Mr. Speaker, to start with, since the House is soon going to adjourn for the summer and given what the Reform member who spoke earlier said I wish to officially invite him to come and visit my riding in Quebec during the summer vacation, so he can see for himself that anglophones in Quebec do not have such a tragic life, that the nasty separatists are not waiting for them at each street corner, and that their life is not in danger. So that he can change his perception of Quebec people whom he sees as oppressors, I invite him to come and visit us.
I will also recall, for the information of the Reform Party, the motion which is debated today. The Bloc Quebecois moved: "That the House encourage the federal government to acknowledge the urgency of the situation of francophones in minority situations in Canada, and take the exceptional steps required in order to counter their assimilation and allow their development".
My colleague, the member for St. Boniface, said earlier that there is indeed an assimilation process. From what he said, what else can we conclude-and I am going to give the House figures to prove it-but that francophones outside Quebec are going through difficult times? We are asking the federal government, and therefore the Liberal Party, to take measures to help them improve their situation.
That is why I have a hard time understanding why we are accused of being nasty separatists, of wanting to tear down everything, and so on. We will talk about that when time comes.
Let us set the record straight. Today, we are debating a motion in which the Bloc Quebecois is asking the government to recognize and affirm that francophones outside Quebec are in a difficult situation and that we must join forces to help them. If the fact that such a declaration comes from a democratically elected majority party in Quebec does not please some members, even certain French speaking Liberals like the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, it is just too bad. It is too bad if he does not want to recognize there is a problem and if he resents the fact Quebecers of another affiliation say it is so.
We are asking if francophones outside Quebec have a problem. The answer is yes. Should federal and provincial governments get together to help these communities instead of cutting their budgets? I think the answer is yes again. That is what we are debating.
If Liberals and Reformers want to keep on accusing us of being separatists, we have news for them because, as long as we are here, we will be separatists. If we want to talk about the Prince Edward Island bridge or Pacific salmon and they object to our topic because we are separatists, we have a problem. We were democratically elected by the Quebec people.
Today's topic is not Quebec sovereignty but francophones outside Quebec who are having a hard time according to statistics. It must be absolutely clear that we are not talking against French communities outside Quebec. Basically we want to help them.