Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Legal and
Constitutional Affairs
Issue 23 - Evidence - Morning Session
ST. JOHN'S, Tuesday, July 9, 1996
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs met this day at 9:00 a.m. to continue its consideration of the resolution to amend the Constitution of Canada, Term 17 of the Terms of Union of Newfoundland with Canada.
Senator Sharon Carstairs (Chair) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning, everyone. It is a delight to see all of you here.
Our first panel, from the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland, is ready to begin.
Reverend Roy D. King, General Superintendent, Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland: Good morning. I would first like to express appreciation on behalf of the Newfoundland populace that the Senate has deemed it important to come to Newfoundland to hear our concerns on this matter. On behalf of the Pentecostal class for whom I have the honour to speak, it is a pleasure to welcome the honourable senators here today and I am sure that you will appreciate our concerns upon hearing them.
Our 36-page brief is before you but, in the interests of time, we have prepared a summary.
The Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland form a Christian denomination, duly established under the laws and statutes of the province of Newfoundland. It is comprised of some 40,000 members which represent 7.6 per cent of the population of the province.
On June 30, 1987, the honourable senators adopted a resolution which had been unanimously passed in the House of Commons on June 23, 1987 and by the Newfoundland House of Assembly on April 10, 1984, to amend Term 17 and enshrine the rights of the Pentecostal people of Newfoundland in the Constitution Act. The Governor General of Canada proclaimed this resolution on December 22, 1987.
Senator William Rompkey, while an MP, speaking in the House of Commons debate on June 23, 1987, strongly proclaimed:
Today, the Pentecostal Assemblies operate some of the most modern, efficient and progressive schools in the province....They are to be congratulated for bringing to these remote places and all places in Newfoundland not only the three Rs but a spiritual context for education.
The Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland, in cooperation with the Pentecostal Education Council and the Pentecostal Assemblies Board of Education, having the legal and moral responsibility for the education of all Pentecostal children in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, has the honour to submit this summary of its brief for your consideration.
All people have a right to receive an education and to acquire knowledge of every kind. Closely linked to that right to education is the legal, historical and scriptural right of parents to choose according to their convictions the type of school which they wish for their children.
The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), section 26, states:
...parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
The European Convention of Human Rights, Article 2, Protocol No. 1, states:
...no person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the state shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching are in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.
The function of the government is to guarantee, protect and promote these rights. There is a national trend towards the provision of public funding for alternative schools.
The Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland recognizes that there is an increasing number of individuals who are not members of the classes of persons with constitutional educational rights. The rights of these parents to educate their children in accordance with their faith convictions are equally as important and can and should be addressed under the current Term 17.
The amended Term 17, rather than accommodating this greater diversity, will serve to impose a monolithic, secular, humanist approach to education which marginalizes religion and the right to parental choice.
The Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland conclude that, given our pluralistic society and the scriptural and the social principle of parental rights in education, it is untenable to establish schools as state monopolies. Rather, they should be established by groups of parents, where numbers warrant, whose world view and related vision of education are reflected in the administrative and curriculum thrusts of the school and in the conduct of the professional staff.
The role of the Pentecostal school system is to assist the parent in developing the whole child and, in so doing, help facilitate the child's integration of life experiences with the Christian world view as understood and practised by the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland. To this end, the Pentecostal school provides a learning environment that will foster the spiritual, moral, intellectual, emotional, social and physical development of the child.
Pentecostal schools are truly denominational schools in which spiritual and ethical values are given the importance we believe they deserve. However, they are not exclusionary, as demonstrated by an open admission policy which is limited only by the availability of space.
The Pentecostal Assemblies recognize need for change. On October 18, 1994, the Pentecostal Assemblies issued a statement indicating its support for educational reform. The principles of reform which we support are: reducing the number of school boards from the current 27 to 8 or 10; establishing reasonable viability criteria under which Pentecostal schools would exist on an equal basis with other schools; establishment of a provincial construction board; the creation of school councils, giving parents a greater role in the running of schools; the establishment of joint or interdenominational schools where Pentecostal schools are not viable; to give Pentecostal parents the right to choose whether they wish their children to attend a Pentecostal school; and bussing guidelines that are reasonable and applied in a non-discriminatory manner.
The position of the Pentecostal class is strongly in support of Pentecostal schools. Taxes paid by Pentecostals help support education. However, in addition to the taxes, Pentecostals, through their churches, have contributed more than $5 million to capital construction and more than $1 million to the operation of Pentecostal schools during the period 1981 to the current 1996.
Further, 85 per cent of the Pentecostal's voting constituency submitted more than 15,000 personally signed letters to former Premier Wells requesting that their constitutional rights granted in 1987 not be removed.
In cooperation with the Pentecostal Assemblies Board of Education and the Pentecostal Education Council, the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland kept the Pentecostal population fully informed regarding the recommendations of the Williams Royal Commission. The talks between church leaders and government and the referendum process were also passed on to them. This involved the publication of 25 bulletins, regional meetings with parents throughout the province, newspaper advertisements and a brochure to every household during the referendum campaign.
The Pentecostal Assemblies, its board and its education council received telephone calls, letters, personal visits and petitions from Pentecostals supporting educational reform but strongly rejecting any change to their constitutional rights in education through the amendment to Term 17.
Madam Chair, from our own research evidence, the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland can state categorically and without fear of contradiction that the Pentecostal class of persons does not support an amendment to Term 17 as proposed by the Newfoundland government. To effect this change is to do so in violation of the express wishes of the Pentecostal class.
Mr. Domino Wilkins, Superintendent of Pentecostal Board of Education: Madam Chair and honourable senators, I will begin by dealing with the effectiveness of the Newfoundland school system with emphasis on the Pentecostal Board of Education in terms of cost, performance, duplication of services, and then I will go on to the royal commission and the referendum.
It is important to note, honourable senators, that the Government of Newfoundland used these themes in a public campaign, both during and after the royal commission, to discredit the denominational school system to gain public support for a yes vote in the referendum and, subsequently, the passage of the proposed amendment which is before us today.
I hold up here a full-page advertisement by the Newfoundland government which appeared in every paper in Newfoundland. This one was taken from the local paper in my community of Grand Falls. It states in part:
Our students also consistently perform below those in other provinces on key measures of achievement.
Our goal for education must be to transform the system from one of persistent under-achievement to one whose achievement levels rank with the best in the nation.
We agree with the need for reform. We agree with the need for improvement. We disagree with these statements that we have the worst school system in Canada with respect to achievement. We have proved that to be false beyond a shadow of a doubt in the main portion of our document.
The Pentecostal Assemblies Board of Education is committed to excellence and continuous improvement. The Pentecostal school board serves all of the Pentecostals of this province. Although we have sufficient enrolment to qualify under government regulation for three school boards, we have operated with one board. That is a cost efficiency.
The Pentecostal school board has developed a strategic plan to close and consolidate schools as enrolments decline. The enrolments of all schools in Newfoundland, except in the urban centre of St. John's, are declining. This consolidation is both within our own school district and in cooperation with the school districts of other denominations.
The pursuit of consolidation at the local school level has been delayed, honourable senators, by the royal commission aftermath and the post-referendum debate. Consequently, schools in other towns, such as Port Hope Simpson and Roddickton, have not been consolidated into joint service schools. We agree there should be only one school in these towns and in many other towns in this province.
The lack of government funding to provide for renovations and necessary extensions has also hindered the process toward joint service agreements. The Pentecostal Assemblies Board of Education has improved cost efficiency in cooperation with school boards of other denominations in the areas of bulk purchasing of supplies, cooperative bussing, joint in-servicing of teachers and in the provision of itinerant specialized services such as educational psychologists' services and services to hearing and visually impaired students.
Newfoundland results on national indicators of student performance, such as the Canadian Test of Basic Skills and the School Achievement Indicators Project, 1994, confirm that students in Newfoundland perform just as well as students in most other provinces. The participation rate in education of 16- to 18-year-olds in this province is among the highest in the nation. The students of the Pentecostal school district tend to perform better than the average for the province on comparative measures of performance.
In an effort to continuously enhance the quality of teaching and learning, schools of the Pentecostal school district are involved in a formalized school improvement process within the context of a district strategic plan.
On March 4, 1996 -- note the date, 1996 -- the Honourable Chris Decker, former Minister of Education, sent out a news release on the recent indicators report with the title, "Major Gains Announced in Newfoundland's Post-Secondary Education Levels." Mr. Decker stated:
If the present trend continues, Newfoundland and Labrador will soon have education levels equal to the best in the country.
It is noteworthy, honourable senators, that the tone of government changed after they received a "yes" vote in the referendum. We have already quoted from the Honourable Senator Rompkey. I would also note this quote from former Premier Peckford of Newfoundland as recorded in the Evening Telegram of April 11, 1987:
In my experience in the last five years in particular, and I could say 10, the education, academic as well as religious that the Pentecostal Assemblies are providing to these schools are exemplary...
Honourable senators, you have been requested to destroy this exemplary school system by passing the resolution to amend Term 17.
Turning to the topic of duplication of services, the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland suggest that an analysis of the facts refutes the allegation that the denominational system of education has resulted in significant duplication of services. For example, the royal commission stated that 84 per cent of the communities which have schools have a single school system. Since the completion of the report in 1992, because of school closures and school consolidation, both within denominations and in cooperative efforts across denominational lines, today, more than 90 per cent of communities in Newfoundland and Labrador that have schools have a single school system. In fact, less than 30 communities in Newfoundland and Labrador have more than one denominational system. Of these, only the communities, we suggest, whose enrolments can sustain two different systems will continue to have them.
The issue of duplication of educational programs is also a philosophical one. It is our contention that Pentecostal schools do not duplicate the education offered by others. They operate with the values, practices and beliefs of Pentecostals and, as such, offer an alternative to other schools.
With respect to the royal commission, the preamble to the terms of reference mandated that the study take into account the constitutional rights held by the various classes of persons in Newfoundland. This mandate was ignored in the recommendation to abolish the denominational school system. Seventy-five per cent of all presentations submitted to the commission supported the existing denominational system. Only 9 per cent were opposed to denominational schooling. The recommendation to abolish the denominational school system was contrary to the commission's own research evidence and therefore without evidentiary validity.
The recommendations of the royal commission that will have the most direct impact on student achievements are under the control of government and can be implemented under the present Term 17. These include modernization of the curriculum, renewable certification of teachers, improved professional development of teachers, performance standards, introduction of school councils and increased funding.
The government indicated its substantial agreement with the thrust of the royal commissions 1992 report. The Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland, while accepting most of the recommendations of the report, rejected those recommendations which impinge upon our constitutional rights.
The post-royal-commission meetings were doomed to failure since there was no agreement on the principles which would provide a framework for the development of a new model of education. The church model, "Coterminous and Cooperative School District Model," to restructure the school system was rejected by government. The government model, "Adjusting the Course," was rejected by the churches because to accept it would mean surrendering the exercise of the constitutional rights of the various classes of persons.
Following the presentation of "Adjusting the Course," the government model, sporadic discussions were held. The nature of these discussions was largely an exchange of correspondence with a few face-to-face meetings between the Premier and church leaders. The Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland had no mandate then and still has no mandate today from the Pentecostal class to abrogate their rights by accepting the underlying principles of adjusting the course.
Notwithstanding the commitment made by former Premier Wells in the House of Assembly on March 12, 1993, that his government would not seek a constitutional change to Term 17 without the consent of church leaders, in June, 1995, he called a referendum for September 5 for that very purpose. The referendum was the culmination of a two-year campaign on the part of government to discredit the denominational school system on the grounds of inefficiency and poor academic performance.
The referendum question was phrased to indicate that a constitutional amendment was necessary to proceed with educational reform. This induced the government's desired response.
Pentecostals opposed the referendum as inappropriate in that it was used as a means to allow the majority to decide upon the rights of minorities. It is a dangerous precedent for minority rights across Canada to use such a process as a referendum to abolish these rights.
Honourable senators, it is wrong in principle in our Canadian democracy to use the results of a referendum addressed to the population at large as the basis for a restriction on the rights of members of groups who constitute minorities within the general population.
Reverend A. Earl Batstone, Executive Director, Pentecostal Education Council: Honourable senators, my comments will be directed mainly to the framework agreement as discussed at page 25 of our main brief, after which I will highlight the importance of the amendment and of denominational rights to the Pentecostal class of the province.
Following the election of Premier Tobin's administration, the Archbishop of St. John's, the Most Reverend James H. MacDonald, and Pastor Roy D. King, general superintendent of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland, requested the Premier to recommence discussions through a small working group of provincial government officials and representatives of the class of persons holding constitutional rights in education to seek an agreement to proceed with significant education reform.
The purpose of the discussions was to seek a consensus on those areas of reform which were still outstanding. There was already substantial agreement reached with the prior administration of Premier Wells on the main areas of proposed reform of our educational system, including the reduction of the number of school boards; the creation of denominational committees within boards; the establishment of a single school-construction board; and the establishment of provincial school viability guidelines respecting the continuance of existing schools in urban and rural areas.
The proposed discussions took place over four days, March 28 to 31, 1996. As a result, the working group, comprised of representatives of the Department of Education and the denominational education councils, reported to the Honourable Roger Grimes, the Minister of Education and Training that the basis existed for agreement. The report indicated that consensus was reached on key issues including, in particular, the following: Ten interdenominational boards will be established and mandated to develop an education plan for the district. There will be provisions for denominational committees for each school board to care for unique denominational interests in both unidenominational schools and interdenominational schools. A provincial capital construction board will be put in place to administer capital funding for school construction and renovation.
With respect to schools within each district, changes would occur in the status and organization as a result of the decision of the board operating within established provincial parameters, developed in collaboration with the appropriate stakeholders. With respect to school board organization, the report indicated a consensus on a number of key issues including composition and staffing of the district offices.
Because of the time constraints on the discussions, all of the relevant issues could not be addressed. The report recommended that government and denominational education councils agree on a process to resolve any outstanding issues which impact on the implementation of the agreement.
On April 18, 1996, Minister Grimes announced publicly that a framework agreement had been reached between the Newfoundland government and other stakeholders in education providing for the implementation of education reform in the key areas of governance, consolidation of schools and school construction spending.
Mr. Grimes asserted publicly that the principal components of the framework agreement are fully consistent with the proposed structure for education reform put forward by the Newfoundland electorate in the referendum held September 5, 1995. On April 24, 1996, Minister Grimes provided to the Newfoundland people further details of the framework agreement:
These changes represent a significant first step to implement the changes recommended by the Williams' Royal Commission. It would be too disruptive to the system to attempt to implement all of the recommendations at the same time. Over the next few months other recommendations will be phased in within a reasonable time frame.
We were surprised to learn that the government had advised the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Joyce Fairbairn, in a letter dated June 5, 1996, that there was agreement only on two points, the establishment of 10 interdenominational school boards and the establishment of a provincial school construction board and, further, that there was no agreement on key issues including the substance of provincial parameters governing school closures, consolidations and new construction, the designation of schools as unidenominational or interdenominational and the process for determining parental preference for designation of schools.
This is clearly not the case. There was a commitment to continue to discuss the outstanding issues as stated by the minister in his news release of April 18, 1996:
Talks will continue to finalize details of the framework agreement including the development of provincial parameters which will determine when schools will be constructed, consolidated or closed.
Minister Grimes also indicated that leaders of several of the churches in integration had withdrawn their support. If this is so, it has not been discussed with our council.
The Pentecostal Education Council continues to support the framework agreement and stands ready to continue the discussions in an effort to resolve all outstanding issues. Our legal council has advised that the provisions of the framework agreement can be implemented without any need for constitutional change. We have been further advised that the implementation of the proposed framework agreed upon by denominations and interests and the government can withstand a legal challenge by any parties, whether they be dissident members of the denominations and interests, or non-adherents and other third parties. That agreement, which could be translated into legislation without the need for any constitutional amendment, would have achieved virtually all of the reform to the school system which the amendment was supposedly designed to achieve, including the following: the reduction of number of school boards from 27 to 10; the creation of interdenominational school boards; the rationalization of school bussing; the creation of a provincial school construction board; the closing and/or consolidation of nonviable schools. Why then the need for an amendment?
Regarding the proposed amendment of Term 17, it is a recognized duty of the Parliament of Canada to safeguard the rights of minorities, even against the actions of provincial legislatures. The passage of the proposed amendment to Term 17, based upon the results of a referendum, will establish a precedent that will threaten the rights of other minorities throughout Canada.
The passage of an amendment to Term 17 will deprive the Pentecostal class and minority group which makes up 7.6 per cent of the population of Newfoundland and Labrador of rights now guaranteed by the Constitution of Canada without the consent of that class.
The Government of Newfoundland has repeatedly stated that the proposed amended Term 17 will strengthen the Christian character of Newfoundland schools and give Pentecostals privileges in schools which they do not currently enjoy. In our view, this is not the case. All classes holding rights will be decidedly worse off in terms of maintaining the generally Christian character of their schools in this province. The interdenominational schools of proposed Term 17 are deemed to be denominational.
