PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT IN THE
NORTHWEST.
House resumed adjourned debate on the
proposed motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier for
the second reading of Bill (No. 69) to estalish and provide for the government of the
province of Alberta, and the amendment of
Mr. Borden thereto.
Mr. W. J. ROCHE (Marquette). Mr.
Speaker. After hearing the very full discussion on this Bill by members on both
sides of the House ; a discussion from a
constitutional standpoint, the standpoint
of public policy and from the standpoint
of political exigencies by some hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House,
it is not with the idea that I can add
anything of a very original character
that I propose for a short time to continue the debate. However, being a western
man ; a resident of Manitoba for the past
22 years, quite naturally I take a great interest in anything pertaining to the welfare
of our great western heritage, and my ideas
are not so provincial that I desire to limit
that interest to matters mainly connected
with the province of my adoption. In
looking over the history of our country I
think there are few of us but must admit,
in the light of past experience, that there
are some things that we might very well
improve upon had we the drafting of our
constitution anew. The great fathers of confederation who in their united wisdom consolidated
into one mighty whole the numerous provinces of this splendid Dominion
are deserving of every eulogium that can
possibly be bestowed on them. They had
many intricate and delicate questions to
cope with, prejudices to overcome, rights
and privileges to safeguard and protect,
divers views to harmonize—and all honour
3673 APRIL 3, 1905
to them for the successful manner in which
they accomplished their difficult task. But
of what use is experience if you do not
profit by it? And in the granting of a new
constitution to these baby provinces in the
west we should be careful to avoid the
pitfalls of the past, to improve where improvement is possible upon existing legislation
and to start those new provinces
unhampered in their career, by any obnoxious restrictions that can be a source of
vexation, turmoil and strife amongst the
mixed population inhabiting that part of
the Dominion. Some of these people are
our fellow Canadians from the older provinces ; some are our fellow British subjects
from England, Scotland and Ireland,
some come from the more advanced European races and many come from the republic to
the south. All these classes of settlers
at any rate come from countries where they
have been in the enjoyment of the greatest
amount of constitutional liberty and they
will look for and expect the same liberty
in their new homes. We are therefore legislating at the present time not merely for
existing conditions but for the whole future
of that country. We can afford, nay it is
our duty, it is an imperative duty that we
should deal not only justly, but generously
in starting these new provinces housekeeping on their own account. There may
have been reasons of a financial character
that prevented this Dominion from dealing
with some of the other provinces, upon their
entering into confederation, with equal generosity, but because of that lack of liberty
and generosity repeated demands have been
made on the treasury of this country by
those provinces and we should guard against
anything of that kind in the initial dealings
with these new provinces of the west. I
am sure there is a desire on the part of the
older settled provinces not only to accord
the very best possible treatment of a financial character, but to grant the greatest
amount of constitutional liberty and legislative freedom in our dealings with these
new provinces. The financial arrangements
should not be entered into in any niggardly
spirit nor should they be carped at because they happen to be more generous
than those accorded to the several provinces
in which we each reside. Nor should this
government deny or withhold from these
provinces of the west the management of
certain affairs, the control of certain features of their policy, simply because of
a
reluctance on the part of this government
to part with what has undoubtedly been in
the past and will be in the future great
political party levers, features of administration which have been used for this
purpose and can be so used in the future.
There are a few things that I as a Manitoban desire to speak about before entering
on a discussion of the provisions of the
3673
3674
Bill proper. One of these is incidental to
this Bill and was dealt with by the Prime
Minister in his introductory remarks ; I
refer to the reasons he assigned for refusing
the reasonable request of the people of
Manitoba through their legislators for an
extension of the boundaries of that province.
The Prime Minister stated that this request
had been made not only upon his government, but upon other governments in the
past. It was a request most reasonable in
its character, a unanimous request joined
in by both political parties, but a request
which even at this most opportune moment
when the delimitation of the western provinces is being made, he and his government
could not entertain. And what are
the reasons he has given ? First because
the government of Sir John A. Macdonald
had a similar request made to them some
20 years ago, and if it could not be entertained on that occasion it could not be
entertained to-day ; yet in the earlier portion of his remarks the Prime Minister
admitted that the Canada of those days
was not the Canada of to-day. That was
very true and he might have said further
that the Manitoba of those days was not
the Manitoba of to-day. At that time Manitoba was supposed to extend as far east
as the head of lake navigation. All of that
portion of country east of Rat Portage
to Port Arthur which was looked upon as
disputed territory had been counted in as
belonging to Manitoba, and that province
was supposed to constitute an area of 154,000 square miles, but to-day we find that
owing to the decision given in connection
with the boundary award all that portion
east of Rat Portage has been handed over
to Ontario thus diminishing the area of
Manitoba by more than one-half. So I say
that the request of 1905 is a much more
reasonable one and an entirely different
one inasmuch as it is a request on behalf
of a province that we know for a certainty
contains only some 73,700 square miles,
whereas the request of twenty years ago
was on behalf of a province which we imagined contained 154,000 square miles. Personally
I would have preferred to have seen
Manitoba's western boundary extended still
further west as far as the 105th Meridian
of west longitude, having one province west
of that line extending to the eastern boundary of the province of British Columbia.
Thus we would have two good sized provinces whose areas would have been more in
conformity with those of British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. By doing this
we would have done away with this duplication of governments and the increased
cost as a consequence thereof. We have
been told frequently in times gone by that
Canada is already over-governed, because
of this multiplication of provinces whose
areas are too small. With such a division of
territory as I suggest we would have avoid
3675 COMMONS
ed the great expense entailed by this duplication of provinces, and we would have
had two
splendid provinces that would have proved
powerful factors in this great confederation.
I realize that there is a considerable sentiment opposed to that view in the Northwest
Territories. I cannot admit that their
objection is a valid one ; I think it is largely sentimental. They look upon the word
'annexed' with objection ; they do not
desire to be merged. It is not a universal
sentiment, but still a considerable portion
of the people there object to merging their
fortunes with those of the people of Manitoba, and we cannot entirely ignore sentiment
when it is very strongly developed.
But I feel sure that if they had decided
voluntarily to join their fortunes with those
of the people of Manitoba, within the next
five or ten years, because of the great advantages they would have derived by reason
of increased transportation facilities,
by reason of reduced freight rates and other
great advantages they would be perfectly
satisfied with their position.
Whatever reason the government may
have had for not desiring to extend the
boundaries of Manitoba westward the question of the northern boundary is entirely
different. By the provisions of this Bill
the easterly boundary of Saskatchewan is
the western boundary of Manitoba, extending from the northwest corner of Manitoba
to the 60th parallel of north latitude, and
that portion of the provisional district of
Saskatchewan lying east of that boundary
line is put where ? In the new province of
Saskatchewan ? In the province of Manitoba? No, it is thrown into unorganized
territory under the jurisdiction of this government. What objection was there to having
that portion added to the province of
Manitoba ? The right hon. gentleman said
he could not, contrary to the wishes of the
people of the Territories, take any portion
of their land away from them, west of
Manitoba's boundary line, and that they
had, through their legislators in their assembly, on more than one occasion, put themselves
on record as being opposed to having any part of that territory taken away
from them. But he has not the same reason for refusing to give Manitoba this district
overlapping it on the north. On the
contrary, the very same territorial assembly, composed of the very same gentlemen
who passed this resolution objecting to any
part of the territory west of Manitoba's boundary line being taken from them, passed
resolutions in which they gave their consent to having that portion which overlaps
Manitoba on the north added to that province. Still in the face of that resolution,
the right hon. gentleman refuses to accede to the request of the government of
Manitoba. I find, on looking at the Northwest Territories journal of the 14th of December,
1898, the following resolution was
passed :
3675
3676
The order of the day being read for the
second reading of resolution reported from the
Committee of the Whole, which is as follows :
Whereas, it is expedient that the boundary
lines between the Northwest Territories and
the other provinces and territories should be
finally determined at an early date.
And whereas, this legislature denies the right
of the parliament of Canada to increase, diminish or otherwise alter the limits of
the Northwest Territories, except as hereinafter mentioned, without its consent because
it claims
for the people it represents equal rights with
the people of the provinces in this respect ;
And whereas, certain areas now comprised
within the Northwest Territories more properly
belong to other provinces or territories, and
should therefore be separated from the Northwest Territories ;
Therefore be it resolved, that while consenting to such alteration of the limits of
the
Northwest Territories as will separate therefrom those areas lying north of the northern
boundaries of the provinces of British Columbia
and Manitoba respectively, this legislature is
firmly of the opinion that the political unity of
the Territories should not be disturbed.
So that, we have the very same gentlemen in that territorial assembly, passing
that resolution, giving their consent to
having this district north of the Manitoba
boundary line added to the province, yet
the right hon. gentleman refused to accede
to the request of the province of Manitoba,
endorsed as it was by the Territorial Assembly. What reason did he give for not
acceding to that reasonable request ? He
said that in this House there are a number
of representatives of the people who live in
that sparsely settled portion of the country ; and if these people objected to being
incorporated in the limits of Manitoba,
parliament would not be justified in adding them to that province. But, let me
ask the First Minister, did he obtain the
consent of those people before he put them
into the unorganized territories ? Did he
obtain their consent before separating them
from the rest of the district of Saskatchewan and putting them outside that district
? Most assuredly not. Why not then
have incorporated them within the limits
of Manitoba. There is no valid reason why
that district should not be added to that
province. What was the reply he gave when
the request was made to have the northern
limit of Manitoba extended to the 60th parallel of north latitude ? Oh, he said, I
must first consult the province of Quebec,
the province of Ontario and the province
of Saskatchewan. Each of these provinces
has an equal right for the extension of its
territory to Hudson bay ; and some time
in the future it is my intention to have a
conference between the representatives of
those provinces to see how the territory of
Keewatin may be divided before we accede to the request of Manitoba. But what
possible reason is there for consulting any
of those provinces. The province of Ontario intervenes between Keewatin and the
province of Quebec. What say could the
3677 APRIL 3, 1905
province of Quebec have in connection with
the division of Keewatin ? Or even the
province of Ontario, for that matter ? Why
both of these have had large additions to
their territories since Manitoba was made
a province and Manitoba was not consulted ?
There is the less cause for consulting them,
when we take into consideration the fact
that the district of Keewatin has been under the jurisdiction of Manitoba the past
thirty years. The administration of justice
in that district has all taken place under the
jurisdiction of the lieutenant governor of
Manitoba, and the province of Manitoba
can be extended to the Hudson bay without
encroaching on one foot of territory properly belonging to Ontario or Quebec. In
my opinion therefore the refusal of the
request of Manitoba was entirely unjust
and will meet with the condemnation of
every citizen of that province irrespective
of party. This has not been a party question. Hon. gentlemen who occupy seats in
this House from the province of Manitoba
have brought it up in the Manitoba legislature. Hon. gentlemen on the opposite side
have brought it up, and it has been treated
as a non-party question. It is also being
treated in that light by the press of both
political parties. It has even received the
endorsation of the mouthpiece of the Liberal party in the east, the Toronto 'Globe.'
And in view of this general expression of
approval, it seems to me that the province
of Manitoba has been treated in a most
cavalier and unjust manner.
I was somewhat surprised to find that
the ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton)
in that lengthy speech which he addressed
to this House, representing as he does a
Manitoba constituency, did not think this
question of sufficient importance to even
give it a passing notice. He was a member
of the government no doubt, when this and
similar requests were made in the past.
He was, in Ottawa when the delegation
from that province came here to press its
claim. He was also in the city when the
delegation from the board of trade of the
city of Winnipeg came down and pressed
the claim of that province. Still he has
never uttered a protest against the action
of this government in turning down the reasonable request of Manitoba for an extension
of its territory.
Laying aside the question of the extension
of Manitoba's boundaries, there are two
features in this Bill which deserve special
condemnation by the people of the
province of Manitoba. I refer to the
educational clauses and the land clauses.
Why do I say they should meet with the
condemnation of the province of Manitoba ?
Because we, in that province, have had
our bitter experience in connection with
each of those questions. Up to the present
Manitoba is the only province in confederation which has been denied the ownership
if its public lands, and because of that fact,
3677
3678
our legislators have had to come down to
the central government on numerous occasions, hat in hand, asking an addition to
their public revenues in order to be able
to cope with the requirements of that developing province. There would have been
no need for these begging trips had that
province been dealt with justly and fairly
as were the other provinces, and we take a
sufficient interest in the newly created provinces in the west to desire that they
should
not have a similar experience and that they
should profit by our example. Therefore
we urge on the government the claims of
our sister provinces.
In my opinion also no financial consideration, which even at present may appear
most liberal in its character—eulogized as
liberal by hon. gentlemen opposite-will
sufficiently compensate for the withholding
from those new provinces of their public
domain. Without their lands, those provinces will have not one single asset independent
of this government, save the power
of taxing themselves. To obtain a precedent for this treatment, the right hon. gentleman
had to go to the American republic.
How frequently have we not heard that right
hon. gentleman in eloquent tones declaim
against our borrowing examples from American politicians ! But, he did not go to the
American republic when he desired to get
a precedent in connection with the school
policy. On the contrary he went out of his
way to offer a gratuitous insult to the Americans who are flocking into our Northwest
by thousands, when he compared their comparatively inferior moral stamina with ours
and attributed it largely to their public
school system and to the exclusion from that
system of the teaching of certain religious
dogma. He always goes, he tells us, for
his great examples to the motherland, but
in this instance he did not. Had he gone to
the motherland for a precedent in the
settlement of the land question, he would
have had a precedent entirely contradictory
to the policy he has followed. He would
have found that imperial statesmen in days
gone by took the same position as the one
he takes now regarding the ownership of
those lands. He would have found that
they urged that those lands should be held
by the empire for the benefit of the people
of the empire. But better counsels prevailed, and it was recognized that these
lands could not be administered to the
same advantage from Downing street as in
Canada itself. What the imperial government has done for this Dominion the Dominion
government should have done for the
provinces and handed over to them their
lands to administer in the interest of their
own people. Justice, Sir, is far more essential-very often at any rate—than any
mere financial consideration ; and I much
mistake the character and temper of our
western people if they do not condemn the
government's policy in reference to these
3679
COMMONS
lands. The right hon. Prime Minister (Sir
Wilfrid Laurier) admits that he has adopted this policy simply as a matter of policy.
But the only colour of reason he has assigned
for it is that he fears lest, in the future,
these new provinces may, through stress of
financial stringency, due to incurring debts
not wisely but too well, resort to increasing
the price of these lands, or may possibly
do away with the policy of free homesteads
which, up to this time, has done so much
to attract immigrants to our shores, and to
place settlers on our western prairies. But,
Sir, surely the people making their homes
in the western part of the Dominion, and
those whom they select to administer their
affairs, would be at least as anxious to bring
people to settle on these lands as would the
government here at Ottawa ; and how much
more careful are they likely to be of the
character of these immigrants than this
government has shown itself to be in the
past. And, moreover, with how much greater advantage could these lands be administered
by the local government through officials under their control than by a government
at Ottawa two thousand or two
thousand five hundred miles from the scene
of operations. Evidently the Prime Minister
and his colleagues have not confidence in
the ability of the western people to legislate
for themselves. When the question of granting autonomy to the Northwest was up for
discussion in parliament two or three years
ago the Prime Minister and his then colleague, the ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr.
Sifton), took the ground that the people of
the Territories were already in possession
of practically complete powers of self-government save the power to incur debt ; and
they doubted the wisdom of granting them
this power lest it might be utilized for unwise and unnecessary purposes. Apparently,
that feeling has never entirely been
overcome by these gentlemen, even to this
day ; otherwise they would have proposed
the granting of a full measure of autonomy
to the people of the Territories, including
the power to manage their own lands and
control their educational system. Two years
ago, the Prime Minister expressed his dissent from the policy of granting autonomy
for many years to come. But political
exigencies forced him to abandon that
position. In the midst of the last election campaign, it was suddenly brought
to his memory—even in the turmoil
and cares and worries of the occasion.
he remembered—that he had left letters of
the Prime Minister of the Northwest Territories, unanswered for months. So he sent
a letter giving a pledge—no doubt urged
to by his candidates in the west, who had
rightly gauged public opinion—that immediately after the election he would take up
the question of autonomy and introduce a
measure during the first session of parliament. I venture to say that had the people
of the Northwest been aware of the
3679
3680
character of the Autonomy Bill, and had
they been informed of the restrictions to
he placed upon their legislative liberty, the
right hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Laurier)
would not to-day enjoy the support of such
a large number of representatives from the
west as he now has. And not only that,
but he would not have been in the enjoyment of the support he receives from other
provinces of the Dominion in this House.
To-day we have a measure which, to use
a common expression, grants autonomy with
a string to it, one that says in effect : Thus
far shalt thou go and no farther. The Prime
Minister in effect says : We can trust you
with powers of self government, including
the power to tax yourselves for all necessary local purposes, we can trust you with
the power of administering justice in these
provinces ; we can trust you with the working out of your transportation problem—
provided, that is, you can do it dispoiled as
you are of your chief asset, your public
lands—we can trust you with the maintenance of law and order in these provinces :
we can trust you with these things, and feel
that you will acquit yourself in a creditable
manner ; but hands off the Dominion lands
and the separate schools, though no person
has threatened either one or the other,
for these are preserves of the Dominion
government upon which you must not
trespass. He declares, in effect : We,
the members of the Dominion government have not sufficient confidence in
either your ability or your wisdom to
control and manage your own lands in the
interest of your own people; through your
youth and inexperience as legislators you
might adopt some policy that would conflict with the policy of this central government
to your detriment.
It is true that the other provinces of the
Dominion, save the province of Manitoba,
are in the enjoyment of their public domain;
it is true that your legislators in the past
have given every evidence of capacity and
statesmanship ; it is true you have been
governed wisely and well ; it is true your
country is peopled with a thrifty, intelligent,
and industrious people ; nevertheless we
cannot entrust to you this great patrimony
lest you might dissipate it in a prodigal
manner : Therefore, your liberties must be
curtailed and your jurisdiction must be
limited; likewise your assets. And so a
proud and self-reliant people are made to
feel the humiliation of a patronizing restraint
exercised by those who are in no way their
superiors. If this government were fearful
lest the new provinces might, at some time
in the future do away with this policy of
free homesteads that has been such a factor
in bringing immigrants to our shores, then,
rather than retain the lands in their own
possession, why could they not have followed the suggestion of the leader of the opposition
(Mr. R. L. Borden) and have incorporated a provision in the law which would
3681 APRIL 3, 1905
perpetuate that system so long as we had
any homesteads to grant ? Such a course
would have been much less objectionable
than this restraint upon the liberties of the
new provinces. They are already restricted
in their powers in regard to education, and
I say that such a restraint as that, especially
as it would have to receive the consent
of the people resident there, would have
been far less objectionable ; and you would
have preserved this policy of free homesteads, quite as well as if the lands were
administered in the city of Ottawa. And
besides it would have done away with a
whole host of officials who are on the payroll of this country and whose duties are
merely of a nominal character, save during
an election campaign.
Now, an argument has been used, that
the fact of the other provinces of the Dominion being in the enjoyment of their
public domain is not a parallel case ; that
while the lands of the other provinces were
owned by those provinces prior to their
entry into confederation, the lands of the
Northwest Territories were purchased—
'purchased' being the word used—by the
Dominion government for the benefit
of the Dominion at large. Now, Sir, I, as
a westerner, object to that word ' purchased.'
