Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs, Science and Technology

Issue 8 - Evidence

The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, to which was referred Bill S-14, respecting Sir John A. Macdonald Day and Sir Wilfrid Laurier Day, met this day at 4:17 p.m. to give consideration to the bill.

Senator Michael Kirby (Chairman) in the Chair.

[English]

The Chairman: Honourable senators, we are here to consider Bill S-14, respecting Sir John A. Macdonald Day and Sir Wilfrid Laurier Day, a bill that was introduced by Senator Lynch-Staunton.

We have as witnesses the sponsor of the bill, Senator Lynch-Staunton, as well as Professor Desmond Morton from McGill University, whom all of us know as one of the country's leading historians. Thank you very much for attending here.

Senator Lynch-Staunton, perhaps you could tell us the background of the bill from your point of view. Professor Morton has given us a short brief, which I think he will read or at least summarize, after which we would be delighted to discuss it with you.

Hon. John Lynch-Staunton, sponsor of the bill: Honourable senators, it is a pleasure to be here to talk about this bill, which I hope will meet with your approval.

The purpose of the bill is simple - to recognize two great Canadians. One is considered the leading Father of Confederation and the other the first Prime Minister from Quebec who was, during difficult days, a strong proponent of national unity. You will recall that in the last Parliament Senator Grimard introduced a bill to recognize Sir John A. Macdonald. At that time, we sensed there was a feeling on the part of senators that that had too much of a partisan purpose. Thus, a bill recognizing Sir Wilfrid Laurier was also introduced by our side. Thanks to prorogation, the bills fell off the Order Paper. To stress the non-partisanship of the recognition of the two, the two names were put together in one bill. What we are recognizing here are two great Canadians, not a Tory or a Liberal, but two great Canadians who belonged to two great political parties.

I will not speak too much about Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Sir John A. Macdonald, certainly not in the presence of Professor Morton. I will let him do that.

First, I want to stress that the bill does not call for a statutory holiday. The bill calls for two days of recognition of two Canadians, using their birthdays as those days of recognition. Sir John A. Macdonald's birthday is January 11; Sir Wilfrid Laurier's is November 20. These would be days of recognition. They have no economic or monetary implications. They are simply intended to be put on our calendar on those days as days of official recognition by the Parliament of Canada. This would allow Canadians, thanks to Canadian Heritage in particular and other government departments and individuals across the country, to know these two better and to understand their key roles in the creation and the development of this country.

As far as holidays and days of recognition are concerned, our research shows that there does not seem to be any pattern. For instance, the Canadian Heritage Web site has information on the Workers Mourning Day Act, which is on April 28, and which will be marked on Saturday by all flags on all federal buildings being at half staff. The Workers Mourning Day Act was created by an act of Parliament but is not included in the Canadian Heritage Web site calendar of statutory holidays, theme days, and weeks and months of national and international heritage.

National Flag Day was the result of a declaration by the Prime Minister. He announced that February 16 would be National Flag Day. As a result, we have National Flag Day.

Heritage Day is recognized by Heritage Canada but it has no legislative underpinning.

We also have a National Day of Remembrance Act, following the terrible tragedy at the University of Montreal inDecember 1989. That day, which is December 6, is known as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

We have days recognized by Parliament, days recognized by a government department and days recognized by the Prime Minister.

We also have the Holidays Act, which recognizes Canada Day, Remembrance Day and Victoria Day. The purpose of that act is to instruct employers that there is an obligation on their part to remunerate with overtime workers who are called in on those three days.

Finally, we went through the Web site of Canadian Heritage where we saw many days in the year that are given some prominence insofar as organizations are concerned. There is International Women's Week, World Theatre Day, International Dance Day and Canada Book Day, to name but a few. However, nowhere have we found individuals being recognized. Nowhere in the Canadian Heritage calendar are any individuals recognized as such - certainly no Canadians. Victoria Day is still called Victoria Day by many people. However, no Canadians are recognized anywhere, either for statutory holidays or days of recognition. There is room for leading Canadians to be put on this calendar and to get the recognition they deserve. Who better to start with than Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

Mr. Chairman, that is all I have to say about the background of how holidays are declared or not declared. There is no general pattern to it. Unless there are questions on this particular aspect of my presentation, I would ask Professor Morton to talk more to the point.

