Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in this House to show my support for the motion put forward this week by the Prime Minister. I consider this an historic moment.
Yesterday, my hon. colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin shared a number of quotations to clearly illustrate the current state of affairs in Quebec. I find it very interesting that he quoted great Quebec premiers such as Daniel Johnson, Jean Lesage and Robert Bourassa.
I will not list all of them here, but something came out of all that. It is a fact. Quebeckers form a nation within a united Canada.
Why is it a fact? Because Quebec has a specific culture, one that is based on the French language, its own history and its French heritage. This is very important because this creates something extraordinary. In Canada, our country, we have two main cultures. One is English and the other is French. This is what enriches our country.
For my part, I will give the following example: I was trained as a lawyer. I studied law in the early 1990s. What I found fascinating during my studies was that Quebec has a civil law system, but it also has to consider the whole common law system, which comes from British law. It is an asset. Few places in the world give us access to such an asset. Lawyers in Quebec, in Montreal, are in demand because they have a double knowledge of the culture of law.
Such examples show what our country is today. Quebeckers come from one of the founding peoples of Canada, our country. In all the numerous Canadian institutions, Quebec has left its mark. It is a great asset.
I take this opportunity to recognize the leadership that the Prime Minister has shown this week. He did something courageous. It is the first time that this issue has been brought explicitly before the federal Parliament. The Prime Minister agreed that the debate should take place here.
Although this is a given in Quebec, and people are aware of it and it is part of their lives, the Prime Minister felt that he had to take a stand on this issue. This is in keeping with the fundamental view of government held by our party, which wishes to exercise an open federalism and not centralize everything as the previous government tried to do.
Each region in our country is different from the next and each is equally rich in its own way. This diversity has enriched our country. I believe that open federalism will enable us to evolve. The same applies to the discussion of any issue: the less we debate the issue, the less chance that we will arrive at a complete understanding.
In our country, we have various points of view that make Canada what it is today, a credible and recognized global leader.
I am pleased that the words “united Canada” are part of the motion. Personally, when I entered politics as a Conservative, I believed in open federalism. We must not be satisfied with defending the interests of Quebec. We must promote them. We must move forward and take the offensive.
We live in a united Canada and we are moving our interests in that direction.
I believe that is how we will succeed. We will not succeed by arriving with the idea of separation.
These are my points of view that I wished to put forward today. I will be pleased to support this motion.