keep the country together. I strongly urge the member to look at our plans, plans based on keeping the country together on the basis of equality for all.

[Supply, November 25th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, before the last referendum the prime minister said “don't worry, be happy, everything is going to be fine”.

The Reform Party said that everything was not fine. Months before the referendum we put together a plan A and a plan B. It is interesting that now the government is articulating a message which is very similar to our plans A and B, one it denigrated before the last referendum. Who cares? The Reform Party cares.

I do not think there is a member in the House outside of the Bloc Quebecois who does not care about keeping Canada together. All members of the House and the vast majority of Canadians, including the people of Quebec, want to stay in Canada. We just need a vision. We need to change the federal-provincial responsibilities. The people of Quebec need to understand that they are welcome and loved within the family of Canada. They are an integral part of our history and our future. We need to get that message across. However, it will do no good for this debate to occur just within the House and with the people who are watching today. The message has to get into the living rooms and kitchens of people across the country, in particular to the people of Quebec.

It is important to have the francophones of northern Ontario, Manitoba, New Brunswick and other parts of the maritimes as allies to keep our country together. Francophones in Quebec must understand that their language is stronger within a united Canada than it would be in a divided one.

[Supply, November 25th, 1997]

That is the problem. The members of the Bloc do not listen to the people of Quebec. However, I will put that aside because I want to build on something more positive.

The member is partly correct. All people of Quebec have been dissatisfied with the provincial and federal relationship for many years. He will be interested to know that the dissatisfaction is felt by Canadians across the country, by British Columbians, Albertans, maritimers and Ontarians.

The member raised the subject of unique and distinct. The people of Quebec do not give a care about unique and distinct. They want good jobs, strong social programs and a better future.

I would ask the hon. member, if the House were to give the people of Quebec the distinct society clause, would he still want to stay in Canada. I do not think so.

[Supply, November 25th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Quebec Est. We have had a longstanding debate on this issue for many years and it is one I enjoy tremendously.

If the member wants to talk about listening to the people of Quebec, he would have listened to what was said in the last two Quebec referendums. He would have gone home and tried to build a stronger Canada. The people of Quebec have clearly stated that they want to stay in Canada.

[Supply, November 25th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, we would speak to the people of Quebec as we have spoken to the people of Quebec in the House today. The message that we have given today will go to people all across the country, including the people of Quebec.

The Reform Party's agenda is not hidden. The Reform Party's agenda is very transparent: keep our country together, build a stronger country, work together toward unity. We would do it by the division of powers. Let the provinces do what the provinces do best, and let the feds do what the feds do best. We would ensure that the people of Quebec would have the power to control their culture and language, as would all the provinces. We would do it under the umbrella of equality for all.

[Supply, November 25th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to give my speech in French in order to send a clear message to the people of Quebec. Unfortunately, my fluency in French is limited. Therefore, I will speak in English.

I would like to thank my hon. colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona for bringing this motion to the House today at this very important time.

We are, in effect, as part of the Reform Party trying to articulate, trying to break the glass ceiling on the national unity issue. This issue has been with us for over 200 years but in particular over the last 15 years we have seen our nation fractured into two solitudes or into a number of solitudes.

The ties that should bind us as the greatest nation of the earth are not being encouraged. In fact, because of repeated inaction by federal governments and a lack of courage and a will to really deal with this issue in a substantive way through consulting and dealing with the people, we have seen our nation be but a shadow of what it could be and the ties that should bind us as people break apart.

We have seen a separatist movement in British Columbia. We have a separatist movement in Quebec. We have seen rumblings in the maritimes. What a shame for a nation, for all the wealth that we have as a country, to have this happen.

If we are to continue on this course, we will indeed fracture. Would it not be a profound tragedy for that to happen? Would it not be a profound tragedy for us to fracture into little solitudes in our own little worlds when indeed we could be far greater as a group than what we could be as individuals?

At no point in time was this more evident than in 1995 during the referendum. This did not merely appear on our television sets overnight or in a few months. Rather, it was the culmination of at least 15 years of profound dissatisfaction from the people of Quebec and people across this country.

