Mr. Chairman, the hon. member opposite spent half of his time describing how great the minister was for having set out Canada's position before the House. My goodness, is this not his job, as minister, to be here and to explain the government's position?
I do not understand, unless he is on the defensive and needs to justify the presence of a minister in the House. I do not understand his point of view and why he talked about it for so long.
As regards the nation state, first I would like the hon. member to tell me whether he would let another nation negotiate on behalf of Canada. If the concept of sovereignty is so “19th century”, would he let another country negotiate on behalf of Canada? Perhaps he should answer this question.
There is another issue. The Canadian federation, which is itself a product of the 19th century, is obsolete. The plan advocated by Quebec sovereignists, whether from the Bloc Quebecois or the Parti Quebecois, would transform this aging 19th century federation into a new partnership between sovereign countries, based on the European Union model to which the hon. member himself referred.
We said many times, and the Premier of Quebec also said “Let us put together a Canada-Quebec agreement patterned on the European Union model, and we will sign it immediately”. This is a model agreement, a model partnership. This is a 21st century agreement compared to the Canadian federation, which dates back to the 19th century.
As for the third point concerning the free trade agreement, the Bloc Quebecois voted against, we realized that NAFTA's chapter 11 had some very unfortunate effects on international trade and on various federal or provincial statutes.
Not to realize this is to stick one's head in the sand. Despite the lobbying of numerous right and left wing groups, of employer and union groups, which said that chapter 11 must not be lifted as is and inserted into free trade agreements with other countries, the fact that the federal government has not realized the dangers inherent in chapter 11 shows its lack of vision.
This is the main reason that the Bloc Quebecois voted against the free trade agreement last week.