Madam Speaker, I thought you would have availed yourself of the rule of relevancy. I do not know whether the term "stupid" is unparliamentary, but it spontaneously comes to mind.
I cannot understand how someone can be as confused, as blind and as mixed up as the member for Vaudreuil. You should ask one of the pages to bring him some aspirin, because there is definitely something wrong with him.
I have been working with the government party for seven months to improve employment equity, and the member has the nerve to rise today and speak against the Bloc Quebecois. There is something wrong with him.
Let me kindly remind him that the issue being debated today is whether or not the motion tabled by the Reform Party against the actions of his government is supported by the official opposition. We made a speech in which we expressed our concern about the ethnocentric attitude-the member may not understand that term, but we will send him a dictionary-of Reform members, and the member finds a way to rise and be disrespectful towards me.
I will conclude by telling him this: As for sovereignty, if he wants to debate the issue, I am prepared to do so anytime, anywhere.
I will also tell him that, if he looks at the way the Parizeau government, and the previous Quebec governments, particularly the PQ governments, have treated the English-speaking minority, to which I think the member fully belongs, he will realize that he need not worry at all and, also, that we have no lesson to learn from him, given the respect which we have always shown towards the English-speaking community in Quebec.
The members' comments are shameful, unacceptable and totally irresponsible, in my opinion. I am sure that the Minister of Human Resources Development and his secretary of state are outraged by the fact that a government member would rise to make such irresponsible comparisons.
As for the issue of a better future for sovereignists, the hon. member has come up with a rather stupid and meaningless argument, and I would remind him that when Mr. Lévesque held the referendum in 1980, the federal debt stood at $75 billion. Consequently, when the member rises in this House, he should never forget that the debt now stands at $600 billion.
I am not worried about Quebec's future, but I certainly am concerned about the future of Canadian federalism.