These lands were not 'purchased.' It is
true that the sum of £300,000 was paid to
the Hudson Bay Company, not for these
lands, but for certain privileges they enjoyed
and for the relinquishment of what was, at
best, a doubtful title, on their part. But
this money was borrowed on the credit of
the Dominion, and interest is being paid
upon it to-day just as much by the people
of the Northwest, man for man, as by the
residents in eastern Canada. But, if the
Northwest Territories are to be denied the
beneficial ownership of these lands by
reason of this argument, how is it that a
certain portion of this territory has been
handed over to one province ? How is it that
150,000 miles of territory in Ungava, a part
of this 'purchased' land, paid for with
money raised on the credit of the Dominion,
was handed over, without a cent of compensation, to the province of Quebec ?
Some more powerful logic, some better
reasoning will have to be adduced in order
to convince the residents of western Canada
that they are not equally entitled to the
ownership of these lands as are the people
who reside in other portions of the Dominion. After the premier had laboured
hard to prove the ownership of those lands
belong to the Dominion, stating that on the
ground of public policy they should be retained in the Dominion, he has practically
admitted the justice of the claim of the people of the west to those lands by providing
in this Bill for compensation for the same.
If they purchased those lands and paid $300000, why purchase them the second time,
paying $1.50 an acre, and especially since
he maintains that that is nothing like what
3681
3682
they are worth ? It is impossible to tell exactly their financial value ; but in setting
aside some 25,000,000 acres of land at $1.50
an acre, when the ex-Minister of the Interior
has stated that the school lands alone, some
50,000,000 acres, would be worth at least $3
an acre, you can easily see that the province: do not get sufficient compensation
for
withholding their lands from them.
Now, the Prime Minister appeared to be
very solicitous of public sentiment in
the west saying that he could not
grant the request of the people of Manitoba
for an extension of its boundaries westward against the wishes of the people
who reside in the territories. But he
was not so careful of public opinion
when he denied to them the ownership of
their lands, nor did he consult their wishes
when he decided to impose upon them a
school system which may in years to come
prove entirely unsatisfactory to them. He
does not even allow them the option of saying how those schools shall be maintained
;
but under the provisions of this Bill he
decides that the two systems shall receive
an equitable share of public money in such
a manner as not to discriminate between
them. Now, as a layman, I can see practically no difference between the amended
and the original clauses. It is true that the
ex-Minister of the Interior, with fine sarcasm at the expense of the Minister of
Justice, read into the original clause 16 a
much different meaning to that which he
attaches to the amended clause. Of course,
he was having a drive at his late colleague,
the Minister of Justice, through a draughtsman; though, as any person could see, it
was not even necessary to read between the
lines to know who the cx-Minister of the
Interior meant by this particular draughtsman. Here are his words :
But I am bound to say, Mr. Speaker, that
when my hon. friend the Minister of Justice
employed a draughtsman to draw this clause,
with instructions to maintain only the existing
state of affairs in the Northwest Territories,
the draughtsman either wholly misunderstood
his instructions or he possessed the most remarkable faculty for covering things which
were not covered by his instructions.
Well, every member from the Northwest
Territories was going to agree with the
Minister of Justice prior to the advent of
the ex-Minister of the Interior upon the
scene. They saw no objection to that original clause 16, every man of them was
going to support it until their hands were
forced by the return of the ex-Minister of
the Interior. According to the ex-Minister
of the Interior, the original clause, no matter
how inefficiently those separate schools
might be carried on, even if religious teaching was made the primary feature of the
schools and secular education the secondary
feature, no matter how inferior those schools
might turn out to be, they were entitled to
share and share alike with the public schools
3683
COMMONS
out of the proceeds of the sales of the public
lands and all other moneys granted for
educational purposes. Is this an evidence
of the tolerance that the right hon. gentleman spoke about in his introductory speech?
Is this all the confidence he has in the people inhabiting the Northwest Territories
?
What evidence have they ever given that
they will not deal justly, and even generously, with minorities in that country ?
The
right hon. gentleman is quite willing to
consult their wishes when he thinks those
wishes are in accord with his own ; but
he is not willing to be guided by their desires when they run counter to his own
views. He does follow out their wishes
when he refuses Manitoba's request for an
extension of her boundaries, but he will not
be bound by them when they ask for public
lands, and he considers it the essence of
statesmanship when he refuses them the
right to say what their school system shall
be, and denies them what the British North
America Act evidently intended they should
have, namely, the sole control of their educational affairs. If the right hon. gentleman
desired an evidence of public sentiment
in the Territories on educational matters, if
he was in quest of that pillar of cloud by
day and that pillar of fire by night to show
him the way and to give him the light, to
use his own simile, let him look at the history
of separate schools in that country, and he
will find that, notwithstanding the fact that
the Northwest Territories Act was passed
in 1875 permitting the establishment of
separate schools in that country, there exists to-day but about ten separate schools
to nearly 1,100 public schools. What greater
evidence could he desire or require as to
the public sentiment of that country regarding the character of the school system
they
desire ? And, Sir, what avail is it to resurrect the mouldy speeches of the Hon. George
Brown, of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie
and of the Hon. Edward Blake, to prove
what those gentlemen had in their minds
when they incorporated that provision in
the Northwest Territories Act, stating that
they wished intending immigrants to know
what kind of schools they were going to
have in that country, when I venture to
say that not one man in 5,000 who have
gone into that country to make homes for
themselves ever asked the question whether
there were separate schools there. The only
question agitating them was: What educational facilities are there for giving my children
a good common school education ? A
proof of this is found in the fact that, notwithstanding that the Act permitting separate
schools has been in existence thirty
years, there is a diminishing number of
separate schools and a rapidly increasing
number of public schools. In face of this
experience and of this overwhelming public
sentiment in the Northwest, the Prime Minister has incorporated a clause in this Act
forcing upon those new provinces a school
3683
3684
system that may or may not prove to their
liking in the years to come.
Now, the ex-Minister of the Interior has
stated that he is personally aware of the
fact that people have taken the trouble to
secure copies of the ordinance to see if there
were separate schools in that country before
going to make their homes there, leaving the
impression that they would not have gone
in there had they not been sure that there
were separate schools in existence. If that
is the case, I charge the ex-Minister of the
Interior with having—whether deliberately
or not, I will not say—misled the immigrants through his immigration literature
that he has scattered broadcast in almost
every civilized country of the globe, among
people whom he wished to attract to this
country ; for I have hunted in vain for one
single expression in that literature where
there was any reference to a separate school
system. On the contrary, as was shown by
the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Lake)
and the hon. member for Calgary (Mr. M. S.
McCarthy), it is distinctly stated in a pamphlet that has been distributed that the
schools are non-sectarian, and national
in their character—not a word about
separate schools. The Minister of Finance
stated that on his European tour he was
in consultation with a certain representative of a foreign country who was very
much agitated about the outcome of this
separate school agitation in Canada, and
the impresion he conveyed to the members
of this House was that if there were no
separate schools in the Northwest we would
have very few immigrants from that country.
Now, Mr. Speaker, in view of the speech
made by the Minister of Finance the other
evening, I think we would all be delighted
to hear the character of the reply he made
to that representative of a foreign country.
I think if the hon. gentleman sends a copy
of his speech over to that representative it
will convey to that gentleman a vastly different impression from the impression he
gave him in the reply which he gave, because I am sure he did not try to convince
that representative that they had no separate schools in that country, where as his
whole argument here was to convince us
that there were practically no separate
schools, that they were national schools,
and that any difference there is would
soon disappear. This policy, in my opinion.
cannot be defended on legal grounds. The
constitution of our country does not force
us to perpetuate this system of schools contrary to the Wishes of the people inhabiting
that part of the Dominion. It is true that
the right hon. leader of the government,
when he introduced this Bill, based his sole
argument upon the ground that he stood
by and on the rock of the constitution, but
by the time my hon. friend the leader of
the opposition had got through with his
speech in criticism of the speech of the
3685 APRIL 3, 1905
right hon. leader of the government there
was nothing left of that constitutional argument. It was entirely demolished to the
extent that his colleague the hon. the Minister of Finance, replying to my hon. friend
the leader of the opposition, threw up his
hands, abandoned the constitutional argument and stated that he would not shield
himself behind the constitution thereby
giving a rebuke to his own leader; but, while
admitting that there were no legal grounds
for forcing these schools on the people of
that western country, he asserted that we
we were morally bound to perpetuate that
system. We have had legal authorities
quoted in this House. We have heard the
Opinion of Mr. Christopher Robinson, who
backed up the opinion from the legal standpoint which was given by my hon. friend
the leader of the opposition. We have had
other gentlemen eminent in their profession
agreeing with the same opinion. It is only
right and proper for me to say that there
was another hon. gentleman who particularly laid down a different opinion in his
most emphatic manner and with the same
assurance that usually characterizes all the
utterances of that hon. gentleman in the
House. I refer to the hon. member for
Alberta (Mr. Oliver). That opinion is deserving of all the respect it is entitled
to.
In the face of that high legal opinion I imagined that I saw the right hon. leader
of
the government sitting down and penning
a letter like another similar letter written
to a political supporter of his within six
months after he was called to the premiership. I imagine that I saw the right hon.
gentleman writing a letter in these words:
My Dear Oliver,—Perhaps the lieutenant
governorship of the province of Alberta will
be at my disposal by the 1st of July, 1905.
If between now and then you are not appointed a judge for giving that constitutional
opinion I promise to place the lieutenant
governorship at your disposal. (Signed)
Wilfrid Laurier. It may not be a judgeship, because I think as a usual thing they
require a lawyer for a judgeship, but still
there are premierships, lieutenant governorships and several other positions up there
at the disposal of the right hon. gentleman
and I will venture to say that so long as
we have these positions dangling before
the eyes of the hon. gentlemen opposite
from the west, and especially the vacant
portfolio of the Minister of the Interior, the
boy who gives this Bill his thorough and
emphatic support and swallows every clause
that is in it, even at the expense of his convictions, is the one who is the most
likely
to receive the plum.
This is a Bill which I think cannot be defended on the grounds of public policy. The
whole history of such agitations as this is
directly contrary to that contention. It is
contrary to the spirit of provincial rights
and an unwarrantable interference with
matters of purely provincial concern. Where
3685
3686
are the gentlemen who were so loud with
the shibboleth 'Hands of Manitoba' in 1896?
Where are the gentlemen who were erstwhile defenders of provincial rights then?
Are these gentlemen now the defenders of
coercion? Where are these gentlemen who
even went to the extent of doing away with
the system of separate schools in Manitoba,
although that system had been in existence
for over twenty years, who thought they
were doing their duty, who thought they
were within their jurisdiction, who denied
the right of this government to dictate to
the people of Manitoba what their educational policy should be and who held that
the people of Manitoba should work out
their own salvation as far as educational
affairs are concerned? Where are the gentlemen who journeyed from platform to
platform stirring up the prejudices of the
people in that country not only against the
Dominion government, but also against the
principle of separate schools as being antediluvian and contrary to western ideas?
Where are those who even journeyed beyond
the confines of the province of Manitoba?
The hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Greenway) was premier of the province cf Manitoba
and it was under his government that
these schools were wiped out of existence,
though to do him justice I must say that it
was a stronger man who dictated this policy
to him—the Hon. Joseph Martin, attorney
general at that time—but still he followed
the hon. Joseph's lead and the schools were
abolished. Where is the hon. ex-Minister of
the Interior, for he it was who journeyed to
the constituency of Haldimand, travelling
some 1,500 miles not only to gain the sympathy and support of the people of Haldimand
in Manitoba's fight for provincial
rights, but also to try and induce the electors of the constituency of Haldimand to
cast their votes against the then government
and its representative, Dr. Montague, who
was seeking re-election at a by-election as
Minister of Agriculture? The hon. ex-Minister of the Interior went into the constituency
of Haldimand and put before the people
our separate school policy and our National
School Act, much to the detriment of the
former, and asked their sympathy and support and votes for the then candidate who
was opposing the government. Let their
followers from Manitoba explain for several of them occupy seats in this House today
who occupied seats in the local legislature at that time and Who then sought to
maintain the right of the province to control their educational affairs. What evil
days must these hon. gentlemen have fallen
upon that they are now joining hands in
forcing upon the people of the western country a school policy that may not be acceptable
in the years that are to come.
Now, Mr. Speaker, there are some extracts that I have culled, some choice gems
from some of the speeches delivered by
the hon. ex-Minister of the Interior on that
3687
COMMONS
Haldimand tour, for recollect that while he
journeyed down to the constituency of Haldimand he journeyed back again minus that
scalp which he as a western brave sallied
forth to secure. He made a speech of a
violent character against the schools we
had in the province of Manitoba and also
appealed to the sympathy of the people of
Haldimand on the ground of provincial
rights. I desire to read to the House a few
of these gems from a speech delivered by
that hon. gentleman in the county of Haldimand as reported in the 'Globe.'
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.
Mr. W. J. ROCHE. Mr. Speaker. Before
you left the chair at six o'clock, I was referring to the speech made by the ex-Minister
of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) at the town
of Caledonia in the constituency of Haldimand in the year 1895. I shall quote from
the report in the ' Globe' of April 15, of that
year. I do not read these extracts from the
speech of the ex-minister (Mr. Sifton) with
the idea of lending my endorsation to them,
but as one hon. member read extracts from
the remarks of clergymen and public men
in the United States to show they were not
entirely satisfied with the school system of
that country, it may be well to hear what
the hon. gentleman (Mr. Sifton) has to say
about the separate schools as they existed in
Manitoba. Some of these gentlemen in the
United States, although their remarks apply
to a condition of things said to exist over
twenty years ago, were represented as having said that the public schools in that
country were hot beds of immorality. As I have
said, I do not lend my endorsation to the
remarks which I shall quote from the hon.
member (Mr. Sifton), because it so happens
that in my constituency there was not a
single separate school existing prior to the
abolition of separate schools in Manitoba,
and personally I cannot speak from experience. We were told by a gentleman on
the other side of the House, that the statement as to the clergy of the province of
Quebec
interfering in elections was a mere myth, a
figment of the imagination. However, that
may be, I shall quote from the present member for Brandon, the ex-Minister of the
Interior and ex-attorney general of his province, as to what his opinion was. I may
say that the hon. gentleman made this speech
when he occupied the responsible position
of attorney general of Manitoba, and as we
know he has a great deal of experience in
connection with educational affairs, because
he told us so himself the other day. Some
of these expressions are very harsh, but I
must inflict them upon the House in order
that hon. gentlemen opposite may form their
own opinion on the merits of the separate
school system as it existed in Manitoba, from
3687
3688
the words of one of their own friends. Mr.
Sifton said:
Catholics made false returns of school population to get large grants from the government.
A pretty serious accusation that.
They conducted their schools in a manner
that would be a. disgrace to any civilized country. The priests and the Catholic clergy
connected with their orders were their teachers.
I regret the hon. member for Labelle (Mr.
Bourassa) is not present, because when he
spoke he took great pride in the fact that
the clergy were the teachers in so many of
these schools in the province of Quebec, stating that a great deal of the good derived
from the schools in that province, and the
high standard of education there was due
to clerical influence. Evidently the ex-minister (Mr. Sifton) had a different impression
as to the character of the teaching done by
clergymen of the Roman Catholic church in
Manitoba, for he said :
Schools sometimes were kept open only two
or three weeks, sometimes two days in the
week, while these priests drew their money as
teachers. This, he said, was a common thing.
In other words. according to the Minister
of the Interior, these priests seemed more
anxious to get the educational fund and to
pocket it than they were to educate the
children by keeping the schools open five
days a week. Mr. Sifton goes on to say :
The system followed was no system at all.
As a result people who grew up in districts
where separate schools existed were in a state
of absolute ignorance and illiteracy.
Pretty hard language in reference to these
schools that were so lauded by some hon.
gentlemen on the other side of the House.
Mr. Sifton continues:
It is a notorious fact that in Manitoba, in
districts where the people are French and Roman Catholic and where this system of
schools
has been in existence for twenty years. that it
is a rare thing to find a person who can read
and write.
And still the hon. member for Labelle
(Mr. Bourassa) spoke about the great proportion of the prizes being carried off at
St. Boniface by pupils of separate schools
of Roman Catholic institutions, in competition with their Protestant brethren there.
Evidently, the ex-minister does not look upon
separate schools in as favourable a light
when he says it is a rare thing to find a
person who can either read or write where
these schools have been in existence for
twenty years. Mr. Sifton further said:
He could show the audience a petition which
came in from the reeve of a Roman Catholic
municipality in which six councillors of the
municipality made their signatures by putting
crosses, and to which only one could sign his
name. When it was proposed in the legislature
to require by municipal law that the reeve and
councillors should be compelled to read and
3689 APRIL 3, 1905
write, a gentleman who represented a constituency almost exclusively French and Roman
Catholic stood up in the legislature and said
that if the Bill became law, in his constituency persons could not be found who could
qualify for the office of reeve or councillor.
A pretty sweeping assertion, that if a
Bill compelling municipal councillors to be
able to read and write were to pass the
legislature there would not be sufficient men
in his district who could qualify for office.
Mr. Sifton continued:
Under this system public money went direct
to the clergy of the Roman Catholic church.
They did practically what they liked with it,
conducted their schools or not as they saw fit,
with the result that the people grew up in absolute illiteracy. Money was used for
the purposes of the church and not for education. He
lauded the Public School Act, and supported one
sysrtem of schools Where there should be no
distinction between one man and another, when
the law should know no man's religion but give
each and every one the same privilege.
And still the hon. member (Mr. Sifton)
stated the other day in this House, that he
would give his approbation to this Bill though
it was opposed to his conscientious convictions and his past record. Now he is going
to inflict separate schools on the people of
the new western provinces which will cause
this division between the child of one man
and the child of another, and will not give
each and every one the same privilege. The
report of Mr. Sifton's remarks continues :
He said that if the Roman Catholic people
were left alone, it the priests of Quebec would
leave them alone, inside of three or four years
they would accept the public school system.
Does the ex-Minister of the Interior not
think that the same might occur in the new
provinces of the west, and that if these people are left alone they would be just
as apt
to accept the public school system there as
in the province of Manitoba ? Apparently, the
ex-minister thinks that not only the priests
of Manitoba but the priests of Quebec interfere in educational matters outside their
own
provinces.
He accused the Conservative government, in
passing the remedial order, of buying the votes
of the province of Quebec.
What a very high estimate the hon. gentleman (Mr. Sifton) had of the people of
Quebec. There was a Conservative government doing what they thought they were
obliged to do by the order of the highest
court in the realm, and this hon. gentleman
(Mr. Sifton) states, that the Conservative
government in doing what it believed to be
its duty were simply buying up the votes of
the people of Quebec. Mr. Sifton further
says:
The people of the Red River when they came
into confederation never asked for separate
schools; never wanted them, and that the
clause in the Bill sent to Ottawa demanding
them was fraudulently put there by the clergy
of the Roman Catholic church.
3689
3690
Evidently the hon. gentleman (Mr. Sifton)
has no great love for the clergy of the
Roman Catholic church, nor has he that high
opinion of the clerical school system that
the hon. member for Labelle has. Dr. Montague was the candidate in Haldimand when
this speech was made, and the report states :
Mr. Sifton asked why Dr. Montague took such
an interest in this matter 7 It is because the
Roman Catholic clergy are a well organized
body and because they have a political influence in Canada which is not to be sneezed
at.
