Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.06.1967, Blaðsíða 14

Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.06.1967, Blaðsíða 14
14 LÖGBERG-HEIMSKRINGLA, FIMMTUDAGINN 1. JÚNÍ 1967 The Brilish North America Act was shaped by sixieen delegales from Upper Lower Canada (Onlario and Quebec), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, at a conference held in London, England in 1886. - From painting by J. D. Kelly for the Confederation Life Collection. stationery and forms is, strict- ly speaking, the result of a concession to the demands of French Canadians and is not a matter of constitutional right. Moreover, there is no founda- tion for the pretension that Canada is a bilingual country. On the contrary, the hard fact is that it is not a bilingual coimtry. Nor is it likely that it ever will be. Indeed, it is permissible to go so far as to predict that it never will be. The statistical facts support this view and warrant such a prediction. According to the census of 1961, only 12.2 per- cent of the people of Canada were bilingual in the sense of knowing both French and English. Most of these persons were French Canadians. This percentage is less than it was in 1931 and the likelihood is that it will become increasing- ly less. The percentages of the persons who are bilingual in the several provinces of Can- ada vary from a high of 25.4 percent in Quebec to a low of 1.13 percent in Newfoundland. The high percentage in Que- bec is due to Montreal. Out- side of Montreal and a few other areas, almost the whole of the province is unilingual, only French speaking. There is no likelihood that Quebec, apart from Montreal and the other areas referred to, will ever become bilingual. And in the provinces of Canada west of Quebec the statistics are significant. In Ontario the per- centage of bilingual persons, according to the 1961 census, was 7.9 percent, largely due to the overflow from Quebec. The percentages in the West- ern provinces ranged from 7.4 percent in Manitoba, 4.5 per- sent in Saskatchewan, 4.3 per- cent in Alberta to 3.5 percent in British Columbia. In the Atlantic provinces, the per- centages ranged from 10.9 in New Brunswick, 7.6 percent in Prince Edward Island, 6.1 per- cent in Nova Scotia to 1.13 per- cent in Newfoundland. How can it be said, in the face of these facts, that Canada is a bilingual country. It is not. In speaking as I do I am not unsympathetic to the aspira- tions of the French Canadians. On the contrary, my whole life has shown friendship for them and I rejoice with them in their achievements. I work- ed intensively for many years in an attempt to acquire a knowledge of French and there was a time when I came close to being bilingual. When I was a Member of Parlia- ment I knew every French Canadian in the House of Commons. I have campaigned in French in the French speaking parts of my native Province of Manitoba. When I was the President of the Ex- chequer Court of Canada I never allowed translation from English to French or from French to English. In our federal courts French and English stand on the footing of absolute equality. I main- tained that right. I heard many cases in which the evi- dence and the arguments of counsel were all in French and I wrote several judgments in French. I welcome, as I believe all Canadians do, the advance- ment in Canada of the know- ledge of French and the abili- to speak it, but I have the right to express the opinion, as I do, that bilingualism, as a matter of national policy, is not in the best interests of Canada. In- deed, there is grave danger that it will be a divisive force as it has proved to be in other countries, of which Belgium is a notable example. The pro- motion of bilingualism will not make for national unity in Canada. On the contrary, it will accentuate and perpe- tuate the difference between French Canadians and other Canadians, to which I shall later refer. Moreover, the attempts that have been made to force bi- lingualism on the people of Canada must be resisted. Re- cently, the proponents of bi- lingualism succeeded in mak- ing bilingualism a condition of employment in the Civil Service of Canada and a con- dition for promotion in it in Ottawa and other similar areas. This is wrong. It is con- trary to the basic policy of our country that anyone should be compelled, directly or indi- rectly, to learn French as a condition of employment or promotion. There is another miscon- ception that must be cleared away. The pretension that Canada is a bicultural nation, one culture being French and other English, should be swept aside. How could our Cana- dians of Scottish, Irish, Ger- man, Ukrainian, Polish, Itali- an, Danish, Norwegian, Swed- ish, Icelandic or other origins accept the pretension thattheir respective cultures, because they are not French, must be English? The pretension is ridiculous. I have always thought that culture was uni- versal and knew no racial boundaries, but I appreciate that when the French Cana- dians speak of their culture they are not thinking of cul- ture in the broad sense of the term but rather as a way of life that is theirs. This we re- spect and honor. I doubt whe- ther the Canadians of the va- rious origins that I have men- tioned think of their respec- tive cultures in a similar way. That being so, it is, strictly speaking, inappropriate to de- scribe Canada as a multi-cul- tural country. But if the term must be used then Canada is a multi-cultural country. It is certainly not a bicultural one. The contention that Canada is a bicultural country, one cul- ture being French and the other English, is utter non- sense and should be curtly dismissed. I now turn to the other task to which Canada must devote itself. We must bring our Con- stitution into line with the realities of today. We have been operating under that British North America Act, which distri- butes