1958-01-06

Mr. M. J. Coldwell (Roseiown-Biggar) moved:: That, in the opinion of this house, consideration should be given to the advisability of taking whatever steps are necessary to amend the British North America Act so as to include therein the following heading and sections:



&quot;XII HUMAN RIGHTS

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148.	Notwithstanding anything in this act, it shall not be lawful for the parliament of Canada or the legislatures of any of the provinces to make laws:
(a)	Abridging freedom of speech and expression, or freedom of religion, or of the press or other means of communication or the right of lawful assembly, association or organization.
(b)	Depriving any person of life or liberty by arbitrary or abusive measures, or denying to any person the equal protection of the laws.
(c)	Requiring or imposing excessive bail or cruel or unusual punishment or exiling Canadian citizens.
(d)	Subjecting any person to unreasonable interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence.
(e)	Subjecting any person to arbitrary arrest or detention or denying to any person the right after arrest to be informed promptly of the charges against such person and to trial within a reasonable time or to be released.
(f)	Suspending the right of habeas corpus or depriving any person of a fair trial or the right to be represented by counsel.
149.	The rights provided in section 148 shall be enjoyed without distinction of race, sex, religion or language and the right to vote in any election of members of the parliament of Canada or the legislative assembly of any province shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, religion, language or sex.
150.	The rights conferred by sections 148 and 149 hereof of this act shall not be deemed to abridge any existing right of any person."
He said: Mr. Speaker, I may say at the outset that this resolution is being seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Macdonald). I do not propose to speak at any great length this afternoon on the resolution because I want the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway to deal with it more from the legalistic point of view than probably I am equipped to do.
This resolution has been introduced on several previous occasions, and I may say it is very similar to the proposals made by the present Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) when he moved a resolution in the house along similar lines in 1954. Consequently
today I hope it will receive from the government in power at the present time, shall I say, a somewhat more sympathetic reception than it has received previously. I do not wish to imply that any members of the late government were opposed to the substance of the resolution or of the specific proposals, but the former minister of justice, Mr. Garson, took the position that an amendment of this description was unnecessary since in his view the preamble to the British North America Act carried into our own legislation or our own rights the rights that have been so well established over the centuries in Britain and through the parliament of Britain, it carried with it all the rights that are implied or expressed in a proposal of this description. But I believe the time has come, and in the circumstances in which we live, when we should have expressed the civil rights and freedoms of the Canadian citizen in our constitution and as an integral part of that constitution.
As a matter of fact, of course, this parliament, unlike the provincial legislatures, represents the whole of Canada; consequently when we suggest that this parliament should legislate in the manner proposed by the resolution it is not because we feel that there should be any interference with provincial rights and functions, comprising as they do specific rights regarding property and civil affairs. Yet we feel that written into our constitution there should be a statement of the rights of Canadian citizens generally as Canadians; and particularly now that we have a citizenship act under which the people of Canada are citizens of Canada as well as British subjects we think it would be well to have in our own constitution a bill of rights.
As I said a moment ago, I do not propose to go into all the arguments in favour of it, but we remember that in recent years there has been interference with fundamental rights from time to time. I do not want to raise any controversy regarding events which took place some years ago, but we do recollect that in one of our provinces legislation was proposed that would limit to some extent at least freedom of the press, the rights of certain employees of financial institutions, and so on. Another province had certain legislation on its statute books for some time which was not disallowed by the federal government but was subsequently thrown out by the Supreme Court of Canada.
May I say in passing that I think we all appreciate the manner in which the Supreme
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Human Rights
Court of Canada, when it has been called upon from time to time to consider matters of these descriptions, has protected some fundamental rights of Canadian citizenship, particularly in those respects I have already mentioned.
While the Supreme Court of Canada has from time to time protected the civil rights of Canadians, nevertheless it seems to us, as I said a few moments ago, that having regard to the circumstances and the times in which we live, the time has come when there should be a clear and explicit statement as to the civil rights of Canadians generally, and that such rights should be spelled out in definite legislation enacted by parliament in order to ensure that they shall not be improperly infringed.
The right of freedom of speech and expression is a right that from time to time has been interfered with, not only by legislative bodies but sometimes by private individuals. Then there is freedom of religion, and again in very recent times there have been cases before the Supreme Court of Canada in which the court was called upon to determine whether or not legislation in a province did interfere with the religious rights of Canadian citizens. Of course two of the most fundamental of all our rights are freedom of association and freedom of the press, and to our way of thinking these rights should be spelled out explicitly in an act of the Canadian parliament.
Then, of course, some of us also remember that a few years ago we had an unfortunate situation-and while the end was probably a good one we believe that the end never justifies the means-when certain citizens of Canada were picked up, held incommunicado, were not given any warning that anything they said at that time would or might be used against them subsequently, and had no access to legal advice.
This was done; and whether or not people believe that the government of the day was justified in some instances in doing what it did, I do not believe there was justification. Ultimately some of those who were charged were judged by the courts to be innocent, but they had been picked up and held in this manner. Consequently it cannot be said that provisions of this description are not necessary within our constitution to protect the civil and legal rights of our people. After all, our freedoms in these domocratic countries, and particularly countries with institutions like our own, are freedoms under the law. The law, of course, is made by this parliament, and in some respects by the legislatures.

It seems to us, consequently, that the law should explicitly spell out what some of these fundamental freedoms really are, so there should be no doubt about them. Then, of course, there is the right of everybody to those things that are private, to a man and his family, which should be protected. There should be no arrest, no arbitrary detention by a government, a minister or any officer of the crown, of this parliament or of any authority, and we should have a provision in our legislation so this could not be done under any circumstances.
I have no doubt that this afternoon something will be said with regard to the centuries old right of habeas corpus, the right of a lawyer or someone to appear in court and demand that a person be produced so that he shall not be improperly detained for any length of time without being brought before a magistrate or other proper authority so he may be accused and at least given an opportunity to make his first plea. It seems to me this is fundamental to our basic rights under the law as we have known it for centuries. These rights should all be enjoyed by every citizen, at least, of Canada- I was going to say every resident, but at least every citizen without regard to race, creed, colour or religion. I need not add that in our own country such rights have been denied because of race, because of colour and sometimes of religion.
I recall very vividly the controversy during the years prior to the first world war when so many of our citizens of Asian origin on the Pacific coast were not treated as first-class Canadian citizens. I recall that because of their religious persuasion a body of people in this country were also denied the right of the franchise in one of our Canadian provinces. I am thinking particularly of the Doukhobors in British Columbia. This disability was, of course, removed later.
Sometimes it is said that Doukhobors have been a nuisance in Canada. I want to say immediately that is only partly correct, because the vast majority of these people professing that religion today are amongst our most law abiding citizens, at least in the province from which I come and to a very large extent in British Columbia. I think it is unfortunate that a whole group of people should be characterized as unlawful and disobedient to the laws of the land in which they live because a small percentage of them commit acts which none of us can condone. However, those disabilities have been removed but there are disabilities that still remain. It seems to me that we should legislate so that beyond peradventure the basic rights of Canadian citizenship should be guaranteed to all our people.

That, of course, is the purpose of this resolution. In former days the resolution was usually talked out. The resolution introduced by the present Prime Minister, I recollect, was talked out in 1954 and the resolution I moved as late as 1956 was also talked out. In a resolution of this description there is no question of confidence in the government. This is not a confidence measure, and I take it that all persons sitting in all quarters of the house would have the right to vote as they think fit, regardless of party affiliations.
I think it is a good thing that from time to time we are able to do this. In fact I am one of those who hold the view that unless a motion or an amendment is of such a nature that it involves an expressed want of confidence in a government it should not be so regarded, and that only when it is so stated as a confidence motion should members be governed by the party affiliations which they may have. In this case we are relieved of that obligation, so every member of the house is free to express himself and to vote according to the way he thinks and feels.
I do not propose to go into this matter to any extent, Mr. Speaker, because as I say I want my friend the hon. member for Van-couver-Kingsway to have an opportunity of dealing with some of the problems. I have discussed this matter in the house so frequently in former years that I thought a fresh approach by one who has made something of a study of this matter would be acceptable to the house.
Before I sit down I want to say that of course I am not pretending that the spelling out of this amendment is entirely my own work. As a matter of fact, in writing this resolution I had the advice and assistance of some of the ablest constitutional lawyers in Canada whose names, if I mentioned them, would be familiar to hon. members and who are regarded as outstanding authorities in this particular field. They assisted me and advised me that this resolution as it stands is entirely within the right of this parliament, and that in their opinion its subject matter should be written into the constitution of Canada.
With those words, Mr. Speaker, I am going to invite the consideration of the hon. members of the house.
Mr. D. J. Walker (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, may I first compliment, on behalf of the members of the house, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar on his eloquent and at the same time succinct outline of this problem which faces all of us. I want to say what a pleasure it is to sit opposite the hon. member for Rose-town-Biggar. He enunciates principles and
Human Rights
he enunciates them well. While I seldom have been able to agree with him, on this occasion I think the majority of the members of the house do so. We respect him because of his parliamentary ability and also because he is a very kindly man.
May I say that it is very fitting that we should pause today in our mad rush of material thinking to consider matters which are far more important, matters of the spirit. Transcending all others is the question of our freedom. This is close to all our hearts and I trust, Mr. Speaker, that in this debate which takes place after all on private members' day, as suggested by my hon. friend everybody will express himself free of any party affiliations and free of any party duties.
I know the hon. gentleman will have no objection if I briefly trace-because he has taken the opportunity of doing so himself- the history of the proposed bill of rights in this house. Not today, not yesterday but almost 12 years ago a certain member of this house tried to get a bill of rights resolution on the order paper. Not being able to do that, he moved an amendment to the citizenship act in order to bring the matter before the house. Within a short time a petition signed by 500,000 or more Canadians insisted that a bill of rights should be passed by this house.
From that day to the present time, one resolution after another advocating a bill of rights has been placed on the order paper by this certain person. I need hardly identify the member of the house whom I have in mind because to the older members of this house his name is so well known. He is none other than the then member for Lake Centre who is now the Prime Minister of Canada.
The first time he raised this matter was in May, 1946. A year later he took part in a very important debate, the reading of which I commend to all members of this house. In 1947, as found at page 3149 of Hansard, he started the pilgrimage and, as you know so well, the matter has been taken up very ably by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar as well as by many other hon. memners.
As a result of the speech of 1947 tremendous interest was created in Canada with respect to a bill of rights. Not only did the speech catch the imagination of the Canadian people but it was cited in the United Nations and, I understand, was used when the United Nations was drafting its fundamental bill of rights, the universal bill of rights, a year later. Furthermore, one year after the speech of this hon. member the declaration of human rights was passed by the United Nations

Human Rights
assembly, namely in December, 1948. In addition great interest was stirred in England. I found last summer during a visit to parliament at Westminster with some members of that house that our Prime Minister was recalled in one connection in particular, as the champion of the bill of rights.
In 1952 we had his resolution finally placed on the order paper and, his motion having been made and debated, three years later, in 1955, he again moved the same resolution in the same wording. On the same occasion he submitted to the hon. members of this house a draft bill for their consideration; a bill, Mr. Speaker, which was originally drafted by certain honourable members in the other place and amended at that time by the then member for Prince Albert.
May I today very briefly compare the resolution moved by the former member for Prince Albert, as a matter of fact the member for Lake Centre at that time, when that resolution was before the house. It is very short and I would like to read it into the record. It is to oe found at page 714 of the 1952 debates, as follows:


Mr. J. G. Diefenbaker (Lake Centre) moved:: That, in the opinion of this house, immediate consideration should be given to the advisability of introducing a bill or declaration of rights to assure amongst other rights:
1.	Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and of radio;
2.	That habeas corpus shall not be abrogated or suspended except by parliament;
3.	That no one shall be deprived of liberty or property without due process of law, and in no case by order in council;
4.	That no tribunal or commission shall have the power to compel the giving of evidence by anyone who is denied counsel or other constitutional safeguards.
And then, Mr. Speaker, I ask you to note the following in particular because it is most important and it always has been the view of the Prime Minister. It reads:
And that as a preliminary step the government should consider the advisability of submitting for the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada the question as to the degree to which fundamental freedoms of religion, speech and of the press and the preservation of the constitutional rights of the individual are matters of federal or provincial jurisdiction.
Without making any minute comparison of the two resolutions I think it can be said that clause (a) of the resolution presented by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar is similar to clause 1 of the resolution presented by my leader on March 24, 1952, when he was the hon. member for Lake Centre; clause (b) is similar to clause 3, clause (e) is similar to clause 4 and clause (f) is similar to clause 2. There is of course a great deal

of similarity between the two resolutions although there is a difference in implementation.
After reading over the freedoms enunciated in the resolution presented by the then hon. member for Lake Centre it occurred to me to wonder whether, if he had included another clause dealing with freedom of enterprise, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar would have included that in the resolution before the house today.


Major James William Coldwell: I did not include economic freedom or freedom from monopoly; I should have done so.


David James Walker: I thank my hon. friend for that suggestion.


Major James William Coldwell: Which is quite different.


David James Walker: I had in mind giving my views on this very important subject, particularly on the principles involved which were so eloquently expressed today and which have been so expressed in the past by my friend the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar; but I think it would be far better and would take far less time if I were to refer to a speech made by the leader of my party when he was the hon. member for Lake Centre in 1947. I shall do so briefly, referring only to a few excerpts from the remarks he made on that occasion as recorded at page 3152 of the debates of this house for May 16, 1947. At that time the then hon. member for Lake Centre stated:
What would a bill of rights do? It would assert the right of the individual to go into the courts of this country, thereby assuring the preservation of his freedoms. These great traditional rights are merely pious ejaculations unless the individual has the right to assert them in the courts of law.
He then discussed the difference between democratic governments and authoritarian governments and stated:
The difference between democratic government and authoritarian government is this, that, while democracy gives rights of the individual against the state, authoritarianism annihilates the rights of the individual. Democracy enthrones the sacredness of human dignity, while authoritarianism enthrones the power of the state.
He then went on to discuss what a bill of rights must declare, in these words:
A bill of rights must declare for this country a government of laws, not of men. And only under a government of laws can there be a full development of the human personality.
He then discussed freedom:
Freedom today must he fought for, as it was in the past. Freedom is indivisible; there cannot be fractional freedom in our country. When the state is supreme over the individual, then every person must be prepared to act on instructions from the state. Then personal freedom ends.

I wonder if the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar will agree with the following:
History shows that if the state plans and provides for the individual, the state must have an unchallengeable right to direct the individual as to where he must go and what he must do. And when that is done, freedom ends.
My final reference is to be found at page 3158 of Hansard of May 16, 1947, where my leader discussed civil liberties in these words:
What are civil liberties? The most sacred things of the human personality. They epitomize our belief in the dignity of the human being; they translate that dignity into rights which the individual can enjoy against the state or against other all-powerful individuals within the state. Civil liberties constitute the individual a sacred being. Civil liberties make him a sovereign in his dealings with the state, provided that he remains within the law.
There we have the situation succinctly and eloquently stated. I must say to my friend the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar that the expressions he used today and on previous occasions when discussing this matter are somewhat similar to those used by the then hon. member for Lake Centre. Year after year for almost 12 years the present Prime Minister has outlined a bill of rights to this house; and without detracting in any way from the honour and recognition due to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar for having brought in the resolution before us today, and not only today but in 1955 and 1956, I have attempted to outline the history and background of a bill of rights.
I know the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar does not object to my doing so, and by the nodding of his head I took it that he encouraged me in my attempt to outline the history of what I consider to be a movement to ensure our freedom. As we look back over the long pilgrimage of the present Prime Minister in public life we can only conclude that this bill of rights, his brain child, will soon have its fruition and be realized.
It is true, and I say this without reference to politics, that the bill of rights is synonymous with the name Diefenbaker and the name Diefenbaker is inextricably bound up in the bill of human rights. The conception of the bill of rights held by my leader is that it is a great charter of human freedom. For the Canadian people, particularly in "Cabbagetown" in my constituency of Rosedale, their ideal of freedom is personified in the person of the Prime Minister.	His life typifies it. He lives,
breathes and has his being in freedom. I hope it will not sound or be considered political if I suggest that the present government typifies it also, because it is a government free of prejudice, free of fear, free of
Human Rights
any outside interests which control it. The government of the day, with freedom and fearlessness, is attempting to put on the statute books those things which it feels the Canadian people are seeking at the present time.
Therefore when the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar moves the resolution he has brought forward today I know he is doing so in the interests of the Canadian people. Because it is not in his nature, I know he is not attempting to substitute himself for the Prime Minister as the champion of this bill of rights, nor in his own mind was he thinking for one moment that the Prime Minister has forgotten the subject closest to his heart over the years. All the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar is doing is helping us out and making his contribution to the fulfillment of the desire of so many millions of Canadians.
May I say that although the Prime Minister might be called the father of the bill of rights, I am sure no hon. member of this house would object to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar being known as one of the uncles of the bill of rights.


Major James William Coldwell: The uncle may be right, you know.