Mr. Desmond Morton, Director, McGill Institute for the Study of Canada: Mr. Chairman, I prepared words about the significance of these two men and some reminders of some of the great phrases that they have left with us. However, as I look around the committee, it is clearly evident to me that the honourable senators of this committee do not need history lessons from me.

What I did think I could do, perhaps, is to think of ways of inviting you to help Canadians to think about their past and this country through these two individuals, not necessarily to them exclusively. They are important individuals. They are the two prime ministers who gave early shape to this country of ours. They were not partners like Lafontaine and Baldwin or Mackenzie King and Ernest Lapointe. They were political opponents with all the differences that our adversarial system creates.

Canada made them surprisingly similar, too, when faced with the responsibilities of power because the realities of this country do not change very easily even when governments change. Perhaps that vital lesson and its consequences make it a little more worthwhile to study these two leaders, because along with their steadfast vision of Canada and its potential came a skill in compromise that history has shown to be indispensable for any common future.

I could go on to illustrate that from their phrases, but you have or can have the text of what I was going to say. As such, I do not think it is necessary to repeat them here, although I am happy to do so.

What is necessary to remind you of is the sense among Canadians across the country united by differences of language and experience that we are not as solidly aware of our traditions and our past as we might be, for good and ill. There are some features of our past that we might well think were worth burying. Not all of our past is glorious, honourable or noble. Not all the things these two men did were utterly and unquestionably admirable. That is an American tradition, which I think is called suppressio veri. There is an awful lot to learn from these individuals, as they saw their country, their time and their fellow Canadians with a realism that I think people who follow the profession of politics - and a noble profession it is - will appreciate more than those who avoid the temptation to deal with reality. I think they are civics lessons in three dimensions. They are not two-dimensional heroes but three-dimensional real Canadians who, in their lifetimes, dealt with the issues that in many cases we still face. As one looks over their respective lifetimes and their interactions, one sees that they dealt with them with a certain nobility and a certain farsightedness that has made them great models and great leaders for this country, not perfect, but human - and, as humans, a little larger than the average, to put it politely and moderately in a very Canadian kind of moderation.

While I will be happy to justify them collectively or individually with whatever scraps of knowledge I can throw on the table, I do want you to think about the possibilities of helping our fellow Canadians to think about how this country came to be, the values that it needs to continue and how these two individuals helped design and preserve those values in their own way.

In the 21st century, Canadians go on needing some signposts of the kind of country we intend it to be. We need some occasions, perhaps once or twice or more often in a year, to reflect on ourselves critically, but with a sense of accomplishment. We were fortunate to have two early prime ministers who, different as they were, reflect the two dominant languages, cultures and religions of their day. Of course, one of them was a new Canadian, in the literal sense of the way, and the other was part of the other great culture of our community.

I would like to quote one comment - and leave it to you to guess who said it, because I think it hardly matters. One of them said the following:

We are a great country, and shall become one of the greatest in the universe if we preserve it; we shall sink into insignificance if we suffer it to be broken.

It matters little which one said it, as I believe either Laurier or Macdonald could have said it, and in different words to different groups did say it.

That is one of the reasons I want you to help Canadians find a little time each year to learn from the experience of these two great men. That is what I see this bill making possible, and I support it warmly.

The Chairman: Thank you very much to both of you. I have several senators on my list.

Senator Forrestall: I will be very brief. My question is to Senator Lynch-Staunton. I direct his attention to the preamble.

WHEREAS Sir John Alexander Macdonald was born January 11, 1815;

AND WHEREAS he was one of the founders of Confederation;

That is important.

AND WHEREAS he was the first Prime Minister of Canada;

AND WHEREAS Sir Wilfrid Laurier was born on November 20, 1841;

 

AND WHEREAS he was Prime Minister of Canada from 1896 to 1911;

 

AND WHEREAS he was the first Prime Minister of French ancestry...

We have in here, as you will note from my reading of it, the dates of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's prime ministership but not those of Sir John A. Macdonald. I wonder, sir, if you are slighting my ancient leader.