Language more forcible than polite I admit, but still when hon. gentlemen opposite
claim that the clergy of Quebec never had
any influence, never tried to exercise that influence in political matters, the ex-Minister
of the Interior states that they are a well-
organized body and that they have a political
influence in Canada that is not to be sneezed
at. He goes on still further :
During the last hundred years you will find
that wherever a constitutional Act was prepared of an organizing character, you will
find
that something is drawn which indicates the
hand of the clergy is there. The language may
be the language of the Canadian politician, but
in every case the voice is the voice of the
church.
Now, Mr. Speaker, we have before us today a measure of an organizing character,
creating two new provinces out of these
vast territories in western Canada. Is it to
be believed that this is the sole exception
that has taken place in 100 years in which the
clergy's hand has not been seen ? I wonder
if the Minister of the Interior were he to
mentally recall those utterances of his in
1895 when he said that during the last 100
years there has not been a single instance
where anything of an organizing character
has taken place that the hand of the clergy
has not been seen would claim, if he were to
speak according to his honest convictions
that the same thing is not occurring at the
present day. He went on :
If the people of Canada approve of the Act
of the government it means that the Roman
Catholic church of the province of Quebec can
practically get anything they like from the government of Canada.
Mr. Speaker, I would commend these
utterances to the right hon. gentleman who
leads this House (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) and
if he can find in them that spirit of tolerance and Christian charity of which he
spoke, if he can find in them that broadmindedness that soaring to the very pinnacle
of statesmanship, that breadth of mind
and desire to discuss questions of this character with the object of promoting peace
and harmony of which he spoke, then I will
attribute to him a great deal more perception
than I possess, but I must confess that I
believe he himself will be in need of that
pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by
night to show him the way and give him the
light. The ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr.
3691 COMMONS
Sifton) is not the only gentleman who took
strong ground against interference in provincial matters of this character and in
favour of a national as against a separate
school system. There is our friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) who is reported
in the Halifax ' Chronicle' in March
6, 1896, as speaking at Windsor in the following words-
Mr. W. J. ROCHE. The present Minister
of Finance, then premier of Nova Scotia.
In Manitoba they have prescribed exercises
which contain nothing that ought to be objectionable to any body of Christians, and
if
there are, means can no doubt be found to remove the cause of complaint without Dominion
interference. Why should we not believe that
Manitoba will be reasonable in this matter?
The Manitobans are not African savages.
Why cannot we trust the people in the
new provinces of the west? Neither are
they African savages. They are dominated
by the same spirit of fairness and justice
as the people of Manitoba. He goes on :
I will venture the statement that the true
interests of the Roman Catholic citizens of
Manitoba will be better advanced by the policy
of conciliation than by the policy of coercion.
This Remedial Bill that the government are
trying to enforce upon an unwilling parliament,
even if it should pass, cannot settle the question. It would be. an attack on—
On what ?
——an attack on provincial rights. . . . if
the Roman Catholics are ever to obtain a solution of this question which is worth
having they
must obtain it through the good will of the
majority of the people of the province to which
they belong.
And if the hon. gentleman were to speak
his conscientious sentiments he would state
equally to-day that the people of the west,
the Roman Catholic citizens of the new provinces in the west. will have a better chance
to secure their rights and all their privileges
through the good will of the majority of
those who will people that part of the Dominion. But the hon. gentleman goes on
further :
I ask the people of Hants county and the
people of Nova Scotia to stand by the principle
of free schools in the case of Manitoba, just as
they would stand by it in their own province.
. . . We in Nova Scotia know the value of
a system of free public schools. We have shown
in the past that while we may differ on many
questions we are practically a unit in support
of that system. . . . If the Dominion authorities should attempt to interfere with
our
school system, if they should attempt to impose
on this province the system which they are
trying to force on Manitoba. we would expect
to have the sympathy of the friends of free
schools elsewhere, and we would expect the
people of the western provinces to give us their
sympathy and support in such a condition. Let
3691
3692
us to-day give them our hearty support in the
struggle until we find that they are not amenable to reason.
Then he goes on to give credit to Sir
Charles Tupper for the Nova Scotla school
law and he says :
What can we say of the position of that gentleman to-day, who instead of standing
up as
the champion of a free school system, and resisting those who attack it, scrambled
into parliament-
In what manner ? Why here is another
gentleman testifying to clerical influence
which the hon. gentlemen opposite say is all
a myth. According to the present Minister
of Finance Sir Charles Tupper was scrambling into parliament
—through the unfair influence of the Roman
Catholic pulpits of the county of Cape Breton,
and is now devoting the evening of his life to
the work of destroying the free school system
of Manitoba and forcing upon that province a
system which he would not dare to attempt to
force upon the province of Nova Scotia.
And yet the hon. gentleman is to-day
voting—I think against his own conscience
—to impose upon the people of the western
provinces a system of schools that may turn
out equally objectionable in those new provinces in the future.
In a letter addressed to the 'Casket' on
March the 14th, 1896 the same hon. gentleman states :
Only as a last resort and when every other
possible method of settlement has failed can
there be any justification for federal interference in the educational affairs of
any province
in the Dominion.
Again in a letter to the same paper dated
April 4th, 1896, he says :
The uproar is upon us ; already the blaze of
religious strife has been kindled and is being
vigourously fanned every day by the efforts to
coerce Manitoba.
And now they are doing the same thing
themselves only they are sugar-coating that
word ' coercion ' which was so bitter to their
taste in 1896.
Again on March 6, speaking at Windsor
he stated :
I believe that the people of Manitoba if left
alone will settle this question for themselves.
Why should we not believe this ? We know
from our own experience in the maritime provinces that it has been found possible
to maintain a free school system and to administer it
so as to make it acceptable to the people of
every class and creed. We hear no complaint
of the Nova Scotia school law. The Manitoba
school system is practically the same as the
Nova Scotia.
And yet the hon. gentleman told us the
other day that to-day if not by law by
practice they are practically in the enjoyment of separate schools in Halifax, and
in
some parts of Nova Scotia, to a greater ex
3693 APRIL 3, 1905
tent than under the school system of the
Northwest Territories. These schools were
secured through the good will of the majority and when the hon. gentleman was
asked a pertinent question by the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule) why we
should not expect the same result in the new
provinces of the west he states : Possibly
so, but when 41 per cent of the population
have a suspicion that they may not get that
fairness it is only right we should respond
to their demands. In other words 59 per
cent of the population have to be governed
by the wishes of the other 41 per cent.
The ex-Minister of the Interior is not in
accord with the Prime Minister on his constitutional argument. He states that he
largely agrees with the views of the leader
of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden) but still
he is going to support the Bill. In fact he
has stated that the whole question should
be left to the provinces. On page 3256 of
' Hansard ' he is reported as follows :
But for my part I have no hesitation in saying what my own opinion would be. It would
be that the province ought to be left entirely
free to deal with its own educational affairs.
This was the opinion expressed by that
hon. gentleman, but still he is not going to
carry it into effect by voting against this
Bill. He went further :
I am convinced it would be better for the
Roman Catholic people of the Northwest Territories if the legislature were left absolutely
free.
And again :
I do not think they would be able to convince me that it would not be better that
the
legislature of the Northwest Territories should
be free.
If the hon. gentleman desires to be consistent and vote according to the convictions
he thus expressed, would he not oppose this
clause which is not going to leave the people of the Territories free to deal with
this
matter ? Why should he set up one policy
to be carried into effect in his own province
and a diametrically opposite one to be carried out in the new provinces ? If he had
changed his opinion, if he had been converted, as the hon. member for Western
Assiniboia (Mr. Scott) has been with regard
to the land clause, if he had conscientiously
recanted his old time convictions, he might
have an excuse, but he has not. What
therefore is the reason he gives boldly and
unblushingly in the presence of this free
parliament why he is going to support the
Bill. Did he take any high moral ground ?
Well, this House can judge for itself. This
is the ground he took :
I came to the conclusion that whatever anybody else might do, my course is perfectly
clear.
I should, when this question came up, be in a
position to speak with the freedom with which
a member of the government could not speak,
and I should be called on to decide to what
3693
3694
extent and how far I would be prepared to
compromise opinions which I had publicly expressed, and opinions which I still hold,
in
order not to destroy—
What ?
—in order not to destroy the government of
which I have been a member.
Here we have the secret—party exigencies. It is on that high moral plane that
the hon. gentleman is going to support this
Bill. He went on :
That question which comes to every man in
public life sooner or later comes to-day to a
good many men in this House of Commons. The
question is how far a man is justified in compromising his opinion for the purpose
of preventing a political crisis.
How very solicitous the hon. gentleman
was about precipitating on this country a
political crisis ! He followed in the wake of
his colleague, the Minister of Finance. That
hon. gentleman was aghast at the idea of
the leader of the opposition being called upon to form a government, because that
government would have to be, according to him,
a Protestant government, and then the country would go to the bow-wows entirely.
Mr. Speaker, I think that is an insult to our
Roman Catholic fellow-citizens. It is an insult to them to imagine that the leader
of
the opposition could not get any one of that
faith to come in and form a government
with him simply because he desired to leave
to the new provinces the entire control of
their educational system.
The hon. member for Edmonton told us
that all the petitions which have been coming here for the past month, the meetings
that have been held, the resolutions that
have been passed, were simply for the purpose of creating political party capital.
I would ask him if the Toronto ' Globe '
is so solicitous for the welfare of
the Conservative party that it is opposing this Bill. I will give that newspaper the
credit no matter how much
it has tried to trim since, it did at
one time take the proper ground and
stand for the old landmark of provincial
rights which Liberals advocated in the
years gone by. Surely the hon. gentleman
does not mean to say that the Toronto
' Globe ' is animated solely with the desire
of putting a Conservative government into
office. The whole independent press, almost without exception, are condemning the
government on account of this Bill. And
what about all these strong old time Liberals which the hon. member for Ottawa
(Mr. Belcourt) called renegade Liberals because they happened not to see eye to eye
with the leader of the government and his
colleagues in this matter. Is Mr. T. C. Robinette, of Toronto, who was a candidate
in
Toronto Centre at the last general election,
and who would be candidate at the next election in that riding, were the government
not
afraid to test public opinion there,—is Mr.
3695
COMMONS
Robinette animated by a desire to see his
own party defeated and replaced by a Conservative administration ? And what about
Mr. Willison, the biographer of the leader
of the government, his strong admirer and
life long friend ? Is he taking the public
platform against this measure simply because he is animated by a sudden zeal in
the interests of the Conservative party ? Is
Mr. Thomson, King's Counsel, also taking
the platform in the interests of the Conservative party ? And Mayor Urquhart and
all those other gentlemen who are members
of the Libral party—are they animated by
a like motive ? Oh, but say some hon. gentlemen opposite, they have been misled.
These intelligent gentlemen, equally as intelligent as any to be found in the Liberal
ranks, just as intelligent as the hon. member for Edmonton and the hon. member for
Ottawa and the hon. member for West Assiniboia—these gentlemen we are told have
been misled. But surely they will not
accuse the hon. member for North Simcoe
(Mr. McCarthy) with having been misled
when he got up and denounced this Bill. It
may be, Mr. Speaker, that he spoke too soon
but he none the less denounced the measure,
and he has always given faithful support
to this government ever since 1896, when he
first entered the House. Surely he is not to
be called a renegade Liberal or even a man
who has been misled. Again look at the
Laurier Club, composed of some of the
brightest minds in the city of Toronto,
which passed resolutions condemning this
measure. Are we to be told that that club
was animated by a desire to benefit the Conservative party ? Then we have the
Indian Head Liberal Association passing
a resolution which was read here the other
evening by my hon. friend from Qu'Appelle
(Mr. Lake) in which they condemn, not the
original clause, but the amended clauses.
The resolution reads as follows :
We, the members of the Indian Head Liberal
Association desire to enter a protest against
the educational clause in the Autonomy Bill,
believing that such is an interference with provincial rights. The clause, as amended
by the
compromise Bill now before parliament, does
not in our opinion contain any modification of
what we believe to be an infringement of our
rights as a province, and for this reason we
emphatically protest against the Bill as remodelled.
Copies of this were sent to the Rt. Hon.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Hon. Clifford Sifton
and R. S. Lake, M.P., This association is
composed of gentlemen who live in the constituency of Mr. Bulyea, a member of the
territorial executive. All the ministerial
associations in almost every province in the
Dominion have been heard and they are all
in the same language, and many of these
who signed the petitions and signified their
protests, never gave a Conservative vote in
their lives. Still they are out doing what
they believe to be in the best interests of
3695
3696
education and of the western people. Was
the legislature of British Columbia also animated in the interests of the Conservative
party when they passed a resolution the
other day unanimously condemning the Bill,
and asking that educational affairs be left
entirely to the new provinces ? I do not
know whether the members from British
Columbia in this House are going to be
guided by this expression of opinion, but I
do know that in the local legislature of British Columbia the parties are almost equally
divided, the government having only three
or four of a majority. And this resolution
passed that House unanimously and without
a single adverse criticism :—
This House regrets that in the Bill submitted
to the Dominion parliament granting autonomy
to the Northwest Territories there is an interference with provincial rights in regard
to the
provisions dealing with their school question.
The ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) states that there is a vast difference
between the amendment and the original
clause. As a layman I fail to see the difference. Those schools are to be maintained,
under either clause, in much the same way.
The original clause stipulated that all the
moneys appropriated by the legislature and
distributed as the proceeds of all sales of
school lands shall be distributed in an equitable manner between the separate and
the
public schools.
The amended clause reads that all the
funds arising for school purposes—which
includes the proceeds of the Dominion lands
and all appropriated by the legislature—
shall be distributed without discrimination,
that is, shall be distributed in an equitable
manner. It is simply a change of the wording without any change of the meaning, so
far as I can see, and so far as many other
hon. gentlemen, much more conversant
with the meaning of legal phraseology than
I am, can see. But if the ex-Minister of
the Interior takes that view, what view
have they in the province of Quebec, as
shown by some of their leading party journals ? I will read from 'Le Canada' of a
couple of weeks ago an article in which
great credit is taken for the Prime Minister
for standing to his guns and not compromising, but insisting upon obtaining for
their people exactly what he sought to get
in the first place :
In virtue of the Laurier law, the minority
will conserve :
1. The separate schools.
2. Religious instruction.
3. Its share of the taxes.
In addition the minority will have the benefit of section 93 of the British North
America
Act. The organic law of 1875 contained no
such protection. and in truth, a guarantee of
a system of separate schools without the insertion of section 93 is illusory. If in
the future
the legislature should pass a spoilatory law,
abolishing the rights of the minority, the minority will have these powers :
1. An appeal to the courts.
3697 APRIL 3, 1905
2. An appeal to the Governor General in
Council for remedial legislation.
3. The process of disallowance.
Then it goes on :
Some people supposed Sir Wilfrid Laurier
would recede as a result of the clamour raised
on this question by the fanatics; but he remains
firm to the original proposal and is giving the
legislation which he at first announced.
So, Mr. Speaker, you can exactly see the
game. It is the old game of 1896—in the
province of Quebec the cry will be that Sir
lWilfrid, one of their co-religionists and
compatriots, has protected their rights ; he
has not given way at all ; the Minister of
Justice (Mr. Fitzpatrick) successfully concealed the intended meaning of the law
even from the expert eyes of the Minister
of «he Interior. On the other hand, Mr.
Sifton and his colleagues from the west
will go to the people there and point out,
that the ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr.
Sifton), brave man that he was, clapped a
pistol to the head of his leader and compelled him to yield on clause 16, though
the Minister of Justice had successfully
deluded all the western members, yet, when
the ex-Minister of the Interior appeared on
the scene, his shrewd eyes detected what
the Minister of Justice desired to incorporate in the clause, and made them remedy
it, making amendments in accordance with
his views. I say it is the old game of 1896
played over again—one cry in one province
and an entirely different cry in another province.
Now, I was somewhat surprised to hear
the hon. gentlemen on the other side from
the province of Quebec praising this measure, considering that they were the great
sticklers for provincial rights in days gone
by. Only a few years ago a Bill was introduced in this House to create a Dominion
medical council. The object was to allow
our medical practitioners to appear before
the council and boards of examiners that
would allow them the privilege of practising
in any province of the Dominion without
being compelled to submit to an examination in the respective provinces. One result
of this would have been that we should have
had the privilege of practising without registration in the motherland, a privilege
that is now denied us, because we have no
degree for the Dominion of Canada. It was
provided in this Bill that whenever five or
more provinces passed legislation concurring
with this Bill the measure should become
law. And whence arose the opposition that
prevented the passing of the Bill in that
form ? Why, from these hon. gentlemen
from the province of Quebec, who took
strong grounds against the measure. because, as they contended, it was an invasion
of provincial rights. They were so jealous
of their provincial rights, they were so desirous that no one should practise in their
province without passing their provincial
examination, that they stood in the breach
3697
3698
and compelled the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) to recede from the position
he
originally took and to cause the Bill to be
amended so as to provide that it should not
become law until every province in the Dominion had passed concurrent legislation.
And since then, it is this province of Quebec that has stood in the breach and prevented
this concurrent legislation being passed. Every other province in the Dominion
has either passed the legislation approving
this Bill or has expressed its willingness
to do so—Quebec is the only one that refuses. And its ground for refusal is simply
that the Bill would interfere with their provincial rights. And yet this is the province
whose representatives are refusing provincial rights to the new provinces in the west.
The hon. member for West Assiniboia
(Mr. Scott), in the course of his speech on
Friday evening last, took occasion to congratulate—and properly so—the hon. member
for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Lake) upon his excellent speech. The hon. member for Qu'Appelle
certainly distinguished himself,
both in matter and in manner, and made a
speech which was a credit to himself and
to those who were wise to select him as
their representative. Therefore, the hon.
member for West Assiniboia was wholly
justified in the compliment he paid. But
before he had finished his compliment—
though not wishing to be at all uncharitable
to the hon. gentleman—it appeared that he
desired to pay himself a compliment, and
took this method of preparing that compliment for my hon. friend from Qu'Appelle
and then politely handing it to himself. I
do not know whether I have formed a
wrong impression, but I will read the remarks ot the hon. gentleman (Mr. Scott)
and leave the House to judge :
If it would not be presumptuous on my part
to say so, I would congratulate the House, I
would congratulate the Northwest and particularly I would congratulate our hon. friends
opposite upon their acquisition of that hon.
gentleman, who was elected last November to
represent the district of Qu'Appelle. Of course,
I do not quite agree with every one of the
sentiments expressed by that hon. gentleman;
but I will say this for him, that he made the
class of speech that friends or the Northwest
Territories desired to be made before this
question of provincial autonomy was determined, and before the details and terms were
determined ; it was the class of speech which
the true friend of the Northwest felt it proper
to make and—
And here are the words to which I have
referred :
—just the class of speech I have made myself the first session I came into this parliament.
If the hon. gentleman (Mr. Scott) made
that class of speech when he first came
into this parliament, I am sorry to say that
he has greatly deteriorated in his latter-day
utterances. For, if any one has taken the
3699
COMMONS
trouble to look up 'Hansard' during the
last parliamentary term. or any one who has
listened to the hon. gentleman when he has,
time and again, made the most unwarranted
personal attacks, especially upon the hon.
member for West Toronto (Mr. Osler), who
is to the hon. gentleman (Mr. Scott) the
proverbial red rag to the bull, he cannot but
feel that the hon. gentleman has fallen far
below the high standard which he tells us
he assumed when he came into this House.