David James Walker: Thank you very much. Of course there is one great difference between the resolution presented today by my honourable and learned friend and that advocated by my leader over the years, but it is only a difference in the modus operandi, the way in which it will be worked out. The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar proposes an amendment to the constitution, the British North America Act, and in that regard he has received certain assistance from constitutional lawyers. The Prime Minister on the other hand proposes, not that we should take that circuitous and lengthy way, but that the bill of rights should be enacted as a dominion statute.
Now may I say this lest there be any doubt about it. The government is in favour of a bill of rights, but it is a matter of such importance and of such far-reaching consequence, that when it is enacted it will rank with the important constitutional documents of western democracy. There is no question about that. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, we must move cautiously. There is a great deal of homework to be done, because the Liberal government which occupied office for 22 years spent part of 11 years in opposing a bill of rights. Never did the opportunity really come for a vote on this important subject. Therefore for the first time the skilled law officers

Human Rights
of the crown have had their attention turned to implementing a bill of rights and the working out of this problem.
I am delighted to learn from the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar that one of those who serve under him, the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway, I understand himself a lawyer, is going to expound to this house how we can bring a bill of rights into being. I would be delighted to have his assistance. Here are some of the problems which must face the government and hon. members before an act can be finally passed. I am not going to solve them at this time; I am going to outline them very briefly, and I would be glad to have the assistance of the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway.
First, should a bill be submitted to the Supreme Court of Canada and, if so, how? Should it be a draft bill, with the question asked as to whether it is within the jurisdiction of the federal parliament, keeping in mind, Mr. Speaker, that in constitutional law Canada is woefully lacking, as the hon. member I am sure will agree, in decisions on questions of this kind? In other words, where do the rights of the dominion cease under section 91 of the British North America Act and where do the rights of the provinces under section 92 begin, particularly when one discusses such abstract but very real values as freedom? Second, should we submit a series of questions to the supreme court? As my hon. friend no doubt is fully aware, to do so is very difficult because we must frame questions of law as distinct from questions of policy which latter, of course, the supreme court will not deal with.
Third, should we have a parliamentary committee to explore and agree on a draft that will be suitable to parliament when it finally reaches parliament? Fourth, would it be premature to submit a draft to the supreme court and then, having their approval, come back to the house to find that it is not acceptable to hon. members, or should the government by-pass the courts and reach rapport with the provinces by calling them into session, having a dominion-provincial conference on the question of a bill of rights, in which the property and civil rights of the provinces would be properly protected? Fifth, should the government itself draft a bill for the approval of and amendment by the provinces, send it to them and have them deal with it? Sixth, should we draft a strictly federal bill? Is this possible under the circumstances, in view of the property and civil rights of the provinces?
Then we must consider very carefully and with great respect the resolution of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, who suggests

that this legislation should be in the form of an amendment to the British North America Act. If the amendment concerns matters of purely federal jurisdiction, Mr. Speaker, it can be made without provincial consent; but if the matter concerns, as his resolution concerns, matters which are within the peculiar and distinct rights of the provinces then, Mr. Speaker, it is a very serious matter and, as my hon. friend so well knows, would involve its submission to the British House of Commons, but only after the amendment had been concurred in not only by the federal government but by each of the 10 provinces involved. And that, in the history at least of amendments to the British North America Act, is something which is not very often done.
Another problem on which my hon. friends who follow me might assist us is this. Would it be better to avoid an amendment to the British North America Act and substitute a statute instead, as suggested by the Prime Minister? The ninth question is this. Should a bill of rights exclude the application of the War Measures Act in time of emergency? Or how should the War Measures Act be handled in the circumstances if we are to have a bill of rights, as we most certainly hope we shall?
The tenth question is this. Could the whole thing be wrapped up and handled by a declaration of human rights passed by this parliament? I am giving no suggestions at this time for a solution; but I do ask the house to believe that the government has this matter in hand. It is being given very careful consideration by my chief, the distinguished Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton), as well as by myself and the law officers in his department.
The question might be asked; why incorporate freedom in a statute? That question has often been asked and I am sure has been asked in this house. Have we freedom at this time? Yes, we have freedom at the present time; and, of course, although this may appear to my hon. friend to be partisan, we hope we shall continue to have freedom as long as a Conservative government is in power in this dominion. Of course that might be for the next 22 years, and this matter might not appear to be too urgent; but everyone knows -and no one knows this better than the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar-that freedom has a habit of slipping very quickly away in crises and in changes. We know that eternal vigilance is always the price of freedom.
My suggestion to hon. members is this. We have freedom at the present time; but we should have an anchor to which the principles of freedom can be attached. That anchor is a statute, so that new Canadians

and old Canadians can pick up that statute and say, "These are our freedoms; these are our rights."
May I give my French-speaking friends an illustration of the importance of incorporating freedom into law. In 1763, as a result of the treaty of Paris, 60,000 French-speaking Canadians were left in this country; and had it not been for statute and for law, including the Quebec Act of 1774 and subsequent acts, does one think for one moment that the great French Canadian race would have continued its freedom of language, its freedom of religion and its freedom of law? I think these freedoms might have been done away with. But almost 200 years later we find that as a result of incorporating those freedoms into law the 60,000 French Canadian population has increased to a population of almost 5 million, still French speaking, still practising their own religion and still practising their own civil law, a veritable island in a sea of 185 million English speaking citizens on the North American continent.
This is an example of how freedom incorporated into law can succeed. Louisiana, populated by French people, as a result of the Louisiana purchase became part of the United States, and did so without any statutory protection, to preserve their freedoms. Nothing was incorporated into law, with the result that what was once a great French culture and a delightful French people, are gone. They have disappeared; they have been swallowed up in the great American democracy. Why? Because there was no law to protect them.


Mr. Fulton:: No anchor.


David James Walker: As the Minister of Justice points out, there was no anchor to which they could attach their freedoms, no place where they could turn to demand their freedoms. In this connection may I say that even with a law we are, of course, too well aware that our freedoms can disappear.
Russia has a bill of rights. In reading the debates of this house, I was interested to note that as the high-flown phrases of the Russian bill of rights were read to the house one member called out, "Is that the United Nations declaration"? That was a very interesting observation. Of course what a ridiculous situation! It is just as contradictory as bittersweet to have a Russian dictatorship enforcing a bill of rights. It just does not make sense.
Therefore that example is not one which should deter us in adopting a bill of rights; and in saying that I feel I have the backing of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar. On the other hand, we in Canada are different.
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Our whole upbringing, our whole concept is democratic. May I quote once more from the speech made by the then member for Lake Centre, who expressed the concept very briefly in these words, as found at page 3150 of Hansard of May 16, 1947:
As I agree that although parliament can make charters, the nation can only achieve what is in those charters, if the heart and soul of man demands the achievement of those ideals. I realize that you cannot make mankind good by legislation, but on the other hand, by legislation you can set out the ideals to which you wish men to attain.
May I adopt those words, Mr. Speaker, and the thoughts contained in them. May I take another example that is a symbol of our freedom. It has been my privilege as the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Justice to work with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who come within the Department of Justice. In associating with them, I have been amazed and delighted at the manner in which they uphold the law. Their motto is "Maintiens le droit", "Uphold the law"; and, Mr. Speaker, they really do. So different are they from the Russian police who by harsh methods involving brutality and naked force are so well known. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police work through co-operation and good will with the citizens of Canada. Instead of being hard-boiled police officers they are in reality a body of professional men engaged in the work of peace officers, and a magnificent job they have done and are doing. Because we in this world need symbols as well as laws, may I say that in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, with their scarlet-coated tunics and that firm discipline which is their tradition, we have a symbol of freedom within the law.
There is one more matter I should like to discuss. Nothing worth while is ever achieved without a great deal of effort, but it is also true that all things are possible if the human spirit perists in making them possible. Nearly 12 years ago the then member for Lake Centre began his long crusade to obtain a bill of rights for Canada. We trust, Mr. Speaker, that the crusade is almost over, that the consummation of his hopes is almost realized.
In his journey he has been ably assisted by men and women in all walks of life and attached to every party, including the distinguished leader of the C.C.F. group who has moved the resolution we are discussing today. It is our hope that in the debate to follow members in every corner of the house will rise in their places and express their frank views, keeping in mind that this is a question which is above politics. Freedom transcends politics as it transcends almost all other things.

Human Rights
As we all know, Mr. Speaker, the world today is again threatened by a great dictatorship. We have been amazed by the scientific achievements of that dictatorship. Sputnik No. 1 and sputnik No. 2 have been launched. Sputnik No. 10 may in reality reach the moon. The dictatorship which threatens us may reach the moon, but, Mr. Speaker, it cannot reach God. It cannot reach God because here you have a dictatorship which has not only denied the deity but has irrevocably and ruthlessly crushed all human freedom. That dictatorship will be destroyed not from without but from within, because no civilization has long survived which has abolished any conception of human freedom and at the same time has turned its back on the deity.
By contrast here we are in this dominion, this democratic nation, with the opportunity to incorporate our present freedoms in a statute. My respectful submission to hon. members, Mr. Speaker, is this: May we enshrine freedom in our hearts and may we anchor freedom in our statutes in perpetuity just as securely as we can.


Mr.   Alex. B. Macdonald@Vancouver-Kingsway: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to have the opportunity to support the motion for a Canadian bill of rights placed on the order paper by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, and it is a pleasure to be able to follow the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Justice who has spoken fair words and generous sentiments.
Few matters can be of more importance to the true interests of the Canadian people. To be sure, we are not concerned here with the material standards and welfare of Canadians but with the spiritual foundations of our society. Man does not live by bread alone, and our society cannot flourish or even survive among the challenges and shocks of the modern world if we cannot restate, spell out and guarantee by law the basic human rights and freedoms of Canadians.
When Canada signed the charter of the United Nations at San Francisco in 1945 she accepted as one of the primary objectives of the United Nations "human rights and fundamental freedoms for all" as referred to in the preamble of the charter. Since 1945, of course, the United Nations has gone farther and under the inspired and inspiring leadership of Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt has adopted without dissent the United Nations declaration of human rights.
Canada supported that declaration, but what have we done about implementing it? We have given to it the lip service of our political leaders. At the same time we have consigned it to a pigeonhole in one of the

departments of government. The Prime Minister, then the member for Lake Centre, wrote these words in October, 1952, in a pamphlet series called "Food for Thought":
The international declaration of human rights which was accepted by the United Nations should be placed before parliament for ratification and acceptance. Three years have gone by since it was accepted by the United Nations, but as yet Canada has not acted.
It is more than three years now, and six months have gone by since the Prime Minister assumed office. This is not a long time, to be sure, but we cannot help but be concerned. There is still no indication of any plan or intention of the government to lay the United Nations universal declaration before parliament for ratification and acceptance. We ask therefore in the course of this debate that the Prime Minister, if need be through one of his ministers, prove himself as good as these words he spoke in 1952 by making a simple statement that this will be done.
Of course the motion now before the house covers only part of the ground covered by the United Nations declaration. This motion calls for a bill of rights for Canada, for certain basic personal rights to be embodied in the British North America Act as part of our constitution. The United Nations declaration, on the other hand, went on to set forth certain economic and social rights and opportunities which should be the birthright of every child born into this world of potential abundance and freedom. The United Nations declaration mentioned economic rights and social opportunities such as the right to work, the right to shelter, medical care and education; the right to security in the event of sickness, widowhood, unemployment and so on.
We are not concerned with those opportunities in this motion. We are concerned only with the so-called civil and political rights, those liberties of the individual which should be marked out in the constitution itself as free from invasion by any government or agency, by any business or court, by any official or policeman.
It was these civil and political rights that the distinguished Dr. Charles Malik of Lebanon, then rapporteur of the human rights commission of the United Nations, had in mind when he addressed the Canadian institute at Lake Couchiching in 1950, I think it was. I should like to quote his inspiring words. He said:
Today we find ourselves In a situation, all the world over, in which man's simple essential humanity-his power to laugh and love and think and change his mind, in freedom-is in mortal danger of extinction by reason of endless pressures from every side; governmental regulations and controls, social interferences the maddening noises of civilization, the sheer multiplicity and crowding

in of events as a result of the contraction of the world, the dizziness of his mind from the infinity of material things to which he must attend.
I would add, by way of interpolation, in mortal danger of extinction, too, from the vast and anonymous aggregations of private capital, armed with the latest techniques of applied psychology, and ready to control, manipulate and erase the individuality of employees and consumers alike in their quest for greater profits and power. Dr. Malik went on to say:
Under this external social and material pressure man is about to he completely lost. What is needful therefore is to reaffirm for him his essential humanity: to remind him that he is born free and equal in dignity and rights with his fellow men, that he is endowed by nature with reason and conscience, that he cannot be held in slavery or servitude, that he cannot be subjected to arbitrary arrest, that he is presumed innocent until proved guilty, that his person is inviolable, that he has the natural right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and expression; and so down the list of proclaimed rights. It is this reaffirmation, if only he needs it, that might still save him from being dehumanized. For society and the state under modern conditions can take perfect care of themselves: they have advocates and sponsors on every side; their rights are in good hands. It is man, who is in danger of becoming extinct. It is man who is the unprotected orphan, the neglected ward, the forgotten treasure. And therefore it is good that the declaration has not lost sight of its main objective; to proclaim man's irreducible humanity, to the end that he may yet recover his creative sense of dignity and re-establish his faith in himself.
Of course, that is part of the process upon which we are embarked today in striving for a Canadian bill of rights. The need for that bill of rights is more compelling now than it has ever been. Past experience shows the need, and future trends even more underline that need. Who could read George Orwell's nightmarish vision of the world of the future as pictured in his novel "1984" without hoping that it was a warning rather than a prophecy of things to come? Who can put out of mind the telescreen that you cannot shut off, the telescreen that watches you even as you are watching it? Who could put out of mind the hidden microphone, the wiretapping, which can pick up every whispered intimate word? These things are scientifically possible now, and I venture to think that George Orwell, who wrote his book in 1948-the title is inverted, 1984- was describing trends, not only in Soviet Russia but trends about which we must be concerned here and now. Who can consider the prospect of an atomic arms race without feeling that in an atmosphere of insecurity, fear, suspicion and hatred our basic political rights would be in greater jeopardy in the next few years than ever before? Well, that is the future. Past experience, too, proves how precarious are the basic liberties we
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prize. It is true that the preamble to the British North America Act states that Canada shall have a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom, and that should be a guarantee to our citizens of at least those rights of habeas corpus and Magna Carta which are part of our British heritage.
These words guarantee us nothing of the kind. They have no legal force. The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar referred to the order in council of October 6, 1945, which swept aside the centuries-old right of habeas corpus for those persons who had been implicated in the allegations made by Igor Gouzenko. They were seized and held incommunicado, held without a hearing or appeal and without benefit of legal counsel. We all breathed a sigh of relief in Canada when that star chamber proceeding had come to an end and those accused persons were put on trial in the ordinary criminal courts, with the safeguards and the rights and procedures of which they were then able to avail themselves.
Let us take another example. Legislation passed by this parliament in 1944 empowered the dominion government to seize and send to Japan numbers of Canadian citizens of Japanese origin, without charges, without trial, without any offence having been committed or alleged to have been committed by any of them. They were exiled to a foreign land by arbitrary government action. The privy council held this legislation to be perfectly valid. In the absence of a Canadian bill of rights they held properly, and had no alternative but to hold that this vicious legislation was valid. However, in this case public opinion, led I am proud to say by the members of this group, was able to prevent the act from being carried out. It was valid law in the absence of the kind of bill of rights as part of our constitution that we are now discussing.
These things can happen, have happened in the past and will happen in the future so long as, in the words of Jeremiah, "The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." You cannot rely solely on public opinion to protect personal and minority rights. Indeed, these rights are as often as not threatened by the tyranny of the majority. You cannot rely on our courts because, barring some question of jurisdiction between the provinces and the dominion, the courts have no legal constitutional safeguards to apply and interpret in defence of personal rights.
We are often reminded in speeches on this subject of the threat to our democratic institutions posed by totalitarian tyrannies,

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whether of the communist or fascist variety. A distinguished writer and critic, the late Dr. B. K. Sandwell, pleading for a Canadian bill of rights as part of a delegation to parliament in 1951, said this:
It is not enough to say that we are fighting for freedom against tyranny. We must provide man with a positive and specific dynamic faith in our way of life; one in which they believe.
We were reminded last month by George Kennan, former United States ambassador to Moscow, in one of his Reith lectures which are now being happily broadcast over the C.B.C., that the challenge of Soviet Russia today is primarily social, political and ideological. So this is no time to jettison those civil rights or indeed that striving after social equality which should be the first occupation of a democracy. These things are our secret weapons, more powerful in swaying men's minds and loyalties than all the stockpiles of nuclear bombs.
The Prime Minister has become known as the champion of a bill of rights, but I would remind the house, following what has been said by the hon. member for Rosedale-I should call him the parliamentary assistant- that the late J. S. Woodsworth fought a long and valiant fight against that iniquitous section of the Criminal Code known as section 98. I am also reminded that the record shows that the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Stewart) in 1945 was the first member ever to put on the order paper of this house a resolution calling for a Canadian bill of rights, and that it was that hon. member and not the Prime Minister who in 1947 presented to this house a petition bearing 500,000 signatures in support of a bill of rights and a later petition in the following year bearing some 600,000 signatures.
However, I do not think we need to be invidious about who should get the credit for introducing the subject. We should treat it as the hon. member for Rosedale has done. He said the Prime Minister should be recognized as the father of the bill of rights and the hon. member for Rosetown Biggar as the uncle. If we go into this question at all of who the putative father is, I think we should describe the hon. member for Winnipeg North as the father so far as this house is concerned and the Prime Minister, who is a lawyer, could perhaps be described as the father in law. However, we regret that the Prime Minister, who has been a champion on this subject, has been putting off this matter since forming his government. For instance, on November 1 of last year, as reported at page 649 of Hansard, in answer to a question he said:
The matter is still under advisement and consideration.

I suggest that is a strange reply to come from one whose mind should have been made up on this question above all others, and I regret to say it was the tenor of the remarks of the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Justice. I am afraid of fair words of support for a bill of rights and continued inaction. In order to secure a Canadian bill of rights we may be obliged to triumph over the friends of the bill rather than over its opponents. It would be a great pity if the matter continued to be put off by this house until say after just one more election, in the belief that perhaps one province of Canada is opposed to that bill of rights, a belief which I hold to be wholly erroneous.
As reported in Hansard of February 7, 1955, the present Prime Minister, in supporting the motion for a bill of rights, deplored the action of the Liberal government in not allowing the matter to come to a vote. They prevented a vote of the house, he said, in March of 1952 and again in December, 1953; and again, for that matter, a vote was prevented on the date in question. The Prime Minister said this about that conduct, as reported at page 895 of Hansard:
I hope that a similar course will not be followed which simply has the effect of killing discussion and a vote, for the resolution then goes to the foot of the list and there is no possibility during the session of it coming up for further hearing.
What an ironic commentary on the conduct of public affairs if that were to be the fate of the present resolution; that is, if the government, expressing fair words for the principle, yet allowed the matter to be talked out today. Surely the time is ripe for a decision on a matter which receives the support, I am sure, of the vast majority of the members sitting in this house.
This is an urgent matter. The Prime Minister himself said so in 1952, so it can hardly be less urgent now. In the magazine Canadian Business of September, 1952, the then hon. member for Lake Centre wrote that he had-
-tried to add a bill of rights to the citizenship bill on March 7, 1946. "We still haven't a bill of rights, but I am still trying."
To which I might add in parenthesis, "So are we". He went on to say:
I've believed in such a bill to act as an anchor of liberty all along, but now we are in urgent need of such protection.
But as I say, the passage of six years, the mounting challenge, in an age of conformity and anxiety, to man's precious right to be wrong, to be different, to be exasperating for the right as he sees it-these things add to the urgency the Prime Minister referred to in 1952.

