Madam Speaker, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to answer the member for Verchères—Les Patriotes and his motion asking the Governor General to intercede with Her Majesty the Queen of England to cause the British crown to present an official apology to the Acadian people for the wrongs done to them between 1755 and 1763.
The history of Canada, like that of any other country, has its sad moments of which we all agree we have no reason to be proud.
These moments are made up of events sometimes centuries old. This is the case with the deportation of the Acadians. History is sometimes cruel. However, the history of Canada is not made up of injustices only. It is, for the most part, based on progress, advancement and growth. Today, we must look toward the future.
The least we can say today is that the sudden interest of the member for Verchères—Les-Patriotes is surprising. Surprising, indeed, because if we go back a little in time, it is quite obvious that this initiative goes against the logic of the Bloc Quebecois. I know that the Bloc's logic may sometimes remind us of the Twilight Zone . Nevertheless, the colleagues of the member of Verchères—Les-Patriotes and even the leader of his party have rarely shown a true and honest open-mindedness regarding the fate of Acadians and of francophones outside of Quebec.
Not so long ago, in October 1997, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois said in an interview to the Fredericton Telegraph Journal that the salvation of Acadian artists was conditional upon their exiling themselves to Montreal.