Mr. W. J. ROCHE. And they were not
petrified bouquets either. We have not to
go further than the hon. gentleman's speech
of last Friday to prove the accuracy of
my statement that the hon. gentleman has
fallen away from the high standard which
he says at one time was his. We who had
the privilege of listening to the hon. gentleman on Friday will realize the very severe
and uncalled for, not to say unkind and
utterly unwarranted, attack which he made
upon the Prime Minister of the Northwest
Territories. He could scarcely say anything too bad of that hon. gentleman. He
called him a rank partisan, and said he
was guilty of the grossest misrepresentation
ever indulged in in the whole Dominion of
Canada. This hyperbole—let us call it,
though rather a mild term to express our
feelings—gives one an idea of how the hon.
gentleman has fallen away from the standard which, he says, was his early in his
parliamentary career.
But the leader of the opposition also came
in for criticism of a most unfair kind in
connection with his speech of last Friday.
Not only was the hon. gentleman unfair to
the premier of the Territories, but he was
most unfair in garbling the utterances of
the leader of the opposition. The leader of
the opposition had taken a certain stand on
the land clause, he took the position that
these lands should be handed over to the
new provinces, that they should be administered by the new provinces in the interest
of the people residing there, and he
took up the argument used by the leader of
the government and some other hon. gentlemen on that side of the House. contending
that they should not hand these lands
over, as it might interfere with the immigration policy of the Dominion government.
Touching upon that question. the leader of
the opposition spoke as follows:
Are they not the people chiefly interested ?
May we not rightly conclude that if these
lands are handed over to them they will so deal
with them as to best conserve their own interests by forwarding and assisting a vigorous
policy of immigration ?
Now. the hon. member for West Assiniboia (Mr. Scott) left out that portion of the
sentence completely. He started in the
middle of a sentence, and he finished before
the end of the sentence, finished at a comma
3699
3700
and tried to create a wrong impression, entirely contrary to that which the hon. leader
of the opposition intended to convey to the
members of this House. This is where the
member for West Assiniboia began the
quotation:
May I not further suggest that even if there
were any danger—and I do not think there is—
it would be the task of good statesmanship to
have inserted, if necessary, a provision in this
Bill with regard to free homesteads and the
prices of these lands,——
Now, there is a comma, that is where the
member for West Assiniboia stopped, and
he did not quote the following words which
I will now read:
——and obtain to it the consent of the people
of the Northwest Territories.
Had he quoted that last portion of the sentence it would have done away with the
force of his argument. He tried to make
out that this expression on the part
of the leader of the opposition was
an infringement and a gross violation
of provincial rights. But had he included the latter expression, 'and obtain
the consent of the people of the Northwest
Territories,' of course it would have taken
away entirely the ground for his contention. And mark you, Mr. Speaker, this is
the gentleman who is aspiring to the vacant portfolio of the Minister of the Interior.
The member for West Assiniboia has stated
in this House and in public meetings that
he was opposed to the autonomy before the
Canadian Pacific Railway tax-exemption
was finally settled: and I am credibly informed that. either at Moosejaw or Medicine
Hat, during the last campaign, he
stated that he would vote against an
Autonomy Bill unless, before that measure was produced, the question of the tax
exemption of the Canadian Pacific Railway
was entirely settled, that it would be dangerous on the part of the Dominion to grant
autonomy to the Territories before that
question had been finally adjudicated by the
Privy Council. Now, has that question been
finally passed upon? It is true that it has
passed through the courts of Manitoba, it is
true that there has been an appeal to the
Supreme Court, and the decision of the Manitoba courts has been reversed; but it still
has to run the gauntlet of the Privy Council, and we know how frequently Supreme
Court decisions are overthrown by the Privy
Council. Still this question is not settled,
it is still open for decision, and the member
for West Assiniboia is giving his hearty
endorsation and support to this Bill in face
of the pledges he made to his electors on
this question.
Now. I have here some quotations from
the hon. gentleman's own paper, and I will
read from the Regina 'Leader' of October
22, 1903. This paper is edited by the hon.
gentleman himself. I find that the hon.
gentleman writing from Ottawa, no doubt
3701 APRIL 3, 1905
with his own pen, sent the following communication to his paper:
He explained the effect of the Manitoba Supreme Court judgment given in March last
upon
the Canadian Pacific Railway tax exemption
cases, which left all Canadian Pacific Railway
lands and property in the Northwest Territories
liable to school taxation as long as the area
was not a province—a right of taxation which
would not exist to-day had a province or provinces been created. Until this judgment
was
confirmed or upset by the Privy Council. Mr.
Scott failed to see how the Northwest could
afford to accept autonomy.
Then again on November 12 in an editorial of the Regina ' Leader' I find the following
extract:
If the cases were finally settled there would
no longer be a reason for delay. Until the
cases are finally determined, final settlement of
the autonomy question will remain a matter of
practical impossibility. But the people of the
Northwest contend that the new provinces must
not be handicapped with any such tax exemption provisions. We contend that when erecting
the province parliament must negotiate with
the company for abrogation of the rights to exemption guaranteed to it by its contract.
Now
does any sane person think that parliament is
in as good a position to enter into negotiations
now with the Canadian Pacific Railway Company for the abrogation of the exemption
rights,
as parliament will occupy after the test cases
are finally settled it the Manitoba Supreme
Court's judgment be upheld by the Privy Council.
The hon. gentleman was very staunch in
the month of November, 1903, in his opposition to autonomy being granted to the
provinces at all until this Canadian Pacific
Railway tax exemption case was entirely
out of the way and settled by a decision of
the Privy Council. To-day he is supporting
this Bill, and that question still remains unsettled. The hon. gentleman also took
strong
grounds in days gone by in favour of one
province. He spoke strongly in favour of
one province, he has written strongly in
favour of one province, and to-day he is
voting in favour of two provinces. For he
states on page 3751:
I may be permitted to say that I was myself
quite strongly in favour of the proposition that
only one province should be created ; and even
yet, looking at the question purely from the
local and territorial point of view, I can see no
reason why one government, one legislature,
one set of machinery, should not have been
suffifiient for that territory.
Still he is voting for a Bill that provides
for two provinces. He also took exception
to the boundaries: he claimed that the present eastern boundary of the district of
Alberta should have been the dividing line.
That is not the dividing line under this Bill,
but he is supporting the Bill with all the
enthusiasm at his disposal. And, Mr. Speaker, while he is doing this he is calling
the
premier of the Territories, Mr. Haultain, a
rabid partisan because he advocates the
3701
3702
very same things, and because he has been
consistent enough to maintain his position.
The hon. member for West Assiniboia also
took strong ground in the past in favour of
having the land retained by the provinces
or handed over to the provinces; he took that
ground in the year 1901, as quoted in 'Hansard' in the following words:
If the proper principle is adhered to, if the
principle of absolute equality is observed, if
parliament places the new provinces upon an
equitable basis of local government, giving a
proper grant for the government, also a per
capita subsidy, and what may be shown to be
due as a debt allowance, they will be put in
possession of. the public resources, lands, timber and minerals in the same way as
the other
provinces were put in possession of these resources.
Here was a strong expression of that
hon. gentleman in favour of having all the
lands handed over to the provinces. And
what does he give as a reason for changing
his opinion in this regard ? He says that
owing to his youth and inexperience he
gave voice to opinion which was looked
at in 1905 as an inaccuracy, that, as a matter of fact these other provinces were
not
put in possession, but they merely retained
possession of their own lands. Then, he
says :
These other provinces are not put in possession, but left in possession of these resources.
Very young members sometimes fall into inaccuracies.
The hon. gentleman evidently has not
got over his youth or he would not play the
part of a weathercock politician being wafted hither and thither by every speech that
is made in this House. We want a strong
man at the head of the Department of the
Interior. We do not want a man who is
changing his opinions every day. The hon.
gentleman states that he has changed his
opinion on this question and he gives as
his reason that he was influenced by the
speeches made by the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) and the hon. ex-Minister
of the Interior (Mr. Sifton). Now, he has
been speaking on public platforms in the
past, he has been associated with his fellow
westerners and he knew what their opinions
were on this question. He has conversed
with them in private and in public, but it
only remains after these Bills are introduced and after he has listened to a couple
of
speeches in this House that were probably
repeated to him in private on many occasions for the hon. gentleman to change his
opinion. Under these auspices he gave utterance to the following statement in this
parliament :
But I may say, that in 1901, when I made that
statement, and even later, the principle found
no general acceptance in this House or amongst
any or the people east of the great lakes ; and
my main purpose in uttering these words here
was to try and impress upon the people of
3703
COMMONS
eastern Canada the necessity of recognizing the
right of possession or, at least, of a beneficial
interest in the lands of the Northwest Territories by the people of these Territories.
In other words the hon. gentleman went
forth as a missionary to instruct and to
convert the people in the eastern provinces
to his view-point as to this land question
with the result that the hon. gentleman was
converted himself. He is drawing rather
a long bow when he says that these opinions found no general acceptance in this
House because my hon. friend the leader
of the opposition has given voice to these
same opinions for years past. In his speeches
in the west and in this House during all
the years that this autonomy question has
been discussed in parliament he has expressed his opinion in favour of handing these
lands over to the provinces. If the hon.
member for West Assiniboia has not stated,
some other hon. gentlemen have stated that
one reason why these lands should not be
handed over to the new provinces is that
they might be at the mercy of land speculators. Fancy under provincial management
these lands being more likely to be exploited than if they were under the management
of the ex-Minister of the Interior and his
officials of recent years! Under provincial
management would there have been 250,000
acres of wheat lands handed over to the
Saskatchewan Valley Land Company at $1
an acre ?
When this matter was up in the House
for debate that hon. gentleman was forced
to admit that 150,000 of these 250,000 acres
had been handed over practically illegally,
because he did not know whether the conditions of settlement had been complied
with or not. He admitted that there had
been no inspection to see whether the settlers were on the land or not, and when he
was pressed further he admitted that they
had been handed over without his knowledge, without the knowledge of his deputy
and without their consent and that when
they found that out they gave orders that
no more lands were to be handed over until
an inspection had been made. After the
horse was stolen they ordered the stable
door to be locked. When pressed still further to state who had done this, what was
his reply?—an official of the government;
and when pressed still further to state what
was that official's name, the ex-Minister of
the Interior stated that he did not know.
Fancy the responsible head of the department, responsible for all the transactions
taking place under his administration finding out
that 150,000 acres of land had been illegally
handed over to a company without complying with the conditions—having beside him
his deputy who was an official of the
government—and never taking the trouble
to inquire that official's name! Well, we
are very gullible sometimes on this side
of the House, but we are scarcely so gullible
3703
3704
as to give credence to such a statement as
that except in the parliamentary sense. 'I
fancy that the hon. member for East Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff) who was at that time
the Dominion Lands Commissioner might
be able to explain who this official was who
illegally handed over that 150,000 acres to
this company. The hon. member for West
Assiniiboia, in his paper, the Regina
'Leader' of Thursday, May 29, 1902, after
the election had taken place, used the following language in the form of a heading
:
HAULTAIN ENDORSED
By the overwhelming majority of the electorate
and given a most emphatic mandate.
The people are in favour of one province—General administrative
policy approved.
And so on.
Because the leader of the territorial government still maintains that there should
be only one province and because he has
seen fit to maintain his position in an open
letter published in the country the hon.
member for West Assiniboia says that he
is a rank partisan. Speaking of the lands
of the Northwest, the hon. member for
West Assiniboia writes in the same issue
of his paper:
The lesson of the election is very simple.
The administration of the Northwest Territories is approved, and the policy of the
executive is endorsed. The command of the
electorate is 'as you were.' . . . As to the
policy of the executive it is at present virtually confined to one question, that
of the
provincial status. Premier Haultain is returned to carry out the plan he submitted
to
the Dominion government and to the people
of the Northwest. The plan is nothing new.
Premier Haultain has been trying to carry
it out for years. He has educated the people
into the understanding of it and belief in it.
All he has to do is to continue along the road
he has been travelling for some time past.
That is the road along which his followers
have faithfully accompanied him and it is the
direction to which he is pointed by the elections that have just taken place.
That hon. gentleman was evidently an
ardent admirer of the premier of the Territories no longer ago that May 29, 1902,
and later. One reason why that vicious
personal attack was made upon Mr. Haultain the other night by the hon. member
for Wet Assiniboia was that that hon.
gentleman has not even to this day got over
the castigation that he received on several
platforms in the west at the hands of the
premier of the Northwest Territories, and he
desired in a measure to get even with that
gentleman in parliament when that gentleman was not privileged to say a word to
defend himself. In the same paper, of Mr.
Haultain, whom he then lauded and whom
he now calls a rank partisan. he writes as
follows :
The country, therefore is to be congratulated
that once again the Haultain administration
3705 APRIL 3, 1905
will be returned to power. We do not suppose
the history of any country can show as much
good achieved with such inadequate means,
and so few mistakes made in the face of great
difficulties as have characterized the Northwest government ever since Mr. Haultain
has
held the helm. The premier once said that if
persons wanted to know his policy they would
find it in the ordinances. That is true : but
it also manifests itself elsewhere. Mr. Haultain may well tell any one seeking his
policy
to look around. The schools that dot our prairies are the pride of our towns ; the
public
works that are everywhere visible for the use,
convenience and profit of the settlers ; an up-
to-date agricultural department ; and the vigilant watch over the Northwest at Ottawa,
all
speak of a policy which the people of this
country ought to be proud of and to this policy
has to be added the statesmanlike proposals
by which Mr. Haultain has continually urged
we should reach the provincial status. Eye
has not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it
entered into the heart of any other man to
conceive the good things Mr. Haultain claims
as our right in regard to the matter of becoming a province.
Mr. Scott was so strongly in favour of Mr.
Haultain then, that he wrote and spoke
strongly in his support. To-day, Mr. Haultain maintains exactly the position he took
in this Bill of rights of his and for which he
received the endorsation of the electors of
the west, but Mr. Scott is no longer supporting him. Which do you consider the
rank partisan ; the man who sticks to his
old-time policy, or the man who, because
of party feelings has sunk his personal convictions and his past record, and who to-day
supports a Bill that gives two provinces instead of one ; that does not fix the boundaries
as the people of the Territories wished
them to be fixed ; that refuses the new provinces the ownership of their public domain,
and that takes away from these new provinces the control of education. As a usual
thing, I do not read copious extracts, but I
have on this occasion to borrow the habit
from the member for West Assiniboia, because it is only right that the members of
this House should have their memory refreshed as to the views held by the hon.
gentleman on these questions a short time
ago, and which are diametrically opposed
to the views which he says he holds to-day.
Mr. Scott continues :
No man in Canada has so thorough a grasp
of the problem under consideration as Mr. Haultain. Step by step he has brought the
Northwest to its present position. Territorial history since 1888—and fourteen years
is no short
period as political life goes—is his history.
For the pressing of the negotiations with and
possibly against the federal authorities, we want
our strongest and best equipped man. Without
doubt Haultain is such a man. He has the
facts and the arguments at his finger ends, the
subject is now almost part of himself. The
people of the west have reason to be proud of
their present premier.
Mark you, this is the language of the
member for West Assiniboia (Mr. Scott) but
3705
3706
a short time ago, and yet the other day we
heard him use strong language against Mr.
Haultain, simply because Mr. Haultain has
seen fit to be consistent.
The people of the Northwest have reason to
be proud of their present premier. Under him
they have had good and economical and careful
government. Largely under his direction a
body of laws admirably suitable to new and
therefore difficult conditions, have been framed
bit by bit and without any violent or disturbing
changes. He is fit to stand side by side with
any of Canada's public men and ask no odds,
as those who heard him in the debate with
Premier Roblin at Indian Head last December
well know. He is without question the man for
the job, which is no light one.
This again is Mr. Scott's language. The
other day the hon. gentleman (Mr. Scott)
told us that he based his present action very
largely on the fact that when the Northwest
Territories Act was put through the House
in 1875, the Hon. George Brown took a certain position which he proposed to follow.
For instance, the hon. member for West
Assiniboia said :
And George Brown who did not support the
legislation ; what did he say ?
The moment this Act passed and the Northwest became part of the union, they came under
the Union Act, and under the provisions with
regard to separate schools.
In the face of that language, if the late Mr.
Brown were still alive and had a seat in this
House and were confronting the legislation
which we have before us, what would he do ?
Support the protection to minority rights ?
Certainly. That therefore should I do even if
I might be as violent an opponent of separate
schools as Mr. Brown was.
It will be noticed that the hon. gentleman
(Mr. Scott) speaks out for the rights of the
minority. What rights ? The rights they
secured under the Act of 1875. But these
are not the rights the hon. gentleman (Mr.
Scott) is contending for, because he says
the rights given the minority under the Act
of 1875 have been whittled away by the Territorial government so that with one breath
he contradicts what he say with another. The
hon. gentleman takes the position that
George Brown was in favour of these rights
that were to be maintained for all time
once they were crystallized into law, and he
says that he takes the same ground as
George Brown, but as a matter of fact the
hon. gentleman (Mr. Scott) is only contending to-day for minority rights which he
says
are far less than were given to the minority
under the Act of 1875. The hon. gentleman
for West Assiniboia further says :
I believe—and the large majority of the people
in the Northwest Territories that I have heard
from since these proposals were brought down
also believe—that provincial rights are being
granted to them in the fullest sense in which
they are enjoyed by any other province of Canada.
The hon. gentleman (Mr. Scott) has falllen
into another youthful inaccuracy. Can he
3707 COMMONS
point to any other province in the Dominion
—save Ontario and Quebec and they only
by reason of compact—can he point to any
province in the Dominion that has not absolute control over its educational system.
If he cannot point to any other such province, and I challenge him to do so, then
what becomes of his contention that the
new provinces are going to be placed in the
same full enjoyment of provincial rights as
any other province is in the Dominion of
Canada. The hon. gentleman was also inaccurate when he said that the draft Bill of
Mr. Haultain contained provisions that would
have perpetuated ecclesiastical schools. Well,
the framer of that draft Bill does not agree
with the hon. member for West Assiniboia.
The framer of that draft Bill meant that
the British North America Act should apply
which gives sole control to the provinces
over educational affairs. When the hon.
member (Mr. Scott), in order to suit his own
party purposes, desires to read into that
draft Bill a meaning that the framers of the
Bill never intended it should have, he is
taking a stand which he cannot maintain for
one moment. Of course he is privileged to
read into the draft Bill any ignorant meaning he may desire, but his doing so will
not
change the true intent of those who framed
that clause. That clause was drafted, as I
understand, under the guidance and direction of the premier of the Territories, and
of the present Chief Justice Sifton and his
then deputy, the present Judge Harvey.
These gentlemen decided that the clause
should be drafted so that the provinces
should have absolute control over their educational affairs, and Mr. Haultain so interprets
the clause to-day, and indeed it is
the only sane interpretation it will hear. I
do not wish to discuss this from a legal
point of view, although my lay opinion might
be equally as good as that of the member
for West Assiniboia ; I simply give you the
opinion of the leader of the Territorial Executive on the matter, who says that this
draft Bill was framed in accordance with
the desire of the people of the Territories
to control their own educational affairs, and
that it was sent down to the Ottawa government with that object in view. And,
Sir, if that draft Bill had the meaning which
the member for West Assiniboia attaches to
it, how is it that the right hon. the Prime
Minister, astute as he is, and now is it that
the lynx-eyed Postmaster General did not
discover such a meaning ? They are both
legal gentlemen learned in the law, and yet
it remained for the layman from West Assiniboia to read into the Territorial draft
Bill
a meaning that the Prime Minister of Canada and the Postmaster General failed to
see. The member for West Assiniboia has
stated that if he were one of the minority he
would never consent to taking out of this
Bill the guarantee of separate schools.
