Mr. Speaker, in a letter published in yesterday's La Presse , the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs said that even if Quebec were a nation in the French sense of the word, it was not necessary to recognize it formally in the Canadian constitution. He went on to add that the Canadian constitution did not even recognize the Canadian nation.
How can the minister not realize that the very existence of a constitution presupposed the existence of a Canadian nation in the eyes and minds of those who wrote it?
If we are to follow his logic, why does the federal government make such a point of calling Ottawa its national capital? Similarly, what are we to make of the holding of a national summit on sport? Should we have doubts about the contents of the National Archives of Canada or of the National Library? What is performed at the National Arts Centre? What is studied at the National Research Council? Worse yet, what is the role of the Department of National Defence?
If the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs wants to be consistent, what is he waiting for to ask his colleagues to stop referring to all—