Madam Speaker, I have listened attentively to the hon. member and I want to say that I am quite pleased to be participating in the debate on Motion No. 220 which has been tabled by the hon. member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve and which reads as follows:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should recognize the conclusion of the Bélanger-Campeau Commission, which proposed, in 1991, that the National Assembly of Quebec adopt legislation on holding a referendum and the offer of a new partnership, and that no federal legislation or regulations should be incompatible with achieving this conclusion.
The motion at least has the merit of providing us with the opportunity to rectify certain facts and to set the record straight in this debate on Quebec secession. The motion is clearly designed to challenge the legitimacy of Bill C-20, which was passed last year by Canada's parliament.
It is therefore necessary to respond to the motion by turning again to the main arguments that were advanced in support of the clarity act. I would first like to address the portion of the hon. member's motion that reads as follows: “that no federal legislation or regulations should be incompatible with achieving this conclusion”.
I find the hon. member's wording of the motion extremely one-sided. It seems to imply for all practical purposes, and in a manner that is simplistic to say the least, that the current Government of Canada is trying to prevent the government of Quebec from holding an umpteenth referendum on Quebec secession, an option that it is attempting above all to camouflage through vague hints of an alleged will for association.
How many times will it have to be reiterated that the current Government of Canada is in no way seeking to prevent the national assembly from consulting Quebecers on any matter whatsoever?
It should be noted that a recent poll has confirmed that only a minuscule proportion, less than 10%, of Quebecers want such a referendum to be held during the current mandate, while 49% say they never want one to be held, and 76% of respondents, regardless of option preferred, want Quebec to remain in Canada.
I would urge the hon. member to use his inside contacts with the current government of Quebec and to remind Mr. Landry of these facts, since to date he still does not seem to get the message.
Regardless of these considerations, I can only remind the hon. member, who certainly cannot not have forgotten, that Bill C-20, passed last year by Canada's parliament, in no way sought to prevent Quebecers from deciding on their political future. As respected a personality as Mr. Claude Castonguay emphasized this point eloquently before the legislative committee studying Bill C-20 when he said about the bill:
I did not see anything in this bill that limits the jurisdiction of the Quebec National Assembly nor the right of Quebecers to decide their future.
Indeed, Bill C-20 in no way prevents the national assembly from wording the referendum question as it sees fit. A future referendum would have to be held in full compliance with provincial laws. The clarity act merely specifies that the federal government will not enter into negotiations unless a clear majority of Quebecers vote in favour of secession in response to a question as passed by the national assembly and do determine, through a resolution, whether the question is clear. It is very important that the question be clear.
I ask hon. members to remember that Bill C-20 was our response to the opinion of the supreme court in the Quebec secession reference which was issued in the summer of 1998. Like that opinion of the court, it emphasizes the need to ask a clear question—I emphasize again, a clear question—and to obtain an equally clear majority.
I understand that some members opposite do not particularly like the words clear question and clear majority. They find something radically wrong with a clear question and a clear majority.
Paragraph 87 of the opinion specified states:
The democratic principle—would demand that considerable weight be given to a clear expression by the people of Quebec of their will to secede from Canada, even though a referendum, in itself and without more, has no direct legal effect, and could not in itself bring about unilateral secession.
Further on in paragraphs 92 and 151 it states:
The continued existence and operation of the Canadian constitutional order could not be indifferent to a clear expression of a clear majority of Quebecers that they no longer wish to remain in Canada.
The opinion referred to a clear question on numerous occasions and the supreme court used the expression clear majority 13 times. Why put so much emphasis on clarity? The answer is obvious: the consequences of secession are so grave that it must be clear that the province's population does in fact want to cease to be a part of Canada. Let me say as well that of course secession has very grave consequences for other provinces and other people of Canada as well.
A question that refers to the possibility of a political or economic association is not clear, because if the response is favourable, how can it be known whether it applies to independence, to a new partnership or to a form of independence providing for some type of association?
A clear answer to a clear question: who can be opposed to this principle other than those who, not once but twice, have presented Quebecers with vague, misleading options, with the sole objective, as Mr. Parizeau boasted himself, of getting the lobsters into the pot? Mr. Parizeau boasted publicly that all they wanted to do was get the lobsters into the pot. We all know what happens to lobsters when we get them into the pot. They get cooked.
I can well imagine the objections the Bloc raises in this connection, just as I am hearing now from an hon. member opposite. The Bloc maintains that the questions asked during the 1980 and 1995 referenda were clear. On the contrary, they were nothing of the kind, because they referred to such vague, nebulous concepts as association and partnership which, as I just pointed out, tend to cloud and skew the issue.
To demonstrate the confusion generated by the question asked on the last referendum, I want to refer to the statement made by Professor Maurice Pinard before the parliamentary committee studying Bill C-20.
In Professor Pinard's own words:
In 1995, only about 50% of respondents realized that sovereignty did not necessarily mean partnership. The others believed that sovereignty would not be declared if partnership could not be achieved.
How can it be contested, in light of such figures, that the referendum question put to Quebecers in 1995 was ambiguous when its true significance escaped half the voters?