A Proposal to the Parliament of Canada's Special Joint Committee On a Renewed Canada
DUE 1992-01-15
02 | Definition of Canada
In the past, ambiguity was the name of the game for Canadian compromise. This proposal calls for a clarification of the terms (nation, province, country, state, republic, commonwealth, kingdom, etc.) to recognise nations within Canada to achieve maximum flexibility to accommodate diversity in values held by its citizens.
Today, Canada is supposed to be a nation with 10 provinces. However, at least 1 provincial legislature is called the national assembly, creating confusions as to whether there are nations within a nation competing with one another. If this proposal is adopted, "Canada" will cease to exist as a nation, but will be defined as an entity (country) which consists of 2 nations, 9 provinces and 2 territories as its integral elements.
If the answer to the question "What does Québec want?" is "Respect for Dignity" and not more powers or to be considered as superior, then the respect will be given by the clear recognition of Québec in the Constitution of Canada as a nation and not as just another province. This will legally recognise Québec as being different, but confer no distinction from the other provinces in terms of powers. It will also make it possible to avoid the use of controversial "distinct society" since all existing provinces and territories are distinct anyway.
The concept is not new. In the United States of America, "commonwealth", not "state", is an official description of Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia, giving some people very special pride. There is nothing preventing Canada from defining the term "nation" to suit its situation. With their own nation, Québec nationalists will lose their raison d'être. Only the United Nations will have to accommodate Canada not as a nation but as a unique country. Canada will still be the best "country" in the world.
The term "aboriginal" should be used instead of "native" to describe indigenous peoples of Canada in order to avoid conflict with native-born people of Canada. For the aboriginals, a nation within Canada having a status equivalent to other provinces will be the basis of their self-government.
Thus, the 1st line of the Constitution of Canada shall read the following.
Canada is an officially bilingual (English, French) federal democracy consisting of 2 nations, 9 provinces and 2 territories with a "Charter of Rights and Freedoms" and a principle of "Peace, Order and Good Government".
Nation of Québec
Aboriginal Nations
Province of Alberta
Province of British Columbia
Province of Manitoba
Province of New Brunswick
Province of Newfoundland
Province of Nova Scotia
Province of Ontario
Province of Prince Edward Island
Province of Saskatchewan
Northwest Territories
Yukon Territories
The words "nation" and "national" will be strictly reserved for Québec and aboriginal nations. Therefore, present federal institutions will be renamed with some imagination, creativity, ingenuity and originality.
Federal institutions:
Department of National Defence ------------> Canadian Peace-Keeping Forces
National Archives -------------------------> Archives of Canada
National Arts Centre ----------------------> Canadian Arts Centre
National Capital Commission ---------------> Canadian Capital Commission
National Gallery of Canada ----------------> Canadian Museum of Arts
National Library of Canada ----------------> Federal Library of Canada
National Parks ----------------------------> Federal Parks of Canada
National Research Council -----------------> Canadian Research Council
...
National/Provincial institutions:
National Capital Commission ---------------> (no change required)
National Library of Québec ----------------> (no change required)
Ontario Legislative Assembly --------------> (no change required)
Québec National Assembly ------------------> (no change required)
Saint Jean-Baptiste Day -------------------> La Fête Nationale
...
Provincial abbreviation:
PQ (Province of Québec) -------------------> NQ (Nation of Québec)
The term "Canadian" whose meaning varies at present according to various laws (Canadian citizenship in Immigration Act, Canadian content in Broadcasting Act, etc.) will have a single definition as being a Canadian citizen, paving way for cultural free trade in a global economy. This means, for example, "Star Trek" television series and movies will gain a significant Canadian content because the actor who plays Captain James T. Kirk is a Canadian citizen residing in the United States of America.
In addition, "Governor General of Canada" would be renamed to "President of Canada" without any changes to its status or function.
