Mr. Speaker, I was listening with great interest to what the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke had to say, and I heard him defend this great Canada of ours as only assimilated French Canadians are capable of doing.
I want him to know that he is a perfect example of what I would never want to be. In this House he represents a diminished Quebec, a Quebec that has been swept under the rug, a Quebec that they want to erase from the map, the francophones that they intend to extinguish sooner or later, and as far as they are concerned, the sooner the better.
However, if we look at the history of Canada, although people say there were two founding peoples, the francophones were here first, 150 years before the new bosses of my hon. friend opposite. But how many are left today? They used to be the majority, but now not even 25 per cent of the population of this country speaks French. Some of them changed sides, and he is one of them. He should realize that.
It is sad but true that in a country that supports multiculturalism and has two official languages, one has been ignored and given no consideration whatsoever.
This is the reason for the presence of the Bloc Quebecois members. They, too, are here to promote the rights of their electors, the rights of those who elected them to this House and just as legitimately as in the case of the hon. member. Maybe he decided to obliterate his past—footprints on the sands of time, as Longfellow put it—maybe he brushed all that away, maybe he sided with the Governor General in trying to tell us that the deportation of the Acadians was a sort of Club Med excursion, all expenses paid. I have no problem with that. There have always been people in the history of francophones in Canada to join those who oppose us, our adversaries, and to diminish us. I think the member for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke is one of those, and he should be made aware of it.
I would like to know whether the member for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke acknowledges Quebecers as a people and their presence here for 350 years. I would like to have his answer, because this is the subject of an amendment to the speech from the throne. I would like him to tell me whether Quebecers are a people and whether he can reconcile that with the remarks of the Minister for International Trade, who said earlier he was capable of promoting Canadian culture.
But what is Canadian culture? I would like to hear what he has to say on that. Is it selling the Calgary stampede in Paris? Perhaps he could do that, but that is of no real interest to me. Just as selling the songs of Gilles Vigneault around the world is of no interest to the Reformers. I would like him to say how he plans to reconcile the two cultures, if he will admit that there are two in Canada. He would first have to admit that there are two peoples in Canada, and I am not sure he could do that.
So, I would ask the hon. member, not knowing where he is coming from, whether he acknowledges that Canada has two peoples and, if so, how he can promote the French culture he has totally lost.