Madam Speaker, the member perhaps needs to be reminded that the Constitution to which he is referring also did not provide for the addition of a new province and, since we are talking about Newfoundland, for Newfoundland to join Canada, but it happened. What is not excluded from entering is not excluded from leaving either, but that is another problem.
I would also like to remind the member that it is not a question of destroying the country or whatever. What we want to do is to build a country called Quebec, in partnership with Canada. You will be masters of your own destiny, as we will be of ours. I think you have not understood that yet. English Canada is increasingly taking this in. My leader, who is back from western Canada, told me that western Canada is increasingly open to the idea of Quebec becoming a sovereign nation and increasingly interested in starting to look at the possibilities of doing business or continuing to do business with a sovereign Quebec.
The last point I want to make to the member is that, in my view, a referendum is a referendum, meaning that a population decides on its future during this democratic exercise. In the case of Newfoundland, it decided on its future with respect to education. Is the member telling me that education is not an important matter for a province? Is education not something that will have a definite impact on the direction a people will take for generations to come? I think it is extremely important and they accomplished it through a referendum. In this referendum, the population said yes to changes proposed by the government.
It will be the same thing in Quebec. We will have a referendum that will be extremely important for Quebec, because it will determine the course of future generations towards a very specific goal. I hope the referendum will be successful the next time around and that we will have a country called Quebec.
I would like to remind the member that, when a people speaks, when they make known their views using extremely clear rules, as in a referendum, either in Newfoundland or in Quebec, I think that the people have spoken and that they should be taken very seriously. I do not see any distinction between a referendum on a question like the one put to Newfoundland and on a question like that put to Quebec on sovereignty.