Mr. Speaker, first I want to congratulate the hon. member for Berthier—Montcalm for making such an eloquent speech in support of democracy and respect for parliamentary institutions.
If I am not mistaken, today, March 10, is the birthday of his father, Gilles Bellehumeur from Berthierville, whom we salute.
I want to ask the hon. member if he was listening when the Reform Party leader said, and I quote: “It is time we stop falling over backwards to accommodate separatists”. They would have had to have been nice to us in the first place, which is far from obvious. In any case, we never asked these people to be nice to us.
I wonder if the hon. member for Berthier—Montcalm could elaborate on the comment made by the leader of the official opposition. Did he mean that, from now on, the Reform Party will no longer show respect—lack of respect and intolerance being common traits of Reformers—in this House the voice of 44 duly and democratically elected members from Quebec, who represent a vast majority of Quebeckers? Is this what the Reform Party leader meant?
Does this intolerant and, frankly, paternalistic comment mean that, in the future, whenever any of the 44 duly elected Bloc Quebecois members will rise in this House, Reform Party members will neither recognize nor show respect that member? Will Reformers see to it that our right to speak is constantly interfered with?
Is this what was implied? If so, is such attitude not reminiscent of what used to be called fascism? It is something totally unacceptable that could be associated with the Reform Party. If we look at some action and comments made in the past, including some intolerance shown toward the Chair, we see a behaviour reminiscent of a group from the far right.
Could the hon. member elaborate on this.