In one breath the hon. gentleman states :
We have practically no separate schools up
3707
3708
there, it is a national school system. They
have the same text books, the same qualifications for their teachers, the same inspection,
nothing different at all except a separate school-house. And still he says :
I say, looking at the history of Manitoba and
the Northwest Territories, that if I were a
member of the minority I would not consent to
have the guarantee cut out,—
What guarantee ? For the rights of the
legislation of 1875 which he stated George
Brown contended would exist for all time
to come once they were incorporated in the
Act of 1875, or is it just the vestige that is
left which according to his own language
would disappear in a very short time if the
guarantee were cut out.
—because I believe the time would come, and
that not in the very far future, when the final
vestige of the separate school would disappear.
He takes exactly the opposite ground
from that taken by the hon. Minister of
Finance because the Minister of Finance
states that if this Bill becomes law the
separate schools, the few there are, will disappear. That in effect is his argument
and
that is the impression made on this House.
But the hon. member for West Assiniboia
(Mr. Scott) says that if this guarantee is
cut out then the only vestige of separate
schools which they have will disappear and
that in the not distant future. The hon.
gentleman has quoted very extensively from
some comments made in the press in the
Northwest Territories in order to prove to
the members of this House that the people
there are quite satisfied with the present Bill
as it is presented to this House. There are
other papers up there besides those from
which the hon. gentleman quoted, and I shall
inflict a few of these comments upon the
House. For instance the Medicine Hat
' Times ' says :
The west has had a rude awakening. Until
a few days ago everybody believed the Act
creating two provinces here would not interfere
with the school question, but Sir Wilfrid
Laurier's government has added a clause to
the Bill which, if not promptly withdrawn, will
raise such a storm in the Territories that may
take years to subside. The best the west will
get out of it will not compensate for the fearful disturbance it will occasion. .
. . New
settlers coming in should be greeted by a united
people having but one object, namely, the development of the country, not hideous
dissension over educational matters. Words are too
weak to express the indignation and regret
which must be felt by all true lovers of the
western country.
Evidently the writer of this article knew
who was precipitating this question into the
political arena and did not blame it on this
side of the House. He took issue with that
view.
The Moosomin 'Spectator' says :
Sir Wilfrid, we think, made a. grave mistake
when he argued for separate schools on the
3709 APRIL 3, 1905
ground of their greater efficiency from a moral
standpoint, as any such defence is bound to
rouse spirited controversy.
The large majority of the people in the Territories express satisfaction with the
present
school system and are content to have the system continued. But many, believing that
the
matter of education belongs wholly to the province object to the Dominion parliament's
fastening any system, however satisfactory, on any
province, as that means an interference with
provincial rights. The objection is not therefore so much against the system as against
the
manner of imposing the system, at least if
nothing more is intended than the adoption of
the present school system.
The Alameda ' Dispatch ' says :
In the interest of the whole community it
would be better to withdraw the Autonomy Bill
rather than pass it with the present school
clause, and thereby impose coercion on the
two new provinces.
The Regina 'West' is a paper published
in the hon. gentleman's own town. 1 believe there are three papers in that town and
that two of them are opposed to the government on the major portions of this Bill,
at
least so far as the school clauses are concerned. The one paper that is advocating
the Bill in its entirety is the paper edited by
the hon. gentleman himself (Mr. Scott). The
Regina ' West ' says :
However, we may warn the government and
the western members that no modification of
the education clause or no compromise in its
wording will be satisfactory to the people of
the new provinces. The people want full and
complete control over education and schools,
and consequently the clauses now causing trouble should be struck out altogether.
It is the
right of the province, according to the British
North America Act, to have control of educational matters, and nothing short of this
full
right should be given to the new provinces.
If western members consent to and vote for
anything less than this they are traitors to the
new provinces and traitors to the cause of
full provincial autonomy. Anything less than
complete control over education and schools is
not autonomy. . . . We want none of our
people enslaved, but everybody free even unto
the whole people. Sir Wilfrid proposes to put
every citizen of the new provinces into slavery
by not giving full provincial rights. An agitation for full control of education by
the new
provinces is, as we take it, an agitation for the
freedom of Catholic and Protestant alike. We
are not discussing the merits of separate or
public schools, but the just right of the provinces to deal with the question without
federal
influence.
The Moosomin ' World' says:
In less than a week, the change that has come over public opinion regarding the Autonomy
Bill is most marked and emphatic. This effect, of course, can be and is, no greater
than the cause that has produce it. . . . For this state of public sentiment the onus
is on Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who no doubt depended on the honeyed sweetness of his smooth
language to overcome any opposition to his cunningly conceived religious device.
3709
3710
His coercive scheme, however, cannot obtain,
for while the great majority respect religious
convictions, of whatever sect they may be, they
do now demand the free exercise of legislative
power to deal with the education of the youth
of our country as the needs of the community
require. and as the interests of those immediately concerned most desire.
The Qu'Appelle ' Progress' says :
It is evident that the western members are
willing to arrange a compromise whereby provincial rights will be sacrificed. The
command
of the west should be ' hands off, we can, and
have a right to handle our own education,
The Yorkton ' Enterprise ' says :
If the new provinces are satisfied with the
present separate school system, Sir Wilfrid
Laurier's proposed coercive law is wholly unnecessary, and, on the other hand, if
the system is not satisfactory, what right has a federal
government to dictate to them ? In any case,
and from every point of view, what Sir Wilfrid
Laurier proposes is an unwarrantable withholding of provincial rights. Sir Wilfrid
has
been a successful leader, but it by no means
follows that he will be a successful driver.
Now Mr. Speaker, I have quoted these
somewhat lengthy extracts to combat the
contention of the hon. member for West
Assiniboia (Mr. Scott) that the people are
largely satisfied with the Autonomy Bill
now engaging the attention of parliament.
The hon. gentleman quoted from an interview with the Rev. Dr. Chown, in which it
was stated that the doctor at a public meeting at Toronto had stated that he was present
in Regina at the time word was received of the provisions of the Autonomy
Bill and that there was not a word of discussion raised about the educational clauses.
I shall read what Dr. Chown says in a letter
to the editor of the 'Globe' in to-night's
paper :
To the editor of the 'Globe': I notice in
the 'Globe's' report of the address of Mr.
Walter Scott, M.P., of Regina, made in the
House of Commons yesterday, a statement is
attributed to me, to the effect that the people
of the Northwest were satisfied with the
Laurier government's solution of the school
difiiculty. He may have been misled by a newspaper report, but I certainly did not
make
such a statement, as I have no means of knowing the present facts.
The only public utterance I have made about
the school question was at a meeting of the
Provincial Rights Committee in Toronto, at
which time, speaking to a motion made by Dr.
Bruce, to petition the House of Commons, the
Senate and the Governor General, praying that
no further steps be taken until the people interested have an opportunity of expressing
themselves upon the issue, I said that I had
been in the Northwest for some time during
the election contest, and I could bear testimony to the fact that the school question
was
not discussed at all, and that the vote of November last could not be taken as expressing
any
opinion upon the matter.
I quite agree with Mr. Scott, as reported in
the ' Globe' of Saturday, that the school question was not an issue at all in the
last elec
3711 COMMONS
tion,' but from that fact I argued that, inasmuch as it was kept in the background,
the
people interested in such a matter should be
heard before the parliament of Canada finally
pass upon the question. Mr. Scott argues that
because the issue was not discussed the people
must be satisfied with the provisions of a Bill
of which they then had no knowledge.
From this conclusion I must dissent, and I
may say that, in the interests of a common,
enlightened and progressive citizenship, I
regret exceedingly that any school system
which will segregate different sections of the
population during the early years of their
education, and give a different colouring to their
civic and national ideals, is about to be fastened upon the people yet to inhabit
our magnificent heritable in the Northwest.
I believe a solution of sectarian difficulties
should be and will yet be possible, in the form
of a system of Christian morality upon which
all varieties of opinion may agree, to be taught
in all the schools of the country.
S. D. CHOWN.
Toronto, April 1.
The hon. gentleman saw fit to refer to Mr.
Bulyea. He wondered if Mr. Bulyea had
been present with Mr. Haultain in his interviews with the leader of the opposition.
Well, I know whereof I speak when I say
that from the time the premier of the Territories came to Ottawa at the request of
the leader of the government to discuss this
question, until this Bill was introduced into
this House, he absolutely refused to discuss
it with any one, either Liberal or Conservative, because, as he said, he did not think
it would be proper to enter into a discussion with anybody upon this question while
he was negotiating with the government.
But when this Bill was brought before parliament and its provisions made public, he
considered he was no longer under any restraint, and has since discussed it with
both Liberals and Conservatives, and as
freely, frankly and thoroughly with the one
as with the other.
I do not Wish to trespass at any further
length on the patience of the House. I
simply desired more particularly to criticise
the three leading features, the question of
the boundary of Manitoba, the land question and the educational clauses. As to the
first, I think I have convinced the House
that the reasonable request of the province
of Manitoba has been contemptuously treated. I see that the premier of Ontario, taking
his cue from the right hon. gentleman's
speech, has filed a claim for a certain portion of Keewatin, and also that the new
Quebec premier has expressed his intention
to make a similar requisition on behalf of
that province. It is evident that the object
of the right hon. gentleman is being accomplished, but in the meantime the people
of
Manitoba are in a state of unrest and excitement. As to the land policy, in my judgment
the government have no reasonable
ground, either from a constitutional point of
view or from the point of view of public
policy, in withholding those lands from the
province. In my opinion also, the open let
3711
3712
ter of the premier of the Northwest Territories, protesting against the manner in
which the provisions of his draft Bill were
disregarded, cavalierly treated and passed
over, does not contain one expression which
any reasonable man can attribute to partisanship, unless it be partisan to be consistent.
But if abandoning the very things
which Mr. Haultain had provided for in
his draft Bill, and which had received the
support of the territorial assembly, and even
that of the hon. member for West Assiniboia ; if abandoning every claim put forward
on behalf of the Territories, be consistency, then I am willing to give the palm
to the hon. member for West Assiniboia
(Mr. Scott). As to the educational clauses,
in my opinion they are an interference in
matters of purely provincial concern. I believe them to be unconstitutional and impolitic.
High legal authorities, such as Sir
Louis Davies, judge of the Supreme Court,
has declared that this parliament had not
the right to interfere in the school policy of
the Territories ; and should this question
ever come up before him for adjudication,
he would, if he desired to be consistent, feel
bound to give an opinion in accord with the
views he expressed in parliament. I have
here the opinion he expressed. It has been
quoted in this House before, but you cannot
emphasize a good opinion too frequently.
This is what Sir Louis Davies said in 1891,
when the territorial charter was under consideration :
My opinion is now, and has been for years,
that when that time comes (the time to erect
the Territories into provinces) you cannot
withhold from the provinces so erected the right
to determine for themselves the question of
education in one way or the other. I would
be the last to favour this parliament imposing upon the people there any system of
education, either free or separate. I only claim
that when a Bill is introduced to erect these
Territories into provinces that Bill should
contain a provision enabling the people of the
different provinces so created to decide what
system of education they will have.
Surely that opinion is not biased or
coloured by Sir Louis Davies' political proclivities. Surely it was not given in order
to advance the cause of the Conservative
party. He takes the ground that parliament
is not at liberty to interfere with the educational policy of those new provinces.
The
late Judge Mills, the former philosopher of
the Liberal party, a man of high legal attainments, frequently quoted as a constitutional
authority, both in this House and the
Upper Chamber, and who was transferred
to the Supreme Court before his death, also
gave an opinion which is in accord with
that of Sir Louis Davies. He said :
When the people of the Territories or any
portion of the Territories are sufficiently numerous to constitute a province—when,
in fact,
they attain their majority in regard to local
matters, and when they propose to set up for
themselves—this parliament has no right to
3713 APRIL 3, 1905
exercise control over them. It can give good
advice, but it has no right to give commands.
When the Territories have a sufficient population to entitle them to become a province,
they must decide for themselves whether they
will have separate schools or not.
I have my view as to what will be the best
decision for them to arrive at, but I must not
impose on them my views as to how they should
be governed after they have attained their
majority.
I think I have quoted sufficient legal
authority to show that the act of the government is unconstitutional, that the question
of education should be left entirely to
the provinces, that the provinces should be
given their legislative freedom in this matter, and that the action of the government
cannot be defended on grounds of public
policy, but is an unwarranted interference
with provincial jurisdiction, and is likely
to be a source of trouble among the mixed
population who will make in that country
their homes in the future.
Mr. D. D. MCKENZIE (North Cape Breton
and Victoria). I must congratulate the
hon. gentleman who has taken his seat
on the free and exhaustive manner in which
he has discussed this question, and I am
afraid that, as a new member, with very
little experience in this House, I shall be
hardly able to follow the pace he has set
for me in dealing with the subject under
discussion. My hon. friend started out by
finding fault with the land policy of this
government. But that policy, Mr. Speaker,
is not a new one. It is not a policy of to-day
or yesterday, but one which was laid down
by a gentleman who had about as able a
mastery of public affairs in this country as
any man who ever lived in it. I refer to
the Rt. Hon. Sir John A. Macdonald, the
greatest leader of which the party to which
my hon. friend belongs could ever boast. It
was he who laid down the land policy we
have since followed, and in criticising that
policy my hon. friend is setting himself at
issue with that great leader.
The right hon. Sir John Macdonald, in
1870, laid down the land policy of this country. In 1872 he went to the country and
was sustained. In 1878 he was returned to
power ; and he was sustained after that
in the general elections of 1882, 1887 and
1891. I should say that was a suflicient
test of the policy of Sir John Macdonald
so far as the land question is concerned,
and that it is rather too late in the day now
to declare that it is a policy that should not
be followed in this country. A few days ago
the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr.
Foster) laid down a doctrine, which, if it is
a wise one in regard to the matter to which
he referred, would be equally wise here.
Speaking of the school question, he said
that the people of this country had recognized the wisdom of the policy of the Liberal
party in 1896, and again in 1900, and
again in 1904, and, so far as he was con
3713
3714
cerned, he would not bother with the subject
any longer, but would let well enough alone.
I say if that was a wise policy with respect
to the school question it is equally wise with
respect to the land policy of Sir John Macdonald which has been so often approved
by
the people of this country. I submit that
not only did the country generally commend that policy, but the province of Manitoba,
in which the policy was first put in
operation, has, if I am correctly informed,
always given a handsome majority to the
Conservative party of which Sir John Macdonald was the head. When the land
policy of Sir John Macdonald has been
approved by the province of Manitoba
for thirty-five years, I think it comes
—I will not say with ill grace but—
with little force from the hon. gentleman
(Mr. W. J. Roche) to find fault with the
right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), because he continues that policy.
Now, the hon, member for Marquette
makes an onslaught on this government,
and especially on the Prime Minister, because he does not change the boundaries of
the province. I understood my hon. friend
(Mr. Roche) to be strongly in favour of
provincial rights and as strongly against
anything that would interfere with those
rights without the provinces being consulted. I happen to have in my hand
the statute on this particular question
showing that it is not open to any
Prime Minister or government to deal
with the question exactly as he may
think proper. I gather from what the
hon. gentleman (Mr. W. J. Roche) says
that if there were a provision in this Bill
extending the boundaries of Manitoba and
making half a dozen other changes in the
boundaries of Ontario, Quebec and other
provinces, he would support it. But the
hon. gentleman must not forget that we have
no powers to deal indiscriminately with the
dividing lines between provinces. There
is an Act of the imperial parliament regulating matters of this kind; and, before
we
do anything about changing our neighbours'
land mark, we must consider that statute
that we may comply with it. It reads as
follows :
The parliament of Canada may from time to
time, with the consent of the legislature of any
province of the said Dominion, increase, diminish or otherwise alter the limits of
such province, upon such terms and conditions as may
be agreed to by the said legislature, and may,
with the like consent, make provision respecting the effect and operation of any such
increase or diminution or alteration of territory
in relation to any province affected thereby.
When the Prime Minister speaks of consulting Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and the
other provinces whose territory is likely to
be aflected by any changes in boundaries
made in that part of the country he is talking of doing what it is his bounden duty
3715 COMMONS
to do and is showing himself the true guardian of provincial rights.
Mr. R. L. BORDEN. Do I understand
my hon. friend (Mr D. D. McKenzie) to be
under the impression that, in order to incorporate into the province of Manitoba
some portion of the territory which is now
comprised in the Northwest Territories, it
would be necessary to have the consent of
the legislatures of Ontario or Quebec ?
Mr. D. D. McKENZIE. The Act says
that, if they are likely to be affected by it
they must be consulted. Of course, we
must leave something for the Prime Minister to judge for himself. If, in his judgment,
Quebec and Ontario are likely to be
affected, he is bound to consult those provinces. I think it is perfectly clear that
it
is not a matter that can be jumped at without full consideration. Though a man from
Manitoba might say that this matter does
not affect Quebec and Ontario, it is perfectly clear that the Prime Ministers of Ontario
and Quebec do not think so, for the hon.
gentleman (Mr. W. J. Roche) tells us that
they have filed claims with this government to be considered in the division of
this territory. Therefore, this important
statute clearly comes into operation here
and its terms must be complied with.
Now, my hon. friend (Mr. W. J. Roche)
has gone further, to deal with land policy.
He finds fault with the government—
and, consequently with all Conservative governments that have existed in this country
up to the present time—because they borrowed their land policy from the United
States. I do not think it makes much difference whence we get a policy, so long
as it is a good policy. If any rule of life
that we follow is a good one, it is not wise
for us to cast aside or neglect it because it
happens to be in use in the United States.
I do not think that any hon. gentleman in
this House will say that the land policy of
the United States has not been a success so
far as immigration is concerned, or so far as
development is concerned so far as attracting the people is concerned and their success
after they have gone to the United
States. I think we would be only too glad
if we could get as many people into our
country and as good a class as they are
getting through the land policy they have.
Now, it has been pointed out that the provinces would do better in the handling of
these lands than the central government.
That may be so, but one thing is certain—
that in the United States, if we can copy
them, they have not followed that policy.
The States have had nothing to do with
the public domain except possibly in their
3715
3716
early history they were formed into states,
exactly as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and
the other provinces when they came into
the union. I think they held what lands
they had then, except that some were
passed over to the central government under certain arrangements ; but any lands
they had acquired after the United States
had been formed under one government,
were held by the central government and one
policy prevailed in respect to the whole of
them. I submit that it is in the interests
of this country to have one policy and one
management of the public domain, one system in respect to immigration, and one price
for the lands, in order to avoid as much as
possible a conflict of management between
half a dozen different governments.
Mr. R. L. BORDEN. With regard to the
constitutional point with respect to which I
took the liberty of interrupting my hon.
friend a moment ago, I do not find in the
statute these words to which he referred:
' Likely to be affected thereby.' I did not
contradict my hon. friend, because I thought
he would be exact in his quotation. It says :
The parliament of Canada may from time to
time, with the consent of the legislature of
any province of the said Dominion, increase,
diminish or otherwise alter the limits of such
province, upon such terms and conditions as
may be agreed to by the said legislature, and
may with the like consent, make provision respecting the effect and operation of any
such
increase or diminution or alteration of territory in relation of any province affected
thereby.
