Mr. Speaker, I will say from the outset that I am a little disappointed in the remarks that were made by the member of the CA, formerly known as the Reform Party. I guess that is what we would expect from that party in terms of recognition. I was extremely disappointed when he termed the bill “an elitist centrist approach”. I cannot believe he would say that. I think he loses the generosity which this bill encompasses. I am very disappointed in his remarks.
Again I am somewhat disappointed by the Bloc. I was told by some people that the members of the Bloc would probably not support the bill simply because they did not invent it. I am very disappointed. It does not exclude anyone who contributed to the establishment of Quebec and those other great explorers and cartographers. This bill simply does not do that.
There are other members who do support it and I am somewhat encouraged by what the government has had to say. The generosity of this place indicates that we should go back to the drawing board and find a way to make this happen, whether it is through the legislative process of a bill or something else. I think this is a Canadian who deserves recognition. I do not think we should get lost in the semantics. Was he Canadian, was Canada a country, et cetera, is all lost in debate. Nobody wants to debate those issues.
We are talking about an individual who very much contributed to what we know as Canada today. It is not at the exclusion of anyone else regardless of who that anyone else might be, whether it is Henry Hudson or Jacques Cartier. That is not the point of the bill. It is simply to give recognition to someone who had a significant contribution to the founding of what is now known as Canada. It is as simple as that.
I take heart from the support I have had in the House. I am sure that with a little re-engineering and ingenuity we can find a way to honour what we consider to be one of Canada's heroes in what we now know as Canada. We will continue the debate on this issue at a later date.