The dissatisfaction of the people in Quebec is expressed perhaps in different ways but equally passionately by Canadians across this country. We do not feel that the current constitutional envelope in which our country currently exists is working. Indeed, the proof is in the pudding.

The people of Quebec, people in British Columbia, people across our nation have been clamouring for a new vision for Canada, a new Canada where the provinces can have the powers to do what they do best and the feds have the powers to do what they do best, where Canadians have a direct input into the policy making that happens in this House.

What happens in this House is not a democracy, as we all know. The people out there are disarticulated from the policy that is made in the House of Commons. In part that explains the dissatisfaction from the people of Quebec. That has to be dealt with and it has not.

If, for argument's sake, we continue going the way we are going and separation starts to fall by the wayside as it has been, if in the next referendum the people vote 60% no against separation, would that be success?

I would argue that it is not success. I would argue that the way we are going, the people who would vote 60% no would merely be voting for the bastard that they dislike the least, not voting for a vision of Canada for the simple reason that no one, except I would argue the Reform Party over the last few years, has been trying to articulate a new message, a new vision, a new division of powers for the country.

We have seen the failures of Liberal and Conservative governments before. I am not going to dwell on this but merely state a historical fact. We need to look at a new way and we want to work with all members in this House, all parties in this House to do that.

In fact my colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona in his motion has said very clearly that we want, we demand and we encourage the government and particularly all Canadians, to be involved in this important process. We want the people of Quebec to be involved in this process. For too long the people of Quebec and indeed the people of Canada have been left out of this debate. This debate has taken place in the rarefied atmosphere among political elites and intellectual elites. While our country hangs in the balance this debate has gone on in quarters that are less important by far than the public. The public must be involved.

This process is only valuable if the government is going to listen to what the people are saying. It is not going to be useful if their wishes and their desires are going to be ignored again. Merely going through the motions is not going to do justice to articulating that vision that holds our nation together.

I asked the member before a very important question. I asked him whether or not he felt that the Parti Quebecois, the Bloc Quebecois, Mr. Bouchard, Mr. Parizeau and their ilk are interested in keeping our country together. If we ask the Bloc Quebecois members here today, they are not interested in keeping Quebec in Canada. We asked them that in the last Parliament and they said “Vrai”. It is true that they do not want to keep Quebec in Canada.

Why are we negotiating with people who have no interest in keeping Quebec in Canada? We have repeatedly gone around in a circle because we repeatedly try to debate and discuss and put forth solutions to people who have no interest whatsoever in keeping Quebec in Canada. Therefore, we cannot win. It is impossible to win in this debate.

Therefore, we have to negotiate with the people of Quebec. We have to get in the trenches. We have to parler français avec la francophonie, parler anglais with the English speaking people, work with the allophones, work with the anglophones, work with the francophones, get our message across directly to the people of Quebec.

We will fail miserably if we continue to negotiate with separatist politicians who are only interested in keeping Quebec out of Canada. It is a loser's game.

I cannot implore more strongly, I beg as a Canadian, not as a member of Parliament, for this House to bring the message repeatedly and consistently to the people of Quebec. It is exceedingly important, essential in fact in keeping our country together.

It is also extremely important that in the process of doing this we dispel the myths that have occurred. In the last referendum the people of Quebec thought they could send members of Parliament to this House if they separated. The people of Quebec felt they could use the Canadian dollar, which they might do. They felt also that they would have more power over their economy. They used the European Union as an example.

If Quebec was to engage in a relationship as an independent country along the lines of the Maastricht treaty, along the lines of the European Union, their control over monetary and fiscal policy would be less than what they have today.

The people of Quebec did not understand that. There were many myths flying around and no one was doing anything about them because the government said “Don't worry, be happy, everything is going to be fine”. We came within a razor's edge of fracturing Canada. That will never happen again as long as the Reform Party is here to defend Canada.

The message that we send across goes directly through a separatist leaning francophone media in Quebec, not all but the vast majority of them. That is part of the reason why the majority of Quebeckers are more familiar with plan B than plan A. They can be manipulated in that way to think that the rest of Canada does not want them in Canada.