In reality, the denominational character is limited to provisions for religious education, activities and observances, by the classes holding rights for members of that class. The extent of these rights is not clear. The general ambience of these schools will be secular. Rights extended by the terms of the Constitution should be clear and unambiguous. The language of the proposed Term 17 is neither and, therefore, is open to different interpretations and challenges.
The Senate is thus asked to approve a new constitutional guarantee which probably guarantees nothing. The existence of all schools will depend on viability standards falling only within the jurisdiction of the Newfoundland government. Constitutional protection for the continuation of unidenominational schools does not exist in this resolution.
Proposed viability regulations published in January 1996, clearly nullified the purported guarantee so broadly stated in the language now before the Senate. These were withdrawn, but we have no guarantee that legislation and regulations in the future will not have the same effect. The proposed Term 17 is flawed on its merits, flawed in its language and flawed in the process which brought it to the Parliament of Canada.
Are denominational rights important in 1996? Members of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland did not hold denominational school rights at the time of union. This, of course, was remedied in 1987 by an amendment to Term 17. The effect of that amendment was to place the educational rights of the Pentecostal minority, approximately 7.6 per cent of the population, beyond the power of the legislature to pass any law which might impinge upon these rights. Certainly, it is understood that these rights should not be taken away.
Speaking to the issue of minority education rights in the Newfoundland legislature during an education debate on April 15, 1969, during which former Premier Wells was an active participant, the Honourable Premier Joseph Smallwood said this about Roman Catholics and Pentecostals:
You cannot subject them to the majority rule of a referendum. They must be consulted, they must agree, not the general public, it is their rights that are at stake.
Premier Wells, upon addressing the same issue in the Newfoundland legislature on March 12, 1993, said:
...no government can ride roughshod over the constitutional rights of people.
Mr. Speaker, we also have people in this Province with great personal integrity, and the people collectively will not tolerate the majority using its power and influence by majority votes to diminish or destroy the rights of minorities. This will not happen. I am confident that if a government wanted to do it, they would be stopped dead by the people of this Province because they will not see that happen. It is intolerable.
Indeed, honourable senators, it is intolerable.
However, in contradiction of these assurances, Mr. Wells proceeded to diminish and destroy the minority rights of Pentecostals, and the House of Commons has sanctioned this process by passing an amendment proposed by the Government of Newfoundland.
This whole process raises the question of what has happened to fundamentally change our understanding of constitutional rights? What has happened to the Pentecostal school system in nine short years that now demands its dismantling?
To my left, we have on display copies of the amended Term 17 which gave the Pentecostals their rights. Shall we now tear them up? Shall we now send them back? What shall we do with the rest of the Constitution of Canada?
The proposed amendment will put an end to a school system which serves its communities' needs and wishes. The existence of schools, where numbers warrant, which reflect and strengthen the deeply-held beliefs of our community is something which we believe to be of inestimable value in an increasingly secular age. The new Term 17 contains a sweeping and substantial reduction of denominational rights and privileges and gives absolute control to the provincial legislature. The intent of government as indicated in the proposed new Schools Act, made public by the Wells administration, indicates that unidenominational schools will be the exception and that the great majority will be interdenominational schools which are not denominational schools in the constitutionally understood sense of the word. There will be no right to establish any new unidenominational schools. The future of existing ones will be in question.
Education minister Roger Grimes in his news release of April 24, 1996, stated:
All new schools and schools which consolidate will be designated interdenominational schools. The most recent public position of the Churches in Integration presents a real threat to the continuance of Roman Catholic and Pentecostal schools and causes our people to express concern about any change in Term 17 which will leave the continued existence of these schools subject to the arbitrary decision-making of the provincial legislature.
The members of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland urgently request that the Senate not pass the amendment in its present form. We strongly recommend that the proposed Term 17 be amended in accordance with the proposal which will be recommended to the Senate by our legal counsel Mr. Colin Irving.
In conclusion, the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland expresses its appreciation to the chairperson and members of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs for your kind consideration of our concerns and of our brief.
Senator Ottenheimer: Thank you, gentlemen, for covering this very complicated matter with admirable clarity and succinctness.
To a certain extent, we all must be careful not to get caught up with a red herring. Even though fish are scarce in Newfoundland, red herrings do not seem to be scarce. Some people are in favour of reform in education and some people are not in favour of reform and improvement of education. I do not think there is a Newfoundlander, no matter his or her view on constitutional change, who is not solidly in favour of improvement in education.
In my mind, the essential issue here is the question of the rights of minorities, not just those created by a provincial legislature but those given a constitutional reference. Before 1987, the schools of the Pentecostal assemblies had, according to provincial law and custom, received the same rights as those denominations which were, in fact, included in those classes of people listed in Term 17. It was the realization by the Pentecostals, by the House of Assembly and by the Parliament of Canada that a provincial guarantee is not the same as a constitutional guarantee. We are not talking about ancient history. It is only nine years ago that these rights were given a constitutional recognition with respect to the Pentecostal schools.
I understand there was a framework agreement and that some areas in that framework agreement are no longer accepted by all parties. Among the important areas that are apparently still accepted is the principle of reducing school boards from 27 to 10 and also that school construction would be on a need basis.
Recognizing the need for reform in education and the imperative of protecting minority rights which have a constitutional reference, is it possible that the various parties concerned could reach an agreement which might not be the ideal for anyone but which might be a modus vivendi which all could accept and that this arrangement could become operative in one of two ways, either by agreement of the parties or, theoretically at least, by an amendment to Term 17 to which all of the parties would be in agreement? That is, either with or without a constitutional amendment. Is that scenario, in your opinion, achievable?
Mr. Batstone: Senator Ottenheimer, we have consistently said that we support major reforms to the system. We are certainly in agreement with those major reforms which have been put forward in the framework. As the minister has indicated, that agreement covers the reforms which government desires in the educational system. I believe it is possible for us to move forward on the basis of that agreement and to initiate those kinds of reforms and improvements to the systems which are indicated in the framework agreement.
If a constitutional amendment is necessary to allow us to proceed with the framework agreement, we would certainly be open to consider that. However, our legal advisors have indicated that there is no need to amend the present Term 17 to achieve the framework agreement; it can be done by consensus.
With regard to the legal implications, I would like to defer to our solicitor.
Mr. Michael Harrington, Legal Counsel, Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland: Senator, to get the proper perspective in relation to the framework agreement, first, there really is an agreement between all stakeholders within the denominations with regard to the consolidation of boards, the school construction board and so on. It appears there are two issues outstanding.
One is with regard to the denominational committees working under these new interdenominational boards that would have a say in admission policies and particularly on the hiring and dismissal of teachers. For those people who have been voicing concern about this issue of late, after the framework agreement was announced, there seemed to be a lack of realization that, even under the new Term 17 and the government of Newfoundland's old model, to the extent to which there would be unidenominational schools, there would be a provision for input by these committees or some other form of governance. That is point number one. For some reason, those groups felt that, in the resolution, there would be no such input whatsoever. The Minister of Education, Mr. Grimes, has pointed out that that is not the case.
The second issue arose over the designation of schools. When the previous administration announced their new Schools Act in January, they said they would deem all schools to be interdenominational immediately. There would be no unidenominational schools whatsoever, even if numbers warranted. That would be unconstitutional because it would suspend the rights of those who had existing unidenominational schools.
Aside from the legal point, that proposition was severely criticized together with other issues of school viability such as bussing. The administration of Mr. Tobin suggested that that was off the table, and the matter would be revisited once again.
In the process, it was agreed in the framework agreement that the discussion on the designation of the schools and what status they would have at the time of coming into force of the new legislation would be ongoing and involve all groups. A decision was made that the minister would go about the province and receive representations from people in each district on the fairest means of assessing parental choice in their community for interdenominational or unidenominational schools. That process has not taken place yet.
There were to be further talks among the churches and other stakeholders on finding a fair means of assessing the desire of parents in various regions. It could be votes by parents with students in schools or a vote of parents or taxpayers generally in the area. All of that was to take place. To say there was no agreement on that issue is correct, but it was considered a matter for further discussion.
We look at the framework agreement as a whole and wonder, but for this issue of the denominational committees, what are the points of disagreement? As between the government and the Catholic and Pentecostal groups, there appears to be no disagreement at the moment. We still have the makings of an agreement.
Senator MacDonald: The answer to the question is, "yes."
Mr. Harrington: That is correct.
Senator Ottenheimer: This may be far from your optimal position, but if there were to be an alteration to Term 17, including some reference to unidenominational schools, would you see any importance to including a reference to the phrase "where numbers warrant?" That phrase has some constitutional experience in linguistic rights.
Mr. Batstone: Yes, I believe it would be of great significance. At the present time, the proposed amendment leaves the decision and the conditions entirely with the legislature. However, the constitutional provision of "where numbers warrant" does define some limit on the power of the legislature, with the understanding, of course, that to establish schools, other criteria should also be met. We are not saying that wherever numbers warrant, schools may be established willy-nilly, all over the place. Reasonable criteria are implied.
That phrase would give us a great deal of comfort and constitutional reference which is not present in the proposed Term 17.
Mr. Harrington: On that legal point, it is important for the people who may be watching to understand that constitutional protection for any right involves both the role of Parliament, as well as the legislature or, in the alternative, recourse to the court or both. Very often, it is both. That is the more general rule; at least, it should be one or the other.
The problem with this resolution is that Parliament has been removed completely from protecting the continuance of Pentecostal schools. Their existence will be subject to viability guidelines set out by the legislature. The only other recourse to provide any constitutional protection would be to provide a right which would provide recourse to the courts. The provision of the phrase "where numbers warrant" as it exists for francophone education rights would give recourse to the courts.
It was particularly disturbing when Mr. Binnie, the Toronto lawyer who appeared for the Newfoundland government and who essentially recommended that you reject the insertion of "where numbers warrant," basically said that that would elevate these rights to the level of francophone minority rights. He suggested that that phrase would allow recourse to the courts which would be intermeddling with the Newfoundland government's position over which they wanted full control. That was proof positive of our concerns from day one that there is neither constitutional protection with the input of Parliament or constitutional protection with recourse to the courts. He acknowledged to everyone that, under this resolution, and in the absence of the words "where numbers warrant," there will be no recourse to the courts and no objective test. That was a very telling admission on the part of Mr. Binnie as a representative of the province. Mr. Irving will say a lot more about this subject tomorrow.
The Chair: Excuse me, Mr. Harrington, but Mr. Binnie was not appearing on behalf of the Newfoundland government.
Mr. Harrington: I do not think he disclosed that he was appearing on behalf of the Newfoundland government, but it was my understanding that he was retained or was asked to provide an opinion.
The Chair: When he appeared before us, he came as a legal and constitutional authority; he did not come as a representative of the Government of Newfoundland. It is important to clarify that point.
Mr. Harrington: It is a fair point. I stand corrected. Nevertheless, I do not think it changes the import of my comment that he acknowledged that allowing a provision for "where numbers warrant" would elevate the rights under the proposed Term 17 to allow recourse to the courts, which, as far as he knew, is something which the Newfoundland government did not intend. That is the most important point that comes out of that evidence.
Senator Beaudoin: We are talking here about rights enshrined in the Constitution and rights of a very special nature. Denominational rights are collective rights. There are very few such collective rights in our Constitution. Aside from denominational and aboriginal rights, all other Constitutional rights are individual rights as, so far, decided by the Supreme Court.
This is a difficult problem. Of course, we may amend the Constitution of Canada, but when we enshrine rights in the Constitution, it is to protect them from removal or restriction by a simple majority. The referendum does not change the Constitution. The referendum is not part of the formula of amendment. Whether we have a referendum or not does not matter in this case.
To deal first with the legal aspect, I am puzzled by paragraph (b) of the new Term 17 which includes "subject to provincial legislation." Why is that there?
The actual Term 17 resembles, to a certain extent, section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867 for Quebec, Ontario and some other provinces. Quebec and Ontario are very much interested in what is taking place here. We cannot isolate this case.
Why the phrase "subject to provincial legislation"? Does this mean that the legislation, to a certain extent, may be above the terms of the Constitution. That is very strange, in my opinion. Perhaps I should ask that question of the representatives of the government. Can your counsel shed some light?
Mr. Harrington: It is a very good question, senator, because we have been concerned all along with the way the new term compares with the notion that it will become part of the Constitution. On its face, it looks as though it has the trappings of constitutional protection for the continued existence of Pentecostal schools. However, when you get down to the mechanics of how this will work and who will decide the criteria of how it will exist, that suddenly becomes the exclusive purview of the provincial legislature, and not some provision which says that unidenominational schools will exist, period, except where Parliament and the legislature says otherwise.
We have here the appearance of constitutional protection with the realization that, if the province were to pass legislation or make regulations on viability, it could set standards for enrolment or bussing which could prevent the existence of a Pentecostal school on the basis of cost or some other means, and that is the end of the matter.
That would make the legislature absolutely supreme on the question of continued rights of the Pentecostal group. That is completely different than the concept of the protection of aboriginal rights, francophone rights or denominational rights.
Senator Beaudoin: In Quebec, for example, the legislature may enact any education laws it wants, except that it has a duty to comply with denominational rights. Privy Council in 1927 in the Hirsch case said that Quebec may, tomorrow morning, establish a secular school for other persons providing they respect the rights of the Catholic and Protestant groups. Term 17 resembles that provision to a great extent. In addition, your concessions on classes of persons are stated very specifically.
I may stand corrected, but that provision does not mean that the legislature cannot legislate for a secular school. I have asked many experts and they disagree on this point. Some say, "No, we must amend the Constitution in order to establish a secular school." Others say, "Yes, we may establish a secular school now; however, we must protect the rights of the denominational schools."
I am inclined to think that, under the present Term 17, Newfoundland may do that, providing it respects the rights of the denominational schools. If this is so, why do we need a constitutional amendment?
Mr. Batstone: Senator Beaudoin, the Pentecostal Assemblies operated schools before it was indicated in the Constitution by the power of the Newfoundland legislature in 1954. Indeed, they do have the power to extend the power to operate schools without the constitutional provision. My concern here is we are not really seeing here an amendment or an altering of the present Term 17, but virtually a replacement of the present Term 17.
The force of the present Term 17 is to limit the legislature in passing any law which might impinge upon the rights of the classes. The new amendment gives the legislature the full power to pass rights which impinge upon these rights of these denominational schools. It is not an alteration of the present Term 17 but a replacement of the present Term 17 which has an entirely different perspective and intent.
Senator Beaudoin: Do you consider this proposal a complete change from the present situation?
Mr. Batstone: Absolutely and completely.
Senator Beaudoin: That is your thesis?
Mr. Batstone: Yes.
Senator Doody: In his testimony before this committee, Minister Rock gave a number of reasons why the Government of Canada was pushing for this amendment to Term 17, or the institution of the new Term 17. One of those reasons was the vote of confidence that the people of Newfoundland gave the Government of Newfoundland in the recent election, the 1996 election. I note in the brief here from the Pentecostal Assemblies that this proposed constitutional amendment was not an issue in that election. That was skipped over during the presentation of the brief, but I think it is important that it be on the record because not only Minister Rock but other people have used the election as an endorsement of the Tobin policy on constitutional reform. Could you elaborate on that, pastor?
Mr. Batstone: We passed over that in the interest of time. I read in its entirety the section on the framework. I was intending to make some reference here, and I will certainly do that.
It is correct that the Pentecostals did not make the proposed constitutional amendment an election issue because the Liberal Party's platform did not refer to an amendment to Term 17. The commitment in their platform was to constitutional consultation preceding any reform measures, and the commitment was to a continuing partnership in education with the churches. There was also an understanding with the Liberal Party that a constitutional amendment would not be made an election issue, and that there would be renewed discussions to resolve the issue after the election. From our point of view, it was not an issue at all in the recent election of Premier Tobin.
Senator Doody: This proposed new Term 17 will be subject to legislation by the Newfoundland House of Assembly. Have you seen such legislation? Does anyone know what the legislation is, or are we the only people who have not seen it? What we are being asked to do here is to change the school system in Newfoundland subject to legislation that we have not seen. Could you help us with that?
Mr. Batstone: I agree with your point entirely, and we have said that this is asking us to allow them to change the Constitution, and to relinquish our rights. We are told, "Trust us." We have not seen the legislation. A new Schools Act was previously brought forward by Premier Wells, and that was so horrendous that it had to be withdrawn before the 1996 election, or I believe the electorate would have indeed turned their guns on the proposals in that new Schools Act. However, we have not seen this present government's version of the Schools Act. We have no idea what is in the new Schools Act, so we have no idea what the form or the framework of the new educational system will be.
Senator Doody: There has been no effort made to enshrine or to put the framework of agreement into a legislative form either, has there?
