Madam Speaker, on several occasions, my hon. colleague mentioned the Bloc Quebecois. I am proud to be the citizenship and immigration critic of my party.
During the past year, as a member of the House and of the standing committee, I noticed that the positions of the organizations and individuals who appeared before the committee have been closer to that of the Bloc Quebecois than to the Liberal Party's. Of course, they do not even come close to the Reform Party's position.
We found that we shared identical views on many issues regarding immigration and the plight of refugees. This is because we come from a province, the province of Quebec, which is generous with immigrants and refugees, takes care of them, welcomes them and helps them settle by providing French language instruction and assistance to find work and housing. We have our own immigration department. We are the first province in Canada to have its own immigration department and a well defined immigration policy, and to have signed agreements with the federal government, giving us self government in many areas.
We are proud of the fact that Quebec has a progressive, generous, and open policy. Quebec is the province where there are the fewest problems with immigrants and refugees. We have not seen in Quebec events such as those in Toronto. We do not see in Quebec papers the kind of over-reactions we sometimes see in the English press with respect to refugees and immigrants.
I am very proud to be from Quebec. We do not need and never will have headquarters in Ottawa. Our headquarters are in Quebec, where we are from, where we work; we are only trying to make Canadian immigration policy a little more humane. This is the contribution of the Bloc Quebecois to the House of Commons.