Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking our colleague from the New Democratic Party for his open-minded words with respect to Quebec. We recognize the New Democratic Party historically, but I would still like to ask him whether he, his fellow parliamentarians and his political party are aware of the gravity of the situation and the ramifications of a reference to the Supreme Court of everything having to do with the constitutional question, which has dragged on for 30 years.
First of all, are the members of the New Democratic Party and members in the House generally—and I address Quebeckers across the way—aware that this whole process denies the existence of the Quebec people and instead identifies Quebec as just another province?
Second, are they aware that the whole constitutional question, which has dragged on for 30 years, now rests in the hands of nine judges whose allegiance is to the Parliament of Canada and to Canadian institutions, which appoint them and pay their salaries without consulting the provinces, particularly Quebec, and that these judges will soon be asked to rule on the future of Quebec and its democratic institutions as they relate to a Constitution that the Parliament of Quebec has never recognized and that it in fact denounced in 1982?
What we are saying, and we would like to hear the New Democratic Party's frank view on this, is that the people of Quebec alone have the right to make this decision, because they are a people. What is happening here is that the existence of the people of Quebec is being denied. Do the people of Quebec alone have the right to decide their future?