Senator Lynch-Staunton: That would be our ancient leader. No, I do not think it occurred to us. The fact that he was the first Prime Minister says it all, and we have had quite a discussion this week on the value of preambles. I do not know whether you want to get into that one here, also.

Senator Forrestall: So long, Mr. Chair, as it was not an oversight, it is fine with me.

Thank you for doing this. I believe it is long overdue.

Senator Fairbairn: First, thank you to our colleague Senator Lynch-Staunton, for bringing this bill forward. I think it is long overdue and certainly one that I will support.

I also want to thank our guest, Professor Morton. Reading some of the quotations, sir, that you have given us and the suggestion you have given us help us to, in some way, try to come up with ideas of how best we can use our history to teach history to students, and, indeed, adult citizens of our time.

I am struck , apart from the eloquence of these early gentlemen, by the issues that you particularly chose. I guess all of us can tuck away the quotations in speeches. Sir John A. Macdonald's comments on the two languages is highly relevant today, certainly in my part of Canada, Western Canada. The statement of nationhood and patriotism is something that I would hope, Mr. Chair, will go beyond this room, as we proceed with this piece of legislation, and challenge senators to come up with different ways to highlight the foundation of Canada's political history and why we are still fighting for it, because it has not changed. I would like to thank you.

We often misquote some of these statements. It is good to see them in the context of the time, in a context that makes them even more meaningful than a one-liner. I thank you for that. My memory has been perked up - my imagination, also, I hope.

Mr. Morton: Thank you, Senator Fairbairn.

Senator Graham: Welcome to our committee. Mr. Morton is widely known as one of the eminent historians in our country and in our time.

I would like to congratulate Senator Lynch-Staunton for bringing forward such a timely piece of legislation. I do not think he will find many arguments around the table about its merits.

I like the quotations, Professor Morton, that you brought to us from Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier. I join with Senator Fairbairn in seeking ways in which we can encourage Canadians, particularly young Canadians, to better understand how this country was built and how it must be preserved.

I will give you one example. Shortly after the 1995 referendum, in which we nearly lost the country, I went to Quebec City to meet with people and to prowl around, to determine what was making people think the way they did. I remember being on the Plains of Abraham and reading the plaque on the statue of Joan of Arc. The first words I saw were "O Canada!" Perhaps if I can paraphrase the words on that plaque. It said: "This glorious national anthem, words by Adolphe-Basile Routhier, music by Calixa Lavallée, was first sung on St. Jean-Baptiste Day, en français, on June 24, 1880." That, sir, is something I did not know. I wonder how many Canadians know that our national anthem was composed by a French Canadian, first sung in French, in Quebec City, on the feast of St. John the Baptist. That is the sort of thing I believe we should be teaching our young people.

I commend you as an historian. Perhaps you can give us some suggestions in the future as to how senators and the Senate might promote history and education in our country.

Senator Murray: Mr. Chairman, I think around this table we should remark that, while Sir Wilfrid Laurier was the first French-Canadian Prime Minister and the first Prime Minister elected from Quebec, the first Prime Minister from Quebec was Senator John Abbott, who was drafted reluctantly into the job and liked it so little that he quit after several years - one year, was it!

I support this bill, of course, and I warmly congratulate Senator Lynch-Staunton on bringing it forward.

Professor Morton has prepared what the kids would call a really neat essay, and it is a neat essay bringing the lives, careers and contributions of these great Canadians together so beautifully. I suppose if Canadians had or have political heroes, these two, Sir John and Sir Wilfrid, would be at the top of their list.

I cannot resist the temptation to take advantage of the opportunity, Professor Morton, to ask you whether you have seen some of the things that have been written recently, some research or perhaps old documents that have come to light concerning Sir Wilfrid Laurier's early writings, I think before he went into politics. These writings suggest strongly that before he went into federal politics he was what we would call today a separatist. Have you looked at that? There have been some articles in the news within the last several months.

Mr. Morton: Would that mine enemy had writ a book.

