Mr. Speaker, thank you very much. I am very pleased to be able to speak for the first time in this hon. Chamber, the symbol of democracy in Canada.
I believe that I am the last Bloc member to speak for the first time, but that does not take anything away from the importance I attach to my maiden speech or from the pleasure it gives me.
I am also especially honoured to be the member for Québec-Est and to represent that riding. I take the opportunity, as many of us have already done, to thank my constituents who had the good judgment to elect me as their member. I have the honour to represent a very beautiful riding in Quebec City and to have won by 21,000 votes. This is an impressive victory, all the more so since I ran against a very well-known personality in Quebec whose name I will not mention in this House.
I am a new member who intends to be a good MP and to represent his riding well. I come back to what the Minister of Industry said. I appreciated it as an opening. He said that we have an important responsibility to be honourable, to be sincere, to work hard because we have heavy responsibilities, and that is what I intend to do. I intend to do that for my constituents, especially since most of them voted for the Bloc knowing full well that we are a sovereignist party. I believe firmly in this option and I think that I will therefore defend it with great zeal and gusto.
I would also like to take the opportunity to raise a point which has not yet been raised and that surprises me a lot. We have had many discussions to date on the relative merits of Canada versus Quebec, as they relate to the question of sovereignty, and no one has yet spoken about the rights of francophones outside Quebec.
I would have liked the Speaker to be here today, not only to congratulate him on his election, and I take the opportunity, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to congratulate you on your appointment. Nevertheless, I would have liked him to be here because he is a Franco-Ontarian. I have had a chance to discuss the issue of francophones outside Quebec with the Speaker, because he comes from Ontario, as I do. I am a native of Ontario myself.
I was born in Ontario.
That is why I am a sovereignist today: I was a francophone outside Quebec and I know the situation they are in.
If there is one thing that I will mention and emphasize in this House, it is the abuses and injustices which francophones outside Quebec have suffered. Many people talked about the virtues of Canada, like the Minister of Foreign Affairs and others yesterday and the day before, but I did not have a chance to answer. Now I will give my reply.