What is the need that is so urgent? It is to write into our constitution certain common rights of Canadian citizenship which are recognized by no law today, such as free speech, freedom of assembly and the right to privacy. Note that this motion really grasps the nettle, for it asks that these civil rights be written into our constitution ex-plicity by amending the British North America Act by adding as section 148 a binding declaration of the rights of the Canadian people. It proposes that, in Hotspur's words, "Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety".
The parliamentary assistant questioned whether this provision should be written into the constitution. I say it must be written into the constitution. This motion rejects the sufficiency of a declaration referred to by the parliamentary assistant, which would be merely an act of this parliament. It also rejects the notion that the civil rights of a Canadian should be looked for partly in the legislation of this parliament, partly in the legislation of the provinces, and partly in the common law as it is administered by the courts.
No; these rights must be embodied in the constitution itself, where alone they would be equally applicable to all Canadians in every province of Canada. We propose to build on hardpan, not upon sand. Common citizenship deserves common civil rights, immutable save by the difficult process of constitutional amendment.
The suggestion that we should rest content with a mere declaration of this parliament is not sufficient. Sometimes the call has been for a solemn declaration of rights in this parliament. At this session of the house we have been trying to find out the difference between solemn campaign promises and the ordinary kind, and we have found that both contain a great deal of air and water. Even a solemn declaration of rights by this parliament would be little better than a pious expression of good intentions, for what one parliament grants another parliament can take away.
Let us look at the experience of our great neighbour to the south. For 10 years the ugly, hysterical, vindictive clouds of McCarthyism darkened the liberties of the people of the United States. An ex-communist informer became a public hero. Teachers were dismissed if they did not extoll the materialist values of free enterprise. It was as much as your job was worth if you had been associated with a communist in your college days. But the United States supreme court slowly but consistently, in a series of decisions, reminded the people of the United States that they were
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born free. Men imprisoned not for what they did but for what they thought were set at liberty. Guilt by association was found to offend against the United States bill of rights. But no one seriously doubts that if those rights had not been embodied in the actual United States constitution itself they would have been swept away in those 10 years of fear and suspicion.
I appreciate that the Supreme Court of Canada has tried to protect the civil rights of Canadians in a number of noteworthy decisions. These rights were implicit in our law, but a reading of these cases shows that this is not enough. They must be made explicit in our constitution.
There is the well-known case of Saumur and the city of Quebec, which was reported in 1953. Since 1933 a by-law of the city of Quebec, supported by provincial legislation, was in effect as follows:
It is by the present by-law forbidden to distribute in the streets of the city of Quebec any book, pamphlet, booklet, circular or tract whatever without having previously obtained for so doing the written permission of the chief of police.
Mr. Justice Rand, of our supreme court, a jurist with a refreshing and original gift for analysis and exposition, had this to say about that by-law:
That public ways, in some circumstances the only practical ways available for any appeal to the community generally, have from the most ancient times been the avenues for such communications, is demonstrated by the Bible itself:	In the sixth
verse of chapter XI of Jeremiah these words appear:
"Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem"; and a more objectionable interference, short of complete suppression, with that dissemination which is "the breath of life" of the political institutions of this country than that made possible by the by-law can scarcely be imagined.
In another part of the judgment of Mr. Justice Rand, he observes that:
Despotism always views with fear and wrath the uncensored printed word.
Yet that by-law was in force in 1933 and has since been in force in one of the cities of Canada. How many like it are on the statute books? Saumur, a zealous Jehovah's witness, succeeded in having this by-law quashed in the Supreme Court of Canada after long litigation and no doubt great expense. But he won only by a decision of five judges as against four dissenting judges and he did not win on the ground of civil liberties but, almost by chance, on another point which swayed one judge. Five of the nine judges decided that the province and city did indeed have the power to enact that obnoxious bylaw. Only four of the nine judges decided that a province had no power to trespass

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upon the civil rights such as freedom of religion, due to this being exclusively a matter of federal jurisdiction.
In a sense that case was a retreat from the decision of the majority of the judges in the Alberta press case of 1938. In that case the province of Alberta tried by law to compel newspapers to publish Social Credit doctrine and explanations. The court declared the law invalid. Perhaps that was a pity, because at long last we might have had a chance to find out what Social Credit is. But the court, led by the distinguished Chief Justice Sir Lyman Duff, held that a province could not interfere with the freedom of the press, or for that matter with other basic freedoms.
The last case decided by our own Supreme Court of Canada quashed the iniquitous Quebec padlock law. Under that law the attorney general of the province in his absolute discretion could close down for a period of one year premises suspected of being used to promote a particular political ideology. The Supreme Court of Canada had no difficulty in holding that law to be invalid, not because it trespassed on the civil rights of Canadians but because it was really a matter of criminal law upon which the dominion alone could legislate.
How do these decisions leave the state of our civil liberties? The answer, in my opinion, is in a very precarious state. As the Chief Justice of Canada said in the Saumur case:
We have not a bill of rights such as is contained in the United States constitution.
I would add that we do not have a legal guarantee of free speech or assembly or privacy. We do not have a legal guarantee protecting Canadians from coast to coast against discrimination on account of race, colour or creed. It is time we had.
Therefore the motion of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar proposes a constitutional amendment for a Canadian bill of rights. In reply to the parliamentary assistant, the provinces should be consulted and informed when an amendment to the constitution is involved; but as these rights are primarily matters of federal concern, in many cases though not necessarily wholly so, it is eminently proper that this parliament should take the initiative in securing speedy acceptance of the amendment through the process of adoption by the British parliament.
Some of the basic civil rights of the Canadian people referred in the motion may well be matters of provincial jurisdiction. The matter of discrimination on the ground of colour in the case of a man who tries to get a meal in a restaurant may be such a matter of provincial legislative jurisdiction. But I think it is up to this parliament to enact a constitutional amendment and forward it to

the British parliament after full consultation with the provinces. I do not necessarily say that the full concurrence of all provinces should be obtained; I do not think that to be necessary for a constitutional amendment. I would add that if we at least take the initiative in doing our part I feel sure most of the provinces will concur, even though one or two may wish to abstain.
The house should be glad to note that the proposed amendment leaves out one little word, "property" and includes one other little word "privacy". This is as it should be. It is, after all, a charter of personal rights, not property rights.
The United States bill of rights has a due process clause dealing with property, and what a source of expensive, endless litigation it has been. At one time United States courts actually declared that laws prohibiting child labour in factories were invalid on the ground that this interfered with the right of the owners to do as they pleased with their own property. Industrial, financial and commercial property rights need no constitutional safeguards in Canada. Indeed, an enlightened and humane opinion increasingly regards this kind of property as a trust to be administered for the benefit of the whole community.
But privacy; that is essential. I was glad to see that a Dr. Robbins obtained $3,000 damages against the C.B.C. Chief Justice Scott in Quebec superior court is reported in the newspapers to have said that as the result of publicity on a television program "he was convinced that Dr. Robbins' privacy had been intruded upon."
It is news to me that this constituted a case for damages, but it should. The privacy, the soul, the individuality of people may be drowned in a sea of commercialism. What protection will Canadians have against subliminal advertising, where the advertising message strikes home in the subconscious mind of the individual who is unaware that he is being influenced?
What will be our protection against closed circuit TV, where every minute and movement of the employees' working day is spied upon by security guards or efficiency experts? What is our protection against wire-tapping and hidden microphones, not just in the hands of private eyes looking for divorce evidence but in the hands of police officers and government officials? What about the privacy of individuals hounded by collection agencies with letters and phone calls that sometimes lead to a nervous breakdown? The scientific invasion of the human personality is on. Let that little word "privacy" be one of our constitutional safeguards.
Freedom of speech and association? They are always in danger. We do not have to

look beyond the present session of this house for examples. A foreman on the St. Lawrence seaway project was fired because he drove a car for a Liberal candidate on election day. It was his day off. It had nothing to do with his work as a foreman. But, we are told that a time-honoured-I would say time-dishonoured-practice of this house requires the automatic discharge of a government employee accused in a letter from a member of parliament of political partisanship. No hearing. No charges. What a gross disregard for the personal rights of the individual!
Or take the resolution placed on the order paper recently by the hon. member for Quebec-Montmorency (Mr. LaCroix). It was directed against vague, undefined subversive activities, and if made law would be a means of prosecuting individuals, not for what they did but for what they thought.
Another example can be found in some of the court decisions against picketing in the course of a strike. Some of them offend against the basic civil right of individuals to present their case by word and placard to passers-by and fellow-employees. Freedom of speech is curtailed when picketing is prohibited by court injunction.
Take another case reference to which can be found in Hansard of this session, that of Per Holting. This Canadian citizen was en route in a Scandinavian air lines plane to Los Angeles. He debarked at Winnipeg, left the depot, but was forcibly seized, put back on the plane, and deported to Los Angeles against his will. Of course the conditions of his ticket, and no doubt the air lines franchise, did not allow him to get off in Winnipeg. But these would not prevail over a bill of rights outlawing the forcible exile from Canadian soil of any Canadian citizen.
The examples I have mentioned have occurred within the last few months but let us take another dating back four or five years, the case of Martin, a law student in British Columbia who with the help of D.V.A. credits, qualified himself by taking the necessary examination to practice at the bar in British Columbia. After completing his course he was denied the right to practice by the law society of British Columbia because of his communist opinions. With all respect to the sincerity of those who made that decision, it was in my opinion an indefensible case of discrimination on account of creed or belief.
I think these examples serve to illustrate that these rights are always in danger. These examples may seem trivial but they are not. The fabric of a free society is woven from countless seemingly inconsequential strands. By so much as we deny civil rights to one 96698-184
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individual in one particular case, our society as a whole is less free. Shakespeare wrote. "Sure he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and god-like reason to rust in us unused."
Let us remind ourselves that the full flowering of the human mind and spirit can take place only in a free society and buttress our liberties now by those constitutional safeguards set out in this motion.


Mr. F. D. Shaw (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, may I say at the outset that my colleagues and I agree wholeheartedly with the general principle of this resolution. One could hardly declare his belief in democracy without at the same time declaring his belief in the freedoms enunciated in the resolution sponsored by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell). However, I feel we should remind ourselves at this time of the fact that there is probably no place in the world where the citizens of a nation enjoy the freedoms enumerated here more than we do in Canada.
I can well imagine that the press of certain countries knowing that we are debating a resolution of this kind might come forward in their pages tomorrow and de clare that Canada does not have freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and the other freedoms because of the fact that only now are Canadian members of parliament demanding that we be given those things. Despite the fact that reference has been made, and quite properly so, to certain cases where the rights of individuals have been restricted or deprived nevertheless I think it bears repeating at this moment that there is no place in the world so far as I am aware where the citizens of a country enjoy a greater degree of these freedoms than we do right here in Canada.
May I say that I was rather amazed to hear the hon. member for Vancouver-Kings-way (Mr. Macdonald), who made a splendid address, refer to the year 1938 and a certain press bill which, as he said, would have compelled the press to print Social Credit doctrine. I defy him to produce the bill to which he referred and show me where any such provision was contained in the legislation. Mr. Speaker, I am not at the moment defending that legislation. I think it was probably a natural outcome of the climate of the times when tempers on all sides were frayed and doubtless many people said and did things for which they later felt rather sorry; but I do feel that if reference is going to be made to any particular piece of legislation the whole story should be told.

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When the hon. member for Rosetown-Big-gar was speaking he referred to the fact that he had no desire in his resolution to interfere with the rights of the provinces. Frankly I find it quite impossible to believe that this parliament could ask for an amendment to the constitution on its own or pass legislation incorporating those things suggested in the resolution without doing that very thing. I am quite positive that any legislation drawn up and passed in that way would be thrown out by the Supreme Court of Canada.
I was quite impressed by the remarks of the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Walker). I thought his approach was fair and quite realistic but I rather regretted that he ended with 10 or so questions and not 10 or so suggested answers. As far as I am concerned, Mr. Speaker-I think I voice the views of my colleagues- there is only one logical and sensible approach to this whole thing. First, we would recommend that a joint committee of the Senate and of the House of Commons be set up to, among other things, suggest the form which the proposed legislation should take and probably go so far as to draft a suggested bill of rights. Then we would urge that if the committee did not actually draft the bill, following their studies the law offices of the crown be asked to draw up such a bill and then the provinces be called together in order to consider the matter.
I do not think the hon. member for Van-couver-Kingsway (Mr. Macdonald) discarded the idea of calling the provinces in, but he certainly said he would proceed with the consent of some of them. To my way of thinking, especially since such a bill would deal with property and civil rights, it would be an infringement upon the rights of the provinces under the constitution to proceed in that manner. Therefore, I say, let us call the provinces in. I do not think it would be impossible to reach an agreement on some form of bill. We also believe, Mr. Speaker, that this should be a separate bill and not an amendment to the constitution. It should be a separate and distinct bill of rights.
In referring to this matter, the hon. member for Vaneouver-Kingsway suggested that if it were not an amendment to the constitution, then a succeeding government might alter it or throw it out. Of course, if it is an amendment to the constitution exactly that same thing could be brought about if a future government were determined that it was to be removed from the constitution of this country. I repeat, we believe it should be definitely a separate bill of rights and not an amendment to the British North America Act.

It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, it is not necessary for one to say more than I have said at this time. We agree with the principle of the resolution. We have made a suggestion as to the way we think the whole thing should be dealt with, and I stop with the same thought with which I started, namely let us try not to give the impression to the world at large that we are people without freedom.
I say we have as much freedom as, and probably more than any other country on the face of the earth.


Mr. F. C. McGee (York-Scarborough):: Mr. Speaker, before I commence my meagre contribution to this debate I should like to reply to some of the rather astonishing suggestions put forward by the hon. member for Van-couver-Kingsway (Mr. Macdonald). Unless I was very much mistaken I seemed to hear him asking other members to curtail their speaking activities. Am I correct?


Mr. Macdonald (Vaneouver-Kingsway):: No.
I may have given such an impression but I did not mean to. I did not want the resolution to fail to come to a vote.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: He
merely quoted from the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker).


Frank Charles McGee: The other suggestion he made was that since there was no mention in the speech from the throne that the government was to introduce a bill of rights it was an indication that no such bill will be forthcoming. I must say this is a curious statement indeed when one considers the performance of the group in that corner during the current session. We came to this house on October 14 to open an emergency session to implement certain promises and pledges made during the campaign which culminated on June 10 last year. I submit to the hon. member for Vaneouver-Kingsway and to his colleagues that if over the past few months they had displayed a more co-operative attitude in the passage of legislation perhaps today we would be considering, not a private bill but a government motion to this effect.


Mr. Ellis:: Don't you believe in opposition?


Mr. Caslleden:: Then put it on the order paper.


Frank Charles McGee: Mr. Speaker, in my preparation for this debate I went to the parliamentary library and read at length of the literature on freedom. It seems to me that the discussions on freedom boil down to two phases: one, that in man's original state he was free and all laws tend to reduce and limit that freedom. There are statements in support of this by Algernon Sydney, who said:
The liberties of nations are from God and nature, not from kings.

Lord John Russell, indicated as probably the greatest apostle of liberty in many centuries, said:
What is called love of liberty means the wish that a man feels to have a voice in the disposal of his own property and in the formation of the laws by which his natural freedom is to be restrained.
The second concept is that freedom exists today as a result of wresting away from dictatorial powers the authority they possessed. The milestones along that road to freedom are many: Magna Carta, the declaration of rights, the petition of right, the habeas corpus act, the United States bill of rights. These and others are representative of the magnificent effort of free men down through the centuries. I think in this debate it behooves us to pay grateful tribute to those champions of freedom to whom we owe so much.
I read in Hansards of years gone the debates on human rights and I hope the house will pardon me if I repeat in part what the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Walker) said. In my reading I found that the words and phrases of one man stood head and shoulders above all others. What interested me even further were, in reading the comments of other hon. members of the house at that time, the flattering phrases and sincere statements concerning that man. Of course, I refer to the Prime Minister. In reading his words and the words of others in the house today as well as the words of others who have gone to the other place and some who have since died, I became more and more aware of the fact that any contribution I might make to this debate at this time would be meagre indeed.
My most outstanding personal experience with regard to the rights of man came some few years ago when I was called for jury duty in the city of Toronto and was selected as a juror on two successive murder cases. Those hon. members whose background is in the law and who deal with the law day by day perhaps do not appreciate as much as one whose day to day life has been concerned mainly with business and commerce that it was a tremendous experience and a revelation to me in serving in the capacity of a juror to achieve a fuller understanding of what the principle of law that a man is innocent until proven guilty really means. I came away from that experience with a tremendous respect for our system of justice.
I mentioned a moment ago that in my reading and perusal of debates of years gone by I had encountered significant words and phrases. I should like to quote one short passage from a speech made by the Prime Minister on March 24, 1952 in support of a motion 96698-184J
Human Rights moved by him similar to the one before us today. As found at page 716 of Hansard for that date he said:
Great as is our inheritance, events in recent years demand that we review from time to time what is our inheritance, to ascertain whether any of our freedoms are being lost either intentionally or by default, and how far the principle of the heritage of freedom that is ours and that we take for granted is ours to enjoy.
In that same speech he quoted the Marquis of Reading, speaking in the British House of Lords on May 15, 1947, at which time the Marquis of Reading said:
Personal freedom had for so long been the current coin of life in this country that we had been apt perhaps to forget that currency may be slowly and stealthily withdrawn from circulation, that coinage may be debased without any very evident outward signs and that it may even be deliberately counterfeited without immediate detection.
It is no part of my case today to allege any malign conspiracy on the part of any one deliberately to attempt to overthrow the liberties of the subject. The process has been gradual, stealthy, haphazard, almost inadvertent, but unfortunately both insidious and menacing in its cumulative effect.
Further, he quoted from a speech by Viscount Samuel in the British House of Lords in 1951 in which Viscount Samuel said: During the last 30 or 40 years, imperceptibly, almost unconsciously, here a little and there a little, there have been encroachments upon that great and precious heritage.
I do not suggest today that we have lost, or are in danger of losing, those liberties, but I do suggest that they have been again and again impaired, that that process is still continuing, and that it needs to be stopped and reversed.
Even now, after the peace, or semi-peace, of the last five years, not all these liberties have been restored, and there is danger that some of these restrictions may be allowed unnecessarily to slip into our permanent system of governments.
Surely these remarks indicate the ultimate necessity for such a bill of rights. It is almost unnecessary to state that the necessity for such a bill will receive my whole and complete support. The hon. member for Rosedale expressed the hope that this discussion would not become political in its ramifications. I have prepared something which I suppose might be considered as being political, but unfortunately something as fundamental as appears in paragraph (a) of the resolution is inseparable from this discussion. I refer to the opening part of that paragraph beginning with the words, "abridging freedom of speech and expression". If there had not been abridgement of speech in the House of Commons in recent years, Mr. Speaker, I would not be sitting in this seat today nor, I suggest, would a great many of my colleagues on this side of the house.
The principle, as ennunciated by John Stuart Mill, to which certain members of one

Human Rights
party in this country lay claim, is certainly sound today and points up what happened in the house. Mill said that if all the people in the world but one were of one opinion and only one opposed, the world would be no more justified in silencing that one man than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
If I may stray a little farther into the political field, I have a suggestion which I put forward in all humility to the political party which is about to hold its convention in the very near future, a party which last June 10 was tried and found guilty by the jury of public opinion of abridgement of freedom of speech, a party which gathered to beat its breast at Presqu'ile Point, to apologize to the people of Canada for its performance when in office. I suppose it can be likened to a situation where A1 Capone, appearing in court for multiple murder, would apologize for taking a penny out of the collection plate. I hasten to assure my friends that I am by no means suggesting that they are political gangsters. That is not my intention at all. But gathering at Presqu'ile Point and confessing that a budget that was not politically attractive in the first instance and something about the brass and the grass in the second instance certainly did not atone in any way for the violence which was done to a fundamental principle in this house. As I say, if I, as one young in years and political experience, may give them one small piece of advice, may I suggest that when they again foregather in this city they admit to the Canadian people the great wrong which they perpetrated and apologize for it.
I must apologize, Mr. Speaker, for straying somewhat from the principle before us today but as I said in the first instance human rights and the incident which occurred in this house are virtually inseparable. I think it behooves us, as has been very ably pointed out today, to be on guard at all times concerning our freedom.
The principle that a man is innocent until proven guilty is curiously reversed under our present system of government, particularly with regard to income tax, customs laws and certain other statutes. In matters of income tax, the individual is assumed to be guilty and the onus is upon the individual to establish his innocence. This is a reversal of an important principle of law. It is a reversal which works a particular hardship, it seems to me, on the ordinary individual who has to summon to his assistance a lawyer, when in many cases he has little or no means to do so, to present a case against a government department and the government lawyers.