Mr. Batstone: Not to my knowledge. I do not know what the status of the framework agreement is now. We have not been advised formally that there is no agreement. We have not been advised formally that there are problems. The problems have not been identified. We have not been asked to discuss any of the problems, if they do occur. From our point of view, the framework agreement is still intact. We should be proceeding with it.
There may be people in the general population who do not agree with all of the framework, as there are people who do not agree with the provisions of the proposed Term 17, but we have no idea why we are not proceeding with the framework officially.
The Chair: For purposes of clarity, was there not some legislation tabled in early June and then, I understand, withdrawn? Mr. Harrington, do you know anything about that?
Mr. Harrington: No, senator, that is not correct. It was originally planned that, if the resolution had moved quickly enough, the legislature would be convened before the end of June to pass certain amendments to the current Schools Act to provide for the reduction of boards and for the single construction board for the upcoming school year, but that was put off because of the extended time.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Harrington: I think I should add for the record that, as I understand it, the public position of the Government of Newfoundland as announced fairly recently was that they did not want --
Senator Rompkey: With all due respect, I think the Government of Newfoundland should have a chance to state its own position and not have Mr. Harrington state it for them.
Senator Kinsella: They can read the record.
Mr. Harrington: I just want to supplement what Pastor Batstone said. It was my understanding there was concern that if they tabled a proposed set of new legislation now, it might be used by the opponents of the resolution to argue against the current Term 17. Therefore they intended to withhold the proposed legislation until after the resolution had been passed.
The Chair: Thank you. Clearly we will want to examine the Government of Newfoundland about this matter.
Senator Rompkey: I want to welcome our guests, particularly Pastor King whom I have known for over 20 years and for whom I have a great deal of respect. I wish to ask a question about what it is people want, because we have heard a number of different pieces of evidence, and we have heard some in this brief this morning which leapt out at me, I must say. You say that 85 per cent of Pentecostals submitted letters -- I think 15,000 was the figure given in the brief -- and that certainly was impressive evidence. We have talked about numbers in the referendum, and we have all used figures from districts where one denomination predominates as evidence that some people voted one way and some people voted another.
There is another piece of evidence that I think is worth putting on the record, and that is the post-referendum survey from Professor Graesser at Memorial University, and on the issues. I think it is important, Madam Chair, and so I will just read, for the sake of brevity, a couple of paragraphs. He says that, in fact, there is broad agreement on both of these issues -- that is, the elimination of duplication, waste and the elimination of religion in schools. In fact, there is broad agreement on both of these issues. In a post-referendum survey of 330 St. John's voters conducted by a Memorial University political science class, 89 per cent of respondents agreed that the denominational system wastes a lot of money and that there is unnecessary duplication; and 75 per cent said that there should be a single school system for everyone, regardless of their religion.
At the same time, 63 per cent approved the statement that teaching religion in school gives a better overall education. Then I would want to refer to another further paragraph: The proposition that it is best for children to go to separate schools according to their religion, and that boards should have the right to refuse to hire teachers if they are not of the board's religion. In the post-referendum survey, 91 per cent also rejected that idea, including 87 per cent of "no" referendum voters, so there is conflicting evidence.
As I say, the numbers that you gave this morning leapt out at me, but we must also deal with this other evidence that is before us, and I, for one, am trying to be clear on what it is that the people of Newfoundland want by class. My question is: Would it have been useful had we voted by class in the referendum?
I realize that the referendum is not the be all and end all. It is one step in the process. It is one element of the process of change, but a lot of attention has been given to the referendum. Would it have been useful to know in the referendum how people voted by class? Do you think that would have been a good idea? I know this is hindsight, but would it have been useful?
Mr. Batstone: Senator Rompkey, it would only have been valid if a commitment had been made by government that if the class voted a majority to retain their rights, then the rights would have been retained. Otherwise, it would have been useless. It was not valid to put the question which was put to our class because the question was not fair. We could not recognize the question as being valid because it is possible to reform the system without having a constitutional amendment.
With regard to the St. John's situation, in the city of St. John's, we have only 17 per cent of the population so that survey does not reflect the Pentecostal constituency. If you want to test the Pentecostal constituency in a poll, you need to go to central Newfoundland where our strength is, not to the city of St. John's. It is unique in that regard. For instance, under the new proposal for Term 17, if the boards are established, we do indeed have a school in St. John's, in fact two schools, one of which is a major school, but because of our representation population-wise in the city, we would not have one trustee on that school board to govern our school in St. John's. We feel that that is grossly unjust and unfair, and totally unacceptable.
Senator Rompkey: How would you feel about the rights of other minorities? I understand that when the new order is put in place, only certain denominations will have the right to have representatives on school boards. For example, in Labrador there are 2,500 Moravians. They are probably the majority on the Labrador coast, apart from Postville in Labrador north, as you know very well. They will not have the right to have someone on a school board even though they are the majority of the population in that particular area, so is that right or wrong?
Mr. Batstone: They do not have a constitutional right, but you understand that the composition of the board allows for the election of non-rights holders. There are five positions on the board.
Senator Rompkey: One-third.
Mr. Batstone: Exactly, in which they may be elected.
Senator Rompkey: That really puts the Moravians into the general population. It does not give them any denominational rights. It gives them the right that every other citizen in Newfoundland has, but it gives them no right as a church.
Mr. Batstone: Indeed, the proposed new Term 17 does not alter that. It provides for the same regime.
Senator Rompkey: That is not my understanding. My understanding is that only the churches enshrined in the Constitution will continue to have rights.
Mr. Batstone: My point exactly. The new Term 17 does not provide that the Moravians will have a seat on these new boards.
Senator Rompkey: Then you would be in favour of giving them a seat, would you?
Mr. Batstone: I have no objection.
Senator Rompkey: How far would you go in terms of denominations?
Mr. Batstone: We have agreed to the composition of the boards, two-thirds, one-third.
Senator Rompkey: In terms of the other minorities in Newfoundland, how far would you go in giving minorities rights on school boards?
Mr. Batstone: I would say "where numbers warrant" would be a very reasonable approach. Approximately 98 per cent of the population of Newfoundland belongs to some Christian denomination, and that 98 per cent is represented by two-thirds of the board.
Senator Rompkey: You made the point yourself that the Pentecostals are a minority in St. John's and a majority in central Newfoundland. In various parts of the province, there would be various minorities.
Mr. Batstone: In the case of Pentecostals, that was remedied by the framework agreement, because there was agreement in that provision that if you have a school in that district, you have the right to have at least one person on the school board to represent you.
Senator Rompkey: The only point I want to register, Madam Chair, as we registered before, is that there are a great number of minorities in Newfoundland, some of which have had rights and some of which have not, and the question for us, I think, is how we treat all of them in future. I have some other questions, but perhaps I am abusing my time.
Senator Kinsella: Honourable senators, first of all, I think that perhaps it would be helpful if our witnesses would table the newspaper advertisement to which they referred. Second, and perhaps, Madam Chair, you might help me with this. On page 27 of our distinguished witnesses' brief, they refer to a letter from the government. I take that to mean a letter from the Government of Newfoundland, dated June 5, 1996, and addressed to the Government House Leader in the Senate, Senator Fairbairn. If we do not have a copy of that letter, it should be part of the record of this committee. Third, Senator Rompkey quoted from a document. Perhaps he might make that document available.
I have a question I would like to address to Mr. Harrington, if I may. Do you think that the Senate, in assessing this proposal -- which I believe, with you, does have the effect of abrogating the rights of classes of persons currently provided for in the Constitution through Term 17 -- and in conducting our analysis and in making a judgment on the effect of this proposed Term 17, which will be to abrogate the rights that classes of persons have, that we should apply the kind of principles that the Supreme Court of Canada has developed for itself and other tribunals through the Oakes test: namely, that tribunals in this land may make a decision to allow a piece of legislation to be constitutionally acceptable, even though that legislative measure would override charter rights? In other words, could you help this committee by advising us whether or not you think, for example, one, that the objective as stated by the Government of Newfoundland is of such pressing importance that the right of classes of persons should be abrogated; second, that this measure, the proposed Term 17, impedes or impinges upon the right that the classes of persons currently have, in the least possible way, which is another test; and third, that there has to be a proper balance or proportion between the objectives that are sought, in this case the reform of the school system, and the impact that those objectives might have on abrogating or impeding the right that is currently enjoyed?
Mr. Harrington: That is a fairly formidable set of questions, but I will try to do my best to answer them. They are part political and part legal. As I made the comment in Ottawa: Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Let me just say at the outset that, of course, in this debate the fundamental issue from day one has been the feeling of the provincial government of the need for reform, particularly because of budget constraints and the need to avoid duplication, and that has been the published view. Of course, there are many people on all sides of this debate who have other issues of concern, such as the idea that other minorities are not being sufficiently protected, or whether there should be a public school system, and a whole host of other issues. However, the fundamental issue was the rationalization of the system because of cost. If there was strong evidence that the current stakeholders were not prepared to participate in a framework that would make these cost savings when people recognize that legislatures have a role to play in that area, then of course one would begin to wonder whether constitutional change was necessary.
The position of the Pentecostal group is, I am sure, the same as the Catholic group: They argue strenuously that there has been overwhelming commitment by them to changes that will result in significant savings, particularly in labour cost savings, because that is one of the greatest areas of savings whether it is in the corporate field or in the public sector. That is there because they have agreed to reduction of boards and significant administrative costs that will save millions of dollars. Therefore, at that point you are applying a reasonableness test to the protection of minority rights versus the right of the legislature to make decisions in the public interest, in making sure that the taxpayers' dollar is being properly spent. That is what is at play.
Of course, the evidence that you are hearing now is that many of the key reforms leading to significant savings have already been agreed upon, and now we are into other areas which really relate to the preservation of rights of minorities versus complaints that certain groups would prefer to have neighbourhood schools, and then we are off in all directions. If you understood the agenda to be cost savings and modernization, then I would think that the evidence would be that there is agreement, and that a constitutional change is not necessary.
The second point is the question of balance, and you have to look then at the resolution as you see it in terms of what the groups previously had and what they will have in the future. The problem we have now is that under the current regime, the Catholic group and the Pentecostal group, for example, have the absolute constitutional right to have their own schools, with their own teachers, funded by government, and to have their own boards made up of their own people. Those are the constitutionally protected rights. Those were considered part of the basic compact of confederation, as the Supreme Court of Canada has said in the Ontario secondary school funding case.
We have started from that position, and we have gone to the other end of the spectrum, because all of a sudden now these rights have been changed to rights that are entirely subject, whatever they are, and they are diminished in any event because the boards will be interdenominational boards. Therefore the governance issue has already changed to rights that can only be subject to the will of the legislature to preserve them, so that viability guidelines that would outlaw them will be totally within the purview of the province.
In between, a reasonable compromise would have been to say "We will allow these rights to be preserved where numbers warrant," and that would at least define that if the legislature did not have the political will, then at least those minorities would have the right of recourse to the courts. Unfortunately, as you heard from Mr. Binnie last week, he was really confirming our fears that, in fact, we have gone to the other end of the spectrum -- that is, no role for Parliament, no role for the courts whatsoever; it is all in the hands of the legislature.
That, I think, is clearly an imbalance which the Senate, as the guardian of minority rights, has a fundamental role to protect. As senators said in Ottawa, and I am sure senators here today agree, this is touching upon the most important role that the Senate has under the Constitution, which is the protection of minority rights. This is one case in which there is an imbalance that is on the face of the record, and I think you are called upon to correct it.
Senator Jessiman: As part of the package that was given to the members of Parliament and to the Senate, there was a letter written by the premier of Newfoundland dated May 24, 1996, and on the second page, third last paragraph, he talks about the framework agreement. The premier said:
Several key items which are essential to the completion of the province's educational reforms remain unresolved. These items include the substance of provincial parameters governing school closures, consolidations and new construction, the designation of schools as uni-denominational or interdenominational, and a process of determining parental preference for the designation of schools.
I just want to read three more lines:
Although consensus was reached on a framework for further discussions, an agreement with all denominations has not been reached. It is premature to conclude that a solution is within reach at this time since the churches continue to hold a diversity of opinions on the outstanding items.
Earlier in your testimony, you said that as far as your Pentecostal church is concerned, the first three items, as I understand your evidence, have been agreed to. Is that correct?
Mr. Batstone: There has been agreement, yes, on those first three items, but there has been agreement on other items as well. The items that you have identified in the premier's letter were not discussed in any great detail. They were identified as issues that needed to be discussed and resolved, and we committed ourselves to getting to those once we had moved forward in putting in place the 10 boards that were pressing at that point, and also the construction board. We committed ourselves to continuing to discuss these matters and arriving at a consensus, and I am convinced that a consensus is possible on these items as well.
Senator Jessiman: Can you tell us, do the Roman Catholics agree on these three items of the five that the premier said were still in dispute?
Mr. Batstone: My understanding is they are in agreement with the framework as published.
Senator Jessiman: And those three items you agreed to?
Mr. Batstone: Yes.
Senator Jessiman: The same with the Integrated?
Mr. Batstone: My understanding is that the Integrated class had also agreed, but I believe in the public statements since that time there is some confusion as to their position on the whole framework, and I do not know what their position is right now. It has not been discussed officially with us, or identified for us what the problems are.
Senator Jessiman: He goes on to say that if you did reach an agreement -- if the churches did reach an agreement, then the individuals of any of the groups which has signed this agreement could bring some kind of an action against the government because they were doing something that they had not agreed to. Maybe your lawyer could speak to that part. It was my thinking that you could have an agreement that was binding on everyone, but the premier is saying otherwise in the last paragraph on page 2.
Mr. Harrington: I do not want to steal Mr. Irving's thunder because he will be speaking tomorrow in more detail on this point, but there is nothing wrong with the classes of persons exercising their rights by agreement. The trend of the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada on the denominational rights issue, which recognize the importance of the role of legislatures to govern in respect of education, has generally led to the notion, from our standpoint, that if the classes of persons have agreed with the government to exercise their rights in a certain way that seemed to be in the best interests from a financial and pedagogical point of view, there is little chance that a dissident member of one of the religious groups would be successful in a court challenge. There is plenty of authority to indicate that the recognition of those interests would predominate over the dissidents' criticism.
Senator Jessiman: You have said that if worse came to worst, and we agree among ourselves to pass Term 17, that we should at least let you have "where numbers warrant" added. In paragraph 17(c) where it says, "and to direct the teaching of aspects of curriculum," do you feel it would be helpful if the words "determine and direct" were added? Would that at least help the situation?
Mr. Harrington: Very much so. Mr. Binnie spoke about this last week and suggested that there was no necessity to have the word "determine" because it was implicit in the word "direct". The difficulty is that -- and Mr. Irving will be dealing with this in more detail tomorrow -- you can look at other dictionaries that make very clear that the word "direct" does not include "determine". It just means "regulate" or "implement".
Premier Wells, in correspondence with the churches, indicated that the intent was that that section of the proposed new resolution would include the right to determine, and we simply said that if it is intended that legislation be clear, that the Constitution be clear on what rights are to be conferred, what harm is there in providing certainty by simply adding that word? I think that is the clear message coming from Mr. Irving as well, who will deal with the matter more fully tomorrow.
The Chair: For clarity, I had heard that Bill 8 had been given first reading in the Newfoundland legislature, so I had a call made to the clerk's office. In fact, first reading was given on May 27, 1996, but it was not tabled, so we are both right. I always like it when there are only winners and no losers.
Senator Pearson: I have two questions. One is a general question that does not relate exclusively to your assemblies. Am I correct in understanding that the right that you are looking for as referred to in Term 17 is the right to publicly-funded education? There is nothing in the Constitution of Newfoundland or in any legislation here that would deny the right to a confessional group to establish a school that was funded by themselves.
Mr. Batstone: There is provision for that type of school under provincial legislation. We are dealing with publicly funded education.
Senator Pearson: Part of the argument is about the right to public funds. I have lived, in my foreign service life, in societies where there was no right to a confessional education, so I just want to have it put on the record that I understand that that right in some ways exists, no matter what happens.
Mr. Batstone: They would be treated as private schools under the regulations of the minister.
Senator Pearson: That was the general question. The second question really is more specific to you. I think it was Reverend King who mentioned that no person shall be denied the right to education, and you spoke about the open admission policy.
Mr. King: Yes.
Senator Pearson: Do you accept many children into your system who are not from the Pentecostal Assemblies?
Mr. King: Yes. For example, right here in the city of St. John's, where we have two major schools, while I do not have the exact percentage, if I said 60/40 I would be definitely in the ballpark. When I say 60/40, that would be 60 per cent Pentecostal and 40 per cent other denominations who have chosen to have their children in the Pentecostal setting. The open admission policy is right across the province, and that is a part of the partnership between government and the churches. We all agreed that there would be an open policy so that no child is denied.
Senator Pearson: Do you have policies with respect to the expulsion of children?
Mr. King: That would only be the policy of the board.
