Madam Speaker, that is an interesting comment.
Let me say to the hon. member that he has nothing to be proud of. If he turned down Meech Lake, he has nothing to be proud of. I think history will judge him very harshly. We would not be involved in the national unity debate today had we had a little common sense back in 1990.
It is a very interesting point that the hon. member makes. I suppose it cuts right to the heart of whether a member of the House of Assembly or a member of the House of Commons has to vote in the same way that his constituents vote and whether we should follow them on all occasions. I have to admit that I have done that on more than one occasion, but I have to admit that I have not done that on a couple of occasions as well. It is an issue which we are not going to solve here. It has been ongoing for the last couple of hundred years.
I want to make a couple of points on this particular issue. The 38 percent of the people who voted yes in the referendum in Newfoundland are well represented on this particular issue. We have all of the members of the Newfoundland House of Assembly who are unanimous in their view on that. They are well represented. However I worry sometimes about the minority groups which are not well represented in the House. I think I have a duty and an obligation as a parliamentarian to represent them as well. I think that is a very important point.
There are enough members over there to pass the thing, but I certainly hope they will find a lot of reasons to reflect on this over the coming weeks and probably come to another conclusion.