Mr. Speaker, the marriage between the Reform Party and the separatists continues with the Reform leader now saying that he would like to hold meetings with his new found friend, Lucien Bouchard. His party called the Parti Quebecois yesterday to ask if it could make a formal presentation to the national assembly.
After meeting with the Bloc in Quebec yesterday Reform MPs have even come out in agreement with the separatists in opposing the millennium scholarship fund, endorsing an end to support for anglophone groups in Quebec and claiming that the 1982 Constitution was not democratically adopted. I do not see how those ideas would be very popular in western Canada.
I challenge the Reform Party to repeat that at its joint meeting with the Bloc in Edmonton tonight. Many Reformers would be smart to pick up the Calgary Herald and read what it had to say:
The Reform leader must never forget that the sovereignist idea—includes the unshakeable belief in an independent Quebec—The adherents to this belief will never be satisfied with parliamentary reforms and decentralizing modifications that Reform has in mind.