Senator Pearson: Each individual board would have its own policy?
Mr. King: As part of a discipline policy.
Senator Pearson: That would not be with respect to the child's beliefs? That would purely be with respect to discipline issues, but in the end, somewhere in the system, there is a place for that child no matter from where they get expelled?
Mr. King: That is right.
Mr. Batstone: All discipline and expulsions are governed by the legislation, the Schools Act. There are no special provisions in that act for Pentecostal schools relative to expulsions or discipline that are different from any other school in the province. We really have a centralized educational system, and the government, through the Department of Education, really controls the major part of education in this province; not the churches nor the school boards.
Senator Pearson: I am referring to some cases in Toronto, where some school boards have a policy of zero tolerance of violence. In the Newfoundland system, is there a place for the child who is expelled from one of the denominational schools for misbehaviour?
Mr. Harrington: I think that is correct. From my experience in providing advice to various school boards throughout the province, I know that it is not uncommon for a child who is expelled to end up in another school system. I should also tell you that generally the legislative regime does not contemplate that children are expelled from school for very long. You really must have very compelling evidence before any child is expelled from any school in this province. Even within the youth court system, very often the disposition of the cases requires that the child go back to school as part of the rehabilitation process.
If I may add just one last point with regard to that openness in admission policies, the situation is province-wide. At the same time, however, once the child is admitted, parents do have the right to indicate in writing to the school that they want to have their child opted out of any religious instruction within the school, or within that particular school system.
Senator MacDonald: This is a question that I intend to put to all witnesses, because it concerns something that has totally confounded me. Aside from all of the seriousness of the matters we are discussing with regard to constitutional amendments, if this committee approves what the government of Newfoundland proposes now, we then must go back and say that implicit in our discussions is the fact that Newfoundlanders cannot agree on the education of their children through the various stakeholders and the denominations involved.
You quoted Education Minister Grimes announcing publicly on April 18 that a framework agreement had been reached. On April 24 he said that these changes represented a significant first step. It was nine weeks later that Mr. Grimes wrote to Senator Fairbairn saying:
However, almost three years of intense discussions between representatives of the government and the denominations have proved futile.
I got the impression that there was hope that this framework could be resumed, that there would be an agreement reached. Is your situation here so desperate that you cannot even agree without the necessity of a constitutional amendment? That is my question.
Mr. Batstone: I can only speak for my part in the discussions. As we have indicated, we are in total agreement with the framework, and we are in agreement with reforming the system. We are in agreement with relinquishing the one board and participating in 10 interdenominational boards. We are in agreement that where schools are non-viable, we can have interdenominational schools.
However, where there are viable Pentecostal schools, we are only asking for the right that they continue to exist, and that we have control over those matters in those schools which guarantee their denominational integrity. We are in agreement in all of these matters, senator.
Senator MacDonald: As I say, this is a question that I intend to ask ad nauseam of every witness. I cannot understand how, between April 18 and June 5, nine weeks, someone threw a bomb into the middle of the whole thing.
Mr. King: If I might respond, I am sure your question lends insight to where we find ourselves as just one player in the overall reform debate. We come to this table this morning actually controlling our emotions so that we are not in tears over this whole issue.
Regarding the concern of Senator Rompkey, 85 per cent of our Pentecostal people, of those who are eligible to vote, have expressed themselves. I sit here today not just assuming that I speak for them, but having been told that I speak for them: 85 per cent of our people. There were 15,000 letters that expressed to the government the concern of the Pentecostals. We have communicated with our people extensively over this three-year period to the point that there is no misunderstanding within our class that when we come to the table and we agree to an agreement, we are speaking for our class.
I support Pastor Batstone in his response to you, sir, that we are able to live with that agreed framework. Why this should fall apart within the nine-week period baffles us, sir. The fact is that we have not had any formal communications to us as to why it has fallen apart.
Senator Lewis: I would like to get to the bottom line, if I can. I think we all agree that there is probably need for change, and certainly, over the years, there has been a change in attitude in Newfoundland with respect to religious education. I recall as a youngster going to school here that we were, you might say, almost segregated from one school to another, among the different religions. That has changed, so there has been a change of attitude, and I think you agree there was a need for change in the system itself.
I think we can agree that there is no question about the legal situation as far as the proposed change is concerned under section 43 of the Constitution, and that really a Constitution is not a rock; it is only a compact between people, which can be changed. If it cannot be changed, then of course you will have revolution.
I have two puzzles, about which I should like to ask you. We live in a democratic society. You have spoken quite often -- as have many others -- about the majority imposing its will upon a minority. In a democratic society, how is the will of the people expressed except through the legislature, through their elected representatives? We have heard that this proposal for a change in the Constitution has been under discussion for some time. There have been lengthy discussions on it, and great publicity; people were given a chance to speak on it; it was discussed in the legislature. I do not intend to say too much about the referendum, but it is a point, and then there was an election. What is your attitude in the face of the unanimous vote on this resolution in the Newfoundland legislature? That is one thing.
The other thing is that I understood Mr. Harrington, I think it was, to say that what you fear will follow from the implementation of the proposed Term 17 is that everything will be in the hands of the legislature. I am just wondering, is that a real fear? Are you afraid of the legislature, your elected representatives? On the other hand, would you be prepared to give up these powers that you speak of, these rights, if there was some protection as far as that lack of power is concerned? Would you be prepared to leave it to the legislature, if there was some way of putting in there some protection for you? I do not know who would like to answer that question.
Mr. Harrington: I think that some of the other members of the panel may want to speak to this matter. I will deal with it just from a legal standpoint for a moment. I do not want to dominate this meeting today with a legal discussion. Let me just make this point: You cannot just look at the current reality and say, "Surely the legislature can decide these issues by a majority vote, or by the will of the majority," because you must look at what is being affected. What we have are historical rights in education that are based on a view of education that is different from other parties. I think it is fair to say, quite honestly, that those members of the integrated churches really believe that the school has a lesser role in religious education, in their religious beliefs, than the Catholics and Pentecostals do. That is just tradition. Everyone knows that Sunday School, for example, was always a very important part of many integrated faiths, as we would describe them in Newfoundland, and they have every right to maintain that position, that they have less of an interest in governance in education and less concern about the role of the schools in religious education, generally, of their adherents.
The problem we have is with blending -- and this is an historic issue, and I know that Mr. Irving will deal with this aspect again tomorrow from a national perspective -- but from a provincial perspective, that is equally true. Here we have the prospect that, even now, a week before the resolution is passed, there are people with very honestly held views, including church leaders in integration, who feel as though they should have no role in the governance of education whatsoever, and that there should be no unidenominational schools whatsoever; that there should simply be neighbourhood interdenominational schools -- and they are perfectly entitled to that opinion.
The problem is that they, together, represent a majority of the population, and in that circumstance you have clear evidence of an instance in which, to the extent to which they can get the ear of provincial politicians on their side, they may then very easily have enacted legislation that would be supportive of the views of these groups, to the detriment of Catholic and Pentecostal adherents who feel very strongly that the school has a central role in the religious well-being of the students.
It is that perspective that in Canadian constitutional history resulted in denominational rights of minorities being protected in the Constitution. This is the very thing that now, in 1996, minorities are expressing concern about; that with this type of resolution, which leaves everything in the hands of the provincial legislature, the legislature may simply attorn to the interests of those who are really not interested in confessional schools, who really do not want to be involved in the governance of education, as has been publicly stated recently, and that there will be no place for the rest of us; that viability regulations will be so tough that, while on paper it looks as though you have the right to have a denominational school even where numbers warrant, in reality you will not get enough support or infrastructure to make them work. That is at the heart of the issue.
You mentioned the unanimous resolution of the legislature, and maybe Pastor Batstone should speak to that, but my understanding is that the recent resolution of the legislature was telling Ottawa to get on with it. It was not necessarily a vote for Term 17 or anything else. It was simply saying, "Get on and make a decision."
Aside from that, the question still remains: Is it fair, in those circumstances, to reside the former rights of constitutionally protected minorities in the hands of the legislature? They then no longer have constitutional protection because, according to the comments you made earlier, those rights can only be protected jointly by Parliament and the legislature working together, or by the courts. If you are residing any rights in the legislature, then they are not constitutional rights at all.
Senator Lewis: Just one comment on that. We have all heard the expression that politics is the art of the possible, and it seems to me that we should bear that in mind. Any legislature has to be looking over its shoulder at the people who elected them. For a government to try to do something against the will of the majority, they must consult the members of the legislature. This is what troubled me when confronted with the evidence of this unanimous vote. You have answered the question.
Mr. Batstone: Senator Lewis, I believe the vote to amend the Constitution was not unanimous but was 31 to 20. I believe the vote you referred to is indeed asking Ottawa to get on with the process, and we envisioned that the process would have indeed entailed, in the House of Commons, the open discussion that we are having here, to explain all of the issues at stake, and then, of course, the vote could have been based on full information and belief. Indeed, it is a pity that the Commons did not hold hearings to hear from the minorities whose rights were so dramatically affected. We applaud the Senate for having such hearings.
As to the point you raised, if the majority rules today, then minorities like ourselves, who have a conviction and a view that education must include the ethical, the moral and the religious, have no power at all.
Senator Lewis: It is coming down, really, to a matter of power?
Mr. Batstone: We believe that that is why the Constitution recognized minority rights, so that those minorities may indeed have those rights without being affected by the power of the majority. This is why we have a constitutional democracy, and why those group rights are recognized in the Constitution because, indeed, we have no power. We have no power in the referendum. We have no power in a provincial election. No politician is afraid of what 7 per cent of the population will do in an election, so the issues are meaningless for us and the Pentecostal people.
Senator Lewis: My own feeling is that there is power. People have power to express to their members of Parliament what their fears are. To get back to my point, the bottom line is that this is a matter of power. Is it to be the government or the churches? Are you prepared to give up some of your power if there was some way -- I am not suggesting the way -- to protect you?
Mr. Batstone: Senator Lewis, it is not the power of the churches. From our perspective, it is the power of the Pentecostal people, not the church's hierarchy imposing anything on Pentecostals. The Pentecostal church in this province is the Pentecostal people. They are the class. They have the rights. They have spoken. We have already given up, as you put it, power: power to have one board, to absolutely control the schools. We will share in interdenominational boards. We will share in interdenominational schools where Pentecostal schools are not viable, so we are indeed willing to share. We are anxious to get on with reform, and cooperate in providing a good education for all of the students of this province.
Senator Lewis: Does anyone else want to comment?
Mr. Wilkins: Senator Lewis, Pentecostal schools exist not because we want power and we want Pentecostal schools for the sake of having them. It is the view of our religion that parents have a responsibility under God to educate their children. However, within any democracy that responsibility must be exercised within reason. We did at one time operate 53 Pentecostal schools in this province. We are currently operating 35 independent Pentecostal schools, and we are involved in five joint service schools with other boards.
Of course, the ideal for us, as expressed on pages 6 and 7 of our brief, is that we would operate Pentecostal schools that will facilitate the child's integration of life experiences with the Christian world view, as understood and practised by Pentecostals in this province. Where it is reasonable, we would suggest that we would like to continue to do that, and we can only do that to the fullest extent in an independent Pentecostal school. Where that is not possible, which is the case for more than 50 per cent of the Pentecostal students in the province, then we would like to have some input into education.
We operate 40 schools, as I suggested. We have a strategic plan which indicates that we will actively pursue closing the majority of Pentecostal schools in the province even under the current Term 17. Within five or six years we will be left with 12 to 15 independent Pentecostal schools, even under the present regime. That reflects the reasonableness, I believe, of Pentecostals in agreeing to exercise their rights only where numbers warrant. Many of our schools will be combined with other schools because of the declining populations in rural Newfoundland. All we are asking of the Senate is to give us the protection in the Constitution where it is reasonable to continue to have independent Pentecostal schools.
Senator Lewis: Which view was expressed earlier. Thank you.
The Chair: Senator Beaudoin has asked for a second round but I will ask a few questions first.
Mr. Wilkins, you indicated in part of your presentation some data with respect to scores on the Canadian Test of Basic Skills. I think you used the 1994 results. As I am sure you are aware, there were some comments made in what we refer to as the other place, the House of Commons, with respect to education in Newfoundland by people who perhaps knew very little about the education system of Newfoundland. I wondered whether you had available those test results for 1994, and if so, perhaps you would be able to share them with us.
Mr. Wilkins: Yes, I do, Madam Chair. The test results of the Canadian Test of Basic Skills, October 1994, showed that Newfoundland students exceeded the national norm in mathematics and workstudy skill areas, with scores at the 53rd percentile nationally, and the 51st percentile. In the other three skill areas, scores are considered to be in the normal range. They are: Reading comprehension, the 47th percentile; language, the 43rd percentile; and vocabulary, the 41st percentile. That is included in our brief on page 14.
We also have the test results of the Canadian Test of Basic Skills in October of 1993, where Grade 4 students made significant gains in performance in the areas of mathematic concepts, computation and problem solving with respect to increases of 8, 13 and 4 percentage points as compared to 1990-1991.
What we are saying is that there is room for improvement in the school system of this province; we are not where we would like to be, and we are striving for excellence. However, we are making dramatic progress in education in this province.
If you look at the graduation rates as published by Statistics Canada, August 4, 1995, the rate for Newfoundland is 71.46 per cent. This compares with 74.55 per cent for Canada as a whole, 70.11 per cent for Nova Scotia, 69.43 per cent for Quebec, 65.74 per cent for Alberta, and 64.11 per cent for British Columbia. You can pick and choose among statistics and you can pick statistics which will show that in some areas we are behind some other provinces, and I can pick statistics to prove, as I have just articulated, that in other areas we are ahead of other provinces.
I think it is fair to state, Madam Chair, that the education system in this province, in an objective, comparative measure of all indicators of performance, would be within the Canadian average. We have a way to go, we admit that. We are striving for that. However, we are not a province whose system is the worst in the country.
The Chair: Thank you. It was important to get that on the record. The other question I have specifically deals with the open policy of the schools, because I must say I am somewhat confused. When we talk about an open policy, in the language that I am used to with respect to open policy, it means every child is admitted upon application provided there is sufficient room -- i.e. desks, chairs, teachers -- available for that particular student. When you refer to an open policy, is that what you mean? Or is there preference given first to those who are of the Pentecostal faith, and then, if space is available, to children of other faiths? Or are they accepted no matter what their faith upon application?
Mr. Wilkins: Madam Chair, you are correct in saying that preference in Pentecostal schools would be given to Pentecostal students, and then, if there is sufficient space, students of any denomination may attend. However, in any community in which ours would be the only school -- and there are eight or twelve communities in the province where that would be the case -- all students would have the right to attend, and the religious beliefs of those students would be respected. As Mr. Harrington said, any parent has the right to take their children out of the religious instruction of the school. You cannot break out of the Christian ambience of the school, but I would suggest that that is no problem for the 98 per cent of Newfoundlanders who are Christians.
Mr. Batstone: Any student not belonging to a class which has constitutional rights has the right to attend any school of their choice.
The Chair: Who determines what the religion of the student is? Is that determined by the parent? For example, you have a case of a Roman Catholic child in Grade 1. By Grade 6, the parents are no longer practising and have decided they do not want the child in a Roman Catholic school. Can they then determine that that child will go to a Pentecostal school or to an interdenominational school? Once the designation has been given for a child, is it given in perpetuity, so to speak?
Mr. Wilkins: Madam Chair, parents have the right at all times to designate the religion of their children. If the parents want to change their religion, they can do so. Once a child is registered in a Pentecostal school, for example, at whatever grade that happens to be, the child can continue in that system and will be provided for up to and including Grade 12, if that is the parents wish. However, the parents also have the choice of transferring that student to another school.
Senator Beaudoin: My question is addressed to Mr. Harrington, the legal counsel. Here in Newfoundland where you have a special section for denominational rights, Term 17, do you consider yourself bound by the decision of the Privy Council and the Supreme Court of Canada on section 93 for Quebec and Ontario, or section 22 in Manitoba, or section 17 in Saskatchewan and Alberta?
Mr. Harrington: Yes, we do, senator. I am glad you raised this point. I was listening to both you and Senator Jessiman on CBC radio this morning. Senator Jessiman was curious about why there is no reference in Term 17 to remedial action by the Governor in Council. There is a conscious reason for that.
When the Terms of Union were being negotiated, the Newfoundland delegation decided they would prefer to have recourse to the court with regard to protection of Term 17 rights rather than to the Governor in Council. That was referred to specifically by Prime Minister St. Laurent in debate in the House of Commons at the time explaining the parameters of Term 17. But for that choice to rest our rights of recourse solely with the courts rather than the Governor in Council, all other aspects of Term 17 are equivalent to section 93. In that respect, we feel completely bound by those decisions.
Senator Beaudoin: So you are bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court on this. In section 93, and section 22 for Manitoba and 17 for Saskatchewan and Alberta, there is no such thing as "subject to provincial legislation", which worries me to a certain extent. I will raise that question with the Government of Newfoundland.