Yes, he had many views. He was a young radical. I notice one of your cabinet colleagues suddenly becoming an old radical visiting Quebec City. Obviously, Wilfrid Laurier started off at a younger age. He became, perhaps, more constrained, although I think in his last years he was enormously deceived by the country that had grown up, on both sides, both those who were opposed to Canada as it was developing and those who were opposed to Quebec and its place in Canada. When you look at their lives as a whole, you will find plenty of instructive example of just being there.

What strikes me is how much they grew and how much their times tolerated their growth and their evolution. Remember in 1885 at the Champ de Mars in Montreal Laurier saying that if he had been on the banks of the Saskatchewan he, too, would have carried his musket against the government on behalf of the Métis. That phrase was recalled and thrown in his face often in the ensuing years of politics. It cost him something. At the same time, however, it was immensely instructive to many other people who would never have given the time of day to that point of view if a prominent national leader had not expressed it.

Macdonald, too, was someone who brought an immense amount of shrewdness and vision into politics, as well as a lot of pretty low cunning. I think both qualities may be necessary to get on with the business of state.

As I said, to me, their essence is not that they are whited sepulchres of absolute political correctness of every kind but that they are subjects worthy of study, which I think will make those who study them grow in their understanding. That is my case.

Senator Roche: Mr. Chairman, I cannot resist on this first occasion that I have met Professor Morton, personally or publicly, to thank him for the enrichment that he has provided our society - in particular, my students - in his works. I use his works. His short history of Canada is an exemplary matter to encompass so many strands that make up our country. Thus, I thank you, Professor Morton.

I would be interested in the views of both Senator Lynch-Staunton and Professor Morton on this one point I shall raise. I am not pushing this point; I am just asking whether any thought was given to the idea of, perhaps, combining these two great figures into one day. I certainly support the bill as it is. As I listened to Senator Lynch-Staunton and Professor Morton this afternoon, both of them had as a subtext of their themes the commonality of the two. In referring to Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Senator Lynch-Staunton said that they were two great Canadians. He did not say that one was a great Tory while the other was a great Liberal.

Professor Morton also presented the two in a unified aspect in terms of what they had done for Canada. In an extremely profound statement, Professor Morton said that realities do not change even when governments change. It takes a little while of being around this place before you realize how true that is. He then went on to justify the attention to these days in a collective sense. Professor Morton's presentation brings the two together.

Are we perhaps not enriched by the intertwining of the presentation, how one might play off against the other? What I am really trying to get at here is to help Canadians, in particular young Canadians, the ones I deal with in university, to understand that it is not partisanship, that you are not right because you belong to one party and the other guy is wrong because he belongs to another party, but that together their ideas form the essence of the greatness, or at least the potential for greatness, for which Canada stands.

Senator Lynch-Staunton: Our research took us to other countries to see how they handled holidays. In the United States, for instance, they have Presidents Day, which has more or less replaced Washington's birthday, although some states still recognize that day. As in Canada, many days are selected by individual states. Some are selected by the national government. In Canada, some provinces recognize certain events while other provinces do not. We also have national days.

I studied Canadian history at Queen's University years ago. I am still trying to finish my master's thesis. I will be able to boast of being the oldest student at Queen's University when I am finally awarded a degree. I have been following history for a long time. I fear, and I see it quite close at hand, that there is not ignorance as such but a general detachment from our history, in particular from our origins. It is all very well to talk about Confederation. For many people these are mainly words. If we can identify the principal architect of Confederation and the principal architect of national unity at a time when national unity was more threatened than it is today under different circumstances, then, to my mind, by recognizing them as two separate people living in terms of our memories they will be refreshed and our pride as Canadians will increase. I think the best road to go down is this one rather than merging them at this stage. That was the purpose of identifying them separately.

The other advantage is that one would be in early spring while the other would be in late fall. In terms of the calendar, they would be quite separate one from the other.

I have no objection to joining them. However, at this stage, I think it is best to identify them separately so that they can be identified as separate individuals who, while having a lot of common, were working under separate and different circum stances at the time of their prime ministership.

I do not know how you feel about that, Professor Morton.

Mr. Morton: I do not have any very strong opinion. I have a kind of trade feeling that there is not much history talked about in Canada and a little bit more would not hurt. Maybe twice as much would be even better.

