Mr. Speaker, as some people spoke to me very highly of this new member, I cannot resist the temptation and ask him two short questions.
The notion that a referendum might be held cannot apply here for the two following reasons: first, as the hon. member will understand, what this is all about, from A to Z , on the X as well as on the Y axis, in any way one tries to look at it, involves only the education sector. We are not dealing with an amendment that is going to change the balance between communities, between francophones and anglophones.
We are dealing with an amendment that will enable the province of Quebec, the country of Quebec—I should never use the words “Quebec” and “province” in the same sentence—to modernize its school system. That is the basic and sole purpose of this amendment.
The member says there has to be equality among the provinces. I should probably take on the challenge of convincing him of the contrary before the end of the year.
If the member thinks that all the provinces are equal, therefore that Quebec is equal to Prince Edward Island, in spite of all the beauty that Prince Edward Island has to offer with its beaches and the ingenuity of its people, it essentially means that the member thinks that we are not a nation, that there is only one nation, the Canadian nation, and that he does not want things to change to recognize the fact that we speak French, that our political system is different, that our justice system is different, that we have a vernacular language, that we have a collective desire to survive and, most of all, that Quebec is the only state in the world that is controlled by 82 per cent of the population. That is what the specificity of Quebec is all about.
So, I hope that, by dint of rubbing shoulders with him in very parliamentary settings, I will convince the hon. member that we cannot in all honesty say that all provinces must be equal, for that would be denying the fact that Quebec is a nation.