Madam Speaker, we can understand the hon. member fighting for her country to be Canada. However, we cannot understand as well her resorting to some rather complicated reasoning for someone who wanted to speak of clarity. We too wish to speak of clarity.
On two occasions, in the previous referendums in Quebec on sovereignty, in 1980 and 1995, reference was made to an association or partnership with Canada. The hon. member who today boasts of belonging to a government of clarity is one of those same people who told us “No, no partnership for us”. We subsequently learned that Ontario was making secret preparations to negotiate with Quebec; we also learned in the Supreme Court decision that there would be an obligation to negotiate a partnership. Why were these aspects so important? Because we were dealing with people who were not telling the public the truth, that is that there would obviously be negotiations between Quebec and Canada.
Those who are today staunch defenders of clarity were trying to spook people by telling them there would be none. What we wanted was to show that we were sincere and honest, and it was even made part of the question. We were creating an obligation to negotiate even before achieving sovereignty, with a time limit of one year, with a monitoring committee which would reach a decision on this. There was even room in its membership for representatives of the Liberal party of Quebec.
We do not consider ourselves any smarter than the people who are going to vote. People can make decisions. Those about to express their opinion and finding the issue unclear still have the option of saying “No, the question before me is not clear enough”. Of those who voted, 49.5% found the question sufficiently clear to say yes and say that they were prepared to support the proposal of sovereignty-association put to them.
Over 90% of voters cast a ballot. Did the people not understand the issues? The fact that a Liberal Party poll has just shown there may be some confusion is not going to convince us that the people did not know what they were voting on. When the people left home to go and vote they knew very well what the issue was, and the proof is that 93% of voters went to vote.
Why do members opposite think they are smarter than the other side of the House and say to us “The people voted yes because they did not understand”? That is not the case. The people understood perfectly well. They understand increasingly that they have an intransigent Liberal federal government before them that has been incapable of offering anything to Quebecers since the referendum and so has decided to take a hard line and prevent them from deciding as they wish the next time.
It will not work, because Quebecers are responsible and intelligent people. They can see through these tricks and they will express their pride fully the next time by saying that they have had it with people who cannot understand and respect them.