Mr. Speaker, it is as though my colleague owned a house and I bought all the land around it, barring his access to his house unless he gave me 90 per cent of it. It is the same thing.
That sort of action would clearly be illegal and the authorities can defend the rights and freedoms of my colleague. But if the authorities refuse to do so, I can force my colleague to sign a contract. And that is the situation here, the federal government refused to defend the rights of Newfoundland. That is the situation.
If the Bloc Quebecois members want to talk about the contract and the Supreme Court, I will talk about the great Canadian contract we have in the form of the Constitution signed by the provinces when they entered Confederation, including Quebec in 1867. It was through this contract that the Constitution was amended and the Supreme Court decided that it applied to all of Canada.
This contract cannot be changed without respecting the amending formula and the rights of every province in this Confederation. There is no right to separate unilaterally in this contract, despite what the Parti Quebecois and the Bloc Quebecois said at the time of the last referendum. There is no right to separate unilaterally, and that is the contract of this country. My party has been very clear in the debate this week about the fact that the rules of the game must be respected, that the rules of this Confederation must be respected, as with the whole issue of the communiqué to the Canadian Armed Forces. In the future, these contracts must be respected, and it is our intention to pursue this matter in the House.