Mr. Speaker, I will start with the hon. member's last remark because it makes me a little angry. He said that, instead of criticizing as I do, I should point out the problems of Bill C-17 and propose solutions. Mr. Speaker, we just went through second reading of Bill C-17 and Reform members were too lazy to do anything other than delete clauses. They also voted against their own amendments and they are now telling Bloc members who put forward constructive amendments meeting the concerns of Quebecers and Canadians to make constructive suggestions. So why did they make all these deletions?
In any case, even colleagues with more experience than me had never seen anyone propose such amendments and vote against their own amendments. If they call this being constructive, we also call it wasting our time. If they think the way they acted during the second reading debate is constructive, we have a problem. We, on the other hand, proposed real amendments. We also did some serious work in committee.
In answer to the second point raised by the hon. member when he said that Reform members were present the night the New Brunswickers were thrown out, I would ask him to refer to an article published in the May 11, 1994 issue of Le Droit , where the journalist noticed the same thing I did in the finance committee, namely that no Reform member was present. It is there in black and white. There is a problem somewhere.
In the third point he made, he said that Bloc members felt deep compassion for the people of the Maritimes. Indeed, even sovereigntists can be humanistic and feel compassion for suffering people but we do not feel as compassionate toward those who make them suffer.
Do not forget that the sovereignty plan is open to the world and that we have been reaching out for 25 years to our friends in Canada, the United States and the world to build a better society, a society where measures such as the UI proposal that break the backs of those who do not deserve such treatment will be opposed by sovereigntists. We will fight against that our whole lives because the sovereignty plan is strongly humanistic. You tarnished that term and our plan. Because people like Pierre Elliott Trudeau fought against this plan for 25 years, we must work very hard to restore the true foundations of this plan, which is open to the world, compassionate and humanistic.
Mr. Speaker, that takes care of the three questions raised by the hon. members.