Madam Speaker, the member refers to the controversy over 50% plus one.
Certainly one of the things I understood the Bloc and many others to be worried about at a certain point when we did not know what the clarity bill would look like was that the government might be coming in with a bill that would actually and definitively set the threshold higher than 50% plus one. The bill does not do that. The bill says that a qualitative judgment has to be made.
I was saying in my remarks that I think the merits of the court's finding that there needs to be a qualitative judgment made after a referendum need to be held in balance with the legitimate concern that my colleague and I have that this somehow could be used, to use the metaphor I used earlier, to move the goalposts during or after the game.
It is not just a question of 50% plus one, it is also a question of other things that an irresponsible parliament or an irresponsible government might try to do after a referendum result that it did not like. I would remind the member, and this corresponds to the supreme court judgment, that if a parliament or a government tried to act in a way that was clearly moving the goalposts, that was clearly an abuse of that requirement for a qualitative judgment, that a Quebec to which such an injustice was being done would have the right then I believe, and I think the supreme court said this, to appeal to the international community that the Canadian government in that context was not acting in good faith and not respecting the findings of the supreme court.
It is not as if there would be no recourse in such a circumstance. The question is whether we want to set a numerical threshold going into the vote. I understand the member wants to do that. I think there are some good arguments for doing that. I want to hear those arguments, but I also want to hear the arguments against it. I am happy so far that the government has not done what we were worried it would do, which is to come in and say that it has to be 60%, or 55%, or whatever because that certainly would have been a mistake.