Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate. I listened to many members of the Bloc Quebecois talk this afternoon to this bill. Listening to them, I have the feeling that they feel that unless people are from Quebec they cannot really relate to their vision of where Quebec should go, and unless people totally support their view of this bill, then those people have had no association with or understanding of their province.
It was 20 years ago this month that I was invited to Ottawa to work, and that invitation came from a Quebecer. That Quebecer was sitting in the House of Commons with 74 out of 75 members coming from Quebec. That member of parliament, the then prime minister of Canada, went on in May of 1980 to decisively win the first referendum in the province of Quebec with a vote of almost 60-40.
In 1984, after Mr. Trudeau resigned, I decided to support another Quebecer who had served the parliament of Canada for many years. The Right Hon. Jean Chrétien did not win the leadership of the party then, but—