I raised that question because in Quebec, for example, we have cases which indicate that the right to hire teachers and professors, the right to select books, the right to receive subventions and the right to tax are denominational rights. Do you consider that those same rights exist here in Newfoundland?
Mr. Harrington: Yes, they do, and they have been recognized by decisions of the court in this province as well as by the Supreme Court of Canada. Of course, that provision with regard to teachers, for example, which I know becomes a very hot topic for debate, is very much not solely tied to the traditional denominational schools. For example, there was a decision of the Ontario Human Rights Commission in about 1993 involving a teacher with what was simply called a Christian school in Ontario. The teacher's lifestyle became an issue with the trustees of that school saying the person was acting in a fashion that was inconsistent with the beliefs of the Christian school in a generic sense. There was no specific denomination.
The dismissal of that teacher was challenged before the Ontario Human Rights Commission. The issue had really nothing to do with section 93 but dealt rather with the provisions of the Human Rights Code of Ontario, which is similar to Newfoundland's and which indicates that there should be no discrimination based on religion subject to a bona fide occupational qualification. The Ontario Human Rights Commission agreed that even for a Christian school of a very generic character, compliance with the fundamental beliefs of Christianity was a bona fide occupational requirement for that teacher. Therefore, the issue of termination on the basis of inconsistent behaviour was upheld.
We are seeing that the situation which is so much at issue and debate in Newfoundland is not an issue that is out of step with thinking in other parts of the country. In any type of religious school there is an expectation that teachers involved in importing religious beliefs to the children in those schools be in compliance with fundamental beliefs of the particular religious group.
It is important that this be brought to the fore in this discussion today because there are many people -- and you will hear from the teachers' union and others on this -- who take great exception to the fact that even under the new Term 17 there could be provision for unidenominational schools to have control over hiring and dismissal policies with regard to teachers. The fact is that that is part and parcel of the characteristics of a denominational school. It should be clear that even the model of the Newfoundland government under the new Term 17 envisaged that that would continue to be the case with regard to unidenominational schools.
Senator Beaudoin: I raised that because we had a long debate in Quebec many years ago about the Jewish schools. The provincial legislature of Quebec was saying, "There are the Catholics, and all the others are Protestant." The Privy Council disagreed with that, and the Supreme Court also. Since the time of the Hirsch case, we have considered that nothing would preclude the legislature of Quebec from establishing neutral or secular schools. There is no doubt that Quebec may do that.
Of course, Quebec is bound by the denominational rights of Catholic groups and Protestant groups. Here in Newfoundland, if you are bound by the jurisprudence of the Privy Council and the Supreme Court of Canada for the interpretation of the denominational rights, nothing would preclude the legislature of Newfoundland from establishing a secular school.
What is your opinion on that? If that is the case, there must be another reason for the amendment.
Mr. Harrington: It is fair to say that both the Catholic and the Pentecostal groups in Newfoundland were surprised that it was being suggested at the hearings of the Senate in Ottawa that, under the current regime, you could not have a public secular school. We always took the position, consistent with the position elsewhere in the country, that that was not the case. The only question was the political will within the legislature or the numbers to warrant the establishment and funding of a secular or public school system.
The second aspect of this, raised by Senator Rompkey, was that that is all well and good in theory, but that you could not fund such a school because the moneys had to be given to the constitutionally recognized denominations. The legal advice from our group has always been that that is not the case and that you could establish and fund a public school system to accommodate any other groups you wished.
The only issue with regard to non-discriminatory funding is that portion of the funding that the legislature would allocate for the continuance of denominational schools had to be on a non-discriminatory basis amongst the denominations that were being funded, but it did not stop the legislature from taking a segment of public funds allocated for education generally and assigning them to a public school system, as long as there was non-discriminatory funding on the denominational side.
That has always been our understanding. We were surprised it was being suggested otherwise. That is the legal position upon which we engage in this current discussion.
Senator Rompkey: Surely if the present denominational schools are to maintain their existence, they must operate with present funds. If you set up a public system, that will require more funds. You then get into the situation of whether you raise taxes or cut programs, which is the old government argument. It becomes a bit specious, I think, to suggest that you can have a public system and a denominational system at the same time. You can if you have unlimited funds or if you are willing to undermine the funds available to the denominational schools. It seems to me you cannot have a denominational system and a public system without infringing on the rights and viability of the denominational schools or raising taxes or cutting programs. Is that fair?
Mr. Harrington: I think we need to have a practical discussion on how to implement that.
Senator Rompkey: Is that argument fair?
Mr. Harrington: Perhaps I should let Pastor Batstone comment on this. He has some views on this point.
Mr. Batstone: The present proposed Term 17 provides for the government to establish non-denominational schools, so that is envisioned in the government's view of education as well. If you establish a secular school, where numbers warrant, obviously the students move from the present denominational schools to that school. Their operational grant moves with them. The teachers move from the denominational school to the secular school. The teachers' salaries move with them. It is not fair to say that the funding remains the same for the denominational schools and you must add this extra funding for the secular school. There is a balancing of the funding once you introduce another school.
In Newfoundland in particular, a secular school possibly could be established in St. John's or in another large centre where there are sufficient numbers of students to warrant that kind of a school. We would have no problem with government establishing a school for those parents who do want to have a confessional-based education for their children.
Senator Rompkey: The question has been raised as to whether there can be, generally speaking in the province, a public system and a denominational system.
Senator Kinsella: The answer is yes.
Senator Rompkey: The answer is yes if you have unlimited funds. If you took the funds presently allocated to denominational schools, you would impinge on their viability and undermine their viability. For example, in principle, you could allocate $1 each to the Pentecostal education committee, the Catholic education committee and the integrated education committee. It seems to me that would fulfil the terms. You would be dividing the funds allocated fairly. However, clearly the churches would not be able to maintain their schools if that were the case. You cannot have a denominational system with the funds available to keep those schools viable as they presently exist and also have a public system without either raising taxes or cutting programs.
Mr. Batstone: The number of students in the province would not change because you introduce another system. The students would move from one system to the other.
Senator Rompkey: You would be undermining denominational schools in that case.
Mr. Batstone: Not necessarily.
Senator Rompkey: I cannot see how you could have both.
Mr. Batstone: I also want to make a point on the $1. It has been stated in the House of Commons in particular that if you give $1 to one group, you must give $1 to another group. That is not correct. Let us say you have $1. You give 54 cents to the integrated, 35 cents to the Roman Catholic and 11 cents to the Pentecostals. That is why our system must provide millions of dollars of their own funds to maintain their own schools. We are willing to continue that kind of commitment.
Senator Ottenheimer: I should like to come back to the question with respect to those children of parents who are not adherents to one of the Christian faiths. A gentleman said earlier that approximately 98 per cent of children in Newfoundland have a Christian orientation. Presumably the other 2 per cent would be of non-Christian beliefs or agnostic or whatever. I understand that in a Pentecostal unidenominational school, and perhaps others, priority is given to the adherents of that denomination.
Do I understand correctly also that in a community where there is only one school, a unidenominational school, the law requires that no student, whether of Christian or non-Christian background, may be excluded?
Mr. Batstone: That is correct.
Senator Ottenheimer: There seems to be a suspicion that in Newfoundland those who do not adhere to Christian or recognized denominations in terms of the present Term 17 are without consideration or rights.
Has there been any real problem in terms of accessibility to unidenominational schools of adherents of other Christian faiths or adherents of no Christian faith? Is it a practical problem, and how is it addressed in practice?
Mr. Wilkins: Senator, there are two scenarios relative to your question. One is the community that has only one school. In that community, by law, every student has a right to attend that school and the religious beliefs of that student must be respected in the school.
The second scenario is the community which has more than one school, such as the city of St. John's. Parents who adhere to none of the religious groups which operate in St. John's have the choice of whatever school they want their children to attend, be it Pentecostal, integrated, Seventh-Day Adventist or Roman Catholic. Whatever school they choose must admit the child and the rights of that child with respect to religion must be respected there.
In the city of St. John's, more than 40 per cent of the students are of non-Pentecostal religions. They are welcome in our school. They feel comfortable in the school. In fact, some of the strongest supporters of our school in the city of St. John's are of the evangelical community of the city other than Pentecostals themselves.
Senator Ottenheimer: Thank you for the clarity of your response. Outside of Newfoundland we are frequently regarded -- and perhaps sometimes it is our own fault -- as being less comprehensive and less understanding than we believe we are. Thank you.
Senator Kinsella: There are so many questions that one would want to ask. I shall limit myself to two. I cannot help but comment that it is a black mark against the House of Commons that members there could spend as little as a day or so on this matter and vote in favour of it. The government allowed a free vote and one can understand the outcome of it because members had very little opportunity to know what they were dealing with. I assume that we will be having the same kind of free vote in the Senate, but at least our decisions will be based upon analysis and study.
The very important debate between our witnesses and Senator Rompkey is, I think, part of the crux of the issue. Effectively, as I understand the situation, you are arguing that what is proposed by the amended Term 17 can be done without amending the Constitution. Indeed, if the government decides it wants to have a public school system apart from the denominational school system, they can have that.
I earlier asked your legal counsel whether this was not a situation where, in an attempt to achieve the laudable objective of reform and modernization, they are not using the proverbial sledgehammer to kill the proverbial mosquito. They are blowing away constitutionally guaranteed minority rights when they could have done it more surgically.
Senator Rompkey has raised a very important question. How would that affect the fiscal plan of the province?
Mr. Wilkins: I should like to speak to that issue. You must look at it within the reality of education in this province, not theoretically. The reality is that 90 per cent of communities which have schools in Newfoundland have only one school system. Right now, that school system is a public school system, a public denominational school system, publicly funded.
Senator Rompkey: You have to weigh that in conjunction with the transportation system. You have to including bussing in equation.
Mr. Wilkins: Mr. Senator, if I could continue, if you take the 90 per cent of communities which have only one school system and you give parents the choice of whether they want to continue that as a public denominational school system or as a public secular school system, and if the majority of parents voted to have it as a public secular school system there still would only be one school in the community. It would be a public secular school rather than a public denominational school. It would take no more teachers and no more funds to operate that school than would be the case at present.
The other scenario is the larger towns like St. John's, which have the population to sustain different systems.
Senator Kinsella: If the Senate does not adopt this resolution, as you know, the Constitution provides that the clock ticks on. The resolution would either be reintroduced in the House of Commons or not reintroduced, as the government chose.
What great evil would befall the province and what impediment would be created to the continuance of the process of dialogue that had been under way, and, as Senator MacDonald pointed out, abruptly blew up? What is your view as to the practical result? Would there be some good, not only in terms of your own perspective but in terms of the entire educational system if we did not pass this resolution and the House of Commons did not have a resolution reintroduced? What great harm would befall the province?
Mr. Batstone: Senator, we must continue with education reform and improvement of the system. Without the amendment, I believe we will be forced to go back to the table and proceed on the basis of consensus we have already secured and reform the system in accordance with the framework agreement. That would achieve all of the changes which the government has identified as necessary and with which we have agreed.
The Chair: Thank you, panellists, very much for your participation this morning. We have learned a great deal, sitting at this table.
I also thank the participants in the audience for complying with the rules of the Senate. The rule in this room, ladies and gentlemen, is that the audience does not participate. That means they do not clap; they do not jeer or heckle. They listen. We are delighted that you are here, but we would respectfully ask that all you do is listen quietly.
We have with us for the next hour a panel from the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. We will commence with Pastor David Crook, the president, who will introduce the other members of the panel.
Pastor Crook, please proceed.
Pastor David S. Crook, President, Seventh-Day Adventist Church: Madam Chair, I wish to extend a very special welcome to you and to the other senators. I trust that you have noted the weather we ordered for you this morning. I am very grateful that we have been given this opportunity on behalf of our people. I trust that my name will not give you too much difficulty. It may be difficult to go from a King to a Crook.
Appearing with me is George Morgan. Mr. Morgan is a product of our school system. His children have gone through our school system as well. George served on our school board and is very active in our church activities.
Mr. David Streifling serves as our superintendent of education.
Christine Castagne is a parent whose children are in our school system at the present time.
Barry Bussey has served as a employee of our church here in Newfoundland as a pastor. He has studied and practised law here in Newfoundland until very recently moving to Ontario, where he works for the church as corporate counsel.
Mr. George Morgan, Member of the Seventh-Day Adventist School Board, Seventh-Day Adventist Church: Senators, I am here as a representative of a very small minority group. The Seventh-Day Adventists of Newfoundland believe that the amended Term 17 discriminates against us.
About 60 years ago, my parents brought me to the Seventh-Day Adventist school in St. John's to begin my formal education. My father attended that school 30 years earlier, and about 30 years later I brought my children to that school.
We Seventh-Day Adventist in Newfoundland are about 700 people, counting only the practising adults, which makes us approximately one-tenth of one per cent of the population of Newfoundland. We have been operating schools in Newfoundland for 101 years, and we have been receiving government funding for our schools since 1912, which is 84 years.
The question is often asked of Seventh-Day Adventists, "Why do you feel that you need separate schools for your children?" The answer is that we are "Sabbatarians". We worship God on the Biblical sabbath, Saturday, the seventh day of the week. From sunset Friday to sunset Saturday, we do not buy, sell, work, trade, play, or study things we must study on other days of the week. This means that when Seventh-Day Adventist children attend public schools, or schools operated by other religions, they are disadvantaged by being unable to participate in concerts, sporting events and other extra-curricular activities because these are almost always held on Friday nights and Saturdays. We Seventh-Day Adventists are a subculture. We are a distinct society within the Newfoundland culture.
Furthermore, it is our belief that Christian education cannot be limited to religious education classes but that every classroom should have a Christian ambience and every subject should be taught in a Christian setting.
It is our custom around the world wherever we have a Seventh-Day Adventist Church to operate a church school so that our children can have all of the advantages enjoyed by children in other school systems. However, in Newfoundland, Seventh-Day Adventist children are a minority even in Seventh-Day Adventist schools because as many as two-thirds of the children in these schools are not from Seventh-Day Adventist homes. These children are mainly from classes of people who have no rights in education in Newfoundland such as the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Bible Believers, Christadelphians and others, and we have other children from main-line religions whose parents have chosen the local Seventh-Day Adventist school because they believe their child can learn better in a smaller school with a lower student-teacher ratio.
All of these children are in Seventh-Day Adventist schools in Newfoundland because their parents have chosen to put them there, mainly for the Christian ambience of the school. These parents are deeply concerned that the proposed Term 17 amendment will close the Seventh-Day Adventist schools and deprive them of the benefits they value greatly.
We Seventh-Day Adventists are sometimes accused of spreading bigotry. On the contrary, the ambience of a Seventh-Day Adventist school is very tolerant, in deference to the several different religious minorities we find in each classroom.
The original Term 17 used such words as "not prejudicial" and "non-discriminatory" to restrict the right of the Newfoundland government to legislate and to fund education. The amended Term 17 does not use those words. Its main purpose is to allow the government of Newfoundland to discriminate against the tiny Seventh-Day Adventist minority as well as against Pentecostal and Roman Catholic minorities. The Williams report of 1992 listed every Seventh-Day Adventist school in Newfoundland as non-viable and recommended that each of these schools be merged with the nearest school regardless of religion. The effect of this amendment will be the withdrawal of government funding from all Seventh-Day Adventist schools in Newfoundland.
We were not surprised by the results of the referendum last September. Obviously we knew that 500 Seventh-Day Adventist voters could never outvote the rest of the population of Newfoundland. We also knew that the combined votes of Seventh-Day Adventist, Pentecostal, and Roman Catholics would still comprise a minority, since 44 per cent of the population could not outvote the 56 per cent who are members of the churches of integration and those who claim no religious affiliation.
We feel that the referendum should never have been held in a just society, any more than the rights of linguistic minorities or native peoples should be subject to a majority vote.
We urge the Senate to recommend to the government of Newfoundland and Labrador that the new Term 17 be amended to preserve the rights of religious minorities.
Mr. David R. Streifling, Director, Educational Superintendent, Seventh-Day Adventist Church: The purpose of my section of the presentation is to provide honourable senators with a bit of background to Seventh-Day Adventist education on a world scale and with a bit of a idea of what we feel we have accomplished here in Newfoundland.
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Newfoundland and Labrador has a 101-year history of education in the province. We are a part of the largest Protestant parochial school system in the world. As of January, 1996, the Seventh-Day Adventist world church was operating schools in approximately 120 countries of the world, as the table indicates. Notice the total of over 5,000 schools around the world and nine-tenths of a million students. Also, the system employees 45,700 teachers and over 15,000 non-teaching personnel. These statistics represent the regularly structured educational program and institutions and do not include adult literacy and English language schools operated in many locations, nor the university extension campuses such as the Loma Linda University Extension Campuses in China and Saudi Arabia.
