Mr. Speaker, first of all, I wish to thank and commend the hon. member for Calgary West for wanting to know more about the institutions which will be proposed to Canada by a sovereign Quebec. I think he should be reminded, and I want to reassure him on this, that the parliamentary assembly, one of the institutions provided for in the economic association proposal, will be an elected assembly.
The members of this assembly will be elected by the Parliament of Quebec and the Parliament of Canada or all parliaments in Canada together, depending on the type of representation they choose. They will not be appointed randomly. This joint assembly will bring together elected members from Quebec and Canada.
A decision on this economic association proposal will be made after the people of Quebec have voted in a referendum to take full control of their own development, which means passing all legislation, collecting all taxes and making agreements, including perhaps an economic partnership agreement with Canada. It is very interesting to share views on this proposal. I suggest that the hon. member for Calgary West do so at some point in time.
Quebecers will have to choose between a federal system in which they have very few powers and another one in which they will have 100 per cent of the powers in the Quebec Parliament, which has always been the heart and cradle of the Quebec nation, formerly referred to as the French Canadian nation. This nation will have the credibility and strength required to negotiate with Canada a mutually satisfactory agreement to get us out of the constitutional mess we are in.
I would like the hon. member to tell us if he would be prepared to talk his colleagues into accepting the referendum results if, as I suspect, it meant that Quebec achieved sovereignty and took full responsibility for its development in the future.