As the member for Quebec East said in the last Parliament, the problem is that English Canadians hate French Canadians, en français. That message gets across to the people of Quebec and we do nothing to dispel those horrendous and poisonous myths. What about the francophone population in the rest of Canada? What about the Acadian population in New Brunswick? No one speaks about that, least of all the separatist members in this House.

The member for Quebec East was on a television program with me. I asked him the following question: If you separate what will happen to the French-speaking people in New Brunswick, the Acadians in New Brunswick, and the French-speaking people in northern Ontario? He answered “Who cares?” Who cares? We care.

The French-speaking population, the French culture and the French language are integral and essential to Canada. We are proud of that fact, we love it and we want francophones to be a part of Canada forever as equals. The people of Quebec also want to be equals.

What do the people of Quebec want? It is understandable that they do not want their language and culture diluted in a sea of anglophones. That is why the Reform Party said we should give the powers over culture and language directly to the provinces to manage. Then the province of Quebec, as every province, would be the master of its own cultural and linguistic destiny.

The people of Quebec want better jobs and a better future for their children. They want strong social programs. That is what the Reform Party stands for and I am sure that members across this House stand for the same thing. We have effective solutions. We have put those solutions forward repeatedly. Before the last referendum we gave the government a plan on how to give the provinces power over what they do best and how to give the feds power over what they do best. That is essential to keeping our country together.

It is important to heal the wounds and to articulate this vision of a stronger future for all Canadians. It is important to note what the people of Quebec actually receive from the federal government. It is amazing to listen to the myths believed by many in Quebec, that Quebec gives money to the federal government and gets nothing in return. Twenty-seven per cent of Quebec's provincial budget comes from the federal government. When I say that, an extraordinary number of people in Quebec feel they have just dropped off the edge of the planet. That kind of thing must occur.

A division of power is important. The Reform Party also put forward the notion of the triple E senate. During the Charlottetown agreement discussions there was an agreement on a 2.5 E senate with regional rather than provincial representation. At least this way the senate would balance out the population powers in this House by regional interests and regional power. That way all people in our country could be more empowered, including the people of Quebec.

I cannot argue strongly enough that today more than ever we need to have a vision for our nation. We are not a country without an identity. We are a country with a very strong identity which we get from our international experiences, through peacekeeping and the agreements and work in the House of Commons yesterday in the pursuit of a ban on land mines which will save thousands of people's lives.

Canadians are respected throughout the world as peacemakers, as organizers, as individuals and as a nation of people that can be respected abroad. Canadians are respected because we show respect abroad. We can lead the world as a nation that has managed to bring in people from all over the world from disparate religions and languages into an environment that is relatively safe. No other country in the world has been able to do that.

We need to deal with the national unity issue now. That is why my colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona and the other members of the Reform Party are trying to push this issue. We no longer want to go to the edge of the precipice as we did in 1995 to find our country almost lost. We must articulate a message that involves the devolution of sensible powers to the provinces under the umbrella of equality. We must enable the feds to do what the feds do best and the provinces to do what the provinces do best.

We must articulate that message directly to the people of Quebec and not through separatist politicians who have one interest and one interest only, the separation of the province of Quebec.

We must send our message not through the separatist media in Quebec but directly to the people, eyeball to eyeball, heart to heart, soul to soul. We must dispel these myths. We must reach out our hands in an environment of equality. We must build bridges of tolerance and understanding so that we together can be brothers and sisters in this great nation of Canada.

We must respect our differences. Indeed we must use our differences to build a stronger nation.

For decades we have used our differences to pull ourselves apart. We have isolated ourselves. We have developed as a nation of solitudes. These differences are not chasms which keep us apart; they are ties which bind us together.

If we could look at ourselves in the same way foreigners look at us, we would be proud. Perhaps we would have a new insight on what it means to be Canadian.

I hope that all members of the House and, more important, Canadians will understand this motion, work on its principles and reach out to all Canadians to build a stronger and united Canada.

[Supply, November 25th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank our colleague from the Liberal Party for his very non-partisan speech. It was very welcome.