As a part of the world system, the Seventh-Day Adventist Department of Education in North America is a leader in many ways. In the area of curriculum development, besides a well-articulated curriculum for religious education from KG through post-secondary, curricula have been developed for science, reading, language arts, and spelling. In addition, special curricular adaptations for multi-grade classrooms have been developed in the language arts and social studies areas.
The revision process is ongoing. The final year of the new science health curriculum for Grades 5 through 8 is being implemented this autumn. This program is state of the art, including laser disk bar codes in the teachers' editions and appropriate electronic, laboratory, and manuscript resource materials at each grade level. These new science health resources have been approved as alternate textbooks by the Newfoundland Department of Education, as have our reading and religious education curriculum.
Other areas in which the SDAs are leaders are school councils, which we call education committees; school assessment, which is an evaluation process; and renewable teacher certification, all of which are well established within the SDA system. I might add that these are reforms being urged upon us by the restructuring efforts being carried on by government just now.
In Canada, we have schools in all ten provinces and in the Yukon Territory. We have 73 schools, 324 teachers and over 4,000 students. We also operate a four-year degree granting college or university at College Heights, Alberta.
The Seventh-Day Adventist church maintains its growing network of educational institutions because of its unique philosophy of education, a philosophy which subscribes to a holistic view of the individual and gives rise to educational programming for the physical, social and spiritual as well as intellectual dimensions of the student.
Further, in the SDA philosophy it is impossible to focus instruction solely on the intellectual dimension. Every lesson has implications in all four dimensions. In this context, the teachers and the classroom ambience are as much a part of the planned curriculum as specific subject matter. In this philosophical context can be seen the value which Seventh-Day Adventist parents continue to place on having their own schools.
In Newfoundland, we operate schools in Bay Roberts, Botwood, Corner Brook, and two schools in St. John's. Within Newfoundland, the Seventh-Day Adventist schools constitute the smallest of minorities -- we might say a minority of minorities -- serving just over 200 students. These are students from Seventh-Day Adventist families, from some of the other religious minorities, from some of the main line denominations, and not a few students whose more timid natures require a smaller, more family-like setting in which to flourish.
The overall effectiveness of Seventh-Day Adventist schools in Newfoundland is reflected in indicators such as public exam results, the number of students completing high school, and so forth. One indicator readily available for comparison is the Canadian Test of Basic Skills, with the SDA board frequently ranking among the top three boards in the province. We note the recent trends. This is provided for you because the document presented to the Royal Commission only went to 1990. We have included the years since that time to update the document. That will be provided to the committee.
At this point, I will turn the floor over to Christine Castagne, who will give you a little insight from a parent's perspective.
Ms Christine Castagne, Parent, Seventh-Day Adventist Church: Madam Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this hearing this morning. I am a parent and have two children who attend the Seventh-Day Adventist school. Even though the school is small, I feel that the advantages they have there outweigh the disadvantages which may be perceived by some people.
I believe that a Christian education is very important. The Christian teachers and curriculum which is interwoven with the church principles, not only in religious courses but in the science and reading programs, reinforce the values and beliefs I teach at home.
Everyone would agree that we need reform in the present system, but I would still like to have the choice to send my children to a denominational school. Thank you very much.
Mr. Barry Bussey, Legal Counsel, Seventh-Day Adventist Church: Madam Chair, my comments are found in the green section of our brief to this committee.
I will deal first with page 2 with respect to the rights. The rights were enunciated very clearly here earlier by the Pentecostal representation. In particular, the Seventh-Day Adventist church has the right of denominational schools under the current Term 17.
The Honourable Minister of Justice Allan Rock stated to this committee that there are currently denominational schools in Newfoundland and that with the proposed Term 17 there will continue to be denominational schools. There is quite a bit of concern about the meaning of the term "denominational schools" and that is what I wish to address.
Our definition of "denominational schools" is not the same as that of the government. We believe that if the proposed amendment is passed, the denominational schools, or the interdenominational schools, will be the same as the public school systems in other parts of the country with the exception that there will be allowance for religious exercises.
The courts in the rest of the country, particularly in Ontario, have ruled that public schools cannot have religious exercises because they violates the Charter of Rights. We believe that with the new Term 17 we will in essence have a public school system which cannot be challenged by the Charter with respect to religious exercises. We wish to make that distinction in particular reference to the statements of the Honourable Allan Rock.
In our brief we quote the Privy Council and the Supreme Court of Canada in the Tiny decision, which has been referred to many times before this committee. The Supreme Court of Canada sees a fundamental difference between what are termed "common schools" and "denominational schools".
To reiterate what our friends the Pentecostals have said, in our current denominational schools we have the right to manage, to hire and fire teachers and to be involved with respect to the curriculum and so forth. These rights are, of course, very important to us.
We also have the right of public funding. Some people argue that if individuals wish to send their children to a denominational school, that they should pay for it.
The compacts which created our confederation with respect to the issues of church and state are not the same as those of the United States, which has a different viewpoint. The rights enshrined in section 93 of the Constitution are unheard of in the American context. However, in Canada we have had made provisions with respect to the protections of religious minorities.
Given that, the current Term 17 protects the right of Seventh-Day Adventists to run their schools, which of course will not be the case should the proposed amendment pass.
It is interesting to note that the Supreme Court of Canada decision in the case of the Attorney General of Quebec and the Greater Hull School Board of 1984, which I have extensively quoted on pages 3 and 4, makes reference to public funding of denominational schools. I am among those who argue that the jurisprudence in Newfoundland is very clear that the principles of section 93 are to be applied to the issues of Term 17 as it currently exists.
At the bottom of page 3 of our brief we state:
There is also no doubt of the answer to this question: constitutional form was also given to a number of means of achieving the result --
-- of course, that is the result of denominational education --
-- the wording of s. 93 itself seems clear in this regard, since it speaks of any "Right or Privilege with respect to Denominational Schools" rather than referring merely to "denominational schools".
It should be noted that in themselves, and viewed in isolation, these means are not necessarily religious in nature, for they may include financial powers, the power to hire teachers and so on; however, such means should still be related to the denominational status of education and connected directly with maintaining it.
I point out again that the Honourable Allan Rock's definition of denominational schools differs from ours. The Supreme Court of Canada in this particular decision says if you want a denominational school under section 93, which I would argue is analogous to Term 17, you need to have the public funding.
In real terms, the Seventh-Day Adventist school board received 0.24 per cent of the provincial schools operating budget. The board has 0.21 per cent of student population. One could argue that we have been overpaid by 0.03 per cent of the school budgets.
The Seventh-Day Adventist school board received only 0.1 per cent of the capital budget. Over the last ten years, there has been at least $1 million worth of building projects carried out on our schools in Newfoundland. Most of that funding came from Seventh-Day Adventist sources and not from the public purse.
Seventh-Day Adventists pay taxes to the government for education and they simply want to be given the basic right of choosing what they believe to be the best education for their children, as was expressed by Mrs. Castagne.
Ms Bayefsky, who spoke to you on the first day of your hearings, noted that persons appearing before this committee should not simply criticize the amendment but should present proposals. The Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Newfoundland and Labrador proposes that, as a minimum protection, its school not be subject to any unrealistic viability provisions of Newfoundland legislation to continue operating, but should be given a grant of funding per student equal to the average cost of educating that student in the province's new schools. The shortfall, if any, of educating our students would be picked up by the church and the parents of the children. We believe that this would protect the right of Seventh-Day Adventists as expressed in Term 17 while at the same time meeting the government's stated purpose of saving funds and rationalizing the system.
On two occasions, we have officially made this proposal to the provincial government, but have not received a favourable response. We have attached those documents to our brief.
Madam Chair, I would like to deal with a few of the misconceptions in this debate, the first being that the government cannot reform the education system without a constitutional amendment. We have had some very interesting discussions on this matter.
In our view, there is nothing in the current Term 17 which would prevent the province from implementing goals of reform in the education system. With reference to section 93, the Supreme Court of Canada has held, in a matter dealing with the implementation of non-denominational school boards in the province of Quebec, that it was acceptable for the province of Quebec to establish such non-denominational boards.
In another decision out of Ontario with respect to the Education Act and Bill 30, Madam Justice Wilson quotes the various previous jurisprudence of section 93, showing that the Constitution is a living organism in which there is room for change. She quoted Chief Justice Duff in the 1938 decision as follows:
The compromise or, as Duff C.J.C. ... termed it, "the basic compact of Confederation", was that rights and privileges already acquired by law at the time of Confederation would be preserved and provincial legislatures could bestow new rights and privileges in response to changing conditions.
Reference was made to Ottawa Separate School Trustees v. City of Ottawa:
... it was not intended that separate schools should be "left forever in the educational wilderness or the enactments in force in 1867."
Nor, we would suggest, in 1949.
In light of the Charter, there are other arguments that can be advanced for those who wish to be educated in a non-denominational school system.
A very important issue has been raised in this debate in relation to minorities giving up their rights. The question has been asked: Who represents the minorities? We take the position that the individual denominational government represents the class. Each denomination that holds a right has its own system of governance. Throughout the history of education in this province, the province of Newfoundland has always dealt with the hierarchies, or at least the church governing bodies, with respect to educational rights. In fact, the Education Act of 1927 states that the executive officers of the denominations:
-- shall be the recognized representatives on educational matters of their respective religious denominations within the department.
This appears, in my opinion, to be the view of the judiciary in Newfoundland. In a decision involving the Roman Catholic School Board as a legitimate representative of the Roman Catholic class in the province, we find this decision of Justice Marshall in the Newfoundland Court of Appeal in the Walsh case. Justice Marshall stated:
The Roman Catholic School Board for St. John's, representing as it does a class of adherence to the Roman Catholic faith, being of the classes of persons referred to in Term 17, is entitled to exercise the entrenched denominational right.
It is therefore submitted that the governing structure of the various denominations represent the minority.
In evidence to this committee, Justice Minister Allan Rock stated:
Society is a collection of minorities in the broader sense. The province of Newfoundland and Labrador has denominations, but together they make up the vast majority, and their elected representatives have called upon us to act. As I said earlier, the fact that it is not unanimous should not stay our hand, otherwise we would never get anything done.
Using the same logic, to bypass the governing structure of the people is akin to the idea of the federal government bypassing the provincial legislature, which is elected.
Fundamental to a Liberal democracy such as ours is that any rights or privileges granted to individuals or collectivities may be taken away only by due process. In this case, there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the amendment process of section 43 of the Constitution Act, 1982, is the appropriate process. It is legitimate in the legal sense. Once the amendment is passed, it will form the basic constitutional law of the country.
However, what is extremely disappointing to us as a people is the fact that this amendment will be the first time in Canadian history that the Constitution of Canada will have been amended to take away a right or privilege. This fact does not create a legal dilemma as the amending formula of section 43 permits it, but it does create a political and, we would suggest, moral dilemma.
In our society, when a right or privilege has been taken away, there is usually a method of negotiation. Often times, some form of compensation is paid to the party losing out, as it were. We see this in such areas as property, where land expropriated for public good is compensated to the citizen losing the land. It goes along with our innate sense of fairness.
In the public discussions concerning the proposed amendment, questions arose as to how minorities consent to give up a constitutionally protected right. Reference has been made to the process of consultation between the governments and the minorities, the royal commission, a provincial election and finally the referendum held in September of 1995. These factors, according to Mr. Rock, were considered by the federal government in passing the resolution to adopt a new Term 17. The implication -- and again, he has not said it -- is that the minorities have consented.
It would appear that this would be the position of provincial and federal governments. However, that is not the case. The minorities have not consented to this amendment. At least, we have not. We wish to place on the record here today that the Seventh-Day Adventist people in Newfoundland have not consented to their constitutionally protected right being removed, whatever anyone may say to the contrary.
This whole process of the referendum of 1995 has caused a minority such as ours, representing only 0.1 per cent of the population, great anxiety. First, a referendum is not required for a section 43 amendment. Second, the referendum was a direct attempt to interfere with the internal governance of denominations. The sense was that if the government could not reach an agreement with the denominations, then the government would seek the approval of individual members of the denominations. That was interference in the right of the denominations to have their own system of governance. Politicians are elected to govern and make the tough decisions on their own accord. To hold a referendum, in my opinion, was to unfairly delegate their own responsibility.
Third, the question itself unfairly characterized the whole debate. It implied that it had to be a constitutional amendment in order to reform the educational system. Fourth, though 54 per cent of those who voted in the referendum voted in favour of the question, that 54 per cent represented only 28 per cent of those eligible to vote in Newfoundland. Fifth, what we as a class of people experienced was that, despite all the arguments of the provincial government and the premier, the government was proceeding with a constitutional amendment in part because of the referendum result. In our view, this has created a precedent.
We are concerned not only with the loss of our rights to denominational education, but now with the threat we face of the possibility of some future government, whether federal or provincial, using a referendum in the name of a national crisis to take away the protections we enjoy under the Charter. To put it bluntly, we are chilled. Never in the history of Canada have we, as Seventh-Day Adventist people, faced a removal of a right, legitimized in part by a public referendum.
The precedent is now set for future governments to use public referenda as a means of justification for removal of constitutionally protected rights. This is an example of brute force in removing a right. The amendment of Term 17, through the use of section 43, is totally legitimate. We make no argument with that. However, the use of a referendum was not legitimate, and we join the rising chorus of minorities throughout the country who fear the use of referenda. We argue that the provincial and the federal governments may legitimately amend Term 17 through the use of section 43. The fact that they relied in part on the referendum has tainted the whole process and, in our view, has brought the administration of justice in this matter into disrepute.
To reiterate, we have no problem with the change, even against our own wish, but change through the use of a referendum, as was used in Newfoundland, is totally unacceptable.
Dealing with minorities protected by the amendment, the honourable minister made mention that Term 17 provides protection to classes of people. In our view, minorities are not protected by this proposed legislation. Instead, rights are now subject to provincial legislation, and that is a far cry from the current situation. We feel no comfort in the proposed legislation.
Seventh-Day Adventists believe in the seventh day sabbath. The sabbath is observed from sunset Friday evening to sunset Saturday evening. For this reason, it is important for our people to maintain our own school system which recognizes the spiritual requirements of religion.
The proposed Term 17 does not recognize the stated policy of section 27 of the Charter, which states that it is to be interpreted consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians. We would state that compulsory attendance in nothing but non-Christian schools is coercive and violates parents' and children's rights of freedom of conscience. However, let us also put on the record that it is a violation for non-Christian parents and children to be so forced and coerced into Christian schools. The members of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Newfoundland currently have a right to choose to which school they will send their children, and it is an important that we maintain our right for Christian education.
Our brief goes on to cite a number of quotes dealing with section 2 rights relating to parental choice in the jurisprudence previous to the Charter.
The Seventh-Day Adventist people in Newfoundland are part of one of the largest Protestant educational systems in the world, and have been involved in education in Newfoundland since 1995. They applaud the government in seeking to better the education of its student population. However, in attempting reform, the government has unfairly prejudiced the protected rights of our people, which they have enjoyed since 1912. We are more than willing to cooperate with the government in accomplishing its goals. However, the referendum has created a chilling effect on our people, as they realize just how fragile is the protection of constitutional rights in the face of a government with the political will to remove them.
In summary, the rights now being removed by the proposed amendment are the right to control denominational schools and public funding to run the same. The Seventh-Day Adventist people have not consented to this reform, but are proposing that the government fund its students with an amount equal to the average cost per student of education in Newfoundland. The Seventh-Day Adventist people reject the notion that government could not reform the educational system without a constitutional amendment. Finally, the Seventh-Day Adventist people encourage the government to allow for freedom of conscience for those who do not want denominational education, and also for those who do.
The Chair: Throughout the discussions, two amendments have been proposed to Term 17: One has been to determine curriculum to clarify that particular section. The other has been to add the phrase "where numbers warrant". Does the addition of that phrase give any sense of well-being to your particular difficulty? If I read your brief correctly, you are dealing with 200 students spread over five schools. On average, that would be 40 students per school, where numbers warrant in that case.
Mr. Bussey: Since Mr. Morgan has been our representative in discussions with the government, I would like him to respond.
As I understand it, where numbers warrant, only seven students have been necessary for a school.
Mr. Morgan: Historically, let us say 40 years ago, a denominational school could have been started in Newfoundland with seven students of one religion. That was the government's interpretation 40 years ago of "where numbers warrant".
We have seen the viability guidelines that the associate deputy minister of education has drawn up several times. There has been very little change in them. They seem to be designed to eliminate all small schools, except those in towns more than 50 kilometres from any other schools.
The "where numbers warrant" clause would not help the Seventh-Day Adventists. Our largest schools are in St. John's. We have 160 students in two schools in St. John's. As long as the government can legislate the viability guidelines without consulting us, the words "where numbers warrant" are meaningless to us.