I am not prepared to offer a solution to the matter of collecting taxes. However, I would suggest to the appropriate ministers that they re-examine the situation and perhaps with the co-operation of and suggestions from members of the house arrive at some more consistent method of collecting. Before I resume my seat, may I concur with what the hon. member for Rosedale has said concerning the sponsor of the bill, the spirit behind it, and I would say that it has my complete and unqualified support'.


Mr. W. H. A. Thomas (Middlesex West):: Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciate the opportunity of saying a few words in this debate. This is a subject which I have heard discussed as long as I can remember. I have spent a great many hours reading the very enlightening debate which took place in this house in 1955, when a similar resolution came before this house. There were three resolutions before the house at the same time covering this subject. On that occasion the Speaker ruled that there should be only one resolution covering the same subject before the house at one time. One was ruled in order, and therefore the other two were ruled out of order and were withdrawn by their sponsors. The one which was retained for discussion was sponsored by the hon. gentleman who is now our Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker). In so far as the other two are concerned, one was sponsored by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) and the other by the hon. member for Spadina, now Senator Croll.
The matter was discussed at great length and the various legal, moral and social implications were thoroughly canvassed. It was a great pleasure to me to read this discussion, dampened only by the fact that I was going to be placed today in a position where I would have to show my ignorance of the whole matter. However, there are several facets of this intriguing subject which will no doubt bear further discussion. First, I should like to take up, point by point, some of the suggestions made in the resolution which is sponsored as an amendment to the British North America Act. The resolution reads:
Notwithstanding anything in this act, it shall not be lawful for the parliament of Canada or the legislatures of any of the provinces to make laws:
(a)	Abridging freedom of speech and expression, or freedom of religion, or of the press or other means of communication or the right of lawful assembly, association or organization.
There are a number of things mentioned in that paragraph (a), including freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of the press which I should like to take up in detail later on in this address.
. JANUARY 6. 1958
Paragraph (b) reads:
Depriving any person of life or liberty by arbritary or abusive measures, or denying to any person the equal protection of the laws.
As was pointed out by one of the members on the opposite side of the house, there is no mention of property rights. Most of these resolutions which are concerned with human rights and liberties also mention property rights. I feel that the explanation given as to why property rights were not included is inadequate. After all, our property rights and our human liberties are so bound together that I do not believe we can preserve the rights in one respect without preserving them in both respects. What good is life to a man who no longer has the means of livelihood? What good is life to a man deprived of food, clothing and shelter as well as these other material things which make life worth living? What good is life to a person suffering from disease if he has nothing with which to purchase medical services and the comforts of hospitalization? I submit to this house that to separate personal rights and property rights does not make sense.
Paragraph (c) reads:
Requiring or imposing excessive bail or cruel or unusual punishment or exiling Canadian citizens.
I must admit that I have never heard of anything of this kind being done in Canada. Perhaps there is a possibility of such things happening in the future, but I cannot conceive of that. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Shaw) mentioned that there is no country in the world today in which the people enjoy the same measure of liberty and freedom in every respect as do the people of this country. If one suggests such amendments to our legislation, it leaves the implication, not only with ourselves but with the world at large, that we are very fearful of the future or that we lack faith in ourselves as a nation.
I come now to paragraph (d):
Subjecting any person to unreasonable interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence.
You will notice the wording carefully skirts around any reference to property rights, except the reference to a home. Being a farmer and having been a farmer most of my life it is natural for me to look at these questions from the point of view of one who has lived on the land and enjoyed that form of living. To a farmer home includes the whole farm from the front to the back, but there is something here which suggests that possibly the home is only a house or a house and lot. I think that indicates that the whole conception back of this proposed amendment to the British North America Act is drawn
Human Rights
up, not from the point of view of a farmer's holdings or a fisherman's holdings but from the point of view of the person who is living in an urban centre, with a house and lot. The resolution reads:
(d) Subjecting any person to unreasonable interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence.
Any one who has been closely associated with the developments in the political world over a great many years can almost pick out the incidents in our Canadian life which have inspired every one of these sections contained in this bill. For instance, we find this:
(a)	Abridging freedom of speech and expression, or freedom of religion,-
I think there would be no doubt that would go back to certain activities in one of our provinces to curtail certain activities of a certain religious sect which has already been mentioned here in the Saumur case. Then we find:
(b)	Depriving any person of life or liberty by arbitrary or abusive measures, or denying to any person the equal protection of the laws.
I do not know about that one. That is so general that I could not ascribe any particular incidents which they had in mind. Again we find:
(c)	Requiring or imposing excessive bail or cruel or unusual punishment or exiling Canadian citizens.
That, of course, might refer to a recent, shall I say, discrepancy in our legislation which permitted the deporting of those of our citizens who became citizens through the process of naturalization, something which I understand has since been rectified in our legislation. Then we find:
(d)	Subjecting any person to unreasonable interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence.
There is no doubt in my mind that that paragraph dates back 15 years or 20 years to the time between the two wars when a certain political party was being developed in this country against the wishes of a great many other people, when it was felt that, there was evidence of sedition in their activities and when certain people were arrested their personal files were examined and their literature was taken for examination. Then we find:
(e)	Subjecting any person to arbitrary arrest or detention or denying to any person the right after arrest to be informed promptly of the charges against such person and to trial within a reasonable time or to be released.
I think there is no doubt that that paragraph probably dates back to the well known Gouzenko spy case. Then we find:
(f)	Suspending the right of habeas corpus or depriving any person of a fair trial or the right to be represented by counsel.

Human Rights
I think that paragraph would probably refer to the same incident. Then we find:
149.	The rights provided in section 148 shall be enjoyed without distinction of race, sex, religion or language and the right to vote in any election of members of the parliament of Canada or the legislative assembly of any province shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, religion, language or sex.
That is a very general statement. Aside from our Indian population or some of our Indian people who do not yet enjoy the franchise, I am not just clear to whom it would apply. Then we find:
150.	The rights conferred by sections 148 and 149 hereof of this act shall not be deemed to abridge any existing right of any person.
In the debate two years ago to which I referred, the resolution at that time was slightly different. The Prime Minister, at that time the hon. member for Prince Albert, moved the following resolution:
That, in the opinion of this house, immediate consideration should be given to the advisability of introducing a bill or declaration of rights to assure amongst other rights:
1.	Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and of radio;
2.	That habeas corpus shall not be abrogated or suspended except by parliament;
3.	That no one shall be deprived of liberty or property-
It will be noted that we come back to that word "property".
-without due process of law, and in no case by order in council;
4.	That no tribunal or commission shall have the power to compel the giving of evidence by any one who is denied counsel or other constitutional safeguards.
Again that sounds like a reference to the Gouzenko case.
And that as a preliminary step the government should consider the advisability of submitting for the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada the question as to the degree to which fundamental freedoms of religion, speech and of the press and the preservation of the constitutional rights of the individual are matters of federal or provincial jurisdiction.
At the same time the hon. member submitted to the house a draft bill of rights which he suggested should be submitted to the Supreme Court of Canada for their consideration and advice. It reads as follows:
Article 1
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person.
That is slightly different from the one in the United States.
Article 2
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 3
Everyone has the right to recognition throughout Canada as a person before the law.

Article 4
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.
Article 5
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 6
(1)	No person shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
(2)	Any person who is arrested or detained shall be promptly informed of the reasons for the arrest or detention and be entitled to a fair hearing within a reasonable time or to release.
(3)	No one shall be denied the right to reasonable bail without just cause.
(4)	No tribunal, royal commission, board or state official shall have the right to compel anyone to give evidence who is denied counsel or other constitutional safeguards.
Article 7
Every person who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall have an effective remedy in the nature of habeas corpus by which the lawfulness of his detention shall be decided speedily by a court and his release ordered if the detention is not lawful. Habeas corpus shall not be abridged, suspended or abrogated except by parliament.
Article 8
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Article 9
Every person is entitled to all the rights and freedoms herein set forth without distinction of any kind such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Article 10
Any person whose rights or freedoms as herein set forth have been violated may apply for relief on notice of motion to the supreme or superior court of the province in which the violation occurred.
Article 11
The above articles shall not be deemed to abridge or exclude any rights or freedoms to which any person is otherwise entitled.
Both in the resolution now before us and in this draft bill of rights submitted two years ago we have that same concluding thought that the "above articles or amendments shall not be deemed to abridge or exclude any rights or freedoms to which any person is otherwise entitled". I submit, Mr. Speaker, that that final thought, that final idea, is an admission that over, above and beyond any written statute which we might have or any written constitution which might be prepared, there are rights and privileges which it is the intention to safeguard in this manner-that the "above articles" or any laws which might be written shall not be deemed to abridge or exclude any rights or freedoms to which any person is otherwise entitled.

The question might be asked, and I know this is a matter which has been before parliament and has been in the minds of the public, but it is the first question which came to my own mind in connection with this subject. Just how much agitation is there for such a bill of rights? How many people want this thing done? How many people want a bill of rights? I was surprised at the mass of public opinion, at the quantity of public opinion, of the numbers of our people who have in the past advocated the preparation and putting into legislative form a bill of rights such as is proposed. I gathered from a reading of the debate of two years ago that there were two petitions signed. I believe an hon. member on the other side of the house mentioned these petitions, one having 5,000 names attached to it-


An hon. Member:: 500,000.


William Howell Arthur Thomas: 500,000,
thank you, and the other having some 600,000 names attached to it. I would now like to quote from the Prime Minister's speech a few remarks which were apparently accepted at that time since no objection was taken.
People say to me, what interest is there in the country in this subject? More than 800,000 Canadians have signed petitions on two occasions asking that Canada have the same protection for its rights and fundamental freedoms that 30 other countries with a federal system have, including India. The Canadian Daily Newspapers Association, a body with a membership of 86 of the 89 English and French language daily newspapers in Canada, representing 99.4 per cent of the circulation of all Canadian dailies,-
That is almost a clean sweep of our Canadian dailies, and this association of daily newspapers passed resolutions and submitted a brief to the government. Mr. Diefenbaker goes on to say:
I quote from the brief of the Canadian Daily Newspapers Association:
"... the daily newspapers of Canada urge that consideration be given to a constitutional guarantee of fundamental human rights, it is because they are convinced these rights are insecure. They know that threats have been made to freedom of speech, freedom of the press and other freedoms in the past. They feel sure that threats will be made in the future".
Then, again, from the same brief:
"The Canadian Daily Newspapers Association submits that . . . constitutional safeguards . . . not only prove that freedom of speech and freedom of the press lack adequate safeguards in Canada, but place the representatives of this country in a weak position, open to destructive attack, in implementing the obligations of this country as a member of the United Nations in respect to human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The board of directors of the Canadian Daily Newspapers Association at a special general meeting in October, 1945 and in October, 1947, unanimously resolved that a statutory guarantee of essential freedoms might be covered in the following terms:"
Human Rights
The amendment suggested by the daily newspapers association are as follows:
"No act of the parliament of Canada nor of the legislature of any province shall abridge the freedom of speech, of the press or of assembly or of worship or the right to petition the parliament of Canada or the legislature of any province for the redress of grievances."
The Prime Minister goes on to say:
I believe that an amendment in that form might invade the powers of provincial legislatures under the British North America Act. Therefore I would not approve of such a course being followed until, as I intend to suggest later on, a submission is made to the Supreme Court of Canada.
In this brief of the Canadian Daily Newspapers Association the following appeared:
"In Canada we have been coasting insecurely upon British precedents and sometimes violating them-"
I think that is very important to note and I will repeat that brief statement.
"-in Canada we have been coasting insecurely upon British precedents and sometimes violating them, and in the light of Canada's membership in the United Nations and its responsibility as a member, the Canadian Daily Newspapers Association urges that the parliamentary committee on human rights and fundamental freedoms give favourable consideration to a constitutional amendment guaranteeing these fundamental freedoms."
Now in addition to the newspaper people an association of church organizations also prepared a brief. This association of churches included the Church of England in Canada, the Baptist Federation of Canada, the Churches of Christ, the Evangelical United Brethren, the Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Episcopal Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the United Church of Canada, the Salvation Army, the Society of Friends, the affiliated members of the Canadian Council of Churches, the national council of the Y.M.C.A., the National Council of the Y.W.-C.A. and the Student Christian Movement of Canada. I submit that when you consider the membership of these churches and organizations you must conclude that they represent a broad section of Canadian opinion. I continue:
On June 6, 1950, they set forth their views in their joint brief at page 341 of the proceedings of the Senate committee on human rights and fundamental freedoms:
We are prepared to support every honest endeavour to secure a Canadian bill of rights which will adequately safeguard the personal, social, economic and political rights of every citizen. We seek after and pray for a society in which freedom is the freedom of men who acknowledge responsibility to justice and public order, and where those who hold political authority or economic power are responsible for its exercise to God and to the people whose welfare is affected by it. We do not feel that it is the duty of our council to propose the practical measures which might or should be taken to establish a bill of rights. Nor do we suggest that the wording of this brief is the final language which should be used to describe these human rights and fundamental freedoms in a legal

Human Rights
document. We are convinced, however, that it is our duty and responsibility to declare that man, because of his worth in the sight of God, has rights which should be respected by all and safeguarded by law.
The Prime Minister then submitted the names of a number of clergymen, editors, university presidents and other educators who had presented the brief asking for the inclusion in our statutes of a bill of rights for Canadian citizens. All of this would, I think, indicate that there has been no lack of public pressure for such a bill to be included in our statutes.
Turning to the legal side of the matter this is, of course, where I run into difficulty because I have not been trained in the law. Because I am a farmer it has been my experience to be associated and work in conjunction with the laws of nature rather than with the laws of men.
It has been pointed out during this debate that there are two ways of guaranteeing human rights and freedom. One is the British system where for the most part the guarantee of human freedoms and rights is contained in the precedents and practices that have been established over the years in their legal activities. On the other hand we have the United States system where an effort is made to document and codify or spell out in words the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals to the fullest extent which the legal fraternity can do. I have reached the point in my own thinking where I am not prepared to wholeheartedly endorse this effort to set out in words the guarantee of these rights and freedoms for the reason that merely writing these down and placing them on our statute books is no guarantee that they will be respected. Parliament is all-powerful and I am inclined to agree with the statement made by some of those who have discussed the effort to establish a bill of rights that it might not accomplish all that it intends to accomplish.
I draw the attention of the house to the last idea contained in these proposals. Those who are sponsoring such resolutions are extremely careful to point out that anything that is written in a proposed bill of rights must not curtail the rights which we already enjoy which is in itself an indication that any effort to put into words a bill of rights has inherent dangers and might weaken the position we already enjoy.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Are you still quoting the Prime Minister?


William Howell Arthur Thomas: Not in my last remarks, no, but I am going to quote the Prime Minister again.


Mr. Nicholson:: It is the third time he has been quoted.


William Howell Arthur Thomas: I know of no one whom I would prefer to quote.


Mr. Byrne:: Unless it is scripture.


George Hugh Castleden: The gospel according to St. John.


Mr. Herridge:: It is the wrong bible.


William Howell Arthur Thomas: The legal difficulty seems to be centred around the old and much discussed problem of provincial rights versus federal rights. When Canada was established as a nation certain rights were assigned to the provinces and certain rights were assigned to the federal government and I know of no responsible political leader at any level of government who suggests that we should forget this fact.
The Supreme Court of Canada which is the highest tribunal in this land had occasion to try a case in which this question was involved. I refer of course to the Saumur case. There was no great degree of unanimity of opinion in the highest court of our land in that regard which points up the difficulty we would have in undertaking to set out a bill of rights in the form of words. The Prime Minister referred to this case in the speech he made in this house on February 7, 1955 as recorded at page 902 of Hansard of that date, in these words:
I am not going into the judgment except to refer to the Queen's Quarterly, winter 1955, in which there is an article by Mr. Bora Laskin, professor of law in Toronto. It deals with the whole subject of civil liberties, and it summarizes the Saumur case in these words:
Three of the nine judges (Chief Justice Rinfret and Justices Kerwin and Taschereau) appeared to support this position.
The position was that the jurisdiction in this particular case, the Saumur case, was a matter of provincial authority. I continue with the quotation:
"Six judges may be said to have adopted this view". That civil liberties were outside of provincial competence.
"Of these, four (Justices Rand, Kellock, Estey and Locke) took the position that freedom of religious or other expression was outside of provincial power, and of the four, only two (Justices Estey and Locke) made categorical assertions in favour of exclusive federal power; the other two (Justices Rand and Kellock) left open the possibility that perhaps the dominion too could not, in certain circumstances, interfere with civil liberties. Two of the six judges (Justices Cartwright and Fauteux) took the position that such freedom (and more particularly freedom of the press) does not belong exclusively either to the dominion or to the provinces.
This extraordinary division of opinion creates a result which is as curious as it is unsatisfactory. A majority of the court holds that the provinces have some legislative competence in the matter of freedom of religious expression. Two-thirds of the

court hold that the provinces do not, at least in some circumstances, have such legislative competence. Only one-third of the court denies federal legislative competence on religious freedom. Yet less than a majority affirmed federal legislative competence on the matter."
This is an indication of the difficulty we would have in drawing up a bill of rights.
It is admitted that in recent years, in the lifetime of hon. members, our personal rights have been gradually eroded.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rea):: Order. I must advise the hon. member that his time has expired.


