Mr. Speaker, I have endured the debates all afternoon, but now, I know that my time is short, but I will try to speak calmly.
The Official Languages Act was a late attempt to right serious historic wrongs, and to answer the question forthwith, Mr. Speaker, before it is overlooked, as a young francophone from Ontario used to say: "What you call Quebec's French unilingualism, we would really like to have as Ontario's bilingualism."
Come and see the reality of rights. Come and see the reality of rights in schools, in social services, in hospitals for English-speaking people and in the debates within the Parti Quebecois to preserve these rights. And I would like it if, in Canada, they had the same debates to preserve rights when Quebec is gone. Because I will tell you one thing: a debate such as the one here today will not give anyone in Quebec the desire to stay in this country.
There is an historic dimension missing. Perhaps I should apologize for the fact that my ancestors arrived around 1647. I must apologize for that. Their name was Tremblay and others came later. I must apologize for what they built at the time. They were Canadians, real ones, the first "Canadians".
They were all over the continent you know, they also explored the West, but we do not have time for a history lesson. After the conquest, "Canadians" were mostly confined to the territory of Quebec, but over the years, they maintained the desire to go all over Canada.
I would like to mention one fact. In 1928, headlines in Le Devoir stated that Montrealers were worried because francophones, instead of going West where there were some good lands, were emigrating to the United States. For a hundred years, 10,000 French-Canadians a year went to the United States-there were large families in those days-but why did they not go West? Because in 1928, it would cost $48 to have a family come over from Liverpool, but $928 for the same family, that is ten children-as was common in those days-and two parents, to cover the same distance but from East to West.
We must realize that "Canadians" tried desperately to make a place for themselves, their schools and their own religion in this country but they were kept from doing so. Mr. Trudeau tried, although belatedly, to remedy the situation, yet he knew full well that in Quebec things had already started to move and that the measures he was implementing were no more than a paper barricade.