Mr. Speaker, in a scrum this morning, the Prime Minister himself said that it would be much easier for the federal government not to intervene in the matter, provided the Government of Quebec agreed not to defend Quebecers' right to decide their own future. This is what the Prime Minister said this morning, in Montreal.
I ask the Minister of Justice why the federal government has now resorted to blackmail-there is no other way to describe it-against the Government of Quebec, when in fact the federal government has always implicitly recognized Quebecers' right to decide their future themselves by participating in the previous two referendums and by agreeing to accept the results?