03 | Institutional Reform and Division of Powers
The role of any government is to serve its citizens and the public. The federal government can simply be a flexible arrangement body to ensure standards, portability, equality and fairness of programs without any duplication whatsoever through logical decisions rather than political ones. This can be achieved by maximum administrative decentralisation with absolute central coordination with controlled exceptions to set collective vision and direction of the country. For example, good ideas originated in 1 national or provincial legislature could simultaneously be introduced in other national and provincial legislatures, if coordinated and organised properly by the central body, to benefit every citizen of Canada. Also, the federal legislature could expose inconsistencies in national/provincial laws and statutes. To avoid confusion, every federal and national/provincial ministry/department should be made to correspond exactly to the division of powers. There would be 2 amending formulae, special (unanimous) and general, which becomes a universal execution formula.
With advances in telecommunications and electronics technologies, it really will not matter where one is located to make a decision. Every business of the Parliament of Canada (both House of Commons and Senate or Council of Federations) could effectively be conducted from representatives in remote locations through teleconferences and a push-button electronic voting, eventually in Virtual Reality Cyberspace. Demographically speaking, despite the vast size of the country the concept of pure regional representation is already somewhat obsolete by the high mobility of people. Note the existence of so many ex-Members of Parliament becoming Ottawa residents after retirement.
Regionalism must be addressed by the people who actually live there at a given time, not by the politicians who claim to represent the regions. The second or upper chamber, whether called Senate or Council of Federations, could be the collection of already elected representatives from national/provincial legislatures. This way, there will be no debate on the number of seats per region because they already exist, and it will lead to simplicity and minimisation of the number of layers in the government as well as the number of politicians in Canada. The proposed system would have produced more efficient and harmonised Good and Services Tax integrated with Provincial Sales Taxes, rather than 2 totally separate administration systems, among others.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation could become a coordinating and Canada-wide distribution body of separate entities (TV-Ontario, Radio-Québec, etc.) without losing any of its mandate to promote Canadian unity and high-quality Canadian productions. This way, it will have no duplicated regional offices competing with each other. The CBC NewsWorld channel has already demonstrated the feasibility to some extent. The Library of Canada could simply be a collection of national/provincial libraries without any duplication of collection whatsoever if Tera-Byte storage system becomes feasible with tracking and coordinating system. The same could be true of many government agency and crown corporation offices.
The Division of Powers should be exactly reflected in terms of jurisdictions in the names of the ministries and department. For example, a convention could be adopted to use "ministry" and "secretary" for entities with legislative power, and "department" and "agency" for those with administrative power.
The cost of providing bilingual government services to every part of Canada will soon drop when machine translation and simultaneous interpretation are developed, allowing unilingual people to serve and to be served in the other official language through a system employing artificial intelligence and hypermedia technologies
Every citizen can benefit from absolute simplicity and consistency in the governments. For citizens, a single "government" is enough for everyday dealings. Nations and Provinces can exercise any applicable powers through customised decision-making mechanisms and power-sharing formulae, but please don't make my household of 4 people fill out as many as 6 income tax forms a year (2 Federal personal income tax forms, 2 Québec personal income tax forms, 1 Federal business income tax form, 1 Québec business income tax form).
04 | Individual Dignity and Respect
The proposal is to modify the present Certificate of Canadian Citizenship card to allow optional and voluntary self-identification to indicate what you are in the philosophy of absolute individualism. It does not mean the end of reaching out to others and committing oneself to the common good, but does mean the end of generalisation and stereotyping by the governments, the media or anybody else but yourself.
With absolute individualism in the context of federalism and national/provincial cultures, the concept of visible and linguistic majority and minority, which to me is no different from labelling people whites and non-whites, will be eliminated in Canada, resulting in a truly just society based on English and French as official languages. The so-called "special interest groups" will cease to exist because each individual will represent himself/herself. The goal is to accommodate diversity of values in an open-minded administration. Therefore, if you want collective rights, you get them. If you want individual rights, you get them. If you identify yourself as an Ontarian, for example, you claim so.
The rule is that if you are a Canadian citizen, you have the privilege of self-declaration as a means of displaying symbolic dignity of individual rights and freedoms. Government should not categorise its citizens as anglophone or francophone. For example, the following will be shown on my carte Canada card.