Senator Beaudoin: My question is for your legal counsel, Mr. Bussey. I share your preoccupation with the referendum. For perhaps one or two years in our country, we have used referenda very often. We react in such a way that in the western part of our country, the premiers and cabinet ministers cannot do much in the field of constitutional amendment unless they are supported by a referendum.
I cannot help but repeat that the referendum is not part of the Constitution of Canada; it is not part of the amending formula. It was proposed many years ago by the Pepin-Robarts commission that it should be part of the amending formula, but that proposal was rejected, as was the report. Perhaps there is some ambivalence.
We are changing the amending formula indirectly by using a referendum. However, the mere fact that we are here this morning means that it is not part of the amending formula. In this case, of course, a bilateral amending formula is involved -- Newfoundland on one side and the House of Commons and the Senate on the other side. The Senate has only a six-month suspensive veto. Your concern about this question of a referendum is well taken.
The fact is that no amendment to the Constitution may take place without the use of the amending formula. I do not know what your reaction is in the present case, but the significance of the referendum shall not be taken into account when we dispose of this question.
Mr. Bussey: The problem that we have is that everyone is saying that they will not take into account the result of the referendum.
Senator Beaudoin: But it is there.
Mr. Bussey: But it is there.
Senator Beaudoin: That is right.
Mr. Bussey: Over and over, we have heard the honourable minister say to this committee that it is only part of the whole package that he considered. However, we suggest that even that part is illegitimate because a referendum has no involvement in the process whatsoever. We fear that governments are afraid to make tough decisions, and that they would prefer to delegate their governing rights and obligations to the public.
We realize that the provincial government could easily have gone through the amending process without a public referendum. It would have had no problem. However, what would have been the rights of the minorities? First, we have the protection of the courts. We would then apply to the courts. If we take the matter to the courts, we will be told that the majority of the province has spoken, and has therefore created an obligation on us to consider whether we should go ahead and protect our rights in the courts when the people have spoken. This creates a sense that it is illegitimate for us to appeal to the courts as a minority because the court of public opinion has already decided. That creates a sense of fear amongst the minority because we feel if the public has spoken, what do we do?
Senator Beaudoin: As you say, the referendum is purely consultative. If you want to change the Constitution of Canada under section 93, or Term 17, or section 17 with respect to Saskatchewan, you must follow the amending formula. That is where the protection rests. However, in my opinion it is more than that. You may follow the amending formula and still set aside rights. It has been done from time to time. It is even done in the legislation. In my opinion this is where we must go a little further than the legality. Under section 43, there is no doubt in the world that Term 17 may be amended tomorrow.
Mr. Bussey: That is right.
Senator Beaudoin: There is no doubt, legally speaking, but there are other arguments. We may agree to disagree. Some people say that if you change a system to substitute another system, you are changing the situation. Of course you are. This is why we amend the Constitution. I will not tell you that it is politically correct or philosophically correct, or that it is in accordance with rights and freedoms because the Charter of Rights does not apply. Do not forget that section 29 of the Charter of Rights says clearly that the Charter of Rights does not apply in the case of denominational rights.
Finally, this is a question of philosophy and policy, not politics. This is a bit pejorative, but this is what it is about. This is where the protection rests. It is up to the population to say what it thinks about this matter, and this is why we are here to listen to you.
Mr. Bussey: That is right. We must commend the Senate for taking the opportunity to hear publicly our points of view. We appreciate that very much.
Senator Pearson: As someone from away, I am attempting to get an understanding of how the system works here, because Newfoundlanders are unlike any other Canadians in other parts of the country.
I understand that the money that comes to the various denominational schools comes from central funding. The system does not operate on a property tax base the way it does in Ontario?
Mr. Morgan: That is right.
Mr. Bussey: That is correct.
Senator Pearson: Is there property tax in Newfoundland?
Mr. Bussey: Oh, yes.
Senator Pearson: Are your churches exempt?
Mr. Crook: Church property is exempt.
Senator Pearson: An exemption from taxation is also another form of public support to something.
Mr. Bussey: That is correct.
Senator Pearson: Nothing in what is being proposed will change that.
Mr. Bussey: No.
Senator Pearson: You own the properties, the five schools that you have described.
Mr. Bussey: We should realize that in the government document entitled "Adjusting the Course" there has been reference to the issue of school properties being dealt with at a later date. We have not heard from the government with respect to that, but you raise an interesting point. One of our fears is that if our schools are eventually closed, who owns the buildings?
In the last 10 years, we have put approximately $1 million of construction into this province. You must also realize that 700 people did not come up with all of that $1 million. We are part of the worldwide church. Special funding comes from the mainland to help support the church here, as well as fund raising. Seventh-Day Adventists are well known in the city of St. John's because we sell a lot of Florida fruit. Much of that Florida fruit goes to help the building projects. This is an issue that has yet to be decided. It is certainly an issue we are very concerned about.
Senator Ottenheimer: One of the arguments used by proponents of changing Term 17 is that they cannot fully recognize or continue to recognize minority rights because, first, in smaller schools the educational opportunities may not be adequate, and second, there is the cost factor.
On page 3 of the SDA synopsis, there is a comparison between the Seventh-Day Adventist scores and the provincial average. Leaving out the two for 1993 and 1994, one in which apparently there was a difficulty, and in the other there were only two students, which was not a big enough sample, in the others the sample was sufficient that professionally one can give them credence. Obviously, with respect to the quality of education and its intellectual concept, the SDA scores show higher than the provincial average with respect to the good education argument.
With respect to the cost argument, on page 5 of the green pages of your brief, you propose that instead of being subject to what you refer to as the unrealistic liability provisions of Newfoundland education, you be allowed to continue operating, and be given a grant of funding per student equal to the average of educating that student in the province's new schools. If I understand correctly, there is no greater cost for the Newfoundland treasury in maintaining your schools. What arguments are used by those who do not wish to continue recognizing your rights? If the quality of education and cost are not valid as arguments, are there other arguments of which I am unaware?
Mr. Morgan: I am not aware of any other arguments. A month or so ago we had an interview with the minister of education. We raised this matter again. We are prepared to accept the average cost per student for each district, and to supplement the funds to see that our students get a good education. His answer was, "Yes, but government lawyers have told me that the new Term 17 will not allow this." This Term 17 was written to give us only two choices: Either we will meet the unidenominational requirements as set forward by the government or else we will be merged into the nearest school.
Senator Ottenheimer: When we talk about minority rights, we are dealing with 0.1 per cent, which makes them no less important. It probably puts an extra onus on us. When we talk about the Pentecostals, 7 per cent; Roman Catholics, 37 per cent; however, you are 0.1 per cent. You have been operating schools in Newfoundland for 101 years, and with government funding since 1912. If the cost and good education arguments are not applicable, then one would think and hope that Term 17 can be reworded. It is not like some terms which came from on high.
Senator Cogger: I must say that I find your wording rather strong, but I share some of the apprehensions you have with respect to the use of referenda. I come from a province where we have been through some of this turmoil. I think every Quebecer has good reason, if not to lose too much sleep at night, at least to be very wary of the use of referenda. Where I find your language a bit strong is that you suggest that a referendum rendered the process illegitimate. Those are your words, not mine.
Have you followed the debates and the interventions in the House of Commons?
Mr. Bussey: To be truthful, I have not, simply because of time constraints, other than I have been reading the transcripts of this Senate committee.
Senator Cogger: One of your colleagues indicated that he had followed the debates in the House of Commons.
The Chair: That was Mr. Morgan.
Senator Cogger: Mr. Morgan, I too have followed the debates, and I read carefully through them. Would you agree with me, or would you care to comment on the fact that of all the members of the Bloc Québécois who voted in favour of this resolution in the House of Commons, without exception, had little to say about the quality of education in Newfoundland, but everything to say about the precedent of a referendum with a slim majority being the basis for an amendment; is that correct?
Mr. Morgan: That is true. That is the way I see it.
Senator Cogger: If, in your view, the use of the referendum makes the process illegitimate, by the same logic if one were to subtract the votes of the Bloc Québécois in the House of Commons, this resolution would not have passed, and would not be before us today; is that correct?
Mr. Morgan: That is true.
Senator Cogger: I find it more than passing strange that a government led by a gentlemen who goes by the name of Captain Canada goes to Ottawa and lobbies the Bloc Québécois for support. Would you care to comment?
Mr. Bussey: In the transcripts to this proceeding, Allan Rock has said that it is absolute nonsense.
Senator Cogger: He said that in answer to my question. I said, "If I disregard that, Mr. Rock, then your amendment does not pass the House of Commons."
Mr. Bussey: That is correct. Of course, there is a real debate on this issue. In this particular case, we are using section 43. I assume that the Bloc Québécois would say that they would be able to use the same section of the Charter based on a referendum to leave the country.
Senator Beaudoin: Oh, no. Section 43 does not apply.
Mr. Bussey: Section 43 would not apply simply because this matter deals with the entire country. The debate in the legal realm is that this cannot be compared with that.
Senator Cogger: For the purposes of clarification, that was not my suggestion. Perhaps I could clarify the record. My point was that the Bloc Québécois did not say, "We can use that with respect to section 43." Essentially, they argued that here is a referendum with a small level of participation, a slim majority, and here is a government in Ottawa prepared to recognize that. That is the precedent.
Mr. Bussey: It is a political precedent as opposed to a legal precedent.
Senator Cogger: One must remember that this precedent comes on the heels of public questions raised by a federal minister who was publicly musing or requesting, "Should we ask for a 66 per cent majority, or possibly a 75 per cent majority?" All of a sudden, bingo, a 52 per cent majority seems to be good enough.
Mr. Streifling: The question you are asking is perhaps the same one we are asking: Is it possible that the vote was done on the basis of the process rather than on the issue itself? We do not have an answer to that.
Senator Cogger: Is it your view, with respect to a certain portion of the votes in the House of Commons, that those votes were more in favour of the process than of the global outcome?
Mr. Morgan: That is not really our concern. As a senator you would be concerned with that, but as Seventh-Day Adventists we are not heavily involved in politics. Our opinion is not very valid in this area.
It is my impression that the Bloc Québécois felt they were speaking on behalf of a French majority. We are speaking on behalf of a Seventh-Day Adventist minority who know that they can be outvoted on any issue, but is it just that we be outvoted?
Senator MacDonald: Were you gentlemen part of the discussions with respect to the framework agreement?
Mr. Morgan: No.
Senator MacDonald: Why not?
Mr. Morgan: We do not know. We were not called by the government.
Senator MacDonald: You were neither disappointed nor surprised when the whole thing fell through?
Mr. Morgan: We did not know what was in it. We knew nothing about it. I still have not seen it.
Senator MacDonald: I wish you had been, because I had a lovely question to ask.
Mr. Morgan: You will have to save it for the Catholics, sir.
Senator Rompkey: I wanted to ask about minorities. What are the rights of a minority? Assuming that the present Term 17 is preserved, what would your feeling be about the rights of minorities? You are a minority; you are 700 people strong.
Mr. Bussey: A little over 700.
Senator Rompkey: You include in our schools Jehovah's Witnesses, who are a larger minority than you are, and other faiths as well. Some faiths you do not include. There are 1,300 Baptists in the province. I am not sure what schools they go to.
Mr. Morgan: They have their own schools in St. John's, but we have had Baptists in our schools in the past. The year before last, in 1994, we had children in the school, aside from the mainland religions, from nine different small religions.
Senator Rompkey: The Pentecostals, although they operated schools from 1954 onwards, received their constitutional protection in 1987. Do you feel that that process should be continued and that other denominations should be recognized in the Constitution?
Mr. Morgan: If they can meet the government's requirements for good education, yes.
Senator Rompkey: What does that mean?
Mr. Morgan: Anyone wishing to start a school falls under a section of the Education Act where they must provide financial statements, a curriculum and so on, to show that they are able to operate that school and to provide good education. The Baptists have met that criteria for several years now, but they have applied several times for government funding and have been refused each time. The government is saving money with the Baptists because they are funding their own education entirely.
Senator Rompkey: How far would you take that? Would you agree to rights for Jehovah's Witnesses, for example?
Mr. Morgan: If they had an education system, yes. They should be entitled to their share of the education budget. The money follows the students.
Senator Rompkey: How far would you take it? For example, 170 people of the Apostolic faith on the Northern Peninsula have no schools but presumably could provide a curriculum and show that they had a school system.
Mr. Morgan: You are presuming they could.
Senator Rompkey: No, if they could.
Mr. Morgan: They should have the choice.
Senator Rompkey: How many minorities do we have? Some minorities now have rights. They have constitutionally entrenched rights. They have a right to taxpayers' dollars by law on a per capita basis.
Mr. Morgan: To their own dollars.
Senator Rompkey: But some have it and some do not. The question I am asking is: Should all minorities have rights to the taxpayers' dollars on a per capita basis?
Mr. Morgan: Yes.
Senator Rompkey: They should?
Mr. Morgan: They should.
Senator Rompkey: How far would you take that? What is a minority?
Mr. Morgan: To me, a minority is anyone who can be outvoted.
Senator Rompkey: It could be one person or seven people?
Mr. Morgan: How could you operate a school for one?
Senator Rompkey: How many do you need to operate a school?
Mr. Streifling: If we took the principle of the proposal we have outlined on the top of page 5 in the green pages of our brief and suggest that the funding would only follow the student up to the level of the provincial average, I think that would take care of all the issues. As the school gets too small, even the minority recognizes that their share of the burden is greater than their needs or desires may justify. I think it becomes a non-issue if we look at it from this point of view.
Senator Rompkey: In principle, you would be in agreement with giving other minorities the same rights as you have?
Mr. Streifling: Yes.
Mr. Morgan: Sure.
The Chair: They have been quite clear about that, Senator Rompkey.
Thank you very much for your presentation. We have learned more about the Seventh-Day Adventist schools in the province of Newfoundland, which has been very helpful.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have put time aside for "walk-in" witnesses. I want to be clear as to what we want from those walk-ins. You can come to microphone number one or two. However, we only want to hear from people who have something to say in addition to the very thorough presentations we have heard this morning from the Pentecostal Assemblies and from the Seventh-Day Adventists.
You will have five minutes in which to make your presentation. You are to identify yourself by name, and you can give us your particular, different point of view at that time. There will be no questions from senators.
Mr. Robert Perrault: Madam Chair, I have two children in a Pentecostal school. I will make my presentation in English for everyone's benefit.
Madam Chair, in 1963, atheist Madeleine Murray O'Hare successfully won a U.S. Supreme Court challenge against the Baltimore School Board, the result of which was to outlaw prayer and Bible reading in public schools. Little did she know that her victory was also attacking the very core of the society she lived in and the Christian customs and principles on which it was built. Nevertheless, with that landmark decision, the Bible vanished from the classrooms of America, and prayers to boot.
Since then, through the decades that have unfolded, each year we have seen more court challenges and the abolishing of more religious rights, resulting in the present day American public school -- a war zone where children literally must enter through metal detectors to safeguard themselves against concealed guns and weapons. The spirit behind such a downturn in events has also crossed the border to plague even the education systems of several of our provinces.
However, on July 26, 1995, another landmark decision from the U.S. Supreme Court restored the right of student-led prayers in graduation ceremonies. The ruling also upheld the right to allow invocations, benedictions, and much more. Presently, the U.S. Senate and Congress are studying a proposed religious equality amendment in light of the positive influence of religious activities in schools and the consequences, as mentioned above, where these activities are denied.
We in Newfoundland have had the fortuity and freedom to witness these events and irreversible decisions without being influenced or affected by them because of our denominational school system and minority rights. For once in history, we have been given the hindsight and can learn from the past how to avoid falling into the same quagmire as our provincial and southern friends, who have now come full circle and recognized the worthiness of protecting sound Christian and religious ethics. We, however, are in danger of disregarding the warnings and also of setting, in our free world, a first-time precedent: that of reneging and removing a minority right already enshrined in our Constitution, which leads one to wonder how firm is our Constitution. Such an amendment and precedent could become as far-reaching as that of the Baltimore school board decision, and jeopardize the minority rights of all other groups.
In conclusion, I would like to draw attention to the heroes of our past, even our founding fathers, who stood for what is true and righteous among the tides of adversity, and believed that it was imperative to protect minority rights. Senators, if you also believe in this protection then I invite you to stand firm, regardless of political pressures, and be heroes.
Ms Mary Kearsey: Madam Chair, I am chairperson of the St. Pius X Parish Council.
I would like to thank you for coming to St. John's to listen to those of us who have always felt that our views have been ignored, especially in the House of Commons. What I have to say may be a bit out of context this morning, but I think when you hear this afternoon's presentation, it will relate very clearly.
The reason I wish to speak briefly today is to talk about the implications of this proposed amendment and the tentacles of a constitutional amendment for the Catholic people of Newfoundland. I chose that description deliberately. We have heard too much talk about the power of the churches. I wish to concentrate on the rights of the Catholic people in the parishes of our province.
