Mr. Speaker, the hon. member preceding me commented on identity saying that our identity in Quebec was simply a matter of geography. I think other factors have to be taken into consideration. It must be remembered that we are the people who arrived from Europe first bringing a French culture to America, with Quebec as its focus.
There was also a French America in North America as a whole. The first French to arrive in Quebec, the ones who settled in Canada, followed the Mississippi, reaching as far as Louisiana and the Rockies.
If, today, the number of francophones in Canada is less than what is was 125 or 130 years ago, it is perhaps more because they were denied the right to be educated in their own language and to grow in their own language. This happened in Manitoba and Alberta, among other places, at the end of the 19th century. Had they enjoyed this right, Canada could have become a truly bilingual country. We could have avoided the present situation in which we discover two completely different realities. We could live as neighbours in harmony. The only way, in our opinion, is for us to opt for sovereignty and for Canada to find a way to deal with its American neighbours.
Did the hon. member in her presentation not limit our identity by making it a matter of geography, in a very restrictive and rather embarrassing way for Quebecers, when we are in fact as much a part of Canada's history as the anglophones and the aboriginal peoples? Is this not limiting us to very little and admitting that the Liberal Party's knowledge of Canada is limited to the image handed to it, particularly by the picture the Prime Minister can paint of it?