Sunatori, Go Simon
Racial/Ethnic Origin
human
Cultural Background
Canadiæn
Language(s)
English and French (must have 1 official)
Residence
Nation of Québec
Democracy Option
individual participant, Civil Code
The card with a photograph and an encrypted private key could become the single government card, incorporating the Social Insurance Number, driver's license, health insurance, etc. if applicable, and make it possible to apply diverse Frame of Reference. The individual will own the data and will be free to change them at any time. Some questions in census will no longer be necessary, simplifying the process. It may create an opportunity to customise cultural fund direction on the tax form.
05 | Individual Representation Option
If a citizen has no confidence in politicians, give him/her an opportunity to represent oneself by registering as an individual participant of democracy. The obligation would be to vote on proposed legislation in its 3 readings, among others. He/she would have a direct vote in the House of Commons, but his/her weight will be 1/(total voting population of Canada). On the contrary, if one chooses to be represented by somebody else, he/she appoints the person by means of general elections. Thus, some citizens will have permanent referenda or plebiscites, while others will vote in elections exactly the same way as they do now. Also, each citizen could choose Civil Code or Common Law.
A very important consideration must be given to devise a voting formula where everybody's 2nd choice gets selected rather than a close and divisive majority. The objective is to maximise overall satisfaction level by a maximum number of people rather than a simple majority, thus moving more towards consensus. The methods to be studied include the following.
preferential voting system
approval plurality voting system
...
These sophisticated customised voting schemes will become possible and instantaneous in future through advances in telecommunications and electronics technologies.
In deciding some issues such as cultural policy, holders of dual-citizenship may have 1/2 vote to compensate for the fact that they may have a vote in another country. One can subscribe to any culture or multiple cultures, not to be confined to Québec culture if he/she lives in the Nation of Québec, for example. The bottom-line philosophy is that culture(s) and language(s) can be acquired and maintained by an individual, and is not something one is born with and cannot be changed in a lifetime. In other words, "collective rights" can be based on individual choices.
06 | HyperConstitution and Continuous Improvement
Although it is hard to even imagine a perfect society, it has been my quest to find one. It is very hard to understand what the Constitution of Canada is, or even obtain a copy of it since it is in the form of British North America Act and in various other acts and amendments. This proposal calls for consolidating the Constitution into a single package.
The Constitution of Canada can have 2 sections, 1 mandatory and 1 optional. Each unit of the Federation can subscribe to any articles and items in the optional section of the Constitution. For example, the present parts on New Brunswick regarding bilingualism can be rearranged to the following.
bilingualism (optional) | subscribed by New Brunswick
This way, the Constitution of Canada can expand to represent the national/provincial constitutions, too, in the spirit of participatory federalism, rather than completely separate ones as once proposed by Québec. Eventually, if the Constitution as well as other statutes is precisely organised into a dynamic single entry-point system with Hypertext and Artificial Intelligence technologies, any citizen can see not only the entire laws of the country but also the individual and collective rights that apply to him/her and which don't, making it crystal-clear how he/she fits into the democracy.
Somebody once said "A state without the means of some change is without the means of conservation". Somebody else said "Where there is no vision the people perish" (People Power). The federal government can set up an electronic suggestion box facility for Canadian citizens as a mechanism to achieve Total Quality of the Constitution by continuous improvements, not by sporadic royal commissions, committees, conferences and fora in panic situations. This will discourage political manipulations in favour of small pieces of ideas to be ratified and implemented in item-by-item packets according to the amending formula. This way, Elected Senate with a consensus would immediately be implemented, while Equal and Effective would wait until similar consensus emerges.
It is quite unfair if a federal ministry or department does not apply to all the nations/provinces in Canada. This is the case for a key super-ministry in the global economy. Ministry of Industry, Science and Technology does not have a mandate in Newfoundland, for example, because they are served by the Atlantic Opportunity Agency. This situation implies that New Foundland has no future in Science and Technology. There should be a coherent and continuous policy throughout the country rather than sporadic programs to buy votes. Stimulation of national/provincial competition should be encouraged.