Hon. J. M. Macdonnell (Minister Without Portfolio):: Mr. Speaker, this debate so far has hardly been a debate at all; it has been a kind of competition in blessing the resolution and I in my way shall bless the resolution, but I hope to introduce an element of controversy because I am going to argue that our socialist friends, however highly we respect them, cannot possibly be in favour of freedom because they believe in absolute controls. If the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles)-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Will the hon. member keep a straight face when he says that.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I shall prove it. If the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre takes that without getting on his feet he is not the man I take him for.
Now, as I said, there has been an apparent unanimity, and I shall go so far as to say that I think the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), who is a very sincere man, when he proposed this felt that he was in favour of it, too. I shall satisfy him before I sit down, by reminding him of certain things he said in this session too, that he believes in controls to the extent that he is bound to interfere with the freedom which he blesses in this resolution. Now, of course, it is possible to define freedom in various ways and I suggest to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, who I am sure will follow me, that he give us his definition of freedom and try to square it with the controls which he and his colleagues so ardently desire.
I listened with great interest to the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Walker), who is a very old friend of mine, and I think he covered this subject in an interesting and comprehensive way. I liked the history of the debates on this resolution which he gave us, I wish also to refer quite briefly to the speech made by the present Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) on March 24, 1952, because in his opening words he gave us an objective which
Human Rights
everyone in every debate might very well take as his objective. He said, as reported at page 714 of Hansard:
I hope that I and those who follow me may discuss this subject with those qualities which Mr. Gladstone so much admired in Lord Aberdeen when he said in effect that: Whatever he discusses, he discusses with calmness, judgment, knowledge and moderation.
It is difficult for me to suggest that the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar lacked any of these things, and yet I am going to suggest later on that somehow or other there was a slip and that he is professing things today which do not square with some of these basic principles. I wish to quote further briefly from the speech made by the then member for Lake Centre in 1952. He said, as reported at page 715 of Hansard:
The quest for freedom and the desire to maintain freedom and to assure freedom is not the monopoly of any political party-and it is in that spirit I speak. Internationally a declaration of great principles was made in 1945 when the preamble of the United Nations charter was drafted in San Francisco. The statesman who drafted that preamble was Jan Christiaan Smuts who some 30 years before had drafted article X of the league of nations.
I saw him draft that preamble, the first rough draft, on the back of a cigarette box, in the memorial hall in San Francisco. His life was a revelation of the meaning of British freedom. He had devoted his early life to fighting against everything for which the British commonwealth stands and, in his latter years, became the mouthpiece of the finest principles of our commonwealth and of democracy.
Again I quote briefly from page 716:
Two world wars in one generation have created conditions perilous to the preservation of civil liberty. Indeed, the continuing world emergency since 1945 has been no less perilous to civil liberty. And Canadians, as well as peoples in other parts of the British commonwealth, must be assured that human rights and fundamental freedoms, placed in pawn as security for victory, or lost temporarily as a result of design by parliament, shall not be lost permanently because of the apathy or the failure of the people to demand their restoration.
It is a matter of interest and perhaps of something more, for us to recall this scene as described by the Prime Minister and the part played in it by Smuts, who had such an extraordinary career in so many ways; soldier, politician, philosopher, and other things as well.
I think we cannot consider freedom at home without considering freedom abroad. It is interesting to recall that as this century opened I suppose the general feeling of educated men was that freedom was going to expand and cover the whole earth. I think it can be said of the British in the 19th century, that they went about the world trying to give everyone what they at any rate thought was the greatest thing in the world namely, individual freedom and political

Human Rights
liberty. At the beginning of this century it seemed that the battle had been won and that freedom was going to spread over the earth.
I sometimes think that an incident, famous at the time, which happened in 1913, may be taken as the summit of human freedom, international freedom, freedom at any rate so far as what we call the western nations- by that I include the British commonwealth of nations everywhere-were concerned. It was an incident which some here will remember and some will have read about. It happened in Alsace. A little cobbler walking along the street was rudely thrust off the sidewalk and wounded by a Prussian officer. One cobbler, one officer, in the year 1913! A competent writer at that time said that this incident had shaken the chancellories of Europe. This offense to individual liberty and human freedom resounded throughout the whole world. It is almost impossible to believe that that happened but if you go back to the history of 1913 you will find that it did happen and that the man who used those words that shook the chancellories of Europe was hardly exaggerating. Since then millions of people have been treated far, far worse than was even dreamed of in the case of that cobbler.
I like to look back rather nostalgically to that time. The period of 1913 was just one year before the first world war. We all remember what has happened since. Now the United Nations is trying in the international sphere to give back to us some of that freedom that we lost-we all know only too well how it has disappeared in large parts of the world. I suggest that puts a special responsibilty on those who still have it to hold the banner high, to make it appear to those in the rest of the world that it is worth having. That comes very close home because it means that our representatives in every part of the world must so conduct themselves that people will feel that this freedom, this free way of life, means something in respect of our whole lives, particularly in respect of our behaviour and consideration towards other people. In effect, we have to be an example.
Some months ago I had the good fortune to be in the far east, in Malaya when the people were receiving their independence and becoming the tenth member of the commonwealth. I had never really paused to reflect before that four members out of the ten in the commonwealth are from Asia, and of course when you consider population the vast majority of individuals are from Asia. I was greatly struck with the fact that in Malaya they had a high regard for Canada.
[Mr. Macdonnell.l
They told me it was very important that a Canadian ambassador should be sent to Malaya because he could help and be of use, and I am glad to say that has been done.
They thought that they detected in us a certain resemblance. They realized that we had two races and two languages. They realized that we too had asserted ourselves and won liberties from the British, from the centre of the commonwealth. They thought, as I say, that there was a certain resemblance to us. They made me feel again the importance of our example to these people who are trying to follow in the path we have trod for so long.
I had the good fortune to meet the members of their cabinet. As I thought of the task they faced, taking over as a going concern the full apparatus of parliamentary government without the background of the generations, yes, the centuries that we have had to learn how to make it work, I had the greatest admiration for them and I felt that they were facing a terrific challenge. Again I say that when such people are looking to us it seems to me that is all the more reason why we should cherish more and more the freedom with which we have been blessed and make it appear attractive to other people.
When I was thinking of these Asian peoples joining the commonwealth I asked myself this question: What is it that brings them into the commonwealth? A few years ago I would have found it difficult to believe that India, a republic, Pakistan, a republic, would wish to be comprised in the commonwealth of nations. We do not call it the British commonwealth of nations any more but just the commonwealth of nations. I was not able to think of any answer to my question except that these people felt deep down that we had certain spiritual things in common. Freedom, the dignity and the importance of the individual, which as we know mean nothing in totalitarian countries, mean something to us, and that was the only explanation I could find as to why these peoples cared to remain associated with the commonwealth. I think it is a great tribute to the British that they have been able to exercise rule for decades, in some cases centuries, and have so conducted themselves that when they left they did so with the good will of those they had governed, as I believe to have been the case.
I was very glad to hear the hon. member for Rosedale say one thing. He pointed out that what we are proposing to do is not easy. He advised caution and he posed certain questions which I thought were important. As a constitutional lawyer he would

realize the importance of that better than I do, but even a reformed lawyer like myself realizes that these questions are difficult and that when you begin to put things into writing you have to watch your step. It is one thing to have principles which you can argue and to which able judges can give effect, but it is another thing when you begin to write things out.
I was struck, for example, with the fact that in the declaration of human rights of the United Nations there are 30 articles. If I remember rightly, there are six paragraphs in the resolution now before us. They may be more comprehensive than the United Nations articles but these make a last formidable list. Lawyers will know that when you write things out, if you put down "a", "b", "c", "d", and do not mention "e", high priced counsel can argue various results from the fact that "e" is not in there and was not intended to be in there, and I am glad for that reason that there is going to be caution and that the matter will be approached not only with caution but with recognition of the difficulties.
On the other hand, the hon. member for Rosedale pointed out, and I think quite correctly, that there is a difference in our country from Britain. In Britain, with their long tradition, their homogeneous population and their single government, they have steered away from a written constitution. As we know, they have left a good many things unwritten. That has not been so possible here. The hon. member for Rosedale pointed out that at the time of the Quebec Act, the Constitutional Act, the Act of Union and the British North America Act it had been very important to put everything down in writing and it was very important to all concerned that everything should be in writing.
Something else has also happened. I think that a good many of our new Canadians who have come here and are living happily under our system are given a feeling of security by being able to point to things in writing. They cannot be expected to have the same great respect for tradition and custom as we have. Therefore it is not surprising that they may prefer to have things in writing. That is another consideration that I think we should have in mind when we approach this task.
However much we legislate, I think we will all agree that we cannot pass a law and then say that is that and forget all about it. It is just as true as it ever was, and it will be just as true no matter how much legislation we pass, that, to use a famous phrase, eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. Freedom can only be maintained by eternal
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vigilance. It will not be enough to say that the law has been passed and that that ends the matter, like the man who signed a note, and said, "thank heaven that is paid".
It may sound somewhat doctrinaire but I had a little experience which I think will bear out what I say. During the war I belonged to a civil liberties association, and it was very interesting to see the attitude towards that organization. We were regarded as very queer people, rather open to suspicion in belonging to any such organization. I remember going to a friend of mine, a highly respected citizen, and asking him if he would join. He said, "The first thing you know you will have the communists in there." I said, "My dear fellow, they are in there already". He said, "What are you going to do about it?" I said, "Well, all we can do about it is to get enough sensible fellows like you to come in and vote them down."
He did not think very much of that reasoning, and I might say he did not come in.
However, that was true during the war, and when the chips are down, when difficulties arise, the number of people who are really ready to dictate to others is surprising. The number of people who are ready to dictate what is and what is not to be taught in universities is surprising. I think a certain number of people whom I have met in the course of my life would be quite ready to dictate in that matter and say that certain economic views should be taught, while others should not be taught. My own feeling about that is that young people should be allowed to know what other people are thinking, and as long as those in professorial chairs do not become propagandists they should be allowed the maximum of freedom.
I said at the outset that I was going to consider myself charged with the duty of pointing out certain things to our socialist friends. I have great difficulty in understanding how they are able to subscribe to the text of a resolution of this kind. As I said before, it seems to me they believe in a doctrine which is quite contrary to the text of the resolution. They seem to me to believe in a doctrine which, so far as I can understand it, will involve definite controls. I recall, particularly in the debate on the address, that the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, whom I respect, made the suggestion that we might have some wartime controls back. I rather think he may have repented of that later, but I am not authorized to say that. I looked up a list of the wartime controls and found they were very formidable. I feel that perhaps he had forgotten how many there were.

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At any rate, as I understand it, our socialist friends do believe in a measure of control. They believe in socialist democracy, but frankly I have always thought that to be a contradiction in terms. I have never been able to see how you could have the amount of control which they want to have without controlling people, far beyond what we do now. I am interested to observe that in England, so far as I can understand what is happening there, the view of the Labour party there is changing. Just three or four years ago, a meeting of the Labour party in Margate voted down a whole series of resolutions for further nationalization of industry. I have been interested to observe, that recently their new program has shifted from public ownership to public investment; that is to say, they are investing in the shares of companies so the public will have an interest in them. This seems to me to be very different from public ownership. I believe the Labour people in England have come to that conclusion.
This has been an entirely non-partisan debate so far, and I do not want to become partisan, certainly not in an acrimonious way. I thought perhaps I might arouse some comment on the other side, so we would not have a dead level of agreement on every point as we went along. I do not believe I have anything to add. I should like to go back and remind hon. members that the passing of legislation, if and when it comes, does not relieve us from the duty laid on each one of us in a democracy of pursuing the free way of life; supporting our laws which maintain it, and considering it our duty, in the phrase that I used before, to be eternally vigilant. As was so well said earlier, there are no people in the world more envied than we are, living as we do in comfort and whatever small measure of security there is in this world at the moment. I suggest very strongly indeed that many people are looking to us for an example in the ways of the west, and that in this matter of true freedom, liberty, we have a great opportunity and I hope we will live up to it.


Mr. R. M. T. McDonald (Hamilton South):: I should like to take a few minutes to present some of the views I have gathered on this subject from talking to various people in my riding. The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) has proposed a bill of rights, and possibly such a bill will come at some future time. However, I really do not believe one member of this house, no matter how smart he may be, should have the right to propose a bill of rights to govern the Canadian people, because it may infringe upon the rights of the provinces which are guaranteed in the British North America Act.

I believe we are all taking part in this battle for human rights which probably has continued since the time of Adam and Eve, man fighting for his own rights.
In 1215, when Magna Carta was signed, groups of men went to the king to get him to write down on paper what the rights of the people were. During the time of William and Mary, in 1689, a committee of the British House of Commons was set up to look into the matter of writing a bill of rights. Then, coming to the reform bill, a time when all the reforms were going through, we find that man kept on striving to get a better way of life for himself. Even at the time of the Napoleonic revolution people put down this revolution because Napoleon, a dictator, had his Napoleonic code which the people did not believe was right. Then, we go on to the American revolution, the declaration of independence and the civil war. The civil war was fought to give Negroes freedom from slavery, and was probably the greatest fight man has ever had to keep a certain race from being enslaved.
These were all phases in man's fight for human rights. The communist bill of human rights sounds very well when it is written down. The first section states:
All court cases are heard in public and the accused is guaranteed the right to be defended by counsel.
This, I believe, is probably one of the biggest laughs of the century. I do not believe Cardinal Mindszenty, who was persecuted for many years when the communists took over his land, was given the right to be represented by counsel. This attitude shows that it is not the words on the paper that are important, it is the interpretation of the words. The second clause in this communist constitution reads:
Judges are independent and subject only to the law.
I think the judges are puppets in the hands of dictators who are pulling strings for their own political gain. The next clause reads:
Citizens have the right to rest and leisure.
I feel it is very good of them to grant the people some time for rest and leisure, some of the time anyway. The next clause reads:
Citizens are guaranteed by law: (a) freedom of speech; (b) freedom of the press: (c) freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings; (d) freedom of street processions and demonstrations.
Freedom of speech is something you just do not have in Russia. If you whisper a little bit, the informer next to you will probably be telling on you. When it comes to freedom of the press, they have freedom of the

press because they have only one press. When it comes to freedom of assembly, they have their big meetings but if three or four people sit down to talk that meeting is broken up and the people are arrested. There is freedom of election by secret ballot in Russia, but in the constitution they forgot to mention that there would be only one set of people for whom to vote so whether or not the ballot is secret I do not believe that is the democratic way. So far as I am concerned, the Russian bill of rights is just a farce.
The British North America Act was first enacted to protect the provinces against federal interference. I think the federal government and the provinces have been striving for the betterment of human rights. I am not at all convinced at the moment that a section dealing with human rights should be placed in the British North America Act. If certain acts have been committed against individuals or groups of people, and they have not been corrected, I think it is up to any member in this house to go to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton) and have the Criminal Code rectified before we start tampering with the British North America Act.
I personally believe-although I am not a lawyer but in talking to some lawyers this is the opinion I have formed-that a bill of rights should not be included in the British North America Act but should be a statute of Canada. In Great Britain they do not have a proper constitution. They have probably four main acts written down on pieces of paper that put together form a constitution. That shows the way in which a free democracy can go ahead and work out things without properly written down acts within one piece of paper.
It might also be pointed out that in 1940 at a meeting on the Atlantic ocean Roosevelt and Churchill drew up the Atlantic charter and put forth the principles in the free world that I think it will be well for us to reminisce on just for a moment or two. If those principles were followed in, let us say, a bill of rights for the whole world, I feel sure we would progress a little further in our striving for peace. They stated that countries should not take any territory from any person that they did not have before the war. That is the first thing that is wrong; Russia has so many satellites now that she did not have before. They were not even looking to a future of peace; they were looking for a political communistic grab.
One principle was: no territorial changes that do not accord with the wishes of the people involved. The millions of people that the Russians have under their thumb today show anyone in this house that the Russians
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are not interested, I do not think, completely in peace. Perhaps some of the Russian people are interested but the dictators who are at the top want power.
Another principle was: the right of all peoples to choose their own form of government. I feel that democracy is the greatest thing which we have today. It has been stated that there are free elections in Russia. It is quite true they have free elections because they have only one party to vote for.
Another principle was: the enjoyment by all states of access to trade and raw materials. I sincerely hope that this will be kept in mind by the United Kingdom and the United States along with Canada so that we shall open up this market of trade to keep within the bounds so that no one will be economically strangled.
Another principle was: economic collaboration between nations. That probably refers to the amendment I just read.
Another principle was: freedom of the seas. I think that fairly well explains itself. This is only one set of rules or regulations or rights in which two great men were looking to the future of the world and its protection. I think if we take a little bit of heed of these few amendments or resolutions which they put forward it might be better for all of us.
I should also like to take this opportunity of asking the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar in closing this debate if he would answer a couple of questions which I think will probably need answering. In section (a) he refers to abridging freedom of speech and expression. I wonder whether he is thinking about freedom of speech in case of war. I feel that in all this bill of rights people must be responsible. We must have a keen sense of responsibility towards the nation. When he wrote this resolution out I wonder whether he gave any thought to any deterrent to freedom of speech in the case of war or in the case of top secrecy.
In section (c) he referred to excessive bail. I do not quite understand what is meant by excessive bail. Do you mean that if a man is making $60 per week and another man is making $200 per week and they are tried for some crime you become discriminatory about bail just because the other man is at a lower wage? I should like the hon. member to explain that matter briefly.
Also in section (c) reference is made to cruel or unusual punishment. Surely, if the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar has any knowledge of this in Canada, he should immediately inform the Minister of Justice so that this situation could be rectified and then put into a bill of rights.

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The word "unreasonable" used in section (d) is I think an incorrect one. "Unreasonable" to different people means many different things and you are leaving it too much to the discretion of the person who might be prosecuting as to what the word "unreasonable" means rather than putting it on the basis of law. These are only some of the things that I feel should be looked into very assiduously.
I should like to come back to the British North America Act for just a moment. I do not feel that this should be put into the British North America Act. I believe that the British North America Act is there to protect the provinces against the federal government. This House of Commons would have to go to the British House of Commons for permission to make any change in the British North America Act. If we are to change this British North America Act now we are going to have to go and ask their permission.
I believe we are a country which stands on its own two feet with the basic principles of British democratic government. If we go ahead and have a bill of rights as a statute of Canada, and if we do this standing on our own two feet and not having to go and ask anyone's permission, I think it will be better for ourselves and for the Canadian people.
I also feel that a formal committee should be set up to look into this matter, not perhaps of politicians of the provinces or politicians of the federal government but of law officers representing all the provinces across Canada and the federal government so that when this bill is drafted we are not going to have 100 amendments in the second year but are going to have a piece of paper that contains words that achieve the objective for which we are striving, namely to protect the people with regard to all the freedoms they have. We probably have four basic freedoms, namely freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom from fear. I hope that in Canada today we shall look to these four freedoms as the basis of a charter for the whole world and that some day, maybe even before we are all gone, the whole world will be joined together recognizing the four freedoms basically laid down and will get together for peace.


Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Queens):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity to participate in this particularly important debate. The subject matter is one which has been close to my heart for a good many years. Before taking my seat in parliament I occupied one of the chairs to which the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Macdonnell) referred some time ago, and

these principles and ideals that are being discussed today were very much part of the subject matter which occupied my mind for a good many years.
It is also a distinct pleasure for me to participate in a discussion of this subject as I am a member of a party which is led by the outstanding Canadian in this field of thinking and in this ideal. I may also say that it was my experience to witness an extremely important epoch in the history of Canadian politics and in the life of Canadian parliamentary institutions. Some months ago I sat in the gallery of the House of Commons of Canada throughout the so-called pipe line debate. Surely this was a question which dealt with one of the fundamental political freedoms in this nation of ours. I am sure that no one could witness that episode and be unaffected. I can say, as did the hon. member for York-Scarborough (Mr. McGee), that that episode is linked very intimately, directly and definitely, with my presence in this assembly today. I may say that while I have been most moved and impressed by the references which have been made to it. I am somewhat surprised-and indeed I think a bit shocked-that no voice has been heard from the party which calls itself the Liberal party.
Even the root meaning of the word "liberal" and the relationship of that word to freedom would surely prompt anyone to believe that this party, of all parties, would be fundamentally interested in such a matter, if not as large "L" Liberals surely as small "1" liberals. We have heard recent suggestions and post mortems indicating that there is a difference between the large "L" and the small "1" variety.
It is most encouraging to have a day devoted to such a topic as this. Canadians have not been much given to discussion on such questions. We have heard reference today to the fact that this matter has been discussed for 12 years or so, yet we have been a nation much longer than that and this is surely a fundamental question. We Canadians are a pragmatic people given to empiricism rather than idealism. We are not strong on consideration of such abstract questions as the nature of liberty and the underlying bases of freedom. Our history and our tradition seems to reveal this pragmatic and practical approach. It is therefore, I think, extremely uplifting and altogether satisfying for a representative of the Canadian people to see that the attention of the national legislature has been focussed on this question upon such a high plane as it has been today.

