Mr. Speaker, yesterday the prime minister and intergovernmental affairs minister received a basic lesson in democracy from two of their federalist allies.
Claude Ryan and Daniel Johnson publicly disavowed Plan B of the federal strategy, reference of the Quebec question to the Supreme Court. Loud and clear, they affirmed the right of the Quebec people to freely determine its own future.
What is important, however, is that these two former leaders of the 1980 and 1995 no campaigns clearly represent the emergence of a consensus in Quebec on this matter. They felt obliged to insist that the future of Quebec is in the hands of the people of Quebec.
The federal government must face facts: the strategy of going to the Supreme Court turned out to be a very bad idea. Since a Quebec consensus is in place, reference to the Supreme Court is pointless.