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House Hansard - 249

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 8, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 249 - Nov/8/23
Mr. John Nater (Perth—Wellington, CPC)
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise to debate Bill C-316, an act to amend the Department of Canadian Heritage Act, regarding the Court Challenges Program. You will recall, Madam Speaker, that I actually began this speech on Wednesday, May 3. I am sure that all members have been patiently waiting these last six months to hear the conclusion of my comments on this bill. I last spoke about the Conservative legacy when it comes to human rights, particularly that of the late, great John George Diefenbaker. He was a one-man court challenges program. Indeed, it was John Diefenbaker who said, at the beginning of the debate on the Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960: Here for the first time this bulwark of freedom will be embodied in a declaration by parliament that is in existence and cannot be violated. Furthermore, if any of these several rights should be violated under legislation now existing in the courts in interpreting the particular laws or statutes which have been passed will hereafter ... be required to interpret those statutes of today in the light of the fact that wherever there is a violation of any of these declarations or freedoms the statute in question is to that extent non-operative and was never intended to be so operative. The bill at hand, as has been mentioned, would require that the minister's power include that of the Court Challenges Program. In fact, this is already within the powers of the minister. This program has been in existence since 1978, in different forms and fashions. Furthermore, the provisions for how the minister can fund the Court Challenges Program already exist in the same statute, at section 7.1. It further talks about requiring a report. As members would know, reports are already presented by the Minister of Canadian Heritage; the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages; the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities; the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth; and the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity. They provide annual reports through the departmental results report, departmental plans and departmental evaluation plan. We must look at the record of the Liberal government when it comes to the rights of Canadians. Let us start with language rights. Members would recall, and I was on the official languages committee at the time, when the Liberal government tried to appoint Madeleine Meilleur as the official languages commissioner. She was a former Liberal cabinet minister who also donated to the Prime Minister's campaign. I was also on the Canadian heritage committee at a time when it was revealed that the department gave $133,000 to a well-known anti-Semite with a long history of directing hate towards Jewish people. The government did this through an anti-racism action program. We recently learned that Radio‑Canada used a Paris-based recording studio, rather than a Quebec-based studio, to record a podcast in order to avoid the Quebec accent. That is indeed shameful. We should be proud of the language of Quebec and the accent that we hear from our Quebec colleagues across the country. We should be protecting that indeed. As I wrap up my speech, I wish to say how proud I am as a Conservative to stand on the human rights record that all Conservatives have stood on from the time of John Diefenbaker to the present day. I am very proud of that legacy.
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