Mr. Speaker, when the former Conservative leader announced he was in the running for the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party, he said he was ”fed up with the endless squabbles cultivated and maintained by the sovereignist leaders, which are sapping our energies”.
Between 1960 and the present, the sovereignists have been in power about 12 years and the federalists more than 25. Did Fulton-Favreau fail because of the “nasty separatists”? Did Victoria fail because of the “nasty separatists”? Was the 1982 patriation and Pierre Elliott Trudeau's rejection of the Quebec Liberal beige book the fault of the “nasty separatists”? Were the failures of Meech and Charlottetown the fault of the “nasty separatists”?
If we have been up to our ears in squabbles since 1960, this is because the federalists are incapable of getting along together. That is why the only solution left is sovereignty.
The former Conservative leader claims he is going to succeed where all those before him have failed. We are anxious to know exactly how he will go about this, because at the moment we are simply faced with a big black hole.