Not 'likely to be affected thereby.'
Mr. D. D. McKENZIE. That was close to
it, but when we are dealing with the great
west we do not pay attention to trifling
things. The difference is certainly very
slight, and it was hardly worth my hon.
friend's while to bother with it. It is certainly clear that the intention of that
statute was that any province to be affected by
the change should be consulted, that there
should be legislation upon the subject, and
it is only by concurrent legislation on the
part of each government that they can deal
with it effectively. The question would not
be settled if we were first to start out to
deal with it effectively. The question would
not be settled if we were first to start out
to deal with it without the consent of the
others, and without that consent being obtained according to the statute. Although
I
may not be correct according to the very letter of the law, I am certainly not so
far
wrong as to justify the member from Marquette (Mr. W. J. Roche) in saying that we
are violating the constitution and doing a
whole lot of wrong things because we did
not deal with this question the right way.
Now I think those two points as to whether it is the duty of the government to deal
with this question as a public policy for the
whole country, or whether it is better to
3717 APRIL 3, 1905
cut it up into sections, have been answered.
Now I will deal briefly with another point
mentioned by the hon. gentleman with regard to the literature that was sent out
broadcast and what it said about the character of the schools. If a pamphlet that
has been sent out lately is such as the hon.
gentleman has stated, and I have no doubt
it is, I can only tell my hon. friend
that it is very different from some literature
of that character that was sent out in 1881
when the hon. gentleman's friends were leading the government of this country. The
Department of Agriculture sent out a
pamphlet making the following reference to
the subject of education :
The school system was based upon that of
Quebec, that is to say, that Catholics have an
absolute control and complete direction of the
education of their children, and that Protestants possess exactly the same rights.
That pamphlet was sent out in 1881 when
Sir John A. Macdonald and his friends had
control of the government, and when the
Act of 1875 was fresh in their minds. They
sent this pamphlet broadcast over Europe,
wherever immigrants could be induced to
come to this country and settle in our Northwest ; they were told that the same system
of schools prevailed there that prevailed in
Quebec and that people of the faith of our
Ontario friends would find there exactly the
kind of education that is given in Ontario.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I will proceed to deal
with the constitutional question that is involved in this discussion though I will
not
presume that I can deal with it satisfactorily
to everybody. I propose to deal with this
subject under three different phases. First,
I would ask what power have we in respect to this question ? What should we do
with that power or how should we exercise
it if we have any power in this matter ?
Now the first thing I find in this constitution
of ours states that the Dominion of Canada
shall be united with a constitution similar
to that and based upon the constitution of
Great Britain and Ireland. We start out
with that declaration in our constitution, it
is not a hard and fast constitution that is
unbending, that we cannot change one way
or the other ; it is a constitution similar in
principle to that of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland. Those of us who
know anything about the constitution of
Great Britain know how elastic it is, how
it is made to suit various conditions, how it
can be capable of taking under its folds all
conditons of men. When we remember that
we are attracting into our Northwest the
very classes of people that go to make up
the British empire we will realize at once
that we need just such a constitution as
that of the United Kingdom to enable us to
deal with all these people as successfully as
Great Britain deals with them. Now, Mr.
Speaker, we have a constitution in our hands
that is not a hard and fast instrument, we
3717
3718
have to deal with certain conditions in this
country to-day and I think it would be well
for us to keep constantly before our minds
that our constitution is based upon the British constitution that is able to govern
millions of people in the Indies, millions of
people in the other parts of the world, and
hundreds of thousands if not millions of
people in South Africa. In adjusting that
constitution to our own conditions will
it be said that we cannot without a wrench
and a violation of our institutions in this
country and the foundations of the state,
make that constitution that is equal in
principle to the British constitution apply
to the provinces of the west-? Now, very
shortly after confederation steps were
taken to bring in the Northwest Territories.
In order to understand this question aright
we should follow as nearly as possible the
steps that were taken in this connection.
First we find the parliament of Canada presenting an address asking Her Gracious
Majesty to admit Rupert's Land and the
Northwest Territories into the union. Let
us see what they say :
That the 146th section of the British North
America Act, 1867, provides for the admission
of Rupert's Land and the Northwest Territories,
or either of them, into the union with Canada,
upon the terms and conditions to be expressed
in addresses from the House of parliament of
this Dominion to your Majesty, and which shall
be approved of by your Majesty in Council.
That we do therefore most humbly pray that
your Majesty will be graciously pleased, by
and with the advice of your Most Honourable
Privy Council, to unite Rupert's Land and the
Northwestern Territory with this Dominion,
and to grant to the Parliament of Canada
authority to legislate for their future welfare
and good government and we most humbly beg
to express to your Majesty that we are willing
to assume the duties and obligations of government and legislation as regards these
territories.
That in the event of your Majesty's government agreeing to transfer to Canada the
jurisdiction and control over the said region, the
government and parliament of Canada will be
ready to provide that the legal rights of any
corporation, company or individual within the
same shall be respected, and placed under the
protection of courts of competent jurisdiction.
Now, what I wish to point out is that in
the second part of this petition the parliament of Canada, not recognizing up to this
time that they had the power to deal with
this territory, pray that Her Majesty shall
be graciously pleased to give them the power
that is necessary to make laws for the government of the country.
Mr. D. D. McKENZIE. 1868. After this
petition was presented to Her Majesty for
power to deal with this land an Order in
Council was passed on the 23rd day of
June, 1870. It is headed as follows:
3719
Rupert's Land and the Northwestern Territory.
At the Court at Windsor, the 23rd day of
June, 1870.
Present: - The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, Lord President, Lord Privy Seal. Lord
Chamberlain, Mr. Gladstone.
Whereas by the British North America Act,
1867, it was (amongst other things) enacted
that it should be lawful for the Queen, by and
with the advice of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, on Address from the
Houses
of Parliament of Canada, to admit Rupert's Land
and the Northwestern Territory, or either of
them, into the Union on such terms and conditions in each case as should be in the
addresses
expressed, and as the Queen should think fit
to approve, subject to the provisions of the
said Act. And it was further enacted that the
provisions of any Order in Council in that
behalf should have effect as if they had been
enacted by the parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland:
And whereas by an address from the Houses
of the parliament of Canada, of which address
a copy is contained in the schedule to this
order annexed, marked A, Her Majesty was
prayed, by and with the advice of Her Most
Honourable Privy Council, to unite Rupert's
Land and the Northwestern Territory with the
Dominion of Canada, and to grant to the parliament of Canada authority to legislate
for their
future welfare and good government upon the
terms and conditions therein stated:
And whereas by the Rupert's Land Act, 1868,
it was (amongst other things) enacted that it
should be competent for the Governor and
company of adventurers of England trading
into Hudson Bay (hereinafter called the company) to surrender to Her Majesty, and
for
Her Majesty, by an instrument under Her
sign manual and Signet to accept a surrender
of all or any of the lands, territories, rights.
privileges, liberties, franchises, powers, and
authorities whatsoever, granted or purported
to be granted by certain letters patent therein
recited to the said company within Rupert's
Land, upon such terms and conditions as should
be agreed upon by and between Her Majesty
and the said company; provided however, that
such surrender should not be accepted by Her
Majesty until the terms and conditions upon
which Rupert's Land should be admitted into
the said Dominion :
And Whereas such surrender has been duly
accepted by Her Majesty, by an instrument
under Her sign manual and signet, bearing
date at Windsor the twenty-second day of June,
one thousand eight hundred and seventy:
It is hereby ordered and declared by Her
Majesty, by and with the advice of the Privy
Council, in pursuance and exercise of the
powers vested in Her Majesty by the said Acts
of parliament, that from and after the fifteenth
day of July, one thousand eight hundred and
seventy, the said Northwestern Territory shall
be admitted into and become part of the Dominion of Canada upon the terms and conditions
set forth in the first hereinbefore recited
address. and that the parliament of Canada
shall from the day aforesaid have full power
and authority to legislate for the future welfare
and good government of the said Territory.
And it is further ordered that, Without prejudice to any obligations arising from
the aforesaid approved report. Rupert's Land shall from
and after the said date he admitted into and
become part of the Dominion of Canada upon
3719
3720
the following terms and conditions, being the
terms and conditions still remaining to be performed of those embodied in the said
second
address of the parliament of Canada and approved ot by Her Majesty as aforesaid :—
1. Canada is to pay to the company £300,000
when Rupert's Land is transferred to the Dominion of Canada.
These are simply the steps that have been
taken in regard to this land—in the first instance the conveyance of the title to
the
land to Her Majesty, taking it back from the
company; in the next place granting to the
parliament of Canada the powers they ask
for to deal with this country, to make laws
in respect to it and to exercise full control
over it. Now, there is another matter of
importance in view of the discussion which
is now taking place in this House. What
seems to be worrying us now is whether or
not we have jurisdiction to deal with this
question, whether or not we have jurisdiction to give a constitution to these new
provinces. That is where some of our friends
seem to find a difficulty. They say that the
difficulty is not that they are not willing
to extend these powers, but they question
whether under the constitution they have
the authority to do so. They would make
us believe that they would be willing and
pleased to extend these powers, but they
say they cannot get away from the principles of the constitution.
That seems to be the position they take.
Very shortly after confederation it became
apparent to those governing Canada, that
they would have to create new provinces in
the Territories, and Sir John Macdonald was
clear enough in his judgment and sound
enough in his constitutional law to see that
it would be necessary for him to get certain
additional powers for this purpose. We
need not speculate as to what Sir John Macdonald wanted, because he set forth his
wish in a letter to Lord Kimberley, then
Secretary of State for the Colonies, in which
he wrote that he wanted an Act confirming
the Act of the Canadian parliament 3-3 Victoria, chapter 3, as if it had been passed
as
an imperial statute. He further wrote that
he wanted authority:
To empower the Dominion parliament from
time to time to establish other provinces in the
Northwest Territories with such local government, legislature and constitution, as
it may
think proper, provided that no such local government or legislature should have greater
power conferred upon it than the power conferred upon the local government and legislatures
by the British North America Act, 1867;
and also empowering it to grant such provinces
representation in the parliament of the Dominion.
The only limitation Sir John wanted was
that the new provinces should be given no
greater power than was granted to the older
provinces at the time of confederation. If
Sir John Macdonald wanted power simply to
apply the British North America Act to the
new provinces, he was clear-headed enough
3721 APRIL 3, 1905
to have said so, but he wanted more. It may
be said that the Act of 1870 was modified in
its passage through the imperial parliament,
and that Sir John Macdonald's idea was not
crystallized into legislation, but I have taken
the trouble to follow the career of this Act
in its different stages through the imperial
parliament, and I find that it was introduced
one day, read a second time another day, a
third time another day, and not a single
syllable was said about it in the House or
in Committee of the Whole. This clearly
shows that the imperial parliament simply
took the Bill as it was sent to them from
the Canadian government, and put it through
without any change. We are quite familiar
with the Act itself, and I think that any
ordinary man can have no difficulty in
coming to the conclusion that it gives us
new powers which up to that time we had
not. It says :
The parliament of Canada may from time to
time establish new provinces in any territories
forming for the time being part of the Dominion of Canada, but not included in any
province thereof, and may at the time of such
admission make provisions for the construction
and administration of any such province and
for the passing of laws for the peace, order
and good government of the province.
Reading that, with the explanation contained in Sir John's letter to Lord Kimberley,
I do not think there is very much difficulty in concluding what power we have.
It may be said: if the power of the Dominion parliament to form the new provinces
of Manitoba was good and absolute,
and if there was no question about its constitutionality, why did the Canadian government
go to England for confirmation of the
Manitoba Act. Without setting oneself up
as any great constitutional authority, I think
it is perfectly plain why that happened.
The parliament of Canada believed that it
had no power to deal with the Northwest
except as to the power which was delegated
by the Orders in Council which I have read,
and by acts which were passed subsequent to
the British North America Act of 1867. The
Order in Council giving them power to deal
with this question was passed on the 21st
day of June, but it will be seen that the
Manitoba Act received the assent of the
Governor General here in Canada on the
12th of May previously. The Act being
passed in this House before the passage of
the Order in Council, it might well have
suggested itself to the law officers in Canada that they had no authority, and that
as
it was an important constitutional matter,
it was better to remove any doubt by a confirming Act. If the dates were revised ;
if
the Order in Council giving the parliament
of Canada power to deal with this question
had been passed on the 12th of May and the
Manitoba Act passed on the 21st of June
following, you would have heard nothing
about the constitutionality of the law, but
the fact that the Act was passed before the
3721
3722
Order in Council was signed by Her Majesty
created the doubt. The ex-Minister of the
Interior, excellent lawyer that he is, gave
it as his opinion (and it has not been contradicted), that the law officers of the
Crown in England did not consider that a
confirmatory Act was necessary and that
they held there was ample power in this
parliament to pass the Act of 1870. I submit that if we had power to pass the Manitoba
Act of 1870, there is nothing in the Bill
now before the House which takes it out of
the category of the provisions contained in
the Manitoba Act, and which would oust us
from our power to legislate.
It may be said that there is an amendment in the Manitoba Act. So there is, and
there is only an amendment in this Act.
The power of amendment was recognized
in the Manitoba Act, and section 2 of that
Act simply says that the British North
America Act will be changed in such a way
as to suit the circumstances and conditions
existing in Manitoba. Those changes are
contained in that Act to-day. The second
section of the Act to-day is precisely, as
nearly as I can read it, the same as the
second section of the Manitoba Act of 1870.
The Act of 1870 reads that such changes
shall be made as are necessary to make the
British North America Act applicable to
the conditions existing in Manitoba. That
is not the exact wording, but that is the
meaning of it ; it is changed to suit the
circumstances. Now, what do we find today ? All that we find in the second section
of the Bill which is now before the
House is that changes will be made to suit
the circumstances existing at the time at
which we create another province. A great
deal of fear seems to be expressed by some
parties in this House that we are destroying
the constitution, that it is an awful thing to
make any amendment in this Act. and the
slightest change would destroy the whole
fabric of the constitution. Sir John Macdonald was, I presume, as loyal to the constitution
as any man in this country. Our
hon. friends, at any rate, were willing to
follow him and to endorse his views on constitutional matters. He proposed this
amendment to the constitution in 1870, he
put it through this House, he went several
times to the country, and the electors endorsed himself, his constitution and his
amendments, and nobody ever suggested
that there was the slightest danger in the
world in anything he did in connection with
this bringing into effect of the provisions
for the admission of other provinces. If it
was all right to make these slight changes
in 1870, to legislate for separate schools in
1875, why is it not all right to-day to make
slight changes in order to bring the Act
fully and properly into effect in the western
provinces ? The leader of, the opposition,
since this debate commenced, suggested an
amendment in clause 109 of the British
North America Act. The British North Am
3723
COMMONS
erica Act, so far as it deals with land, deals
with it in section 109. section 109 gives the
land to the provinces unconditionally. The
hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden) excellent lawyer as he is. before
this
question got to such a red heat as it is today, when the Bill was first introduced,
suggested in this House. in connection with this
land question, that it would be well to introduce an amendment by which, although
the lands were given to the western provinces, they would not have absolute control
of them ; he would have some stipulations and conditions placed upon the manner
in which they would hold the land, and
would not give them an entirely and absolutely free hand. If it is proper for the
hon. leader of the opposition to suggest
that there should be such an amendment, if
it would be proper to say that we should
put such a proviso in section 109 of the
British North America Act, what is the objection to making slight changes in other
parts of the Act If we have no power to
touch it at all, if we cannot touch it in
reference to schools, we cannot touch it in
reference to lands; and if we can touch it
in reference to lands, we can touch it in
reference to schools.
Mr. R. L. BORDEN. Section 109 does not
deal with the distribution of legislative
power. Section 109 deals with the ownership of lands. It is only when the land is
vested in the provinces that the question of
legislative power arises, so they are two
entirely distinct things.
Mr. R. L. BORDEN. I do not wish my
hon. friend to misunderstand me. I said
we could not alter the distribution of legislative power. That is the point I made.
Mr. D. D. MCKENZIE. I understand that
the position of my hon. friend is that we
cannot amend the British North America
Act.
Mr. R. L. BORDEN. No. we cannot; I
do not take the position. however. that the
'terms and conditions' must always be the
same.
Mr. R. L. BORDEN. As far as amending
the Act is concerned, of course my hon.
friend knows that section 146 of the British
North America Act speaks of the terms and
conditions on which provinces or territories
may be brought in. That is one thing. But
the distribution of legislative power is an
other and an entirely different thing.
Mr. D. D. MCKENZIE. If we have no
power to amend the Act, then we cannot
touch it; and still it was quite competent,
within the purview and terms of section 146
of which my hon. friend speaks, to
3723
3724
make terms and conditions, because that
section of the Act contemplates two purposes. It contemplates the admission of
Manitoba, British Columbia, Newfoundland
and Prince Edward Island and other provinces, which are entities, provincial entitles,
at the time and capable of contracting. They were capable of going into this
compact, of preparing a scheme in the shape
of an address which is confirmed by Order
in Council. It is quite true that they can
put into it and take out of it, and slice it
and form it, as it suits them, but the moment it receives the sanction of the
Sovereign by Order in Council, then that is
an end to it. In this case, instead of a
compact. we have an Act of parliament.
But my hon. friend takes the position that
you cannot make any change in that Act.
that you must simply make the conditions
which suited New Brunswick. Nova Scotia,
Quebec and Ontario, apply to the new provinces, because you have no sea room at
all, you can do nothing. It is quite true
that there was no limitation on the conditions which could be placed in the Order
in
Council, there was nothing to limit your
sway in making the bargain; but will my
hon. friend or his supporters submit that
we have the same scope today? If they
will admit that we have the saline scope
to-day, that we can put in the constitution
which they are making for the new provinces every line and every word that we
could put in an Order in Council bringing
in British Columbia, Prince Edward Island
or Newfoundland ; if we have those powers
under the constitution, then we have ample
powers to put all these conditions into the
new constitution. Will my hon. friend tell
me, or tell this House or the country. that
the provisions of section 92 or section 93 of
the British North America Act were binding
on Prince Edward Island when it was
coming in, or on British Columbia when
it came in? Nothing of the kind. They
could make such provisions as they thought
proper, and is it not right, when it is only
this parliament that has the responsibility
today—for there is no provision by which
an address can come from the Territories.
so that this is a one-sided negotiation, so to
speak. and we take the full responsibility
in this House for what this constitution
will be—that we should be told that the
constitution that would not stand in the
way of the admission of New Brunswick or
Prince Edward Island, or any other province, into confederation, must prevent us
from making such terms and stipulations as
we think are proper and right in bringing in
new provinces from the west. I do not think
that, as the leader of the opposition himself
would say, it is either law or logic or sound
argument to say that we have not as free
a hand in making a province under the
terms of the Act as we would have under
the conditions which we could place in an
Order in Council and in an address from an
existing provincial entity. I submit. Mr.
3725 APRIL 3, 1905
Speaker, that I do not think my learned
friend has any too well answered the point
that we have equal rights in dealing with
the conditions under the Act as we would
have in making an Order in Council and
stipulating how a particular province is to
come in. I was going to say, Mr. Speaker,
that if we wished to ascertain what powers
the fathers of confederation thought they
possessed, under the conditions of the confederation, the best time for us to search
for information on that point would be in
1870, when the conditions of the compact
were fresh in their minds.