Some nations delight in high-sounding principles about the rights of man and of the citizen. In the written constitutions of many countries of the world there are a long series of grandiose statements dealing with lofty theories and high-sounding principles. The United States constitution, which is certainly not by any means an elaborate or extravagant document-indeed it is in comparison with many others short, brief, concise and succinct-begins like this:
We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.
One finds throughout that document similar references to the ideals of liberty and the rights of the citizens-indeed, in the United States it is possible for people to become quite lyrical in their emotional attachment to their constitution.
In Canada there is very little of that attitude towards the British North America Act.	Of course it would be unfair and
improper to regard the British North America Act as the constitution of Canada, for it is not. It is merely a part of the constitution of this country; an important part, albeit, but certainly not the constitution in toto. We would look long in the British North America Act for anything to parallel the brief preamble I have just read from the United States constitution. We would look even longer if we sought such a glowing expression as that which opened the Declaration of Independence as follows:
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,-
Of course we have in that document a reflection of the classic statement of eighteenth century liberalism, with a small "1". While we perhaps in our history and tradition lack the embellishments and decorations which adorn the written expression of political theory in other countries, no one would think we in this country are any less free than are the citizens of the great republic to the south or any of the other republics which have at one time in their national
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careers expressed their aspirations and their longings and their political points of view in the high-sounding principles of a constitution.
During the years our citizens have enjoyed all the civil and political rights just as fully as have the people of the United States. We have drawn our heritage of freedom from Great Britain, where much-not all but much -of the constitution is of the unwritten type, coming down from precedent to precedent through the ages marking the evolving struggle for political liberty. I think it is quite true, as was once expressed in this house, that the essence of Canadian constitutionalism may be found in the preamble of the British North America Act wherein the provinces named have expressed the desire to be federally united with a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom. By invoking that ancient and honourable constitution we have underwritten our own political liberty and have established the foundation upon which to develop a Canadian democracy.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS
Heath Nelson Macquarrie: Mr. Speaker, at six o'clock I was discussing the fundamental aspect of the Canadian constitution as being that which derives from the ancient and honourable constitution of the United Kingdom, a large part of which is in the unwritten tradition. But of course behind the British constitution there is much in the record of democratic development which carries us back to the earlier days of western liberal society. The Greek concept of law, the Hebraic ideal of morality, the ethic of Christianity, the ceaseless struggles of the intellectually emancipated. All of these have contributed to the mosaic of political and civil liberty which was well developed when Canada was born and from which we have derived so much. Those imperishable charters of English liberty, the Magna Carta of 1215, the petition of right of 1628, the bill of rights which came 60 years later, the habeas corpus act, the various electoral acts and franchise acts, Lockes' criterion of the consent of the governed; Rousseau's theory that the will of those who are governed must be expressed and reflected in the laws under which they live and under which society is operated, all of these things and many more are our ancestors in the development of political democracy and civil liberty.
Always, however, there has been a struggle between freedom and tyranny. The stream of

Human Rights
political liberty has never flowed easily nor swiftly. The divine monarch, the absolute despotic tyrant of one age is replaced by the demagogic dictator of another. The police state or the dictatorship of an omniscient and omnipotent party are modern manifestations of the old aspect of tyranny with which those who loved and fought for freedom down through the ages have had to contend.
Happily we in this land have a heritage of political and civil liberty which we must and do cherish and yet while we are a democracy and have strong institutions it would be unwise to take those institutions or our form of government for granted. "It cannot happen here" is the foolish platitude of the unthinking and democracy is never preserved by unthinking people. We must re-examine and re-assess our political structure from time to time. That is why I say it is valuable for the legislators of this country to spend their time as they have spent it today.
Things have happened in our age in various countries which should disturb us. Sometimes these things have happened in our own land. One cannot view with equanimity the whole story of the famous spy trials in Canada however justifiable the ultimate end may have been. Nor can our conscience as Canadians be altogether clear when we recall the whole story of the treatment of Japanese Canadians. There are a number of other instances of the improper use of power against individuals which should be pricks to our conscience and spurs to our thinking as democratic people. The fact that we may not have been personally involved in such instances is all the more reason why we should be vitally concerned and disturbed. It is wise and necessary to do what we are doing today and I congratulate most heartily the mover of this resolution as one who has followed others in this house in bringing forward a review of these important matters.
We are in the tradition of the unwritten constitution. Much has been told and said about that. The unwritten constitution with its flexibility has much to commend it. Yet sometimes I fear that perhaps in our genuine respect and reverence for the unwritten constitution we occasionally may be somewhat loath to commit to a document some especially valued principle of government. I therefore do not take the view that written constitutions are always necessarily less satisfying than unwritten constitutions.
The role of written law has been profound in the history of man's political development. A great step was taken in western society when law became written, indeed when it became known. In the earlier days

the law was known only to a very few, to the wielders of political power; the rank and file of the citizenry knew it not. When the 12 tables were made available to the public, when the commandments were made known, when the work of Draco and Solon in Greece became available to the citizenry one of the first and greatest steps was taken towards the development of a democratic society that was that the laws which affect all should be made known to all. This was a tremendous step forward, a great advance. It represented something to which a citizen could appeal, a body of knowledge with which he could become acquainted.
It may indeed be that we have reached a stage where some of our fundamental principles of government, some of our civil and political liberties might well be inscribed in some form and defined, perhaps in the way suggested by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar or in some other manner previously suggested. Therefore I think there is much reason in the suggestion that has been put forward today. I would even say that there are things in the spirit and temper of our time which give some urgency to this matter. It seems to me that we live in an era which is marked by the atomization of the individual. We live in a world of great agglomerations of power whether it be in the business field or the great federations of unions or what have you. There is the tremendous aggregation of power in contrast with the puny individual which is indeed a shocking contrast and one which cannot fail to stir and disturb us. We live in a society, too, in which the mechanizations and devices of mass coercion and regimentation have been advanced to a degree of technological excellence never before attained. We speak of living in an age of mass culture when it is so easy to get across to the mass the ideas, the devices, the techniques, the habits and even the slogans of those who are able to control the media of mass communication. There is then, I say, a tremendous challenge to the individuality of the person.
Then, too, there is another aspect which I think adds urgency to this suggestion, that because of certain things in the international field there are reasons for feeling fear. Fear breeds irrationality and quite often under the stress and strain generated by fear and uncertainty some things which in more normal times we cherish and prize may elude us, may pass out of the picture. I think we can recall in recent years that in the western world there occasionally have been manifestations of exactly this kind of irrationality which erodes some of the fundamental liberties of the people in a democratic state.

Yet I think it is important to look at this whole matter very carefully and very realistically. I am tremendously impressed with the idea. However, there are certain cautions which we must not overlook. Perhaps it is unfortunate that we in this country have not yet attained that status whereby we can amend our fundamental organ of government, our constitution. We have not yet been able to find a very satisfactory or workable way of doing that.
It is difficult to know just how this resolution could be made operative in relation to the present status of the British North America Act and the somewhat divided amending process which we now have. I would certainly not hazard the suggestion that what is involved here comes purely under the federal area of jurisdiction. I think I might find others supporting my doubts in this matter.
I have mentioned the idea that certainly one cannot place full confidence in the written law. There is the danger, too, of overemphasizing the importance of a written law because sometimes when we designate, record, set out section by section, laws, aspects of our freedoms, liberties, or what have you, it often happens that we are really limiting our freedom in that through the process of time those things which are set out in the words have gradually become the sum total of that freedom. If we were discussing section 91 of the British North America Act I am sure we would find ample justification for this line of thinking. Then, of course-and I think this must always be considered whenever legislators, or anyone else, talk about amending laws-behind the law there is the spirit. The letter of the law, in Montesquieu's great words, is not enough. His "The Spirit of the Law" is, of course, a classic in this field. We speak of law and order. Actually, as society develops, the order should be reversed to read "order" and then "law".
We have many examples of countries which have the most elaborate and seemingly foolproof statements of civil liberties, and yet look at the functioning of political society in those countries. We find that those liberties are not guaranteed and they are not operative. I think we might see that in the United States which has a magnificent constitution and a splendid statement of the liberties of the subject. We have found many times that those liberties are not real for certain sections of their society. One can think of recent incidents which would underwrite that line of thinking. They have amendments galore, well thought out amendments, but the curtailment of liberty still exists and often the law enforced by the power of the state
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does not at a given time effectually guarantee that these are in reality effective for the people of the country. However, I do not fear the spirit of our democracy, but merely caution that laws alone are not enough.
I agree with the excellent suggestions put forward by the preceding speakers. I was much impressed with the statement of the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Walker) and I might say of him, as of the hon. member for Vancouver-Kings-way (Mr. Macdonald), that the contention that is sometimes made that there is a distinct difference between legal English and good English does not apply in this case at all. I certainly enjoyed their excellent discussions of the subject. I am happy, and sincerely happy, that the government of this country is headed by an outstanding exponent of what is sought in this resolution and what has been advanced by the speakers today. I think the idea which is sought here is nearer fruition and realization at this time than at any previous time it has been discussed in this house. I think the procedure which has been outlined by the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Justice shows a realistic appraisal of, as well as a sincere dedication to the essential subject matter of this resolution, and I am delighted that such a statement has been made. I am very happy to congratulate all those who have put themselves behind it so magnificently as they have done.
(Translation):


Mr. Alexis Caron (Hull):: Mr. Speaker, as one of the representatives of the province of Quebec, I wish to take part in this debate. Ever since I have been a member of this house, I have read and reread the resolutions on human rights introduced by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) and also by the hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) when he was a member of the opposition. I thought that the introduction of such resolutions afforded hon. members a marvellous opportunity to deliver a few flamboyant speeches to make themselves out as the genuine defenders of the human race.
It is all very well to talk about freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the right of free association, the protection under the law of all our fellow citizens, white, black, yellow, Catholic, Protestant or Jewish; or to object to excessive bails or even to prohibit exile; or to fight against unjustified interference in family affairs, in private correspondence and many other things which are found in this resolution. But is it really necessary to

Human Rights
include in our statutes a new resolution when everything has already been provided for since confederation, and even before that?
Some of our rights were guaranteed by the treaty of Paris as far back as 1763; unfortunately, those rights were not always respected. While this treaty guaranteed to minorities the right to speak their language, to practise their religion, to teach their language not only in one part of this country but in the whole British colony of that time where human beings speaking either French or English were living, we know what happened. It is only in the province of Quebec that those rights were respected, not because they were recognized by the British North America Act, but only because, with their sense of justice, the people of the province of Quebec wanted all those who live within our borders to enjoy equal rights. As a matter of fact, in spite of the guarantees which we were given by the 1867 constitution, as well as by the treaty of Paris, did we not see, a few years after confederation, the Catholics of New Brunswick deprived of the right to teach their religion? The case went before the courts. The courts decided then that those rights were guaranteed by the constitution, in so far as they existed before the adoption of the act of 1867. However that right not having been recognized in New Brunswick where, up to that time, it had been enjoyed only in a spirit of kindly tolerance, the courts decided that Catholics were not entitled to their schools or even to religious instruction in them. Sir Georges Etienne Cartier did not wish to intervene to impose the federal government's views, in spite of the fact that the federal government still enjoyed the right of veto. He did not wish the federal government to interfere in a field which up to that time, had been considered as exclusively provincial.
Then we have witnessed the struggle of those who, not because of laws or because of treaties, but only because of their inner convictions, fought for those rights which were theirs by natural birthright.
In 1871, when Manitoba became a province of Canada, Sir Georges Etienne Cartier, who remembered the error made in New Brunswick, had written into the constitution of that province the same principles that existed in Quebec with regard to minorities. That was all right at that time. However, in spite of Sir Georges' goodwill, the existing law was ignored in 1891. The case was brought before the courts. The decision of the lower court having been reversed by the court of appeal, it was confirmed by the privy council. Nevertheless, although the minorities

had won their case before the law, even with the treaties, this law was disregarded and the rights of the French-speaking Catholic minority of Manitoba have been curtailed.
Was it intended that the federal government raise an army and invade the province to apply the law? That was impossible and impracticable. There were representations and parleys for the purpose of obtaining a few concessions, but without much success.
In 1897, following numerous negotiations, Sir Wilfrid Laurier managed to obtain very minor concessions. It was, however, a beginning.
In 1913, in spite of the law and treaties, the province of Ontario adopted its famous Regulation XVII, barring the teaching of religion and of the French language from the school program. I still remember this famous struggle where we saw Ottawa mothers joining forces at Guigues school to prevent female teachers from Toronto from invading our schools, and when some teachers worked two years without a salary in order to preserve a natural right. Well, it was only by dint of struggling, and struggling again that our people secured certain concessions with the result that today, in the province of Ontario, the situation is getting better and better.
Later on, in 1928, Mr. Anderson, leader of the Conservative party in Saskatchewan, denounced the Gardiner government for tolerating the teaching of the Catholic religion in schools. Through unremitting work Mr. Anderson succeeded-and the present Prime Minister of Canada knows something about it-in poisoning public opinion. There again, in spite of the rights of people and of treaties, they succeeded in having the crucifix -not a Roman Catholic but a Christian symbol-banished from the schools as well as in having the religious orders prohibited from wearing their uniforms. Fortunately, once again, thanks to the energetic protests of our people, ground was gained gradually and our people obtained some concessions which they now enjoy in Saskatchewan.
Today the same situation is found in British Columbia. We have heard of what has happened at Maillardville. In spite of laws and treaties, when goodwill is lacking, a way is always found to circumvent them.
Mr. Speaker, I claim that if we were to add to our statutes the proposal brought before the house today by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, we would in no wise be improving matters. It would merely clutter up our statutes with laws which would be respected only when the

majority in a province or in this country as a whole will have acquired an instinctive respect for the minorities. It is the mentality which is bad, and there is no shortage of legislation. All the necessary laws are there in our statutes. It is only a matter of enforcing them. And when they are not clear they can be referred to the courts which generally interpret them properly.
To return once more to the treaty of Paris, as I was saying at the beginning of my remarks, there was only a small number of French Canadians at the time, only about 60,000 of them who had remained after the conquest. History records that the rich and the noblemen had left Canada to return to France, leaving behind 60,000 subjects, 90 per cent of whom did not know how to read or write, though among them were a few priests. In spite of that, with the tolerance of the British government, a tolerance which we are pleased to recognize and for which we are thankful, they managed to maintain their natural rights. Today there are about 5,000,000 of us. Though we still meet with difficulties, we manage to surmount them, not by revolution, not by open battle, but by a constant constitutional struggle to safeguard rights which are ours and which we must cause to be respected in spite of everything, since the treaty of Paris applied not only to the province of Quebec, to Lower Canada but to the entire territory controlled by England at the time, that is from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific ocean.
In my opinion, those difficulties arose because this is a young country and, in a young country like Canada, there are always, on the side of the majority as well as on the side of the minority, in any English province as well as in the French province of Quebec, certain elements of fanaticism which try to achieve prominence in the political field or elsewhere by stirring the passions of the masses, and to set themselves up on a pedestal while trodding upon others.
Well, this situation will continue for a few years and I am convinced that even if we inserted in our statute books the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, nothing worthwhile would be accomplished. Moreover, as the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Stewart), said the other day, this resolution is but a clichd, because it is only a repetition of what has been adopted by the United Nations, a repetition of what already exists in the constitution of the United States. Yet in spite of that document,
Human Rights
in spite of that guarantee of human rights in the United States, we saw a short time ago how the Negro minority is being dealt with there. Because some men were born of a different colour, they had to fight for their natural rights. We saw what happened a short time ago at Little Rock, in spite of the fact that the United Nations had accepted to guarantee human rights, and that Soviet Russia had recognized that same principle, because we know that the freedom to teach does exist in Soviet Russia in so far as the professors teach marxism all day long and nothing else.
Mr. Speaker, in my remarks, I wanted to avoid the approach of some members who today attempted to make political capital out of this debate.
Someone inquired, this afternoon, why we on this side of the house did not take part in the debate. Well, Mr. Speaker, that is what prompted me to take part in it.
(Text):
May I be permitted to answer the member who, if he did not say so clearly, seemed to claim that those to your left, Mr. Speaker, were not participating in the debate. The reason for that is we have our own views. We have discussed the subject before in previous parliaments, and we know what we think about it, and about having numerous laws that are not really necessary. I am reminded of certain facts which came to light at a press conference on January 27, 1955, the chairman of which was Blair Fraser and the members were George Bain, Toronto Globe and Mail; George Langlois, Montreal La Presse and Stanley Burke, Vancouver Sun. At that time the panel was asking the present Solicitor General (Mr. Balcer) what he thought of a resolution brought forward by his chief, the present Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker). I quote:


Mr. Langlois:: Coming to another subject. Your colleague, John Diefenbaker, has been trying for years to have a bill of rights written into our statutes or our constitution to protect individual citizens' rights and prevent them from being infringed upon by any government including provincial governments. What is your opinion on that?


Mr. Balcer:: Well. I think, I mean there is a lot to be said, I mean; I agree with what Mr. Diefenbaker has in mind, I mean.


Mr. Burke:: You do not think a federal bill of rights would be an invasion of the provincial field?


Léon Balcer: Oh, yes, I mean I wouldn't like, I mean, to use a federal bill of rights to infringe on the provincial rights.


Joseph Langlois: Could we have ten or eleven bills of rights?

Human Rights


Léon Balcer: It might be the answer, I mean.


Vincent P. Burke: But if they differed then you would have different civil rights on one bank of the Ottawa river to what you had on the other bank. Is that what you would advocate?


Léon Balcer: No, I don't think, I mean, they would be so different, one from the other, if they were provincial civil rights, I mean. I doubt very much-I think what you have in mind is that, I mean, Quebec for instance might-I think these laws, I mean, the effect of these laws have been exaggerated.


Joseph Langlois: If you are in favour of a bill of rights don't you think we should have one bill of rights that could suit all Canadians?


Léon Balcer: As long as it doesn't infringe on provincial rights.


Mr. Fraser:: Who is to decide that? That is the point at the moment. Mr. Duplessis has a law restricting the rights of Witnesses of Jehovah to proselytize; what do you think of that?


Léon Balcer: Well, that is, you see, I mean the Witnesses of Jehovah were, I mean, as far as Quebec is concerned, I mean they were really embarrassing people and so forth.
I believe that I said what I thought in French, and with or without civil rights being guaranteed in this country I was clearer than the Solicitor General was in answering those questions. If there is a vote on the matter, I shall vote against the resolution.


