Thank you.
Item 2 of the motion states that “amendments to Bill C‑13 be submitted to the clerk in both official languages no later than 5:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, November 17”. November 17 is almost immediately after the break week. We made requests and proposals to increase the number of meetings. It's not a question of not wanting to move forward and do the work. What we are saying is that this is the first time in 52 years that there has been an opportunity to change this law.
André Laurendeau, who made this demand in an editorial in Le Devoir, was a federalist. However, he considered Quebec to be the home of the Canadian francophone community and, by virtue of that, it should have special rights and be considered a nation. He presented this as the federal government's last chance to make an effort in this direction. However, that is not at all what happened. It should be noted that Mr. Laurendeau died of cancer in the meantime. It was the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism that was supposed to study the issue from the viewpoint of Canada's two founding peoples—in saying that, we are not trying to exclude the first nations, quite the contrary. That was the philosophy behind the commission's mandate.
Unfortunately, there were opponents, including Dr. Frank Scott of McGill University. The prime minister at the time, Lester B. Pearson, seemed to be open to the question of French in Quebec. Then Pierre Elliott Trudeau became prime minister. He was adamant about not giving Quebec any new powers. He even said that Quebeckers spoke lousy French, bad French, and that until they could teach better French—