I would however like to ask him a question. We have seen over the last 15 years successive provincial separatist governments in the province of Quebec wanting to carve the province out of Canada. Given what he has seen over the last 10 to 15 years in this country, does he himself believe that the current Bloc Quebecois, Mr. Bouchard and the Parti Quebecois have any interest whatsoever in keeping Quebec within Canada?

[Anti-Personnel Mines Convention Implementation Act, November 24th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, before I start to speak on Bill C-22 I want to thank the Chair, the Table Officers, the staff and the pages for staying so late today on this important debate. All of us as members greatly appreciate your efforts.

This is the perhaps the last speech tonight. I want to say what an honour it has been to spend the day in the House listening to all the interventions by members from all party lines and showing a degree of co-operation we rarely ever see in this House.

We have by-passed the usual entrenched inefficiency of the House of Commons for once and managed to co-operate on an issue that one would find very difficult to disagree with. Once again I would like to add my name to the work that has been done by so many members of the Canadian public, the international community, the non governmental organizations and members of Parliament who sat in this House in the years gone by, and who sit in this House today. I would particularly like to thank members of the Reform Party for supporting this initiative as eloquently as they have and as all members from the House have.

It is a shame that it took such an issue to bring us all together. I hope that in the future we will able to perceive collectively other foreign policy initiatives which will be for the betterment of all people in this country and around the world.

Bill C-22 will save lives. As has been mentioned before, over 30,000 people are maimed by land mines, most of whom are innocent men, women and children. In my experience in dealing with land mine victims, you only have to look in the eyes of somebody who is on the operating room table, a young person who tried to seek out and find a better place to live. Look into their eyes and watch the fear they have as they peer down to see the lower part of their body blown away.

As we amputated the legs of individuals who have stepped on land mines, I could not help but reflect on the tragic circumstances those persons now face, a life which is so different from what they had before. They went in a brief second, in the click and the blink of an eye, from being a productive, healthy member of society to one that will occupy the lowest socioeconomic rung in countries racked by civil war.

These devices do not affect rich countries like ours. They affect the poorest nations of the world from Angola to Cambodia, from Somalia to Egypt, from Rwanda to the former Yugoslavia. These land mines create a terrible toll, not only in human terms but also in economies laid to waste. This bill will go a long way to preventing that carnage from occurring.

Let us look beyond land mines. Let us look to life beyond land mines and see what the future holds for us. There is life after land mines. What we can do now is reflect on the Ottawa process and use and redirect that unusual co-operation between members of the non governmental organizations and governance working together for a common goal. This cannot be left to wither away. It must be acted upon, nurtured, and redirected to address other security issues facing us all.

As we look to the 21st century and the challenges facing us as a nation as well as other nations around the world, we cannot help but reflect on the fact that we have failed in our foreign policy.

The biggest challenge is conflict. Land mines are an important part of conflict, but in the big picture they are a small part. We must look at conflict in a broader context and search for more constructive solutions.

We can reflect on the Bosnian conflict. The signs were continually there. We were continually told that the former Yugoslavia would tear apart and explode in a level of bloodshed that Europe had not seen since World War II. We the nations of the world sat on our hands and wept. We engaged at best in diplomatic initiatives and at worst in hand-wringing inefficiency when we did nothing at all.

The result was the deaths of thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians, the rapes of thousands of innocent women and the deaths of thousands of children. It was potentially an avoidable tragedy. Certainly many of those lives could have been saved.

We were repeatedly told for months on end that a massive slaughter was imminent in the great lakes region of Africa. Major-General Roméo Dallaire repeatedly warned right to the end that thousands of people would be slaughtered. What did we do? Virtually nothing. Today genocide will raise its ugly head once again in the great lakes region and again we are doing nothing.

We have it within our power to use the Ottawa process to address these significant problems. Canada is a nation state uniquely poised to change foreign policy from an era of conflict management to an era of conflict prevention.

Here are some constructive solutions. There are a number of nation states of medium power which are neutral, relatively affluent, have extraordinary diplomatic power and, above all else, have international respect. Norway, New Zealand, Australia, Austria, South Africa and Canada are some of these nations. The world is looking for a leader to bring these nation states together to form a nucleus upon which we can start to bring other countries together to change international foreign policy. We have to rethink the way we deal with each other as nation states.

