Madam Speaker, it is quite clear that no member of the Bloc Quebecois can support a bill such as the one introduced by the Reform Party. Even though the government says it will not support this bill, that is in fact exactly what it is doing.
My remarks will be directed in equal measure at both parties and I will return to a few of the points made by the parliamentary secretary in his speech. I am surprised, moreover, that the minister, who is always right, is not here himself to speak on this topic so dear to his heart. He has been strangely silent for some weeks now.
I will begin with what the member for Okanagan—Shuswap said were his bill's objectives. He said that he wanted to describe the conditions that had to be met before a province could become sovereign, even pointing out that there was growing support for such a move in his own province, British Columbia. We all know perfectly well that there is a sort of race on between the Liberals and Reformers to see who can adopt the toughest policy towards Quebec and thus boost their political ratings.
Having seen the Liberals come out with a very hard-line Plan B, a reference to the Supreme Court, and flirt with partition, and not wanting to be left behind, the Reformers, with this bill, are now very clearly supporting all the partitionist actions in Quebec. Never has a political party gone so far. Liberal members must surely be amused to see their colleagues taking matters a little further than they have, although ultimately they are echoing the same sentiments. They have encouraged this discourse.
They say that their primary objective is to ascertain the real will of the public. They want to make certain that this will is clearly understood, clearly identified and clearly gauged, as though Quebeckers were incapable of making their own decisions about their future, of determining if a given approach is clear and understandable.
These people claim that we are incapable of understanding what happened in the 1995 referendum because, if we had, so many of us would not have voted yes. This is the assumption behind everything they have done.
The Liberals are saying that they are going to look for a new way, and use the Supreme Court as an authority in deciding whether Quebeckers exercised their judgement properly. The Reformers are saying that another way has to be found. Today, they have come up with two new approaches.
It is the House of Commons that will determine in legislation whether the process was clear, whether it was acceptable, and whether people were properly informed. However, such determination will not be made only by the House of Commons, but also by another institution. Indeed, our dear senators will also determine whether the process was clear and understandable to all Quebeckers. The first problem with this is that the government would have to first find and then repatriate the senators, so they could be in the Senate to review the issue. This alone would imply some rather extensive delays. Who knows, if a referendum were held during the winter, perhaps senators would hold their meetings in Mexico. This issue will have to be taken into consideration. As I said earlier, it is all a matter of finding out who is prepared to go the furthest.
However, the bill includes some positive elements, and I will mention them immediately, because there are very few.
There is a thought process currently taking place in Canada, particularly outside the Liberal Party and the Reform Party. That process concerns the possibilities of a partnership between Quebec and Canada. What kind of relationship will it be?
Even the Reformers' proposed legislation shows that a thought process is taking place on possible and eventual ties between Quebec and Canada. For the first time, Reformers do not question the fact that Quebec could use the Canadian dollar, otherwise they would obviously have mentioned it.
There was talk of the possibility of using some other Canadian instruments, but there is no longer any mention of the Canadian dollar, thus recognizing that sovereignists were right all along, as we already knew, along with most of the credible people who expressed their opinion on this issue.
Second, while the bill recognizes the democratic rule of 50% of the ballots plus one vote, its interpretation is very distorted, since it is based on electoral districts and not on the whole territory.
This means that, according to the logic of Reformers, I should no longer be here. Indeed, since my riding voted yes in the last referendum, it should be part of a sovereign Quebec made up of all the ridings that voted yes. Let me say in passing that this would be true for many regions in Quebec, including the riding of Sherbrooke and including the Prime Minister's riding. There would be a serious problem. The Prime Minister would no longer be in his present riding.