I have tended to see them as a whole because I am looking at prime ministers. Like Senator Lynch-Staunton, I think the purpose would be served by having a day for the two great prime ministers, and for others, too. However, I, too, think that they are different. Senator Lynch-Staunton has made a case that there are different aspects that can be looked at, as well as different times of the year at which they can be addressed. We are not talking about a statutory holiday. We are talking about occasions when the institutions and media of our society can draw attention to the fact that this is Laurier Day, and Laurier was a prime minister from 1896 until 1911, draw attention to the things that happened in his time and the crises of his life and his period in office. The same would hold for Sir John A. Macdonald.

I do not have any strong view other than the feeling that these are very good symbols and very good foci for understanding the issues of this country's past and its dreams of the future.

Senator LeBreton: I happen to believe it is better to have two separate days because, as Professor Morton just stated, there is such a woeful lack of understanding and knowledge of our history, something that I think is a sad commentary on our education system.

Just for the record, Senator Forrestall, Sir John A. Macdonald was the first Prime Minister of Canada, in 1867. He was defeated, of course, on a scandal, but he was re-elected in 1878, 1882, 1887 and 1891. He died in June 1891.

My question is to you, Professor Morton. It follows up on your point of having a day focused on Macdonald and a day focused on Laurier. When it is noted in the media, people will be compelled, at least for that brief moment, to look back at our history to understand why we are marking these days honouring these people.

Even at this late date, what can we do, as parliamentarians and citizens of this country? I know the education system is all caught up in provincial jurisdictions, but to me, and I am sure you see it in your profession, it is avery sad commentary on Canadian teaching that our history is so unknown to most people. I would like your thoughts on how, even at this late date, we may start to correct that situation. Perhaps this is one way of doing it.

Mr. Morton: You launch me off on quite a topic; I will try not to go the full length.

My institute in 1999 had a conference on teaching and learning, l'enseignement et l'apprentissage de l'histoire au Canada, and we learned collectively a lot of things, one of which may surprise you. Every other country has the same problem, the United States even more than we do. In the late 1980s, the Americans ran an extensive survey that revealed, for example, that a third of Americans could not date the Civil War. Another third got it in the wrong century. The result was a major Reagan- and Bush-era struggle to get more history into the curriculum - what are called the history wars in American educational and intellectualcircles - with minimal results, because what was to be taught became as important as the fact that it was to be taught.

We have a lot of experience to be borrowed from the United States, Britain and France. Every country was angry about the way history was taught, the way we were, with one odd exception - Russia. The Russians have so many other problems, they were not interested. But it is a problem. It is not a new problem. It has been rediscovered every 20 years. Northrop Frye complained about it in the 1960s. It was the subject of the Hope report in Ontario in the 1940s. It goes back to British Columbia where a history book was disposed of because it was wicked enough to explain why French Canadians might not have supported conscription. It is very, very difficult to teach history in the schools.

I remember Dr. Bette Stephenson, whom you know, showing me her file on history teaching in Ontario. It was very thick because the subject is so controversial. She then showed me her file on the teaching of mathematics. It was thin.

History is a difficult subject to teach, but a lot is being done out of school. In fact, at one stage I used to say that history should not be taught to young people, that it should be made adult education, that it is too complicated. The kids would then understand it. They would reach for it and read it. In that way, the people in between who want to purify it and make it virtuous would be out of the loop. The kids in fact know a lot more history than we give them credit for.

There are many other ways of learning history. Senator Graham was mentioning Calixa Lavallée and O Canada! If you went to movies, you might remember the Heritage Minutes, which in fact included that story. One does not have to go to the Plains of Abraham - thank you for doing so, but the story was available.

A lot of history is taught but, like everything else, it is learned when you are ready to learn it. When you are ready to want to know about Macdonald, then it should be there. If you do not want to know, you do not care; it does not mean anything to you. We can force children to sit and listen until their heads fall off before they learn it. It is only at the moment when they get curious - "Hey, this is not so bad after all - What did happen to him?" - that curiosity makes learners. A lot of history is taught in Canada this very day; not much is learned. That change from teaching to learning is a challenge.

