Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Minister, I heard your answers to my questions about a clear majority in a possible referendum. Let's now turn to the broader issue of whether the Clarity Act should be applied.
This morning, at a press conference, the Prime Minister said that he was studying the issue of whether the Clarity Act should be applied to Alberta. He argued that the matter wasn't on the ballot or in the mandates or platforms of either the governing party or the official opposition. I haven't looked at Ms. Smith's party platform in Alberta. I suspect that the Prime Minister did so before making this statement.
However, I'm looking at this argument in light of the situation in Quebec. The Quebec sovereignty issue appears in article 1 of the Parti Québécois platform. This has been the case since the founding of the party.
Does this mean that the same reasoning wouldn't apply and that the federal government would have more consideration, so to speak, for Quebec's jurisdiction in the case of a referendum on sovereignty?