Mr. Speaker, I consider our debate particularly rewarding. I believe the word "gall" will pass in parliamentary language, but I will use the word "nerve" instead. It takes a certain amount of nerve on the part of our colleague and continued friend for Calgary West for him to rise in this House and say we are not a people, because, as the people of Quebec watching will have understood, the member, in his sometimes unparliamentary spontaneity, clearly said that he did not consider Quebec was entitled to self-determination, because Quebecers were not a people. I find something extremely disquieting in the desire to engage in dialogue on this basis.
I realize that there has been a federalist movement in this House and throughout our history. It is entitled to be heard and to speak. I do not think, however, that you will find many in Quebec, whatever the family, who will not acknowledge that we are a people.
Quebec's parliament, the National Assembly, has in three official documents acknowledged that Quebecers are a people and, in doing so, has accorded the province the right to self-determination. These documents, which have been fairly unanimously approved are: the act to establish the commission to determine the political and constitutional future of Quebec, the act respecting the process for determining the political and constitutional future of Quebec and the motion of the National Assembly of 1991.
When I was a student, I read with pleasure, whether the reading was assigned or optional I read with equal pleasure, the writings of the member for Vancouver Quadra, who joined with Senator Beaudoin in writing a book. I thought he belonged to a school that recognized Quebecers as a people. It is true that our being a people does not automatically entitle us, under international law, to the right to secede. What prompted the five legal experts to conclude that we did have the right to secede was the rejection of the 1982 Constitution. There is a convention in international law which says that a people cannot decide by itself it has a right to self-determination unless that right has been recognized. As part of their grounds for determining the right to self-determination under international law they used the fact that Quebec did not ratify the 1982 Constitition through the most legal of channels possible.
At any rate, as the member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve I understand, as do my colleagues, that in a democracy one cannot be more sovereignist that democratic. One is equally sovereignist and
democratic, but by virtue of being as sovereignist as we are democratic, we are well placed to understand our right to hold a referendum in future. No smoke and mirrors on the part of the federal government can deny Quebec the right under a law passed by the National Assembly, a law on public consultation, to go to the people and offer them the opportunity to choose and to mandate their government to accede to sovereignty.
When that day comes and there is a majority behind that mandate I am sure our colleagues, both in the government party and in the Reform party, will understand that they have no choice but to sit down at the negotiating table and engage in a dialogue on the basis of total equality, nation to nation, as should have always been the case.