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Video Interviews
Note: The opinions presented are not necessarily those of the Government of Canada.
(Video players are available here: QuickTime | Windows Media)
Transcript:
Curriculum Vitae
My name is Jean-Louis Roy. I am the President of Rights & Democracy; prior to that I served as an elected Secretary General of La Francophonie for 10 years. I worked to prepare for the Summit of Heads of State and Government and put their decisions into action in various areas: democracy, human rights, cultural cooperation. To give you an example, I remember when we were talking about an idea for a new project that took up only one sheet of paper. That idea became TV5 [French-language cable and satellite channel]. We now have TV5 all over the world--the signal is captured in more than 140 countries.
There was also cooperation in various technical areas, such as energy and environmental issues. It was a huge program of cooperation among the 52 countries that are members of La Francophonie.
Before that I was publisher of Le Devoir for six years. This period, between 1980 and 1986, was extraordinarily busy and also very interesting. The political situation in the country and in Quebec was changing during that time. There was the referendum in Quebec and the answer from the Trudeau government.
Prior to that I was associated with McGill University for 11 years. I was a student there, and when I finished my PhD they asked me to stay and teach, to replace a professor who was sick for a year. He never came back--and so I stayed for 11 years.
I have done many other kinds of activities, like writing--I don’t know how many--25 books maybe. I have contributed to all sorts of conferences. I have also been extremely active in civil society organizations, such as la Ligue des droits de l’Homme. When Pierre Trudeau and Jacques Hébert and others, such as Michael Oliver, made their big jump to Ottawa, the Ligue was there to take. There was a bunch of young activists at the time and we took over la Ligue des droits. I was in charge for five years. We were able to convince Mr. Bourassa to create the Quebec Human Rights Commission. It’s a very strong Commission with a clear mandate. We were critics at the time, but I know that this Commission was well planned and its mandate is huge.
So I’ve been here at Rights & Democracy for three years. One of the countries in which we work is Haiti.
The Question of Demography
If we look at the global debate in the last 50 years, the question of demography really attracted global concern in the beginning of the seventies. We had three United Nations conferences. The first in Bucharest in 1974, it was on the North-South debate and demography. In 1984 there was a conference in Mexico. And Cairo in 1994. The conference was about population and development.
In a way, we are still in Cairo in terms of ideology; in terms of what can we do in international cooperation. The debate was extremely polarized in Cairo between those who said nature and rationality and human discipline are the keys to limit the demography “explosion”. Others said that we are not there, we have at our disposal many methods and tools that we have to share with everyone.
That is where we still are. If you look at the United Nations program, the Bush Administration policy, what is happening in the Muslim world -- we are in a way, still at Cairo.
I am pleased to know that at the Department of Foreign Affairs the question on demography is still high on the agenda because we will experience such a profound (we have experienced that in the past). But when there were more people in 1920 in Australia, Brazil, China and Russia it did not have global significance. But now demographers are telling us that 2 billion people will be born in the next 20 years, until 2020. Ninety percent of those 2 billion people will be in Africa, South Asia, China, and a small proportion in Latin America. It will have a huge global impact in this open world that we live. Think about Africa that will have 1.4 billion people -- this will be almost twice the (current?) African population.
If I was living in Europe, I would ask myself a very serious question about the consequences of all this -- even living in Canada -- how will we be able to feed, house, educate, the 2 billion new citizens that will be born in the next 15-18 years.
What does this mean in terms of human security; in terms of security, period? Look at the thousands of young Africans walking across the Saharan desert, hoping to be in Leeds or Liverpool or Amsterdam. Sixty percent of them have university diplomas. Those who are leaving are desperate. This is what we mean in terms of human security, in terms of security, in terms of access to resources.
Immigration
We in Western Europe, North America and in Japan, will have a decrease in our population except in the United States.
We will have to bring more and more people to Canada. It was just announced recently that the number of immigrants in our country will be increasing substantially. They will come from all countries in Europe. It will raise a very substantial question -- how can we live together (while being) very different?
Reading the newspaper and listening to the television we have seen what has happened in France. We don’t have the same immigration policies that the French have developed. But the question is -- are we protected by those kinds of social irruptions and violence? I have no answer, but if I was forced to give one I would say that we have to be careful, we have to work on this. I think that what we have done in this country is of quality in terms of bringing our values, activities and resources into the mainstream. People come from all over the world to enrich Canada. But we still have to work on it. We have to look and re-look what our schools are saying, what we are showing on our screens, what we are saying publicly as an expression of this country. We are asking those people who are coming to live with us to change. I think that we will have to discover that there will be no real integration if they alone change. We must also change. I have young grandsons in Montreal, eight and six years old. In Philippe’s class, the eight year old, there are 7 out of 24 (children) that were born in Canada. Will we ask the 17 kids to change and the other 7 not to? That is impossible -- all of us will have to adjust and change. We will have to work on that.
In terms of international and cooperation I think that what Canada has done in the past -- which I have seen in Africa over many years -- is to develop substantial contribution to women’s rights and to sustain women’s groups such as NGOs and other kinds of organizations. We have to maintain that because the key to demography is in their hands.
(We must also) put at their disposal all methods and tools that we have to master (control) les niveaux de naissance (birth levels). We will also have to push for sexual education and I think that a lot of people are prepared for that in the developing part of the world. Some countries in Africa have started to do it (teach sexual education) and there are people that believe that the sky will fall on them but nothing of that magnitude happens -- on the contrary. |
Curriculum Vitae