Mr. Speaker, there seems to be this impenetrable refusal to listen to what I am saying. I am not denying the consensus in favour of establishing linguistic school boards. I literally said that six times in my main remarks. We make that clear two or three times in our dissenting report. Every witness who opposed the amendment made that clear in their submissions.
However, that debate which has gone on for 30 years is not what we are discussing today. We do not have the authority to establish linguistic school boards in Quebec. Fortunately, that is a right exercised by the national assembly.
What this Parliament has been given in section 93 is the responsibility to guarantee confessional education rights. That is what this debate is about, a debate which has hardly even begun in the province of Quebec. Nevertheless, it is a right that we seem prepared to take away, but that has not been discussed in the debate over the past 30 years in Quebec.
Let me just make it clear for the member. I said it in French twice and I will now say it in English. I am in favour of the establishment of linguistic school boards in Quebec. The Reform Party is in favour of the establishment of linguistic school boards in Quebec. There is unanimous consensus in Quebec to this effect. The Quebec bishops agree with it. However, that does not mean we have to extinguish confessional school rights. This is what the supreme court said in its 1993 reference on bill 107. It said we could have both. We do not have to take away section 93 confessional school rights in order to establish linguistic boards. We can do both.
The challenge to us again is to let the Quebec government do what it wants, establish those boards but do what the Fathers of Confederation expected us to do in 1867, and maintain that constitutional protection for those minorities. We can do both at the same time. At the same time, why not do it?