Mr. Speaker, since we are talking about discrimination, I am surprised with the statements made by an hon. member of the House who spoke about Canadian history in a biased manner, in my opinion, an opinion that is certainly shared by the vast majority of Canadians, and indeed, historians.
The hon. member talks about defending the interests of francophones, but I would like to point out to you that he spoke to us exclusively in English. He should at least have made an effort by outlining this situation in French.
Having said that, I find the Canada the hon. member has described to us is a Canada that no longer exists. I believe the hon. member has forgotten to tell us about the real Canadian history. If we go back to the conquest, when France, as you know, gave New France to England, we must not forget that it is the French administration that left us, that abandoned us. We must not forget either that, at some point, we thought we could reconquer New France, since England was in a position to give it back to France, but, unfortunately, the French did not accept that. That is not well known, but is worth debating and telling the people about.
In fact, when I sawthe premier of Quebec, accompanied by several of his ministers, giving the Order of Quebec to Prime Minister Juppé of France, I recall that the existence of Canada was all but denied and that the Maple Leaf was nowhere to be seen. We saw, for example, how the agency dealing with the Quebec government protocol behaved.
It did everything to hide the Maple Leaf. I find that rather repugnant and, in my opinion, inappropriate in the current context. I sometimes wonder, because I somehow have the feeling that these separatists are behaving like mere colonials.
It is also interesting to hear them talk about Canadian history. You know, 100 years ago this month, Wilfrid Laurier was elected Prime Minister of Canada, the first Prime Minister of French Canadian origin. I think we should not be surprised that so much progress has been made since that period.
The hon. member did not even talk about the fact, for example-I want to conclude on this, as it will certainly make for a very lively debate-that, today, 350,000 young anglophones are studying French full time in immersion classes throughout Canada, while, only 15 years ago, there were barely 30,000 of them doing so. I believe anglophones have made considerable progress, but the hon. member does not talk about that. And I think that, today, we will go back over the points that were raised by the hon. member, we will debate them and we will certainly correct his version of Canadian history.