Mr. Jack Wralten (Brantford):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak on this proposed bill of rights this evening I should like to express my congratulations to the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Walker) who gave us a splendid explanation of this measure this afternoon when we first started this debate. I must confess that I spent considerable time yesterday afternoon and last night reading the various things that have already been said here in this house.
In speaking to this motion about human rights I find that this subject has been the source of long debate in years gone by. I find that similar motions have been sponsored by our own Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) on more than one occasion. I find also that the sponsor of this resolution, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), supported proposed bills of rights on former occasions when they were before the house. I find also, by reading back issues of Hansard, that our Prime Minister, then the hon. member for Lake Centre, first brought to the attention of this house the need for a bill of rights on March 7, 1946, in the form of an amendment to the citizenship bill that was before the house at that time. Throughout subsequent sessions this subject has been repeatedly brought forward.
In one previous debate on this measure, on December 4, 1951, at page 1561 of Hansard, our present Prime Minister gave another very effective speech on the need for a bill

of rights. The minister of justice at that time, Mr. Garson, made a statement on the same issue and said:
If, as he contends,-
Referring to the present Prime Minister. -the law of Canada is at present defective in the matter of protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms, what is required is something which he himself has advocated on a number of occasions- a bill of rights.
I find also that on March 24, 1952 a considerable debate took place again on a proposed bill of human rights, and quite a number of members from all parties took part. Again our present Prime Minister led off in the debate, and I should like to quote some parts of his speech which I believe will be of great interest, not only to myself but to all new members in the house. On page 715 of Hansard for March 24, 1952, I find this:
I am not going to review in detail the historical development within our country of the concept of freedom. It is represented by those great charters- Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Petition of Right, Habeas Corpus, and the Quebec Act and the British North America Act, peculiar to our country; and by the Statute of Westminster, whereby all dominions of the British commonwealth became equals with the United Kingdom.
Then, he goes on to say:
The quest for freedom and the desire to maintain freedom and to assure freedom is not the monopoly of any political party-and it is in that spirit I speak.
Then, he goes on to describe the contents of the bill of human rights as passed by the United Nations at San Francisco and subscribed to by the government of Canada. There is no doubt that we in Canada enjoy a true sense of liberty that is unequalled in any part of the world. This makes it imperative that all our freedoms be preserved.
Farther on in this address I found a few lines that explained the fundamentals of just what this bill meant to us, and I quote again from page 720:
Someone may ask what a bill of rights would do. A bill of rights would deny the right of any majority to interfere with my serving God as my conscience demands. It would deny the right of any government to interfere with my right to speak or write so long as I did so within the law. It would deny discrimination against any person because of his race or colour.
Farther down, he said:
A bill of rights would re-define the landmarks of liberty, which are almost erased as a result of the pathways of war becoming the permanent highroads of peace. It would give positive evidence that when Canada, at the United Nations assembly two years ago, accepted the universal declaration of human rights, that acceptance was a dedication of the Canadian people not only internationally but nationally as well. It would make parliament more careful before passing laws that would have the effect of suspending or interfering with freedom. It would mobilize the spiritual things of life

without which neither nations nor men can live a full and abundant life. Above everything else, it would make Canadians freedom conscious. As Canadians we pride ourselves on our Canadianism and how full, ample and free we are. Why is it that Canadians have not been given the equality with British subjects in the United Kingdom, in relation to actions against the crown in the courts of law? The time has come to raise the right of Canadian citizenship, and to place Canadians on equal footing with the Queen in courts of law, with the right to take any proceeding against the crown without consent of the crown, other than proceedings in respect of the armed forces, or under the Post Office Act.
Several other hon. members spoke that day in favour of this bill, including the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar who is sponsoring this present bill today. Some spoke against it, as is always the case. It seemed that the chief criticism of this bill was the infringing on rights of provincial and municipal governments. I was quite intrigued by one hon. member's objection in that while he wanted all the freedom possible for the press with which he was closely associated, he wanted the radio and the C.B.C. to be very closely censored as to what they broadcast.
I was interested to read the text of the resolution passed by the United Nations, so I procured a copy of it from the library. I should like to thank publicly the staff of the library for the fine help and co-operation which they always so cheerfully give to the members of this house. I presume that the preamble to this declaration has been quoted often in this house but it is so important that I feel it would do no harm to have it on record once again. The declaration to which we as Canadian people subscribed and which was passed by the United Nations reads as follows:
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations among nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Whereas member states have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
Human Rights
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
Now therefore
The General Assembly Proclaims
This universal declaration of human rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of member states themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
The declaration has some thirty articles in it for the full context but it has been summarized very well in the bill by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar. I should like to comment on some of the paragraphs in this bill. We in this country have the widest latitude possible in freedom of speech. In fact, I do not believe there are any objections to people holding forth on whatever views they have so long as it is not advocating the overthrow of our democratic government or libelling some other person. I believe this is as it should be. They tell me that in London, England, in Hyde Park, you can walk around and hear numerous speakers talk on practically every subject imaginable and that also they have the protection of the police from being molested while doing so. This gives the individual a chance to let off pent-up feelings. If he has listeners, that is all well and good. If not, he can soon shut up and go home, but at least he has had the opportunity to voice his ideas to the general public.
Freedom of the press is another privilege which we have and which we should cherish and jealously guard. When I mention the press, I mean any means of giving or distributing news to the general public. I believe the general public are well aware that the press should have access to the news in order to distribute it to the people. This was amply demonstrated, in my opinion, by the people of London, Ontario when, even after a judge had ruled that certain civic information could be withheld from the press, the electors defeated the sitting mayor who supported this way of doing things, I understand, and withheld the information, and returned a man who advocated free access to civic information as the people's right.
This curbing of our right sometimes creeps in in the censorship of books and articles that are considered by certain individuals to be unfit for Canadians to read. In my opinion, this matter needs very careful consideration because what offends one does not offend another. No true free Canadian likes to feel that somebody has the right to say "You shall read this" or "You shall not read that". I believe that the curbing of obscene books and

Human Rights
literature lies right in our own hands. If the public would not buy them, the books would soon be off the stands and out of the stores. But it seems that the best way to promote the sale of this trash is for the announcement to be made that it is banned and is unfit to read. When this happens the sales soon soar. We know there are numbers of books that we as parents do not want our children to read. If the parents take an interest in their children's reading habits I believe this could be avoided.
Freedom of religion is another right that has been fought for over a long period of years. I believe that nothing touches a person quicker than to try to force him or her to change his or her religion. We in Canada are supposed to have this freedom, the right to worship whom we please and in whatever way we please. We do not have the violent open opposition that some denominations have had to endure but it shows up in some sections of our country in more subtle ways. While we all do not think alike along this line and while we have different ideas as to the right way to worship, we should respect the other person's point of view and they should not be denied their right to worship in their own way.
I believe, in looking back over history, that it has been the persecution endured by the different denominations which has made them strong and great. We have only to read of these persecutions to see how strong they have become today. One denomination about which I know a great deal has grown to international proportions in the last 75 years and that is the Salvation Army. That organization endured terrific violence and punishment when it first started, not only from lay people but from churchmen as well. This aroused the sympathies of some and the manner and loyalty of the followers in the Salvation Army to the ideals to which they subscribe have built them to the place which they hold today as an international organization.
We could also read, and I personally know, of some Baptist missionaries who endured very great hardships in promoting what they felt to be their right to worship. There is another denomination or sect which has endured persecution in recent times and that is the Jehovah's Witnesses. They are still persecuted in certain places today and it is for that reason, in my opinion, that they are growing as fast as they are. I read an article in the press not too long ago in which the writer claimed this sect was growing faster and making more converts than any other church group today. I am not a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses nor am I in sympathy with some of

their methods or beliefs but, in my opinion, it is just a case of history repeating itself. To persecute is to make strong.
Let us give each individual the right to worship as he pleases without any fear of persecution.
Sometimes we read of the rights of people being trampled upon then their being summarily arrested or held without communication with the outside world. This happened in Toronto not long ago. The police entered a private home without a warrant; they broke into a home in dead of night upsetting the occupants. I believe the authorities cannot be too careful in such cases to preserve the rights of the people.
There are many other rights that we as Canadians enjoy and which we must hold very dear; the right to work anywhere we can obtain employment and not to be in a position where we cannot leave a job and seek employment elsewhere; the right of the employer, which I believe should be in effect the same right, that is to employ whomever he sees fit. I believe the employers are more interested in a person's ability to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay than in his colour or the nationality of that person.
There are other aspects of this bill which we could discuss tonight but I am sure that we as true Canadians and citizens of a country composed of many different nationalities are concerned with only one high ideal and that is to protect our freedom and to respect each other's rights and freedoms.


Miss Margaret Aitken (York-Humber):: Human Rights
the privy council. As recorded at page 902 of Hansard the Prime Minister said:
As long as the privy council was our court of last resort, in actuality the foot of the throne, an individual in this country whose fundamental freedoms were interfered with directly or indirectly had a right of appeal to that court.
In that debate two years ago hon. members of the legal profession and especially the then minister of justice had a great deal to say about the legal aspects of introducing a bill of rights into our constitution. I read that debate fully and I must say that to a layman it was extremely technical and equally confusing.
That brings me to my final point as to why I feel I should speak tonight in support of this resolution and why it appeals to me. It is a relatively short time since a wrong was righted in this house in regard to the human rights of women. It is an even shorter time since an injustice was corrected at what the present Prime Minister called the court of last resort, the foot of the throne, the privy council. Until 1917 not only could Canadian women not vote but they were not even regarded as persons and therefore could not be members of the House of Commons as I am today or members of the Senate.
I have read over some of the debates that took place in the House of Commons prior to the passing of the act which gave the vote to women and I must say they make quaint reading today. In that long debate the lawyers again had a heyday. In fact, after the minister of justice of that day, the Hon. Charles Doherty, had held forth at considerable length one hon. member got up and rather plaintively expressed himself in this way:
As to the legal arguments we heard this afternoon from the hon. Minister of Justice, if he had anything clear in his mind, or if he was able to make anything clear to the other legal lights in this house, he certainly was not able to make anything clear to the ordinary layman because when the hon. minister was through, it seemed to me that the matter was more muddled up than when he started.
Mr. Speaker, in spite of the lawyers and in spite of the fact that some hon. members claimed that the franchise would "depoetize" women, "degrade" women, "remove her bashfulness, sweetness and charm;" despite all this eloquence the Canadian woman got her human rights. In 1917, women received the vote and in 1929 they were declared to be persons.
I have mentioned this particular phase of human rights from the past because the freedoms that we enjoy today did not just happen and they will not just happen in the future. I think we must strive continually

to preserve the precious freedoms we have and that is why I support this resolution on human rights.


Mr. A. D. McPhillips (Victoria, B.C.):: Mr. Speaker, I note that the mover of this resolution is not in the house.


Some hon. Members:: Yes he is.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: If you cannot read better than you see you would do well to sit down.


Albert DeBurgo McPhillips: I was rather interested that he should have been the mover of this resolution because I always thought that the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Cold-well) represented a group that favoured a police state. At least that was the impression I gained in British Columbia many years ago.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: What are you reading from?


Albert DeBurgo McPhillips: I am not reading from anything.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Yes you are.


Albert DeBurgo McPhillips: I also note that the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch) is not in his seat. He was quite a proponent, you know, of the-


Major James William Coldwell: Let the hon. gentleman look around his own group and see who are not in their seats.


Mr, Nicholson:: Where	is	the	Prime
Minister?


Albert DeBurgo McPhillips: I can, if necessary, appeal for the protection of the chair but I am not going to do it. I notice that the hon. member for Vancouver East is not in his seat.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Where	is	the	Prime
Minister?


Albert DeBurgo McPhillips: He, of course, was one who definitely suggested that if his group ever got into power-which thank heaven they did not-they were going to have a police state.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Cameron:: That is a lie. That is a deliberate lie.


Albert DeBurgo McPhillips: This is something he said when he was the leader of the opposition in the legislature of British Columbia.


Donald Cameron: That is a deliberate lie. Did you hear me? That is a deliberate lie.


Albert DeBurgo McPhillips: Where is the old mailed fist? Has it gone down the drain? Where is the regimentation and the absolute obedience they were going to demand from the public if they ever got into power? Apparently it has all gone down the drain. Now we find this group is deteriorating. No

more is there the mailed fist. We have a mealy-mouthed resolution. It is in the velvet glove. I am just wondering whether-


Stanley Howard Knowles: How
about the civil servants you do not trust?


Albert DeBurgo McPhillips: -there is any mailed fist in the velvet glove, or whether it is all mealy-mouthed nonsense. Who are they trying to fool? They talk of excessive bail in this resolution, which means high bail granted by a judge. Why if you chaps were in office there would not be any bail; a man would simply be put in jail and that would be the end of it.
Another thing I notice is conspicuously absent in this resolution. There is no mention of the old song that you used to sing, namely that every citizen is entitled to gainful employment. There is no mention of that here. That was one of your old principles. Why is it not mentioned here, Mr. Speaker? I suggest that the boys sitting to your left, Mr. Speaker, love unemployment. That is what they work for. They were born and nurtured on unemployment. Unemployment is their stock in trade and that is what they are hoping for now.
I must say I approach this resolution with mixed feelings. I approve of much of it but I see its danger. I see the danger of circumscribing our liberties with pious language. That is the way to get your tail in the gate. Look at the United States amendment having to do with carrying weapons. That has been one of the curses of the United States, Mr. Speaker. One of the early amendments to the United States constitution says that every American citizen can bear weapons. What does that mean? And what has it meant? Well, I will tell you what it has meant. It has meant that they have had lawlessness and ruthlessness in that nation for many years but they cannot do away with it because it is an amendment to the constitution. Admittedly, they can license them.
In the beautiful riding from which I come we have thousands of tourists from the United states. The fellows who come up from Texas drive up in their big Lincolns. They have a six-gun mounted on the footboard. They call it a footboard. I do not know just what the term is but anyway there is a spike placed out from the footboard with a washer so many inches down. You can put the six-gun down there in such a way that you can make a quick draw. Of course our immigration officials will not allow them into the country. Most of them agree to it, but some of them say no, they will not give up their guns and they will not even come into the country because they will not 96698-185
Human Rights
travel without a six-gun. That is an amazing situation. It is true that in Canada it is possible to have a revolver if you can prove to the local chief of police, under the Criminal Code, that you need one, but that does not entitle you to walk down Wellington street with a gun in your hip pocket; but there is the situation. The right to carry a gun was given to the people of the United States by an amendment to the constitution. Now they are stuck with it. Actually, in point of fact it is a monster on their backs.
Let us look at prohibition. In 1917, the people of Canada by and large went for prohibition, but, Mr. Speaker, they were sensible. They went at it by provinces, and I think every province in Canada with the exception of Quebec-they were too old in wisdom and too smart to fool with it-went for prohibition. We did not invoke any federal legislation on this question; but what did the United States do? With a similar emotionalism but with an unwise enthusiasm they decided that they would fix the thing for all time. They passed an amendment to the constitution, the Volstead Act. Not all of you remember it because some of you were too young. It was the 19th amendment to the constitution of the United States and there was to be no liquor. What happened?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Was it not the 18th amendment?


Albert DeBurgo McPhillips: Unfortunately they went
through that regrettable period when they developed the beer barons. One of my hon. friends here mentioned such individuals as A1 Capone, and that brought on the development of bath-tub gin and jackass brandy, and so forth, and the whole moral fibre of the young people of the United States has been undermined by it. Therefore, they decided eventually to end it. The provinces, incidentally, had gone about it in a different way. They brought in such reforms as liquor control boards and so on. What did the United States do? Because they had this monster on their backs they could not do anything about it. In 1932 there was a democratic convention and the question of whether they would elect Smith or Roosevelt came up. A1 Smith looked as if he simply could not make it. You remember such slogans as "cut down on the dries and have your wet dreams come true", and that sort of thing. When it came to the final analysis McAdoo of California controlled 110 votes and Larsen from Texas controlled 55 votes, and they decided they would put this proposition up to Roosevelt. They did and he agreed that there would be a change in the liquor laws and he went in.

Human Rights
What happened was that through a laborious process they changed the constitution. They had to get 75 per cent of the states to agree, and that sort of thing, and it was a very difficult thing to do. That leads me, Mr. Speaker, to say this. So far as the resolution is concerned I know the words are good.
I agree with them but we have all these things now. If we get to the place where we try to circumscribe the rights we have by words we are going to get into difficulty.
I would like to say this, Mr. Speaker. Where else in the world except under British jurisdiction can a subject invoke the sovereign? In such matters as prerogative, motion of mandamus, habeas corpus, certiorari, the subject can institute an action and it is maintained in the name of Her Majesty the Queen; John Smith, or whoever he is, versus the registrar of a court or the superintendent of brokers, or even the Attorney General of Canada himself. In no other nation can that be done.
I am in sympathy with the resolution but what I say is this. Why go to work and foul our nest with a mess of pottage? We do not need it. We have got it now. Let us not take a chance. We have inherited the best from our British institutions. We have it. Let us not make a mistake; let us not goof on the question and we could very easily. I suggest that we just string along with what we have now.
Incidentally, I am quite satisfied. I have to take cognizance of the fact that the members from the province of Quebec on both sides of the house will agree with me that it is a dangerous thing to tamper with existing institutions. I know that in the first week of the session one or two of them made rather impassioned speeches and said that they must insist upon the basic rights, religious freedom, and so forth. They have had that for two hundred years and there is no suggestion that it would be taken from them under our system. In fact, far from being taken from them, it has been extended thousands of miles because in my riding of Victoria we have two magnificent Roman Catholic institutions. The good Sisters of St. Ann have an immense convent in the city of Victoria which is the main focal point of my riding. It was instituted by them as far back as 1859. Across the street they have one of the finest hospitals in British Columbia, St. Joseph's Hospital. They have gone up the coast and have hospitals in Juneau and Skagway, Alaska. This sort of thing is done but to my mind this discussion is like flogging a dead horse. There is no question about depriving anybody of their rights. Those rights exist, always will exist, and we will fight for them if we have to.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I shall not attempt to follow the arguments of the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat. Already at this session it has been demonstrated that he does not speak for his party. The Acting Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Green), made that clear on at least one occasion.


An hon. Member:: It is a good thing he does not.


