My dear colleague from Chicoutimi is right. Moreover, this has always been a basic fact about the career of the Prime Minister of Canada. When the government starts to drop in the polls, the best way to raise its popularity quotient, in Canada in particular, is to dump on Quebec and Quebecers. Heaping scorn on Quebecers is the right approach. The more a Liberal member dumps on Quebecers the higher the Liberals go in the polls.
I agree with my colleague. Probably he too looks at the polls relating to the Bloc Quebecois members and the rise in popularity of his leader, which has gone up constantly for the past year and a half. This I think is what motivates him to get tough with Quebec and to continue the dirty tricks he has always been up to.
I have referred to the patriation of the constitution. He was there. The Prime Minister, that little little guy from Shawinagan, was there. He is the one who cooked up that procedure one night at the Chateau Laurier, a concerted effort by the federal government and nine Canadian provinces to crush Quebec, to marginalize it, to strong-arm it.
He was also, along with Mr. Trudeau, behind the unilateral patriation of the constitution in 1982, despite the near unanimity of the national assembly against it. Then there was Meech, as I have said before. Though he says “I wasn't even there for Meech”, that is not true. We were here. We walked around. We saw the Prime Minister in a corridor with his cellphone, and Sharon Carstairs, one of his buddies, was there working against the accord.
How about Clyde Wells, the embrace—and I am not familiar with the habits of the Prime Minister—but yes I agree with the hon. member. This was electioneering. Dumping on the Quebec to score better in the Canada-wide polls.