the whole field of self government between the Parliament of Canada on the one hand and the legislatures of the Provinces on the other. While we have made sub- stantial progress under its provisions, the time has come for certain changes. The Canada of today is a different country from that which was formed in 1867 and our views of our responsibili- ties have grown. It is obvious that there are many matters that in 1867 were considered as “Civil Rights in the Pro- vince” or “Matters of a merely local or private Nature in the Province” that are now re- cognized as being national in their scope and nature. That being so, we ought to give ef- fect to this fact by making the necessary amendments to the British North America Act. It is manifest that it would not be possible in the short period of this address to deal adequately with the various amendments that ought to be made. I shall, therefore, con- fine myself to those that are of greatest importance. I urge, in the first place, that the whole field of social security should be vested in the jurisdiction of the Parlia- ment of Canada. The social security of her individuals is not merely a “civil right in the province” or a “matter of a local or private nature in the province.” It is a matter of national concern and respon- sibility. Every individual, re- gardless of the province in which he lives, is entitled to equality of treatment in the matter of social security. This concept was the spirit that in- spired the Report of the Sirois Commission, one of the great- est documents in our history. Let us, in our second century, bring that concept into reality. As a matter of fact, the Parlia- ment of Canada has already made substantial progress to- wards the realization of this concept; old age pensions in 1927, pensions for the blind in 1937, unemployment insu- rance in 1941, family allow- ances in 1944, allowances for disabled persons in 1954, un- employment assistance in 1956, hospital insurance assist- ance in 1957, the Canada Pen- sion Plan in 1965 and Medi- care in 1966. If Canada is to be true to herself she must face the fact that the social security of her people is now, in reality, a matter of national concern and responsibility. The consequences of the amendment that I urge would be great. They would be two- fold. In the first place, the amendment would place the responsibility for social secu- rity where it properly be- longs. It would follow, of course, that the whole cost of our social security programme would have to be borne by the Government of Canada. This would not involve any increase in the total cost of the programme to our people as a whole and it would op- erate as a control over the development of the pro- gramme and base it on the financial ability of the coun- try to maintain it. On the other hand, the amendment would free the provinces from financial re- sponsibility for the social se- curity of their people and put an end to their squabbling for an ever increasing share of the tax dollar that the central authority must raise in order to enable them to discharge a financial responsibility that does not, in reality, truly be- long to them. It would also put an end to the present unsatisfactory shared-cost policy of dealing with social security. This does not mean that the central au- thority should withdraw from the field of security, as has been suggested. On the con- trary, it should continue to be the proponent of social secu- rity as it has been in the past. The suggested amendment would have a positive effect. It would enable Parliament to give the leadership in the field of social reform that the citizens of Canada have the right to expect and it would ensure equality of social jus- tice for all of them. Surely, the advancement of social jus- tice for the people of Canada ought to be within the legis- lative competence of the Parliament of Canada. There is another important amendment that ought to be made. The whole field of Hu- man Rights should be assign- ed to the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada. How can it be said that Human Rights are merely “civil rights in the province” or “matters of a merely local or private nature in the province”? The question answers itself. Sure- ly, these rights belong to every person in Canada, not because he is a resident of a particular province but be- cause he is a human being and a member of the Canadian so- ciety. That is the justification for vesting jurisdiction over Human Rights in the Parlia- ment of Canada. It would then be possible for Canada to implement by appropriate legislation the Universal De- claration of Human Rights which she has adopted in principle. This would include, for example, a Canadian Hu- man Rights Code similar in principle to the Ontario Hu- man Rights Code and provide antidiscrimination legislation that would have currency and effect in every part of Canada. Such a national code would mark a long step forward in eliminating discrimination against our Negro, Asiatic and Indian brothers. We do not hesitate to condemn the apar- theid policy of South Africa as an evil that deserves the censure of the whole civilized world or the injustice of the treatment of Negroes in such States as Alabama and Mis- sissippi. But let us not be com- placent in Canada. We have made some progress in com- batting discrimination but much remains to be done. We must not allow any of our people to be second class citi- zens. In the eyes of the world we are still vulnerable by rea- son of our failure to prevent discrimination. We are parti- cularly vulnerable because of our failure to deal with our Indians in a satisfactory man- ner. We must solve this pro- blem in our second century. Its solution must be accept- able to the Indians and if they wish to become members of our society we must wel-

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