We hear a great deal about this section
93 giving exclusive power to the province.
Would it not be well to look at this Act
in the light cast upon it by some of the decisions of the Privy Council, and those
are
decisions which we should not lightly cast
aside even if they do run contrary to our
own opinion. A great many contend that
this section 93 gives the province unlimited
powers to deal with matters of education.
It seems to me that our hon. friends who
read the Act in such a light simply stop at
the end of the first two lines :
In and for each province the legislature may
exclusively make laws in relation to education.
But there are four other sections which
these hon. gentlemen do not read at all.
There is also a decision of the Privy Council
right in point upon that section ; and it
seems to me that in order not to be misled
any longer as to its full force, effect and
meaning, it would be well to quote that decision. This is what the Privy Council said
in dealing exactly with that proviso :
Before leaving this part of the case it may
be well to notice the argument urged by the
respondent that the construction which their
lordships have put upon the second and third
subsections of the section of the Manitoba Act
is inconsistent with the powers conferred upon
the legislatures of the provinces to exclusively
make laws in respect to education. The argument is fallacious. The power conferred
is not
absolute but limited. It is exercisable only
subject and according to the following provision.
The subsections which follow, whatever be
their true construction defining the conditions
under which alone provincial legislatures may
legislate with reference to education and indicate the limitations imposed on and
the exceptions from their power to legislate exclusively,
their right to legislate is not enjoyed properly
speaking exclusively, for in the case specified
in subsection 3 the parliament of Canada is
authorized to legislate on the same subject.
There is, therefore, no such inconsistency as is
suggested.
That is the decision of the Privy Council.
It shows that in the British North America
Act, from cover to cover, there is no such
thing as giving to any province the exclusive powers to deal with education. I take
the responsibility of saying that there is
not to-day such a thing in this country as
any province dealing exclusively with education. I heard the hon. member for East
3725
3726
Grey (Mr. Sproule) asking the hon. member
for Assiniboia (Mr. Scott) the other day whether or not there was a province in the
Dominion which had a free hand to deal with
education. I say there is not. There are
provinces in the Dominion to-day which are
free to pass one Act. Nova Scotia to-day is
perfectly free to pass an Act that will contain some terms in respect to the separate
schools ; but once the Nova Scotia legislature passes such an Act it cannot change
it. Or if it should, it would be subject to
an appeal to the government of the Dominion for remedial legislation. Therefore it
can
well be said that there is no province in the
Dominion to-day which has this wonderful,
absolute right to deal with the question of
education as it sees fit.
There is another point to which I would
direct attention, as showing the intention of
this part of the Confederation Act. It would
be well for us to try and understand, without any haste or passion or feeling in this
matter, how these questions were understood
from the beginning. Some day in February,
1867, these clauses 92 and 93 were under consideration in the House of Lords. Now,
whatever feeling there may be in this House
and country over the question, I think we
will all admit that the House of Lords
would approach it with a great deal of calmness and give it due consideration, and
that
not one of the venerable gentlemen who occupy seats in that House would be in the
slightest degree nervous about explaining
what these clauses really meant. We find
Lord Carnarvon dealing with this question
calmly and judicially. As to clause 93, he
said :
Lastly, in the 93rd clause which contains the
exceptional provisions to which I refer, your
lordship will observe some rather complicated
arrangements in reference to education. I need
hardly say that that great question gives rise
to nearly as much earnestness and division of
opinion on that as on this side of the Atlantic.
This clause has been framed after long and
anxious controversy in which all parties have
been represented and on conditions to which all
had given their consent. . . . The object of
the clause is to secure to the religious minority
in one province the same rights, privileges and
protection which the religious minority in
another province may enjoy. The Roman
Catholic minority of Upper Canada, the Protestant minority of Lower Canada and the
Roman Catholic minority of the maritime provinces will thus stand on a footing of
entire
equality.
That is the explanation which Lord Carnarvon gave in 1867, and I submit to you
that that was the way in which the late Sir
John Macdonald and the framers of the
Manitoba Act understood it in 1870.
I would ask you to note the strong resemblance between clause 93 in the British North
America Act and the Manitoba Act.
In and for the province the said legislature
may exclusively make laws in relation to education, subject to the following provisions.
3727 COMMONS
I submit that the provisions are exactly
the same except where an amendment is
made to make them applicable to what existed in those days in Manitoba. The second
section of the Act is:
On, from and after the said day on which the
order of the Queen in Council shall take effect
as aforesaid, the provisions of the British North
America Act of 1867 shall, except those parts
thereof which are in terms made or by reasonable intendment may be held to be specially
applicable to or only to affect one or more but
not the whole of the provinces now composing
the Dominion, and except so far as the same
may be varied by this Act, be applicable to
the province of Manitoba in the same way and
to the like extent as they apply to the several
provinces of Canada and as if the province of
Manitoba had been one of the provinces originally united by the said Act.
That is the same language which is to be
found in the Act creating the province of
Alberta, and there has been some talk as
to what the effect of that Act might be on
the educational question. I think there was
some exception taken to the construction
put upon the clause by my hon. friend from
West Assiniboia, which we find in the Act
which has been submitted as a constitution
for the new provinces by the premier, Mr.
Haultain.
Now, I have read to you, Mr. Speaker,
the clause in the Manitoba Act. This is the
corresponding clause that we find in Mr.
Haultain's Bill. The name of the province
is blank, but I supply the name of Alberta:
On and after the said first day of January,
1903, the provisions of the British North
America Act, 1867, except those parts thereof
which are in terms made or by reasonable intendment may be held to be, specially applicable
to or to affect only one or more but not
the whole of the provinces under that Act composing the Dominion, and except so far
as the
same may be varied by this Act, shall be
applicable to the province of Alberta in the
same way and to the same extent as they apply
to the several provinces of Canada and as if
the province of Alberta had been one of the
provinces originally united by the said Act.
At this point I wish to look a little closely
at the meaning of this language so far as
education is concerned. Hon. members who
are opposing the Bill and who profess to be
particular friends of the Northwest, have
nothing to say against this draft Act, so
far as I can understand. They say there
are terms in the proposed Act of the Prime
Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) which bring
the separate schools into effect in the Northwest, and they declare they are not in
favour of such a policy. At the same time, I
do not think they have anything to say
against this draft Act of Mr. Haultain's.
If you examine this clause closely you will
find what Mr. Haultain means is that whatever is in existence in the Territories today
will be gathered together, the whole
business shoved back to 1867 and then
brought in as if this was a new province.
Whatever law you have in force in the Ter
3727
3728
ritories to-day must be dealt with as if it
had been a law in force in 1867, the time of
confederation. What is the law in force in
the Territories? Is not the Act of 1875 as
much in force to-day as it was when it was
passed? It has not been repealed. The
fact that ordinances have been based upon
it which are inconsistent with it in some
respects or which are not as strong in the
direction it intended as the Act itself, does
not take away the validity of the Act. That
Act created separate schools, and that is
the Act which Mr. Haultain says is to be
continued in force as if had been passed in
1867. That is the effect of what Mr. Haultain proposes, as I understand it. And while
hon. gentlemen opposed to the government
are unwilling to take separate schools from
us, they are ready to swallow them holus
bolus when offered by Mr. Haultain. I am
not finding fault with Mr. Haultain for putting this in the Act. I think he was doing
the right thing in recognizing the conditions
that existed at the time. But we must not
claim credit for doing what we are not doing. Mr. Haultain and his friends claim
credit for not recognizing the conditions in
the west. They were going to wipe the
whole thing off the slate, and so they claimed to be the friends of the Territories
and
say that we are the enemies of the Territories. But they cannot sustain that argument
in the face of this draft Act, which
has in it ever word, if not more, than we
have in the legislation before the House.
I have pointed out the different conditions
which are in this Manitoba Act. It contains section 2, exactly like the one which
is going through to-day. Section 26 of it
deals with the land question; and section
20 deals with the school question. So it is
precisely the same as the Act now before
us. I was pointing out—and I think it is
necessary to point out-the ideas which prevail in connection with this constitution
which was given to the Territories in 1875.
It has been observed here by the hon. member for Marquette that nothing that Alex.
Mackenzie and Edward Blake, and old men
of that kind said should not receive very
much attention. I do not regard Hon. Edward Blake's views on constitutional questions
in that way. I think that Mr. Blake
was a big man on constitutional questions
in 1875; I think he has been a big man on
constitutional questions every year since,
and I believe he is a big man on constitutional questions to-day; and for that reason
we ought to be very much pleased when we
find in the books things that he said on
questions of this kind, and we ought to be
satisfied that what he has said on these
questions is sound and good. This is What
he said when this Bill of 1875 was before
the House, when this question of forming
the constitution of the Northwest Territories
was being dealt with. It will be seen that
the words of Mr. Blake are not the words
of a man who thought that we were creat
3729 APRIL 3, 1905
ing a constitutional fabric which was to
last for only a few days, something that
was to be wiped off the slate when we chose
to do so. He speaks of the constitution then
being formed as the basis and the foundation for the laws under which thousands
and millions of people will come into that
country. He said:
To found primary institutions under which
we hope to see hundreds of thousands; and
the more sanguine among us think millions of
men and families settled and flourishing, was
one of the noblest undertakings that could be
entered upon by any legislative body, and it
was no small indication of the power and true
position of this Dominion that parliament
should be engaged to-day in that important
task. He agreed with the hon. member for
Kingston—
That, I presume, was Sir John Macdonald.
—that the task was one that required time,
consideration and deliberation and they must
take care that no false steps were made in
such a work. He did not agree with that
right hon. gentleman that the government ought
to repeat his errors. The right hon. gentleman
had tried the institutions for the Northwest
Territories which he now asked the House
to frame and for the same reason as he had
given to-day—that it would be better for the
Dominion government to keep matters in their
own hands and decide what was best for the
future. He (Mr. Blake) believed that it was
essential to our obtaining a large immigration
to the Northwest that we should tell the people
beforehand what those rights were to be in
the country in which we invited them to settle.
It was interesting to the people to know that
at the very earliest moment there was a
sufficient aggregate of population within a
reasonable distance, that aggregation would
have a voice in the self-government of the
Territories, and he believed the Dominion
government was wise (although the measure
might be brought down very late this session
and it might be found impossible to give it
due consideration) in determining in advance
of settlement what the character of the institutions of the country should be in which
we
invite people. He did not agree with the
policy of asking people to settle in that western
country, and tell them that a paternal government would look after them, and would
give
them such institutions as the government
thought suitable. We had better let the people
know their fate politically and otherwise before they settle there.
And he said further:
He regarded it as essential under the circumstances of the country and in view of
the
deliberation during the last few days that a
general principle should be laid down in the
Bill with respect to public instruction.
He did believe that we ought not to introduce into that territory the heart-burnings
and
difficulties with which certain other portions of
this Dominion and other countries had been
afflicted. It seemed to him, having regard to
the fact that, as far as we could expect at
present, the general character of that population would be somewhat analogous to the
population of Ontario, that there should be some
provision in the constitution by which they
should have conferred upon them the same
3729
3730
rights and privileges in regard to religious instruction as those possessed by the
people of
the province of Ontario. The principles of local
self-government and the settling the question
of public instruction seemed to him ought to be
the cardinal principles of the measure.
In reply to him Mr. Mackenzie makes a
short speech, showing what his views are,
and setting forth the terms of that section
11 of the Northwest Territories Act, 1875,
with which we are familiar. Now, Mr.
Speaker, in exercising this power I think it
is safe for us to follow the precedents that
have been laid down. I should think that
the different steps that have been taken
by the imperial government in giving us
control over this territory, enabling us to
make a constitution, and giving us every
other power that they could give us in order
to form these new countries into provinces
and to give them constitutions, that being
the case, it seems to me there is no question
but that we have the power. The next question is, how are we to exercise it. I was
pointing out that I think it is wise to exercise that power along the same lines as
it
was exercised by Sir John A. Macdonald
in 1870, by Mr. Mackenzie in 1875, and by
Mr. Haultain when he had the drafting of
the Bill a few years ago, and as it is exercised to-day, by the premier of this country
who guides us in the way in which we
should exercise this power.
It is contended that we do not grant constitutional freedom. This is constitutional
freedom as it is understood by the Supreme
Court of the United States :
' Constitutional freedom' certainly does not
consist in exemption from governmental interference in the citizen's private affairs,
in his
being unmolested in his family, in being suffered to buy, sell and enjoy property,
and generally to seek happiness in his own way. All
these might be permitted by the most arbitrary
ruler, even though he allowed his subjects no
degree of political liberty. Mr. Justice Storey
has well shown that constitutional freedom
means something more than liberty permitted ;
it consists in the civil and political rights which
are absolutely guaranteed assured, and guarded;
in one's liberties as a man and a citizen—his
rights to vote, his rights to hold office, his
right to worship God according to the dictates
of his own conscience, his equality with all
others who are his fellow-citizens, all these,
guarded and protected, and not held at the
mercy and discretion of any one man or any
popular majority. People vs. Hurlbut, 24 Mich.
44, 106, 108, 9 Am. Dec. 103.
Now the great difficulty seems to be why
we must have separate schools. There are
some people among us, and their ideas are
deserving of every respect, who think that
separate schools are not necessary and
that we should not make provision for them.
But a great many people in this country
think they are necessary, and that being the
case, we have to deal with circumstances
as we find them. I heard a quotation from
a paper to-night giving the language of some
3731 COMMONS
reverend gentleman, I think belonging to
my own church, saying that he hoped the
day would arrive when one common ground
of education could be reached, and when
some form of religion could be taught in
the schools upon which all could agree.
Well, Sir, if there was any hope of reaching
that state of affairs, I would be very glad.
But we have been nearly a hundred years
in trying to agree upon that point, and we
do not seem to be any nearer to it to-day
than we were then. I find that in 1854 there
was a separate school law in the province
of Ontario ; I find that they repealed it and
in 1863 they put it again on the statute-book,
and they now have separate schools in the
province of Ontario. Seeing that neither in
Quebec nor in Ontario can the present
system be changed, it seems to me there
is not much hope of being able to do away
entirely with the principle of separate
schools. Now, this very point was considered by the Privy Council, as will appear
on
page 485, volume 5, of Cartwright's Reports.
They ask the question why it is that Catholics cannot agree to this common school
education ? And they answer it in this wise :
It is owing to religious convictions which
everybody must respect, and to the teaching of
the church that Roman Catholics and members
of the Church of England find themselves unable to partake of advantages which the
law
offers to all alike.
Dealing with the same subject the Privy
Council, at page 187 of the same volume,
says :
As a matter of fact the objections of Roman
Catholics to schools such as alone receive state
aid under the Act of 1890 (Manitoba Act), is
conscientious and deeply rooted. If this had
not been so, if there had been a system of
public education acceptable to Protestant and
Catholic alike, the elaborate enactments which
have been the subject of so much controversy
and consideration would have been unnecessary.
It is notorious that there were acute differences
of opinion between Catholics and Protestants
on the education question prior to 1870. This
is recognized and emphasized on almost every
line of these enactments. There is no doubt
either what the points of difference were, and
it is in the light of these that the twenty-second
section of the Manitoba Act of 1870, which was
throughout a parliamentary compact, must be
read.
Dealing with the same question further
on their Lordships say that the argument
urged by some people in favour of common
schools is that they suit both alike. To
this we cannot agree, as our Roman Catholic friends cannot accept them as doing
justice to their views in respect to religious
education.
Now, Mr. Speaker, there is no strong reason, from a presonal standpoint, why I
should not be just as well satisfied with
separate schools or with public schools as
any other gentleman in this House. But
I have this to say, that the experience of
3731
3732
many years in close touch with the public
schools of the province from which I come,
has taught me that there is no use in trying to force upon any people a system of
education with which they are not satisfied.
Now my own position on the question is
this : I am in favour of the most absolute
and thorough government supervision and
control of all schools receiving government
grants or municipal aid. I am strongly in
favour of the teaching of the principles of
the Christian religion in schools. I am
firmly convinced, after many years of active
experience, that the teaching of religion cannot be successfully and harmoniously
conducted in a mixed school attended by Roman Catholics and Protestant children together.
I am a firm believer in the divine
injunction: 'Train up a child in the way
he should go and when he is old he will not
depart from it.' I believe it is the duty of
the state to see that as much as possible the
cardinal principles of the Christian religion
are thoroughly instilled into the youthful
minds of the nation. I believe that this all-
important purpose can only be accomplished
by Protestants of all classes agreeing upon a
certain line of religious instruction in all
Protestant Schools.
I believe that the Roman Catholics of
Canada are doing the right thing when they
insist upon the teaching of their children in
the religious principles of their church.
Our Protestant friends say that there
is no religious teaching in our national schools and it is as good for
your children as it is for ours ; that is quite
true, and that view is worthy of some respect. But, our Roman Catholic friends say:
We know that what you say is true and we
know that our children will not be in any
way interfered with in the common schools.
But that is not enough ; we want our children to receive religious instructions every
day in the school and we want those instructions to be guided and inspired by the
teachings of our church and we want the
instructions imparted by a person who understands and believes in them. This, as
I understand it, is the position of our Catholic people in Canada and it is one, particularly
from their standpoint, that commends itself to me, and one which I most cheerfully
commend to the Protestants of Canada. As
one who has been for the last twenty years
in close touch with the public schools of the
province of Nova Scotia, I take the responsibility of telling my Protestant countrymen
that they cannot be too soon in following the example of their Roman Catholic
brethren in insisting upon religious teaching
in every school of the land.
That is the position which I take in respect
to religion in the schools. I believe it is
the proper thing to have it and if we must
have separate schools in order to have religion in the schools let us have separate
schools. If we can have them together, all
3733 APRIL 3, 1905
right, but if we cannot let us have them
any way. What is the use of Protestants
starving religion out of the schools and depriving their children of religious instruction
for the sake of a few dollars ? Why
should we hold out for a thing that Roman
Catholics cannot and will not accept ? Is
is not a proper thing for us as Protestants
who have children to educate them in our
own way? There is nothing in so far as the
different Protestant bodies are concerned
that will prevent them from having their
children educated together in the same
classes, taught by the same teachers or from
receiving religious instructions upon grounds
common to all Protestant bodies.
I was talking about this amendment. A
great deal of fault is found because we have
this amendment. I submit that this amendment is not legislation of this House. It
is
legislation that was passed by the legislature of the Northwest Territories. They
are just as fully represented in their local
House as the province of Manitoba. According to their size and population they have
just as many representatives in the local
legislature of the Northwest Territories as
any local parliament of Canada. They have
a government, they have a premier, they
have all the powers that a local legislature
has except that they cannot borrow money
and the longer that power is kept from them,
I think, the better. This is an Act they
have passed themselves. The Northwest
Territories have passed this legislation and
they appear to be perfectly satisfied with it
and we have some evidence in its favour.
We heard the speech the other evening by
the hon. memeber for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Lake),
an opponent of this government. He put
himself on record in connection with these
schools, and what he says is this :
I intend to claim the privilege of briefly
putting on record the views which I hold with
regard to this question. After nearly twenty-
two years residence in the Northwest Territories, I believe firmly that the public
school
system as at present administered is the one
best suited to the needs of the country.
That is the view of the hon. member for
Qu'Appelle about the legislation that we are
dealing with. He says that he has had
twenty-two years experience in the Northwest, that he has seen many changes and
that this law which is now on the statute-
book has given satisfaction to that country.
Mr. Haultain himself says about this Act
that he has had some experience of it as
premier, and he says:
If I were dictator I would not change one line
of it.
