I think it was very helpful for Parliament to recognize Quebec as a nation within Canada, but implied in that recognition is that the rest of the provinces together form a nation. The federal government has always played an important role in exercising its spending power in developing programs that help build the nation as an identity.
What we're saying is that the federal government should exercise leadership and use its spending power to encourage the development of a program that will help the nation-building exercise outside of Quebec. It is essential, because it has not happened without federal leadership.
Given that these are federal dollars being spent and transferred to the provinces, it's absolutely essential that there be an accountability to the federal Parliament, because the authority for spending that money was made by the federal Parliament.
So it's very simple. We don't have difficulty with the accountability mechanism set out in the bill, as long as they don't apply to Quebec, because there has been recognition that Quebec is a distinct nation.