Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore, a bit as I did with my colleague earlier, how she can justify the government's action in this regard. She knows very well indeed that the federal government cannot legitimately take this action, since it has neither the mandate nor an invitation to take it and it consulted no one in its action. It is giving itself powers of arbitration so it can act as a disciplinarian, without anyone having asked it to intervene. It has led, and here the seriousness
of the situation and the all the scheming behind the bill become apparent, the Premier of Quebec, Mr. Parizeau, to denounce the bill as a trade war measure.
I would like further explanation. Oddly, and this is in keeping with the way the government works, nobody is referring to clause 9, the keystone, the source of friction, the heart of the bill. To us, this is indicative of the government's desire to meddle in a number of areas of jurisdiction in the operations of the future Canada where the Government of Canada will be the sole government. Canada will be a unitary country, a centralized country. Bit by bit, in this House, the government is giving itself what it needs to ensure that, increasingly, governments that claimed to be, were seen to be and considered themselves provincial will become regional, because bills like this one are being adopted.
I would ask my hon. colleague to talk more about clause 9 of this bill, which is exceedingly pernicious.