The big powers, the security council members such as the United States, France, Germany, England, Russia and China, cannot do this because they have their own political baggage and are not as widely respected as the middle powers. We then can play an unusual role in working with the NGO community to address the problem.

First, we must set up an early warning monitoring system to address conflict. That early warning system could be the NGO community that would form part of the nucleus of the Ottawa process. NGOs are often the first to witness the precursors to conflict, to witness the breakdown of judicial and governmental structures, and to witness the persecution of minorities and the trampling of basic human rights.

Their input into a central region, for example the UN crisis centre in New York, would be a logical place for this information to be gathered. It could then be dealt with by the United Nations as a whole.

We are now dealing with UN reform, which involves revamping the security council and removing veto powers from its members. Again that is something with which we as a nation and the international community will have to deal.

The solutions involve the setting up of a monitoring system and the setting up of an area to receive information, the UN crisis centre. A series of responses could be put forth, responses such as diplomatic initiatives, peace building initiatives, the introduction of positive propaganda into areas that are breaking apart to bring belligerents together, the introduction of more punitive measures such as sanctions, where appropriate, and the use of international financial institutions as economic tools and levers to try to take away the fuel of war, which is money. Money drives wars. The international financial institutions give a great deal of money to a number of countries of the world, some of which are in conflict.

It is exceedingly important to pursue this issue. These are not just words. If we fail to address it we will see an explosion of ethnic conflict.

Between 1945 and 1985 there were roughly six UN peacekeeping missions that cost about $2.3 billion or 23% of the UN budget. Since 1985 to now the UN spends 77% of its budget on peacekeeping initiatives. That is more than twice as much as it spends on everything else added together. It has driven the United Nations into bankruptcy. This then is not a situation that can be sustained.

Why should Canadians be interested in this issue at all? It is for the simple reason that what happens half a world away comes home to roost sooner or later. When conflict occurs and countries explode into an orgy of bloodshed and economies are laid to waste, the responsibility for setting that up and dealing with that goes to the international community.

We incur costs in our defence budgets, our peacekeeping budgets, our aid budgets and economic reconstruction, and our social programs domestically when refugees, tragic souls, fleeing their homelands come to other countries looking for a haven. They come to our country looking for safe haven and because we signed the UN charter on refugees we are obliged to take them in, which we do. It costs us roughly $75,000 per refugee to integrate them into Canadian society. This is a lot of money. It contributes to the already weakened system we have in our social programs.

I am not blaming refugees by any stretch of the imagination but merely illustrating that in these days of economic hardship and of governments not having any money we cannot afford having increased costs placed upon us, not to mention the danger our peacekeepers and our aid workers incur when they go abroad.

A number of peacekeepers have been killed or maimed by land mines and working abroad in danger zones. Does it not make more sense for us to prevent these situations from occurring rather than pick up the pieces later on?

Furthermore once a war breaks out the seeds of ethnic discontent and future conflicts are sewn forever. One need not look any further than at the situation in Bosnia to see that country will not remain as it is in the future. It is artificially maintained right now through force. Unless we are prepared as an international community to stay in Bosnia for the next 75 years, nothing will change. Once we move, if we move before that, the country will break apart in a violent shudder. It is important for us to realize that and to initiate efforts to ensure these situations do not occur again.

Not only can the Ottawa process be applied to international military security issues. It can also be applied to the other problems that affect us from environmental issues to economic issues. We already apply many of the principles to our economic multilateral initiatives through the NAFTA, FTA, WTO and now the MAI. All these things are examples of the international community trying to work together to resolve differences.

In closing, I would like to say how proud I am to be a Reformer today, how proud I am to be a parliamentarian, and how proud I am to be a Canadian. Canadians and Canada have set a new standard of co-operation in the House and internationally to pursue objectives to help those who are most helpless, to save lives and to make our world a better place.

Mr. Speaker, I stand before you and thank the House for its time. I hope that this will not be the end of initiatives that will involve co-operation between members of the House to pursue a better Canadian society for all.

[Anti-Personnel Mines Convention Implementation Act, November 24th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his brilliant and erudite intervention.

What do his constituents think about the issue?