It is perfectly satisfactory to the premier,
it is perfectly satisfactory to the hon. member for Qu'Appelle, and as far as we can
find out it is perfectly satisfactory to every
man who knows anything about education
in the west. Now, if it is so satisfactory
and if we are keeping it in the constitution
3733
3734
of the provinces, what is the matter with
it ? Is it not the right thing to do? Is it
not right that we should have permanent
institutions and not be subject to every
change of doctrine that may come about
from one day to another ? It may be necessary for me, on account of some statements
that were made about this Act, to deal to
some extent with some of its provisions. I
am sorry that in the part of the country
that I come from some of the clergy have
been a little bit carried away by the agitation that has been going on in connection
with this Act. I find this letter in some
newspaper published in the part of the country I come from and when I read to this
House certain provisions of the Education
Act, I think it will be observed that there
is no very great justification for this letter
which was written by a reverend gentleman
for whom the whole country, myself
amongst others, has the greatest respect. I
am only sorry that he did not take the trouble to learn for himself what the provisions
of this Act are before he made such a pronouncement. He says :
But to be perfectly frank, what is asked in
this Autonomy Bill is not separate denominational schools ; there is no mention of
Russian or Jew or Anglican or Presbyterian, what
is asked is the recognition and public maintenance of Roman Catholic schools which
the
ratepayer is to support whatever his religious
views may be. That is not equal educational
privileges for all, this is not even the principle
of separate schools, this is discrimination, it
is the selection of one class of denominational
schools for public support for all time and this
without any reference to the public supervision
of the teaching staff either in the matter of
its appointment or its qualifications. Surely
one is not to be called unjust and bigoted because he hesitates at fastening on posterity
an
unequal school system so pregnant with discord and strife as this is sure to be. Rather
it would seem does the injustice lie in making
any discrimination at all.
When we see what the provisions of this
Act are, I think it is a pity that this reverend gentlemen who has put a little time
on this question, at all events, enough time
to enable him to write this letter, did not
give it a little more attention, before he
came to the conclusion that this Act was
such an awful thing as he seems to think it
is.
In the province of Nova Scotia we have
a public free school system, the law governing which has been on the statute-books
since 1864, but since then it has been several times amended. I have had something
to do with the school legislation of Nova Scotia, and I know its provisions very well.
I must say that so far as I know the Nova Scotia School Act, and comparing it with
the Northwest Territories Education Act, I am inclined to believe that the latter
is more full in its provisions, and, taking it all round, a better law. I would like
our Nova Scotia friends to understand what
3735
kind of an Education Act for the Territories
we are giving our sanction to in this House,
and I shall briefly contrast some of its provisions with those of the Nova Scotia
School
Law. In Nova Scotia we have what is
known as a superintendent of education
who is an officer of the government holding
office for life or good conduct, but in the
Northwest Territories they have a commissioner of education, who is a member of
the government, responsible to the people,
and who must go back for re-election. The
Commissioner of Education in the Northwest
Territories has full control of everything
pertaining to education ; he makes regulations as to the competency of the teachers
for receiving a license ; he controls their
conduct after they are licensed ; he supervises the manner in which they are engaged
by the trustees ; he drafts a form of contract which they must sign and they cannot
teach school for one day without having
complied with every regulation of the Act.
Some hon. gentlemen have tried to make
out that the separate school is absolutely
apart from the public school, but I wish the
message to be carried to our friends in Nova
Scotia that this is an absolute mis-statement
of the fact. The separate schools are national
in every sense ; they have the same text
books, the same inspection and are under
the same supervision as the common schools.
From nine o'clock in the morning until half
past three in the afternoon nothing can be
taught in these schools except the ordinary
prescribed lessons, but by arrangement between the trustees and the parents of the
children in separate schools, there may be
a half hour's religious instruction each day
after half past three in the afternoon. I cannot see anything wrong about giving religious
instruction in that manner ; for my part I would like to see it the rule in every
school in the country. Again, we are told by some hon. gentlemen, that once we pass
this Act the school system in the Territories can never be changed, but section 52
of the School Act provides that if in any section there is a so-called separate school
and a common school and the people wish to change they can unite and have the one
common school. Therefore, the people can follow any school system they please, so
long as they do not take away from the Roman Catholic or the Protestant minority the
rights they have acquired. If the trustees of a Catholic and Protestant school in
one section are willing to have a common school without any religious teaching in
it, there is nothing in the Act to prevent it. I was polnting out, Mr. Speaker, that
the rights in the matter of education which the minority of the new Territories will
have under this legislation, are not as extensive as the rights given to the Protestant
minority in Quebec or to the Roman Catholic minority in Ontario. And, in the province
of Nova Scotia, although
3735
3736
we have no separate schools by law, I can assure hon. gentlemen that the privileges
which are allowed to separate schools and which are enjoyed by our Catholic friends
in Nova Scotia are far and above anything which this law gives in the new provinces.
If to-day, instead of forty years ago, we were framing a constitution for the admission
of Nova Scotia into the confederation, I take the responsibility of saying that we
could not form a compact without recognizing the claims of our Catholic friends in
respect to this matter. Although there is no law dealing with it, I can assure the
House that the Catholics of Nova Scotia are not suffering any grievance in respect
to the educational laws of that province. If it is the right of the minority in Quebec
to have a guarantee in the constitution, if it is the right of the minority in Ontario
to have a similar guarantee, if it was the right of the minority in the Northwest
Territories to have a guarantee in the Act of 1875, surely it is the right of that
minority to have a like guarantee in the constitution to-day.
In 1867, when the province of Ontario
came into confederation, the Catholics of
Ontario came to the fathers of confederation with this section of the law in their
hands :
Every separate school shall be entitled to a
share in the funds annually granted by the
legislature of this province for the support of
common schools and shall be entitled also to a
share in all other public grants, investments
and allotments for public common school purposes now made or hereafter to be made
by the
province or the municipal authorities according
to the average number of pupils attending such schools.
That is the law with which the Catholics
of Ontario came to the fathers of confederation and said : Our rights must be recognized
under that Act. And their rights
were recognized under that Act. To-day,
when we are making a new constitution,
the Catholics—I suppose it is the Catholics
who are asking for this now—come to us
with a statute of this parliament and say :
This is an Act which you put upon the
statute-books by which our rights to separate schools were granted in 1875, thirty
years ago ; this has been revised and reviewed twenty times since and it has always
been looked upon as a proper thing
put in that law, and now we ask you
recognize it as fully and as completely as
a similar right was recognized in 1867, when
the minorities of Quebec and of Ontario
came to the fathers of confederation looking
for the protection of their rights. I ask
you, Mr. Speaker, if it would be fair or just
to say to people who have lived for thirty years under a statute which we have given
them affording them protection, an Act passed in 1875, to now remove the protection
which they have enjoyed constitutionally for thirty years. Some one was asked
3737 APRIL 3, 1905
what right we have to suppose that the
people of the Northwest will not grant the
same privileges as we would grant in the
east. While I am not saying that they
would not. I will say that if I were a Catholic living in the Northwest what has happened
in the past would, I think, be notice to
me that I had not a great deal to expect in
matters of this kind. I do not want to jar
upon the feelings of any western man, or
any other man, but I think that to be honest
we should place the facts just as we find
them. In the seventies, or perhaps in the
eighties, a school law was passed in Manitoba which, as far as I can learn, was perfectly
satisfactory to the Catholics and was
a carrying out of the compact of 1870. Why
it was so, I do not know ; but the fact is
that it was later wiped off the statute-books,
and there is no such thing in the statute-
book of Manitoba to-day. It has been stated
in this House today that a resolution has
been twice passed in the legislature of the
Northwest asking the government to take
away the provisions of the Northwest Territories Act in respect to separate schools.
These provisions have not been taken away,
but does anybody venture to tell me that if
the legislature of the Northwest had the
power to take these provisions away, it
would not do so ? They have twice passed
resolutions wiping off the slate. They had
not the power to fully and effectively carry
that out, but as far as the intention is concerned. it was clearly there. All doubt
with respect to the legislature of the Territories is removed in that way, and doubt
with respect to the legislature of Manitoba
is removed by the fact that three times in
succession eiforts have been made to wipe
off the statute-book anything which authorized separate schools ; and I, therefore,
think the minority are justified in asking
us, when granting a new constitution, to see
that these rights which were reserved to
them in 1875 will again be reserved to them
under the constitution of 1905.
I have spoken longer than I intended,
but the points I wish to make are these,
and I shall summarize them in concluding.
In the first place, I wish to point out that
I think that we have ample power under
the provisions of the British North America
Act, 1867, and the Orders in Council which
were passed to give us control over the Northwest and over British Columbia in 1871,
to
grant a constitution to any new provinces
that we might carve out of the new country. I think, Sir, that we are perfectly
safe in taking it for granted that when the
parliament of Great Britain told us that
we could give a province a constitution,
that that means a constitution and it means
nothing less. To give a province a constitution is to give it all the machinery necessary
to carry its affairs on as a province;
and when, in the old days, we took in provinces by Order in Council, we took them
in on such conditions as were stipulated
3737
3738
and agreed upon, and perhaps one hundred
changes would be made between the commencement of negotiations and the final
admission of the province. If we were
bound down to hard and fast rules, we
could never get a province to enter the confederation, and the early legislators of
Canada were not long in discovering that some
discretionary power was needed, and Sir
John A. Macdonald asked the parliament of
England to give the Dominion parliament
such power as would enable them to give the
provinces entering confederation such constitution as from time to time they might
find necessary. These constitutional powers
were granted and exercised, and in the exercise of that discretion the parliament
of
Canada had full power to mould and shape
the conditions of Canada and to give to
these new provinces a constitution as much
as possible on the lines of the old provinces,
making such changes as were necessary to
suit the circumstances in each case.
I submit, Mr. Speaker, that we have this
power, and that we are exercising it in the
right direction in recognizing the circumstances that to-day exist in that country.
While we should give every privilege to the
local legislature, we should carry out, in
dealing with these new provinces, the principles that governed us in forming constitutions
of the other provinces. It was recognized, as I said before, at confederation ;
it was recognized in 1870, when the people
who had formed confederation had every
term and every condition of that contract
fresh in their minds, when they had just
returned from the conferences in England,
when they were fresh from the conferences
at Quebec and elsewhere, and when they
had the whole business moulded and shaped
in their minds, then the very first time they
had to put it into effect they recognized the
principle for which I am contending, and
which is found in the British North America
Act of a few years before. As I said before, it is recognized in the Act of 1875,
it
is recognized in that admirable speech of
Mr. Blake, in that speech of Alexander Mackenzie, and in the concurrence with that
idea of Sir John Macdonald and every member who spoke in the House of Commons
in 1875. Finding these conditions and finding that it is our duty to follow them out,
and finding that we have those powers, are
we doing anything but what is right and
fair when, in this slight way, we recognize
that constitutional principle ? What are we
doing ? We are simply adopting and making the law of the Dominion a law which
the premier of the country with which we
are dealing has stated is first-class legislation, is legislation which was passed
by the
parliament over which he presides, and of
which he has said that if he were a dictator
to-morrow he would not change one line of
it. We are putting an Act into force in this
country which an hon. gentleman who sits
in this House as an opponent of the gov
3739
COMMONS
ernment, would venture to say that after
twenty-two years' experience in the west
this school law which we find to-day
upon the statute-books is best suited for
the needs of that country. That is the
law we are asked to pass. I think the
position I take in supporting the government is perfectly clear. I believe we
have the power to do what we are doing,
that in recognizing the constitutional rights
of the people in the Northwest we are acting
wisely, and that we could not recognize
those rights at all and do less than we are
doing.
Mr. GEORGE H. PERLEY (Argenteuil).
This matter has been so thoroughly threshed
out, Mr. Speaker, and the hour is now so
late that I do not propose to keep the House
very long. After listening to the many and
varied arguments we have heard since this
debate began it seems to me quite evident
that no one is absolutely certain whether
or not this House has the power to pass this
Bill in its present shape. The hon. gentleman who has just spoken (Mr. McKenzie)
claims that our constitution is as pliable
and elastic as the British constitution, but
I can hardly see how for a moment it can
be maintained that a constitution, which is
a written one, and hence bound within the
four corners of the document, can be at all
compared to one which has its only basis in
practice and precedent. Our constitution
is the British North America Act, and that
Act I do not think we have the power to
alter or change in any particular without
the consent of the imperial parliament.
After listening to the very able arguments which we have had pro and con concerning
the question of jurisdiction from the
many able lawyers who have taken part in
this debate it seems to me that those who
deny our power to legislate as we please regarding the new provinces have the best
of
the argument, and I shall be surprised if
the question of our jurisdiction is not carried to the Privy Council in England before
it is finally decided. Should this happen, as
I am afraid it will, the effect in the meantime will be most unfortunate, for the
new
provinces will be kept in a condition of
trouble and uncertainty until the matter is
finally decided. In my opinion it would have
been far better had a series of questions been
submitted to the Supreme Court and the
Privy Council, and thus have removed by
the highest court in the empire any doubts
that might arise as to our powers, and as the
creation of these new provinces was a matter which has been anticipated by everybody
for some years, it seems to me that
it would have been only ordinary foresight
and prudence on the part of this government
to have found out in advance exactly what
jurisdiction this parliament has regarding
these matters and thus be in a position to
act without any uncertainty or hesitation.
That, to my mind. would be the busi
3739
3740
ness way of acting. and naturally that
is the way which most commends itself to my approval. Even now I think it
would be better for the government to adopt
that course, and I would consequently urge
them strongly to withdraw the Bill and
postpone it until next session, by which
time we could ascertain exactly what our
position is and thus avoid the danger of
putting in our statutes a very important
law which may turn out to be in many respects outside our jurisdiction and consequently
waste paper. In the meantime the
government could take advantage of the delay by taking up with the Canadian Pacific
Railway the question of doing away with
the exemption of that company from taxation, the continuance of which is provided
for in section 23 of the Bill: and for my part
I know of no reason why they could not
arrive at some equitable arrangement which
would be satisfactory to every one and fair
to the Canadian Pacific Railway, and which
would leave the new provinces absolutely
untrammelled as regards taxation.
The chief discussion in this House and in
the press throughout the country has been
regarding clause 16 which deals with education. As I understand it, and as the hon.
the Minister of Justice has explained it, this
clause, as amended by the government, gives
minorities in the Northwest the same rights
they now enjoy. Neither more nor less.
These rights are very simple and easy to
understand. The important sections providing for these schools in the Northwest Ordinance
are:
41. The minority of the ratepayers in any
district, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic,
may establish a separate school therein ; and
in such case the ratepayers establishing such
Protestant or Roman Catholic separate school
shall be liable only to assessments of such
rates as they impose upon themselves in respect thereof.
137. No religious instruction except as hereinafter provided shall be permitted in
the
school of any district from the opening of such
school until one-half hour previous to its closing in the afternoon, after which time
any such
instruction permitted or desired by the board
may be given.
(2) It shall, however, be permissible for the
board of any district to direct that the school
be opened by the recitation of the Lord's
Prayer.
138. Any child shall have the privilege of
leaving the school-room at the time at which
religious instruction is commenced, as provided
for in the next preceding section, or of remaining without taking part in any religious
instruction that may be given if the parents or
guardians so desire.
139. No teacher, school trustee or inspector
shall in any way attempt to deprive such child
of any advantage that it might derive from the
ordinary education given in such school, and
any such action on the part of any school trustee, inspector or teacher shall be held
to be a. '
disqualification for and voidance of the office
held by him.
3741 APRIL 3, 1905
149. No person shall be engaged, appointed,
employed or retained as teacher in any school
unless he holds a valid certificate of qualification issued under the regulations
of the department.
In other words, all schools must be conducted in the same way. All the teachers
must be equally competent, all the text books
and teaching must be the same in all the
schools, and all the schools must be subject to
government supervision. Religious instruction is, however, allowed for one-half hour
of whatever kind the board of each school
may decide. Now, Mr. Speaker, these rights
for minorities have been in force. in much
the same form, for many years, and thousands of people have settled in the Northwest
relying on them. I understand they
have been perfectly satisfactory to the
people of the Northwest, and no doubt
would be continued in the new provinces. were the matter left entirely
to them. Personally, I believe it would
be better to have all our children educated together, as they would learn to
know each other better and perhaps
make better citizens. But I have always lived in a mixed community such
as we have in Ottawa, and I consider
that the rights and feelings of every
class of people should be respected, and
that it would be impossible to carry
on our government on any other basis
in a country of varied races and religions such as Canada possesses. I might
add, Sir, that although the county I have
the honour to represent is composed of every
class, creed and nationality, I have not received a single letter or petition urging
on
me to take any particular course regarding
this question, and I think I may, without
laying myself open to a charge of undue
conceit, consider this a cause of pardouable
pride on my part as showing that the people
of Argenteuil are willing to trust me in this
matter. If we have any right to legislate
at all on the subject, I am sure that none
of my Protestant friends would object to
our continuing in the Northwest the very
moderate rights of education which the
Roman Catholic minority now has there and
has had for so many years.
By their speeches. hon. gentlemen opposite are trying to convince the people that
the Conservatives are against the separate
school system as it at present exists in the
'Northwest. But, Sir, no member of the opposition has taken any such position.
Mr. PERLEY. My hon. friend the leader
of the opposition showed in a masterly argument, from a constitutional and legal point
of view, that this parliament should not
deal with the question, but nothing that he
said could in any way be construed into an
objection to separate schools. We have had
from the hon. Minister of Justice and many
3741
3742
other lawyers a different view on the constitutional question from that taken by my
hon. leader. According to some legal authorities, the power to legislate regarding
education lies with us only, and according to
others we are bound by the constitution to
provide for a system of education. I myself believe in provincial rights, but in this
case the question is not one of provincial
rights, as there are yet no province in the
Northwest, but of the legal interpretation of
the British North America Act, and on that
point no one can tell which lawyer is right
and what view the Privy Council may take.
While I think that the educational clause
as now drafted is fair and equitable, I repent that, in my opinion, it would be better
not to go on with the Bill now but let the
government find out first where we stand
and what our powers really are before we
attempt to legislate.
It seems to me that the government is very
much to blame for the hasty and ill
considered way in which this measure was
brought before the House and the country.
The right hon. Prime Minister brought in
this Bill on the 21st of February, and the
greater part of his speech was an elaborate
argument in favour of separate schools,
and was of such a nature as to arouse a
storm throughout the country on this question, and to make men of strong Protestant
views believe there must be something very
objectionable in the Bill. You must remember, Mr. Speaker, that none of us had
seen the Bill when the right hon. Prime
Minister presented it for its first reading,
and still his speech produced in my mind
the impression that he expected the
measure to be strongly objected to by
the Protestants of this country. That is
exactly what happened. Petitions began to
pour in at once, and a few days afterwards
the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton)
resigned his office. After that, a whole
month elapsed before the modified education clause was brought in by the government,
and this agitation throughout the
country kept on growing. I believe the
storm of disapproval would never have
arisen if the right hon. Prime Minister had
consulted with his colleagues and his followers beforehand and had provided, in the
first instance, simply for schools as they
exist at present in the Northwest. I have
no doubt that the people will place on the
shoulders of the government, where it properly belongs, the blame for the unfortunate
agitation on this question that has
swept over the country.
Motion agreed to.
On motion of Mr. Fielding, House adjourned at 11.40 p.m.
Cet individu a participé aux :