Our parish started in much the same way as many others did in the province -- a small chapel and a school in the same building in 1955. This is fairly recent in terms of Newfoundland history. After the parish was formally established in 1962, the parishioners gave their all in building two schools for the children. They carried the burden of debt for many years. The growth of the parish and the schools were so closely intertwined that what affects our schools, even today, affects our parish and its parishioners.
Indeed, we did not build a church until 1976, until after the schools were taken care of. Then we converted the original small chapel into a parish hall, and we have made this available to the elementary school for gym and other activities. We have continued close liaison with the schools apart from the provision of space. For example, we as a parish have made financial contribution to a remedial reading program, to the school lunch program, and to transportation for a certain group of children so that they can participate in extracurricular activities.
In studying the physical layout of our parish and schools, one wonders how it could possibly be conceived that these schools could become what is so euphemistically described as "interdenominational neighbourhood schools," which could possibly be another term for a public school. Many Catholic parishes in the province are in a similar situation. Schools are often adjacent to, adjoining or sharing premises with the parish church. Our whole complex, which spreads over perhaps a couple of blocks, consists of a junior high school and an elementary school with our parish hall, which actually adjoins our church. Our common walls are load-bearing walls. One holds up the other. We have a rectory. Annexed to this is our Jesuit high school, Gonzaga. Can anyone concede these schools losing their Catholic status, leaving a Roman Catholic parish church surrounded by three public schools? Many of our older parishioners have said to me, "How can they take away our schools?"
The proposed amendment will give the provincial government the right to pass legislation that could have an extremely detrimental effect on our parish life and enforce changeover to an interdenominational school system, which is supposedly the intended norm. This changeover in the context of our parish will be tantamount to lopping off the arms and legs of our parish community.
We see not only our Catholic schools threatened, but we see also an attack on the social history, the social geography and the culture of our religious institutions in our province, for many of my remarks apply to so many parishes of this province.
Dr. Leona English: I speak today on the behalf of the Catholic religious education coordinators in the province. My concerns are specifically with regard to religious education and how this is to be safeguarded within the proposed revision to Term 17.
Specifically, there is evidence in other jurisdictions -- namely, in the U.S. -- that while the actual court decisions do not ban religion from schools, the interpretation and enactment of these decisions by school boards has resulted in the elimination of religious education from the schools. Clearly fear, threat and a very narrow reading of the decision has resulted in the demise of religious instruction. This is the situation we fear most with the revision of Term 17.
In our view, this is quite troublesome. We point to the contributions that religious education makes to each of the seven agreed-upon, articulated graduation outcomes for students in Atlantic Canada; outcomes, I might add, that have been agreed to by our present government. These contributions include the contribution that religious education makes to such areas as aesthetic development, technology competence, communication and spiritual and moral development of our young people. Religious education, clearly, has much to give to the education of the graduates of our schools.
For these reasons, we caution you against a revision to Term 17. Further changes to revise the system have already been agreed upon. Any further changes, such as these proposed constitutional changes, may result in the demise of religious education in Newfoundland schools. This we religious educators vigorously resist.
Anonymous Parent (Name withheld): I would like to thank you, senators, for coming to Newfoundland and giving parents a chance to speak. I appreciate it.
I would like to make three points: The first is that during the referendum there was a lot of confusion. Some people thought that in order to vote for educational reform, they had to vote "yes" and that a "no" vote meant no reform, even though it did not.
Second, public schools and Catholic schools co-exist in Alberta and Ontario. The Catholic schools receive public funds. That point was raised earlier this morning. However, our government wants to bring in public schools. In smaller communities where it is not viable to have alternatives, parents will be forced to send their children to the public school because their constitutional right of choice will be taken away if Term 17 is amended.
Third, if Term 17 is amended it will set a precedent for other provinces whereby they can hold a referendum. Based on the referendum, they can demand constitutional change. They can say, "Look, Newfoundland received one; therefore we want one."
Ms Elizabeth Williams: I make this presentation on behalf of St. Agnes and St. Michael's Parish Council, Pouch Cove and Flatrock; the Father William Sullivan Council of the Knights of Columbus; St. Agnes school administration; St. Agnes Parent-Teacher Association; and the Reverend Father Frank Puddister, parish priest.
Our associations fully support the reform of the educational system in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. However, we feel that changes which would enhance the quality of education of our children and reduce expenditures can be effectively implemented without amending Term 17. It is our contention that Newfoundland would not have joined Confederation with Canada without the protection of religious rights in education.
In the referendum held in September of 1995, a marginal majority voted to impose change upon groups of minorities who had no wish for that change. Such a process constitutes a serious threat to the security of minority groups everywhere. If a Constitution does not protect the rights of minorities then it is seriously flawed, and sets the precedent for even more drastic actions to be taken in the future. We are asking that you recognize and guarantee that the rights of Catholics and other denominations remain intact.
We believe that, ideally, a denominational system should offer a holistic approach to education. A child cannot be educated intellectually, scientifically or technically in isolation from strong moral, ethical and spiritual development. Despite assurances to the contrary, we feel that schools in this province will become entirely secular. If we understand correctly, there is a growing movement in the United States today toward the establishment of a visible religious presence in education. Is it not ironic that the very system the government is attempting to dismantle, others are striving to implement?
We cannot emphasize strongly enough that we fully support educational reform, but we do ask that "where numbers warrant," Catholic schools continue to operate as fully functioning units. Where numbers are insufficient for the establishment of unidenominational schools, we strongly recommend joint service arrangements. These have been an integral part of the education system in Newfoundland and Labrador for a number of years.
In our own community, we are pursuing this option in conjunction with another board, and without government interference. We have no doubt that under the guidance of a competent administration, coupled with home and parish support, we can provide the highest standard of education for our children while maintaining the integrity of the denominational education system. This can be effected without any additional cost to the taxpayers of this province.
We respect the rights of those who oppose our position, and of parents who choose not to have their children educated under a denominational system. Indeed, we respect the right for choice in education and feel that all groups must be accommodated accordingly, but not at the expense of our rights.
In conclusion, the Catholic people of St. Agnes and St. Michael's Parish feel that there is no justifiable reason to deny us, as a class of people, rights that were guaranteed under the Terms of Union with Canada. Educational reform is essential, and can be achieved without ostracizing any minority group. With effective management and commitment by all stakeholders, sufficient savings can be realized within the framework of the present system to allow improvements which will enhance the quality of education. Yet, we cannot help but wonder whether the anticipated savings will be reinvested into the new education system, or will be used to reduce the current provincial deficit.
We respectfully request that the honourable members of the Senate protect minority rights by ensuring that, "where numbers warrant," unidenominational and joint service schools be enshrined within the modified Term 17.
Mr. Andrew Healey: Welcome, senators and Madam Chair. Thank you for coming to listen to us today.
I was a level three student who graduated this past June. My brother, who is in level two, will be affected by changes that you have the power to delay. I have four brief points today.
Perhaps there is a language barrier, so if I may attempt to translate, in my humble and youthful opinion us Newfoundlanders are pretty nice people. We can usually work through our arguments. I was given the impression this morning, as I sat and listened to your discussions, that we are all fighting. As childlike as this point may sound, we can get along despite the government's quite unpopular decision and opinion.
My second point is quite an emotional point regarding one of perhaps the strongest human emotions -- fear. To change my constitutional rights as a student in our school system is quite scary. I beg the Government of Canada not to rush this abolition of my constitutional rights. I say as a message for you to take to Ottawa, how dare you rush this educationally fatal decision! This is truly a scary day in Canadian history. We have not been permitted due and fair process, yet we may lose our constitutional rights as citizens of Canada.
Third, as our system works today, the graduating class at St. Michael's High School was, by the statement of our veteran vice-principal and chemistry teacher Ms Sharon Forbes, the most academic class in 10 years. Out of 69 graduates, I, together with seven other students, were within the 92 to 99 per cent overall academic average range. As many as four of us were within one percentile. This academic system is working. There is no way any person in Ottawa can tell us that our school system is ineffective. Our system is not the worst in Canada, and I would thank you to place that on the record.
In conclusion, I would mention a vital partnership in education in Newfoundland. There has always been a partnership between home, school and religion. Often, we have not been able to determine, nor would we wish to, where one ends and the other begins. We, the students who believe in denominational education, feel this partnership fosters a shared responsibility for our total well-being. Social, academic, emotional and spiritual growth are the concern of home, school and religion. This sharing gives us a security that no part is working in isolation.
Finally, I feel much of what we have in our denominational schools is far too important and far too valuable to lose. Yes, reform the system, but do not change those entrenched rights given to us in the Constitution of Canada. I make a personal appeal to you, our last hope at this stage of the game. Please, do not allow our rights to be destroyed with the stroke of your writing utensils.
Thank you for your time and presence here, and enjoy your stay in Newfoundland.
Ms Ann Rideout: Thank you, Madam Chair and honourable senators, for this time.
I am a mother. Four of my children attend the Pentecostal school here in the city. I consider myself a greenhouse. I am active in reforms that are already in place. I am part of the school council, and the school to me is a place where God is. That is where I want my children to be. The school is the greenhouse preparing them for the big world out there. I want God to be in that greenhouse. Our government is asking me to put them in a greenhouse that says God is not, and that I am not, to have any part of that. I ask you to keep God in our greenhouse.
Mr. Ern Condon: I want to make a couple of points off the cuff from notes made this morning during the presentations. I would like to refer to two things: One is the referendum. Senator Cogger and others referred to it. The other point would be with respect to legislation. Senator Doody asked, "Where is the legislation?"
The referendum cannot be discounted for a number of reasons. The referendum was the tool used by government to browbeat the legislators to vote. In my opinion, the whole process is invalid and flawed. On the one hand, while it cannot be discounted, it must be dismissed by this committee at this stage.
I have watched all of the debate in the House of Commons and in the Senate hearings up until now. As Senator Cogger mentioned, the Bloc Québécois voted on the basis of the referendum. Their votes were related to referendums and the issue of the occurrence of referendums.
I am not here because it is my religion, right or wrong, my country, right or wrong, or my party, right or wrong. We all have views and beliefs. We are coming from different angles, but we cannot go at the issue from that point of view. While the Bloc voted to make the point that referenda are important and make a statement, they would love to see this issue get beyond you people. They saw that it got beyond the House, as did the Liberal MPs.
Bear in mind that when the referendum was held here, the premier did not allow a free vote. Cabinet members were required to vote for the legislation. When the vote was held in our house, aspiring politicians in the provincial legislature were not apt to vote against it because they would be cutting off their avenue to the cabinet.
In the House of Commons, the Reform Party believes in referenda and the tyranny of the majority. If there had been such a referendum in the past, would there be a Senate today or French language schools? I think not.
With respect to the federal Liberals, those in the cabinet, by and large, had to vote the party line, right or wrong. The younger Liberal MPs in the House of Commons aspiring to cabinet positions did not want to jeopardize their chances. The older Liberal MPs in the House of Commons are aspiring to sit around this table as senators. They have a vested interest in toeing the line. Therefore, the referendum is important.
Senator Gigantès is not here, but he said he puts a lot weight on the referendum and the unanimous vote in the Assembly of Newfoundland. Well, that was dispelled this morning. It was only a unanimous vote to ask the House of Commons and the Senate to get on with things. The vote in the house was 31 to 20. I think these things need to be borne in mind by the senators.
Senator Doody asked, "Where is the legislation?" One of the witnesses said we were asked to trust you, or as George Bush said, "Read my lips."
Senator Cogger referred to Captain Canada. Premier Wells was the so-called champion of Meech Lake, the saviour of Canada. He was not about to vote for anything, or sign on the dotted line. All the "i's" were dotted, all the "t's" were crossed, and he went against everything and his dog. On the other hand, he expects us to vote in a referendum on legislation we know nothing about. There are a lot of contradictions in there.
The speaker before me talked about the premier of the province and the minister of education. The former justice minister has spent the last few months up in Ottawa lobbying federal MPs. During the referendum, these people went around trying to convince people that we have the slowest kids in Canada, our teachers are stupid, our education system is rotten, and our parents are stupid to have us in this denominational system anyway. Because of this referendum process, we have been thrown back into the forties when we tried to get beyond this process of sectarianism. We have pitted people against people. We are here today because we have been threatened, intimidated and browbeaten by our provincial politicians.
Those are my observations. Thank you for the opportunity.
Ms Sharon Whitt: Good afternoon, senators. I wish to thank you for coming to listen to our concerns.
I am a Pentecostal parent and a Pentecostal teacher. I would like to reiterate what Pastor King said earlier. It is with a great deal of restraint and self-control that we can stand here today with as little emotion as we have, because it is a sad day. It is with a deep sense of regret that it has come to this point for us as Pentecostals. It is hard to believe that we are living in a democracy, but hopefully we will be able to salvage it through these talks today.
Parents have the right to ensure that their children are educated. I noticed this in the Pentecostal brief this morning. The European Convention of Human Rights states that, in the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the state shall respect the rights of parents to ensure such education and teaching are in conformity with their own religious and philosophical conviction.
As a parent, I feel that my children should have the right to be educated in a way consistent with the world view I hold. Through the years, the Pentecostal schools in this province have served my husband and I well. Our three children have been well educated in our system. They have had an excellent academic education, but they have been also instructed in our ways. Their education has been permeated with values, faith and a way of living which I hold dear.
Parents have the primary responsibility for education and development of their children. The development of the child is not just from a textbook. I believe in the holistic development of a child. It goes far beyond academics. In fact, it is essential that we foster the spiritual and the social, as well as the academic well-being of our children. We cannot fulfil the role of a parent unless we have this right.
We need to give up this right of training our children to teachers and administrators. These special individuals have a responsibility to model a way of life in every interaction with my child at school. They need to share the values that I hold. They need to share my faith and my world view. If our Pentecostal schools are no different from any other schools, then perhaps we should not expect any understanding from you. However, I believe they are different. I have seen it from both sides.
I am a parent and a teacher. I go into my classroom every morning and I feel the weight of representing parents. I know that I am there to train their children. When I go in, I know that these parents are expecting me to present a devotional to them, to their children every day as they start. They expect me to pray with my grade 12 students every morning. Not only that, but they expect me, when I am teaching chemistry, to present it in such a way that the students in my classroom know that science does not hold the answers to every problem in life; that there is more to life than rational thinking and logical reasoning. When I teach my students, I know that I am representing their parents. I am sharing that world view.
We realize in our classrooms that we must analyze and, yes, we must discuss; we must explain in the best way we can. However, when it comes right down to it, we finally realize -- and you people all know -- that there are no simple answers to complex problems. In fact, many answers come out to a matter of belief, a matter of faith and a matter of world view. Where are you coming from? I do not think I should be forced to expose my children to a system wherein they are constantly bombarded with a belief system that, yes, is held by the majority of this society as truth, but it may be not be held by me as truth. If this amendment passes, they will be forced to sit in a classroom where a teacher says, "This is truth, and science holds the answers." Well, that is not true. As a parent, I have a right, I believe, to permit my children to go through a system where the teachers propose the same view that I hold as to what is truth.
Senators, today I ask you to respect the rights of parents in this province to ensure that Pentecostals and other minorities continue to enjoy the rights of education.
Mr. Dave Jones: I represent the Catholic minorities. I appreciate the opportunity to speak today.
When the referendum was held last year, many people wondered why it was being held, particularly when 90 per cent of the issues under discussion had all been agreed upon. The issue of saving money was insignificant because this was almost agreed upon. What many people wonder is why did the former premier of the province, who had said, eight years previously, that there was no way they could touch Term 17, all of a sudden goes ahead and amends Term 17? Why did members of the House of Commons not come to Newfoundland at the time and say, "You cannot do that."? Everyone wonders what happened. They went ahead and changed Term 17 by way of amendment, and not a thing was done about it, even though it was unjust and unfair.
A button on my shirt says, "Keep Minority Rights in Education." What we are talking about here is minority rights. This is important.
I would appreciate it very much if you senators would be kind enough to have this amendment cancelled out, because that is what needs to be done.
Ms Vee Osmond: I would like to know why you want religion out of our schools. What harm has it ever done? It only helps children to grow in the right direction. Just like a young tree, you prop it up to keep it steady until it takes root. Take religion out of our schools and you will take away the props that helps to stabilize them, and helps them grow into the responsible citizens of tomorrow, and helps them to stay away from dope, alcohol, rape, mischief and even murder and train them to become law-abiding citizens.
At one time, school was not allowed to start without prayer. Our very laws are based on the Ten Commandments of God. America has "Trust in God" emblazoned on its coins. Has God gone out of style in Newfoundland and Canada? If you were to choose a soldier, which would you rather choose: a man who has a clear, steady mind and a strong body, who is able to stand up in battle, or a man who has been on dope, or drinks too much and has weakened his body and mind?
Our students are our citizens and leaders of tomorrow. Let us protect them and our future by keeping religion in our schools.
The Chair: I thank everyone gathered here today for your attention and for your compliance with the Rules of the Senate.
The committee adjourned.