Mr. Speaker, the amendment we are being asked to support is the repeal of subsections 1 to 4 of Section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867.
Since the beginning, in the National Assembly, the Government of Quebec and the Parti Quebecois have taken it upon themselves to include in the preamble to their request that they do not recognize the Constitution of 1982. It is odd that the Government of Quebec has taken such a decision. It is odder still that Bloc Quebecois members have taken the same position.
It is because of section 43 of the Constitution of 1982, which the Bloc Quebecois and the Parti Quebecois refuse to accept or to recognize as being relevant, that we can now discuss this amendment; in fact, it is Section 43 that provides for the right of the province of Quebec, with a simple resolution from the National Assembly, to request a bilateral constitutional amendment, without the consent of the other provinces.
Furthermore, subsection 33.1 of the 1982 Constitution, which, again, Quebec has not accepted, allows Bill 107 on public education and the amendment proposed in Bill 109 to override the unconstitutional aspect by using the notwithstanding clause.
I was wondering if the member from Quebec could answer two questions. If the English community had not felt that its access to linguistic schools was protected under section 23, if the anglophone community was not convinced that the 1982 Constitution provided some protection, does the member really believe that we would have had such a consensus in Quebec?
Can she admit in this House, just as the Quebec intergovernmental affairs minister himself admitted, that one would indeed have to be naive to think that the Constitution of 1982 does not apply everywhere in the country? Can the member answer these two questions?