Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands and his history lesson. As a student of history and someone who reads a fair amount of history, both ancient and modern, I would like to repeat a bit back to the member about Canadian unity and the ability of the provinces to sit down as equals and hopefully work toward a better country for all Canadians.
As the hon. member was speaking I was thinking of an ad that his party supported during the previous election. It said not another leader from Quebec. They were all crossed out. That is a very difficult thing to overcome and that is the type of thing the member has to wrap his head around and overcome if he and his party are to move ahead toward unity in this country.
The motion on the floor today is not about bringing the provinces together. It is a motion to set in place the next referendum in Quebec. It is impossible for the people to meet by December 31. It is an artificial date. It will not happen. Everyone is off over Christmas. It is totally fraudulent and ridiculous and cynical. If the date had been the end of January, the end of February or the end of March I think the member and the party would have received some support for the motion.
How cynical can we be. There is no open discussion. There is no equal footing among the provinces at this time. They cannot meet a deadline when everyone is off during the Christmas holidays. We will not achieve unanimity and it will fail and the new government that sits in Quebec today will say “Look at that. We can't even get agreement on a December 31 deadline therefore the door is open, let's look at a referendum”. That is what will happen.