Madam Speaker, I am a bit, quite a bit, astonished, surprised, shocked—I am not sure what—when we are told that Quebecers are not capable of understanding a question, when we are told that the questions they were asked on two occasions, to which they replied in very great numbers, 93% in the 1995 referendum, were not clear.
How can the rest of Canada be allowed to say that it will show us what a clear question is, that it will explain it to us because we are unable to understand?
Do people realize where this view of society can be found? It can be found in Alfred Memmi's Portrait d'un colonisé . What I have against all the federalist members here is that they think they can ask the questions, define the debate and set all the borders, and determine how things should be done for Quebec's native peoples. They are saying that they will set the conditions for Quebecers and that we will not be allowed to decide on the question.
The question is not an easy one. Quebecers have to come up with a blueprint for a country, a society, that may include an offer of partnership with the rest of Canada. We must set out a course of action so that we can finally leave this constitutional debate behind, and Quebec and Canada can live side by side.
The present federal government is proposing to limit us to one vision: the status quo or this unhealthy obsession with separation, as the Prime Minister of Canada sees it.
Can the members of other parties not understand that Quebecers are adults and are able, through their national assembly, to put an intelligent and carefully considered question on the table? This question will resolve the constitutional problem in Canada and will allow Quebecers, as a founding people, to become a nation. They are fully capable of making their own decisions. They possess the intelligence required to do all these things. In no way do they need a framework from the outside created by people who are dead set against letting them leave Canada.