Legislative Assembly

birthday on July lst and I considered it a great honor because Canada’s birthday party was under the sponsorship of the Queen Mother. In Canada you were honor.‘d to have the Queen with you on Canada’s birthday but there was nothing missing in Westminster Abbey in London on Canada’s birthday because the Queen Mother was there and all the various services of Canada were represented there and all the various organizations were there and were represented and that evening in Hyde Park Canada’s birthday party was turned on and everyone was there from hippie to royalty and again we had a tremendous celebration. But the dignity in which the Westminster Abbey ceremony was conducted is the one which will long remain in my memory because in that church ceremony they dedicated all of that ceremony to Canada and they dedicated it to the Unknown Soldier who was buried in West- minster Abbey and they dedicated it to all those who had given their lives in all of the wars for Canada, Canadians at least, not only for the British Empire but for all the good of humanity and all the good of mankind. After leaving London we went to the Island of Jersey off the French Coast and then up to Glasgow, over to Edinboroug‘h and toured Scotland and went to that great seat of learning at Cambridge and came back to London again and when we came back to London we went to Westminster and we really got down to work there. We saw at first hand some of the problems which were facing India and Pakistan and some of these other places and it would take me a little bit too long to tell you about them now so we will leave them ’til next week. The one thought that I want to leave with you during the weekend, which we’ll continue when I come back, is this, Mr. Speaker: biculturalism and bilingualism in Canada. You are bilingual and I come from a bilingual area in our part of the country, but after listening to those mem- bers of parliament from India, we need more than biculturalism and we need more than bilingualism if we are going to survive in this hemisphere of ours. We are also going to need bi—hemispherism, when we listen to the story of these people, these members of parliament from India. At Westminster in London when it came time for the member of parliament from India to tell us about his country, he said that he’s from a country of four hundred million people and every morning in the City of Calcutta, Bombay and Hyderabad, the carts go around, pulled by people, and they gather up the dead, those who have starved to death the night before. There are many who are lying on the streets in Calcutta, he told us, who are not yet dead, of malnutrition and starvation and the carts drive around them knowing full well that they’ll get them the next day. These are not my words. They are the words of the member of parliament from India, Colonel Mann, and he said the reason why this is so, or largely the reason why this is so, is on account of a belief. For many centuries now they have believed in the holy cow and this animal has roamed the countryside and has eaten the vegetation with the result that much of India has been a desert. But that’s all being changed now because, since 1947, India has won her independence, they’re trying to bring about a change to do away with this sort of thing and gradually it’s coming. But with so many differ- ent dialects and with so many different beliefs it’s practically impossible to change this thing over night and it’s going to be a long time coming with the result that every ten minutes in the City of Calcutta some-one passes away due to starvation and malnutrition. There was a great Australian writer who decided to see for himself and he went to Calcutta and from Calcutta’s headquarters he travelled down what they call the Dum-dum Road. The Dum-dum Road goes from Calcutta to Pakistan and he went down and he saw at first hand some of the deprivation and the hardship that these people are facing. He came back home to Calcutta to write up his story and while there he met an Indian of the Islam faith and he said, “What did you see as you travelled down the Dum-dum Road” and he told him of the hardship that he had seen. This man of the Islam faith, said, “What (lid you say to him.” He said, “I offered him good advice on how to improve his situation.” But the fellow from India said to him, “But, did you offer him some- thing to eat”. :He said, “My friends, I’m going to let you in a a secret that that even if Christ himself came to India he need not come unless he brings a basket of food". These are the kind of things which we ought to think about on this side of the ocean, my friends, in the hemisphere in which we live. Our biculturalism and our bilingualism is good but I think that if we don’t have the bi—hemisphereism with it, neither of the first two will matter. These are the kind of things that I want you to think about over the week—end because we’re going to continue our little visit as your representative last year in the Canadian Commonwealth Parlia— mentary Association, and with this, Mr. Speaker, I move the adjournment of the

Debate. (Applause) ——118—