Madam Speaker, I want to participate in this debate, which the Bloc Quebecois launched today to bring this House to recognize that only the people of Quebec should decide their own future.
It is also with some emotion that I heard my colleague who has just spoken and who is, if I may say so, a francophone outside Quebec.
I would like to tell him that what the people of Quebec want is the collective ability to establish their own priorities, to develop their potential, and to fight poverty, as it competes annually with Newfoundland for the title of poorest province. Many Quebeckers are tired of seeing the Quebec government fight with the federal government over a budget surplus to which Quebec has contributed more than the other provinces, because the Employment Insurance Act was especially hard on Quebec and the maritimes and the reduction in transfers hurt Quebec more than other provinces.
Now that the deficit has been wrestled to the ground, the federal government wants to use the money to give scholarships, for example. But the political life in Quebec is marked by these endless fights. If only this had started six months ago and could be resolved within two years. But this is not the case. The truth is that the people of Quebec, who are concentrated in what we call the State of Quebec, must usually fight with less powerful weapons.
Finally, what we want to say today is that the people of Quebec themselves are the driving force behind this democracy. That is a basic fact: only the people of Quebec can decide for themselves. If there is one thing that we can declare in this House, it is that. The right of one people to make its own decisions takes precedence over a Supreme Court that was created by another people for its own ends. Always we may respect its intentions, we cannot let another people decide what shape democracy will take in Quebec.
That is the bottom line. We must go to the bottom of things. Liberal and Reform members say that if Quebeckers can make the decision, then municipalities will have to ask themselves questions. The members across the way and beside us do not want to recognize the right of the Quebec people, but they are ready to give that same right to municipalities which are administrative creations of provincial governments.
When I hear the hon. member and others speak about the Canadian dream, I can only see a theoretical Canada where the two languages and the two cultures can flourish.
That is not how things are in real life. The truth is closer to what happened in Nagano, the truth is that we had to fight some battles for Quebec artists to be able to pursue their careers, because many of them receive financial assistance to promote their art throughout Europe. The truth is we had to face huge cuts in higher education and we will have to fight because they are trying to go over our heads by setting up two grants systems. And I could go on.
The debate tonight is part of our history, of our evolution. Quebeckers and their longing for sovereignty have been around for a long time. It is a result of history, but not only of history. Our project does not dwell on the past. It is forward-looking. It is a result of a socio-economic and democratic project that will no longer suffer any obstruction. As I said before, poverty also affects a lot of people in Quebec. In education, the needs are great and there are many of us—people of my generation and others—who are fed up with debates that lead nowhere.
As I said before, there is a theoretical Canada, the Canada which is said to be the best country in the world, but where the political leaders do not care enough about the best country in the world to wonder what it would take to keep the other founding nation part of the country. The other nation, not just a province. What do they offer us? They tell us we should stay in the best country in the world as a province just like the others and that we should be very pleased to remain in this country and also that we should be very careful if we are serious about leaving because they will not let us go so easily.
This Canada only exists in theory. The truth is that if Canadians were so concerned about this great country of theirs they would be worried. They would finally agree that Quebeckers are a people. They would take a look at other federations, not uninational federations, but multinational federations, and get concerned. But we are faced with the terrible situation of a people governed by a government which does not want to face the problems, because it is committed to saying that it is the best country in the world, a government whose political leader is incapable of looking at what could be done, and who knows only how to refuse negotiation of a future partnership, and to use threats.
What the Bloc Quebecois has said on numerous occasions is that, with its present leadership, Canada is headed—and rapidly—toward a dead end. It is amazing to see how few people outside of Quebec will say so. I must say that I am very proud that Claude Ryan has acted consistently with what he has done for most of his life. Although I have often disagreed with him, he has taken courageous steps in the past, and this is one more.
The same thing goes for Daniel Johnson, Jr. In 1965, his father wrote Égalité ou indépendence. In it he said that if there were no equality between the two nations, French Canada and English Canada, it would be understandable if the French Canadians in Quebec were to wish to realize their full potential there, and he was not opposed to that. Daniel Johnson, Jr. sometimes remembers that point. He has stated that the question must be decided in Quebec.
For us, this was a fundamental debate.
It is up to the Quebec people to determine its future and we deeply regret that the federal government has dragged the supreme court into it, because the way the question is worded is very tricky and neither Quebec nor Canada can get out of it easily, on the contrary.
This desire of Quebeckers, which we have now expressed a number of times in our history, will be forcefully expressed again, and you will have helped us in the end.