Incidentally, next October in Winnipeg a second conference is being held on that very same topic. We will be coming back to find out about those things that we have been trying to get a hold of in the intervening two years. I think we will know even more.

Senator LeBreton: Perhaps, then, just to follow up on that, a bill like this helps to promote curiosity. People may seek to find out exactly who these people are and what their contribution was.

Senator Cordy: Thank you both very much for coming today to speak on Bill S-14.

Senator Lynch-Staunton, when you first began discussing your bill, I have to say that I thought, why are we not calling it Prime Ministers' Day? However, the more I thought about it and after having read the information you sent us, the more I swung to the absolute other end of the spectrum, believing that it has to be the specific names for the days.

Senator Roche spoke earlier about teaching young Canadians. I taught even younger Canadians in elementary school. It was very sad to realize that the children probably recognized American names better than they recognized Canadian names. If you were to give them the name of our Prime Minister, they would probably say he was the president rather than the Prime Minister.

Because of my background as an educator, I think it is so important for children to learn about great Canadians and to learn about the history of our country. The issue of curiosity was mentioned earlier. If we attach a name to the day, it will arouse a curiosity, not in all children, unfortunately, but at least in some, and we can start in small doses. It will arouse a curiosity in some children and, one would hope, in adults to find out more about these individuals.

Again, I wish to thank you very much for your attendance today.

Senator Cook: I, too, would like to add my thanks. Being a new Canadian, a Newfoundlander by birth, we celebrate March 31. It is Joey's day. It will forever and always be.

Senator Graham: I thought March 31 was the end of the fiscal year.

Senator Cook: On a more serious note, where do we go from here? How will this wonderful piece of legislation, about the nation builders of this country, reach my eight-year-old grandson, Joshua? I am sitting here trying to get answers to these questions. Joshua will come home on Armistice Day or the week of armistice and will tell us about the man who told them stories of the war in his school.

This is a wonderful first step. Where will we take the second step?

Will it be through Canadian Heritage that my grandson will learn about these two men? Will he learn about them in a social studies class? I do not think it will be enough to name a day on the calendar. In some way or another, it has to have a life of its own if it is to mean anything to the next generation. Maybe we could do some visioning around that.

Mr. Morton: Senator, a feature of this bill, familiar to all people putting forward bills of this sort, is to reduce the resource implication. If we had proposed a statutory holiday, where everyone must go home, everyone must go to the park and celebrate, you know how far the bill would have gone. It would have trickled off the end of the table.

Putting it in reality, having this discussion opens the prospects for the recognition of these names. There is a surprising interest, as reflected in this room, in the state of knowledge of Canada's past, a state of curiosity about those people who have, one way or another, represented us.

My institute at McGill, the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, is very much a product of one individual, Charles Bronfman, and his willingness to support the study of Canada, which he earlier supported through the Heritage Minutes. I do not know if honourable senators have seen any, but they were, I think, remarkably good in this respect. He assumed that he could produce some short films that people would watch. He discovered that the cost of producing quality television was about 10 times what he had imagined, but he ponied up and paid it. He did not compromise on quality. We have all seen cheap videos. The Heritage Minute series are not cheap videos and they have an impact. They are as good as anything on the screen.

While I think there is a case, and certainly a strong case in my view, for the community wanting to preserve its history and its records, I think there will also be an attraction for individuals who care about this to do something.

Out of the Heritage Minutes series came something called "Historica," which Red Wilson, formerly with BCE, took on as his retirement project. He has interested other people in pursuing the teaching and learning of Canadian history and heritage as a largely private venture.

The fact that Sir John A. and Sir Wilfrid will be honoured by special days - providing this bill becomes law - is a signal to people like Mr. Bronfman, Mr. Wilson and others that they are not alone. They are not pursuing an eccentric and ridiculous course. They are doing what we as Canadians want them to do. This legislation has the potential of saying, with the power of the Parliament of Canada, that these things should be done.

Senator Lynch-Staunton: In terms of rallying people, I would hope that Canadian Heritage would take the lead; they have the resources, the knowledge and the experience in these things. There are also history departments across the country, school boards and service clubs. There are many service clubs that have a very special sense of Canada. This would fall into their mandate. The press could easily be rallied to give a special page on each day. It will take a while, but I think with proper coordination it can be done.

