Mr. Speaker, I will be brief.
I thought I heard the member for St. John's West say no. I also thought that senior members of the Liberal Party had really discouraged that response because the government would want this votable. It has now been clarified and it should be very clear for the record that what has happened is that the hon. member for St. John's West has joined with the Bloc Quebecois in not making it possible for there to be a vote on this issue. That is unfortunate.
I would like to conclude by making some observations from the point of view of Quebec's role.
I notice that the premier of Quebec this week talked about amending article 1 of the program of the Parti Quebecois to talk explicitly about a new partnership with Canada, presumably after Quebec independence. Obviously it is not a secret that Canadians outside Quebec overwhelmingly want their country to stay together. They value a great deal the partnership which exists today among the 10 provinces.
If the premier of Quebec is sincere in his desire for partnership, even from his own sovereignist perspective, he has a perfect opportunity to chart a new course on this issue, to look at the injustice that has been done and to send very different signals to all the people of Canada, including the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, about what the partnership would entail.
We have a partnership today. I do not think in the future that Canadians outside Quebec would be interested in a partnership with a province that wanted to have blockades, land blockades, sea blockades or otherwise. Unfortunately, that is what has been behind the particular arrangement which has existed between Quebec and Newfoundland. It is extremely unfortunate.
I would urge the premier of Quebec, who obviously has a somewhat different strategy now-and I do not think we know what his long term strategy really is-to take a look at the contract and Quebec's relationship with Newfoundland to see if we can arrive at a much more just situation. My suspicion is when we have a vote on this issue that the federal government will not be willing to do its share to reconcile this particular problem.