Madam Speaker, I listened attentively to the hon. member's speech and I do agree with him that he represents a very beautiful constituency. I had the pleasure of being there in July and stayed overnight in Hope, that is perhaps just a short distance from his riding. It is truly a beautiful area. Later I visited a number of places in B.C. and Alberta. I want to congratulate the hon. member both for his first speech and also for his election.
I asked a question of his colleague a while ago which she would not answer. Perhaps I could ask the hon. member a slightly different question to see what his constituents or perhaps he thinks of the following. The Leader of the Opposition said in a speech in Quebec City and I quote from a newspaper article:
Rather than devolving more authority to provinces in areas like cultural affairs and international relations, perhaps the federal government, working with the provinces and particularly with Quebec, could establish francophone and anglophone community institutions for jurisdictions in areas like the CRTC and the CBC, or the Francophonie, the Commonwealth and UNESCO.
Does the hon. member favour having a francophone CRTC, which would presumably only then report to the government of Quebec, and where that would leave the one million francophones living outside of Quebec? I am one of them as are two-thirds of my constituents. Perhaps a number of them are in his own constituency. I know that Radio Canada has a station in Vancouver. There are a number of stations in the Niagara Peninsula, Welland, Acadia and so on, right across the country.
Should we agree with the Leader of the Opposition's point of view that the minorities like the one I represent, and of which I am one personally, do not need to be represented?