Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who just spoke may rest assured that will never satisfy us.
"Whatever they say or do, Quebec is today and always will be a distinct society". Those words were spoken used by Quebec's federalist Liberal Premier Robert Bourassa, the day after the demise of Meech Lake. "From now on, no more negotiations involving ten or eleven parties. From now on, there will be bilateral discussions only".
This proves that the motion before the House today, presented by the federal Liberal government, is nothing new. The concept of a distinct society was developed by the Quebec Liberal Party. Actually, it goes back to 1965 and the preliminary reports of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission, where we find the term distinct society in a marginal note to the paragraph that defines Quebec society on page 103.
In a speech on May 9, 1986, Quebec Intergovernmental Relations Minister Gil Rémillard stated five minimum conditions which, if they were met, might lead Quebec to ratify the Constitution Act, 1982. Meanwhile, the Parti Quebecois was talking about a distinct people.
According to the Meech Lake Accord in 1990, the Quebec National Assembly would be responsible for protecting the duality and promoting the distinct identity of Quebec. We supported Meech Lake because it was supposed to recognize the distinct identity of Quebec. This provision would not have the effect of lessening the existing powers of the federal government.
Basically, including this in the Constitution would be a way to make up for the affront we suffered in 1982. In 1980, Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau said in a speech on May 14, before the referendum on May 20: "We are putting our seats on the line, and if you vote no, this no will mean yes to a new Canada". The result was the unilateral patriation of the Constitution in 1982, with the help of the present Prime Minister.
To take a leaf from the book of the hon. member from Nova Scotia, how can we trust these people? Basically, what did we ask? We asked the judges to consider both concepts, the Canadian duality and distinct society, in their interpretations of the Constitution Acts of 1867 and 1982, the latter including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Prime Minister's baby, as he keeps reminding us in this House.
At the time, the distinct society clause would have limited the centralist and standardizing tendencies of the Charter. When the Supreme Court ruled that certain sections of Bill 101 were unconstitutional, the Quebec National Assembly would have been able to adopt them again, if the distinct society clause had been accepted.
Another important event, with a player we saw during the referendum campaign last October, was initiated by the Charest report named after the hon. member for Sherbrooke, who is often conspicuous by his absence from this House, and the Charest report goes back to-