Mr. Speaker, I listened to my friend with some interest. First of all he says he is a separatist and that he is promoting separatism or sovereignty association or whatever. That is fine. I think it is a moot point.
He says that he wants his party to act as the Official Opposition. I do not think there is any question that if we did a content analysis of the questions asked by my friends in the Bloc we would find overwhelmingly that those questions are focused geographically.
I do not recall many questions being raised about the west coast fishery, about the problems in the Arctic region, about agriculture on the prairies, about the Atlantic fishery, the fixed link with P.E.I, energy and mines. I hope this is a new trend that we will see. I would encourage my colleagues to take up the role of Official Opposition in a more appropriate way than they have in the past.
However, to listen to my friend talk about dismembering Canada as we know it and to say that this is not breaking up the country is mixing up our words somewhat. In a family when a piece of the family leaves, we talk about breaking up the family. When one loses a limb, one is obviously breaking up one's body somewhat.
To take a major part of Canada and separate it into a sovereign nation and say that is not breaking up Canada is a misuse of the term.
We should recognize that the fundamental purpose, as my colleague has indicated, of the Bloc in the House is to separate the province of Quebec from Canada, which in my terminology would be breaking up the country that we have known for the past 126 years in a formal sense.
It is a mixture of terminology. Perhaps some of it gets mixed up in the translation, but in my mind it is very clear what is going on. I do not support the Bloc in its fundamental mandate, but I do find encouragement in the fact that it says it is going to take on the role of Official Opposition in a more generous way in the future.