Stanley Howard Knowles: suggest that when he now says that it is not necessary to have a bill of rights such as my leader has proposed he is flying in the face of the record of his own Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) who has contended for years that Canada should have a bill of rights.
A good deal has been said today about the long struggle that many members have put forth in an effort to win a bill of rights for the people of Canada. My hon. friends on the government side of the house have sung the praises of their Prime Minister. They have been good enough to admit that my leader the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Stewart), Senator Croll, the former member for Spadina, and others in the house have also fought across the years for the establishment in Canada of a bill of rights.
To me it is a matter of regret that the house seems to be passing up the opportunity to take a significant step in that battle this very day. I concede to every member, particularly because of the importance of the subject, the right to speak to it, but when members of the same party speak in succession one after another as they have done today it does lend credence to the suggestion that the resolution is being talked out. Many Canadians will regard this as unfortunate.
Let it be perfectly clear that if the resolution in the terms in which it is drafted is passed by the house it will not have immediate legislative effect. The passing of the resolution would merely be a declaration of the opinion of the house that consideration should be given to taking whatever steps are necessary to amend the British North America Act so as to write into it a bill of rights for all Canadians. I confess that if the resolution were passed tonight it might be a long time, even a matter of years, before its terms could be fully implemented. I agree with those on the other side of the house, such as the hon. member for Queens (Mr. Macquar-rie), who expressed the hope that the time will soon come when we will be able to amend our own constitution in Canada in all

respects without having to go to Westminster for an amendment to the British North America Act. It may be that it will not be until we have in Canada the power to amend our own constitution that we will write into that constitution a bill of rights.
But this house has the opportunity tonight to go on record as expressing its opinion that it should be done. That, I submit, would be a declaration that would have value in this effort that has been made across the years to win a bill of rights for Canadians. Apart from a few hon. members such as the hon. member for Victoria (Mr. McPhillips), who took his seat a moment ago, there is general approval of the proposition that we should have a bill of rights. Some have suggested that it should not be in the British North America Act, that it should not be in our constitution but rather should be just a statute of the federal parliament. We take the view, and I think on reflection most hon. members will agree with us, that if a bill of rights is to have any value to Canadians as a whole it must be written somewhere in such a manner that it has a bearing on legislation that can be passed both by the parliament of Canada and by the legislatures of the various provinces.
The parliament of Canada cannot by itself pass something that has control over the rights of the provinces. It is only in something of a constitutional nature that principles can be laid down that will govern both the parliament of Canada and the legislatures of the various provinces. I believe that any who give study to the question will realize that in the end if we are going to achieve a written bill of rights, and I suggest most of us agree on the desirability of that aim, it will have to be an act of a constitutional nature. That means either an amendment to the British North America Act itself or some constitutional piece of legislation arrived at after we have established a means of amending or writing our constitution here in this country.
So I say, Mr. Speaker, all that my leader's motion calls for today is for the house to declare itself in favour of steps being taken to achieve this desirable end, and I hope that even yet the house may be willing tonight to let the motion come to a vote so that the opinion of the members of the House of Commons in this twenty-third parliament may be made a matter of record.
There is just one other point I should like to make. One does not need to add to the arguments in support of a bill of rights because they have been made and made quite well from both sides of the house. But it has been a matter of interest to note the
96698-185J
Human Rights
number of members who have done a good deal of reading in this field. In particular they have read the debates on this resolution when it has been before the house on previous occasions and on resolutions introduced by the present Prime Minister when he was in days gone by the private member for Lake Centre.
But I want to suggest to hon. members that in their attempt to ascertain who was the father or stepfather or father-in-law of a bill of rights in Canada they have not gone far enough back in their reading. I suggest that for an interesting speech members might read the contribution that Senator Power made in 1919 when he was the member for Quebec South in the House of Commons during the time of the general strike in the city of Winnipeg. Back in those days and despite the sense of panic that was abroad there was at least one Liberal who called for a recognition of the rights of the working men of this country, and I pay tribute still today to Senator Power for the speech he made on that occasion in 1919.
If anyone is interested in the first time when legislation was introduced that foreshadowed the idea of a bill of rights, I suggest he should turn to Hansard of March 24, 1922. He will find that on that day my predecessor as member for Winnipeg North Centre, Mr. J. S. Woodsworth, introduced two private bills. One was an amendment to the Immigration Act and the other was an amendment to the Criminal Code. In introducing these bills, Mr. Woodsworth said with respect to the first one, and a similar thought applied to the second one:
The purpose of this bill is to repeal those sections of the act, so that every man in this country, whether a Canadian by birth or one who has lived in Canada, will be assured of the right of trial by jury.
Why did Mr. Woodsworth have to introduce these two bills? He did so because in the hysteria of 1919 a Conservative government had rushed through amendments to the Immigration Act and the Criminal Code, and I believe to one other statute, which took away the opportunity of trial by jury in certain instances and made pronouncements with respect to what was defined as sedition, which were clearly against the traditions and civil liberties of this country as they were understood. Later in speaking to one of these bills Mr. Woodsworth said this as recorded at page 1388 of Hansard for May 3, 1922:
The effect of the existing amendment to the Immigration Act is really to deprive a very large section of our people of the right to trial by jury- a very serious consideration. It is unnecessary for me to review the history of the claims put forth by the British people, from the time of the Magna

Human Rights
Carta and the Bill of Rights, to the right of trial by jury. That great document-the Magna Carta -was effective in restricting the arbitrary power of kings and ministers, but we have today, in this legislation which has been placed on the statute book-
He was referring to the legislation placed on the statute book by a Conservative government.
-a reversion, if I may call it so, to the condition of affairs which prevailed before the time of the Magna Carta.
Mr. Woodsworth went on to point out that the purpose of the bills which he had introduced was to re-establish certain civil liberties, certain basic rights in this country. So Mr. Speaker, in these measures introduced by Mr. Woodsworth back in 1922 you have what might be called the forerunner of the motions that have come later calling for establishment by legislation of a bill of rights for Canadians.
We in this group welcome the debate that has taken place today. We welcome the interest that has been shown in this measure. We would have liked to have had a speech from the Prime Minister. He used to speak on this measure when he was on the opposition side of the house. He used to press the immediacy of the matter, the need for action. He complained when the Liberal government talked out his resolution, or when the Liberal government refused to refer the matter to the supreme court. He complained when a committee was set up as a means of shelving the issue. We are sorry he is not here today to make one more of those speeches urging that this resolution be passed. We believe it would be a significant milestone in the struggle for a bill of rights if the house would tonight agree to the passing of this resolution. We admit it would not have immediate legislative effect, but it would be a declaration of this parliament that a bill of rights should be written into the law of this land.


Edmund Davie Fulton: believe it is desirable that I should say a few words at this stage to indicate the attitude of the government towards this subject. I recognize at once that this is a private member's resolution. It is true that it is a resolution that has all the weight of having been introduced by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), who in addition to being an authority on parliament has the additional weight of being the leader of a party in this house. However, it is still, in its essence and as he put it forward a private member's resolution. It is, therefore, I feel, not desirable that there should be a party stand with respect to it, and I am not rising at this point to indicate to anyone in the house that the government wishes them to

take a certain position on it, but it is in my view, and I am sure it is in the view of all hon. members, a subject of such importance that it does warrant that the government should indicate in a general way its attitude to the subject and to the suggestion that is made.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Let us have a vote.


Edmund Davie Fulton: The government welcomes the principle behind this resolution. There should be no doubt about that, because for very obvious reasons there are, to put it at its mildest, men of influence in the government who are committed to the idea of a bill of rights. There is no backing away from the attitude of the past or from any undertaking that may have been given on this subject. But we believe that it is essential that any enactment of a bill or declaration of rights, no matter what may be the legislative form, should carry the judgment of the Canadian people as a whole and should be in a form which will be acceptable to the Canadian people.
It is obvious from what we have heard in the house today, as well as what we have heard on the subject when it has been debated inside and outside parliament in the past, that there is a very wide divergence of opinion as to how we should proceed, if we proceed at all. When I say "if we proceed at all", I am referring to the opinions of others, because there are some who think we should not proceed. There is a very wide divergence of opinion, even amongst those who believe we should proceed, as to just how it should be done.
It is obvious, therefore, that the very greatest care must be taken to ensure that any such legislative enactment shall be in a form, and of effect, which will ensure that not only does it embody those rights which Canadians wish us to preserve, but also that it does not infringe on the rights or freedoms which others hold dear. And in this field we must recognize that we are up against a question, not only of individual rights but of provincial and constitutional rights.
It was for this reason that at the very outset, immediately after the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar had introduced the resolution, the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Walker), my parliamentary assistant as Minister of Justice, made his very excellent and comprehensive as well as moving speech outlining the problems which must be faced and solved before any bill or declaration of rights can be introduced by any government that claims to be responsible
But when we make reference to the difficulties and problems that must be met, Mr. JANUARY 6, 1958
Speaker, again I wish to emphasize that we do not need to hide behind these difficulties, and we do not intend to do so. We are in favour of the principle which is sought to be carried forward by this resolution, although we have very grave misgivings as to the particular method suggested.
To the same extent, indeed even to a greater extent, as we recognize the difficulty we also recognize the desirability, I might say the essential requirement, of some such provision being enacted. The needs for a bill of rights have been outlined by many speakers in the past, and by none with more force or detail than the present Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker). These needs have been put on Hansard on many occasions and can be found there, so I am not going to attempt to enumerate them here tonight.
But it is because we recognize the difficulties that confront us that we are now working as a government, and in the Department of Justice, as has been stated by the Prime Minister and myself, to find what is the soundest approach to this problem of putting into legislative form the delineation of the rights and freedoms that are fundamental and must be preserved in Canada.
There are two views as to how this could be done. There is the view put forward by my friend the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar that it should be by way of amendment to the British North America Act. There is the other view that it should be simply by a federal statute, whether it be in the form of a detailed statute or merely in the form of a declaration of fundamental principles. Those are the two views-on the one hand a constitutional amendment and on the other a simple statute of this parliament.
We do not reject out of hand the idea of a constitutional amendment as suggested in this resolution. However, I suggest to my friend the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar and to my friend the hon. member for Van-couver-Kingsway (Mr. Macdonald) that we must, especially when we are talking about freedom, recognize the fact that there is one great bastion, respect for which is essential if freedom itself is to be maintained, and that is the constitution of this country. If you take an attitude that the constitution is to be amended to this extent by this parliament whether or not the provinces consent- that the constitution can be amended and that if there is no other way of doing this thing than by a constitutional amendment with or without consent, then let us amend the constitution-I say, Mr. Speaker, that if you do that then in the name of freedom you are making an assault upon the bastion of
Human Rights
freedom itself; and that is something which this government will not commit itself to doing.


Major James William Coldwell: Will the hon. gentleman permit a question?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Yes.


Major James William Coldwell: If he thinks of what I said I do not think he will find that I suggested that we do this over the objection of the provinces. My resolution clearly states that we take whatever steps are necessary to amend the British North America Act.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I fully recognize the fact that in the speech made by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar this afternoon he made no suggestion of going as far as I have just now indicated.


Major James William Coldwell: That is right.


Edmund Davie Fulton: But while his resolution is carefully worded, nevertheless in the very first section which it proposes to enact it proposes to place restrictions or duties, whichever approach you want, upon the legislatures of the provinces.


Major James William Coldwell: The parliament of Canada or the legislatures.


Edmund Davie Fulton: The parliament of Canada and the legislatures of the provinces. The resolution itself proposes that. But in what I was saying I had particular reference to the speech made by the hon. member for Van-couver-Kingsway this afternoon. As I took down his words, he made it clear that this parliament, in his view, should take the initiative in forwarding to Westminster an amendment for acceptance. He said that we should enact and forward an amendment.


An hon. Member:: After consultation.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Yes; he said after full consultation but not necessarily full concurrence. He said that this parliament should take the initiative. I give him credit for sincerity. He apparently holds the view strongly that whether or not we can get consent, nevertheless we should go ahead and amend the constitution. If I carry his point too far or if I do him an injustice, I regret it; but that is certainly the inference that I took from his words this afternoon.
The point I make here, Mr. Speaker, is that we as a government cannot accept that position.


Alfred Claude Ellis: What did the Prime Minister say?


Edmund Davie Fulton: The Prime Minister at no time when he spoke ever suggested that we force such a constitutional amendment through whether or not the provinces consent. This present resolution, especially in the terms in

Human Rights
which it is drafted, contemplates legislation in what is exclusively a provincial field because it proposes to enact that it shall not be lawful for the parliament of Canada or the legislatures of any of the provinces to do certain things, whether or not they have the right to do them.


Major James William Coldwell: That does not preclude negotiation with the provinces.


Edmund Davie Fulton: What the hon. gentleman now says is perfectly correct, namely that it does not preclude negotiation. But I think we must recognize that the first essential is a respect for the fundamental bastion of freedom itself, namely the constitution; and unless we are prepared to accept that control absolutely then we are in the name of freedom doing what I believe would be the greatest disservice to the cause of freedom itself.


Alfred Claude Ellis: What did the Prime Minister say?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I have said that there are two methods. One is a bill of rights enacted as a federal statute and the other is a constitutional amendment. I have been outlining some of the difficulties and considerations that must be borne in mind in respect of the second method. It is an approach that may be capable of being worked out. Then you are left in this position. That constitutional amendment could take two forms. But when there are two approaches to the problem of acting by way of a constitutional amendment, there could be a conference with the provinces to see whether it is possible to arrive at an agreement on an over-all amendment to the constitution both in the fields which are federal and the fields which are provincial. That, as I say, is the only method which we could contemplate as being a satisfactory method of arriving at such an over-all amendment. The other approach.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Would the minister permit a question?


Edmund Davie Fulton: May I just finish my thought. We reject the idea of such an over-all amendment without agreement of the provinces.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I ask the minister this question? Does he not feel that the method that the government would accept is provided for in the opening words of this motion wherein my leader asks that consideration be given to taking whatever steps are necessary?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Of course the moment one says that a constitutional amendment might be possible one recognizes that what is suggested is a possibility. But anything might be decided as a possibility; and it seems
(Mr. Fulton.]
to me that this one is so fraught with difficulty and danger that we should have to look at other methods and solutions first.
The other approach to the question of a constitutional amendment would be one which is confined, in so far as the ability of constitutional lawyers is able to do it, to areas of the constitution which might be agreed are exclusively within federal jurisdiction, and to say that, having confined it to areas of exclusive federal authority, we do not require a conference with or consent by the provinces. But the difficulty here would be that there are still large and important areas of conflict of opinion as to what are the subjects exclusively assigned to dominion jurisdiction and what are the subjects exclusively assigned to provincial jurisdiction.
I think there is fairly general agreement that in many of those areas there is overlapping, hence there is in many areas some form of dual responsibility and it would not be possible or at the very best it would be exceedingly difficult-so exceedingly difficult that it would take the wisdom of a Solomon, and I do not think there is anyone in this house who claims that degree of wisdom, not even the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles)-to work out that type of amendment which would have absolute acceptance by all the people of Canada.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Would the hon. member answer a question?


Edmund Davie Fulton: If the hon. gentleman will forgive me I do not wish to carry this over any longer than is necessary and I wish to make a presentation in whole of the position of the government, so perhaps he would be kind enough to defer his question until I have concluded.
The other approach, Mr. Speaker,-and this is the approach that has been in essence advocated by the Prime Minister in all of the resolutions that he has moved in connection with this subject-is the enactment of a federal statute which would make it clear that in so far as any federal legislation is concerned there must be observed certain fundamental principles so that there will be preserved to every Canadian his fundamental rights and freedoms.
Here again there are several approaches or several methods which could be followed and several questions which arise. Should such a bill or declaration be specific in nature? That is, should it attempt to specify what are the limits in each case-the details of the limits of the freedoms and rights to be protected-or should it be simply in the form of a general declaration? Should it be introduced by the government and presented

to parliament, as it were, on our own motion or should it first of all be referred as a draft bill to the Supreme Court of Canada for the opinion of that court as to whether it lies within the federal competence to enact? Or should we alternatively simply refer to the Supreme Court of Canada the general question of how far does it lie within the competence of this parliament to introduce a bill dealing with the question of fundamental human rights and freedoms in so far as they affect freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the other subjects which are outlined in this resolution and in other resolutions which have been suggested to this parliament.
These then are the problems, Mr. Speaker, and I think it must be obvious to all hon. gentlemen that this statement of the problems as well as the statement made in more detail earlier by the hon. member for Rose-dale, indicate that it would not be the act of a responsible government to introduce legislation on this subject in a hurry as we would be doing if we introduced it at the present time. I think it will also be obvious that until these difficulties are thoroughly analysed and analysed with a care which we have not yet been in a position to devote to them we as a government should not introduce a proposal in specific form for a bill of rights.
By the same token I may say to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar and to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) that we feel that at this stage we could not accept this proposal for a constitutional amendment as it is presented to us for the reasons I have attempted to outline earlier. I have said that we do not reject outright the proposal of a constitutional amendment but that we cannot accept their proposal as a feasible, practical and acceptable method at this time. We may be able to work out some such method, but for the reasons I have stated, the Prime Minister if he were here would not, and I am not going to and indeed will not state here tonight that we can accept the resolution as it is presently drawn.
However, I come back to where I began. This party which now forms the government, through its leader who is now Prime Minister and through other spokesmen, is on record in favour of, and he and other members of the party are the advocates of the principle of, a bill of rights. The Prime Minister's record in this house and his commitment to this ideal has been well and fully stated here today. It is our intention to continue to work on this problem so that at the earliest possible moment we can do it as a responsible government, we will be able to present some concrete proposal to parliament.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Question.
Human Rights


Mr. R. J. McCleave (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker-


Alfred Claude Ellis: Talk it out.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Robert Jardine McCleave: The members and backbenchers in this parliament have some human rights as well.


Major James William Coldwell: You did not say that when the Liberals were in power.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Who gave you orders to do this?


Robert Jardine McCleave: It has been a fascinating experience to sit here today and to take part in this momentous debate on human rights. To trace this story from the time when King John got his come-uppance from the barons in 1215 to an explanation for the reason why our television screens are dotted with Wyatt Earp and his ilk through the past century of the United States midwest. My understanding of that situation is that there is a United States amendment to the constitution which allows everyone there to carry a gun.
I think in the concluding moments of this debate we have perhaps narrowed down this whole subject to the main question in the resolution presented by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) and that is, what will happen if this resolution should not be adopted. In answering that question I do not inquire, at least for the time being, into the merits of the language of the resolution. It is, I think, a bold attempt to capture in words the rights which we feel we have in a democracy. I think the main point is this-it has been brought out several times before, particularly by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton)-that having passed this resolution we can do nothing further as a house. The other place would still have to approve this resolution and then they too could do nothing further. Nor could this resolution ever become law or be signed by Her Majesty's representative in Canada. We could not by adopting this resolution turn it into a measure which would come before us again for study in committee or for scrutiny under debate.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Because you are talking it out.


Robert Jardine McCleave: If we pass this resolution and if it is passed in the other place the only other step is to dispatch it to Westminster where the British parliament will determine its future.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It
is not drafted in that form at all.


Robert Jardine McCleave: We are not, I say, in the final analysis able to amend our most important constitutional document. Another point that was particularly well brought out

Business of the House by the Minister of Justice deals with the rights of the provinces in these matters-


Alfred Claude Ellis: One minute to go.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Are you coaching him?


Mr. Bsnidickson:: He came down to see you to get some coaching.


Robert Jardine McCleave: There are 10 provinces in this dominion-and we might conduct ourselves in a spirit of collective egotism-and that collective egotism is manifested on the other side of this house-and say that not a word or punctuation mark should be changed in this excellent document presented by the member for Rosetown-Biggar, but that, Mr. Speaker, is not in my estimation a spirit of true partnership.


Some hon. Members:: You made it!


Robert Jardine McCleave: We cannot send this resolution to any province and say: "This is it, this is what we are looking for." They have a perfect right to answer: "Slow down; you let us take a look at it. Let us consider it and let us see whether it is what we want."


Alfred Claude Ellis: You have talked it out. You have done a good job.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Chevrier:: Mr. Speaker, I take it that the business for tomorrow will be as stated, that we will take a motion to go into supply, but can the minister now tell us what business we will have for the rest of the week beginning on Wednesday?


Mr. Green:: Mr. Speaker, as I announced on Saturday it is the intention to move to go into supply tomorrow there being an arrangement between the parties that at 8.15 the vote on any amendment would take place.
I can only give the hon. member the business for Wednesday. It will be, first, No. 28 on today's order paper, a resolution preceding a bill to provide for a loan to the government of New Brunswick; then item 30 on today's order paper, a resolution preceding a bill having to do with power in the Atlantic provinces; next there will be No. 21, a continuation of the second reading of a bill to provide annual vacations with pay; then No. 23, second reading of a bill to implement an agreement between Canada and Australia in respect of income tax; then No. 22, second reading of a bill in respect of a boundary between Alberta and the Northwest Territories; No. 20, second reading of Bill No. 15, an act to amend the Criminal Code; then No. 27, a resolution preceding a bill to amend the Northwest Territories Act.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The
way you can skip No. 24 is marvellous; can you not read No. 24?


Lionel Chevrier: Could the minister not give some indication as to what estimates are likely to be taken up this week?


Howard Charles Green: Not at the moment, Mr. Speaker.


[Stage Direction]
At ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, January 7, 1958