I agree with you: If we simply pass the bill and it gets through the House and gets Royal Assent, we will have wasted our time. We would just have the calendar include two names. We have to keep the project alive.

[Translation]

Senator Morin: Mr. Chairman, I totally approve the bill. As it's just been said, I hope that these two commemorations will be given all the visibility they deserve.

I would also like to congratulate Senator Lynch-Staunton and Professor Morton for their contribution.

[English]

Senator Callbeck: My question was answered in the response to the question of Senator Cook. I just want to go on record in joining other senators around the table in agreeing to this legislation. I also certainly agree that there is a real lack of knowledge about the history of this country. The two days with which this proposed legislation deals is really a positive step. It is a step forward in helping to make Canadians more aware. I thank both of you very much.

Senator Fairbairn: I have a brief reflection on Senator Cook's question and Professor Morton's response in terms of the Heritage Minutes. It might be instructive in thinking of the possibilities that could flow from this bill.

Once the Heritage Minutes series began to appear, they took on another dimension. An effort was made, through the Bronfman exercise, to have heritage festivals in areas of the country that the person who was working on the series would happen to be. This was enormously interesting to students. They would pull in students. It also was produced into a written text. It did not just hang out there on television where it was effective; it moved down to the ground and carried on a different life of its own. I hope that that kind of thing can be built around these days.

Senator Lynch-Staunton, there may be a mission for all of us. Once these days get etched out there in the public record, perhaps individual senators could travel to various communities around the country to participate in events surrounding these two great names.

Mr. Morton: I hesitate to think of schemes of work to keep senators and parliamentarians busy. I have an additional concern, arising from the attitude that young Canadians and not-so-young Canadians take to the practice of politics. Theirs is the sense that politics is a dirty business that they do not have anything to do with, these pure people outside it. Both these men were very political, in every sense of the word.

Senator Murray: And their careers overlapped.

Mr. Morton: Their careers overlapped. They engaged with each other. They also engaged in the same kinds of issues. They were practical politicians, as I said before. It is important to commemorate that because politics are still practical. People need things. People want things. People expect things. However, that does not occur as an immaculate process. It occurs because of the reality of engagement, argument and debate, which these two men in their respective ways, and other prime ministers, made happen. If these are days when some Canadians get to think a little harder about the nature of our kind of participative democracy, they will not see politics as something done by them out there beyond their control.

I thought about this, if I daresay so, in the context of recent events in Quebec City when there was such a disconnect between people who went and invested their time and their opinions without really being very political about it, without thinking that they had any obligation, for example, to persuade majorities. Their righteousness was pure enough.

These were two men, among others in our politics, who knew that being righteous would not get you very far, that you had to persuade other people and mobilize resources. They were pretty good at it.

I see commemorating Laurier and Macdonald as not only a commitment to Canada's past, not only a commitment to understanding the kind of country they gave us the means to have, but also the kind of ways that we have to go on making public life in this country a public responsibility.

The Chairman: On those very fitting words, I would like to thank our two witnesses for appearing. I am also happy to entertain a motion to report Bill C-14 back to the Senate unamended, something upon which I sense a consensus.

Is it agreed, honourable senators?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: I would also like to do something unusual and which I know the Internal Economy Committee does not like.

I think it was Senator Murray who said that the three-and-a- half-page opening statement, which Professor Morton was kind enough to summarize but not read, was a "neat" essay. I thought it was terrific. I think he did us a favour by not reading it in its entirety into the record. I would be delighted to have a motion that we append this statement to the record of today's proceedings.

Is it agreed, honourable senators?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

(For text of statement, see Appendix p. 8A:1 )

The Chairman: To those senators who are fulltime members of the Social Affairs Committee, we have distributed to you a budget for $18,500. That budget was approved some time ago. However, it turned out that we were doing things in the wrong sequence. I was told by the people who insist that I follow all the rules that I have to do things in a different order.

Thus, I would like a motion to approve once again the $18,500 budget.

Is it agreed, honourable senators?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: I thank Senator Lynch-Staunton and Professor Morton for their attendance here today.

The committee adjourned.