Mr. Speaker, we heard the member for Manicouagan say that he supports the amendment to the amendment proposed by his party because it totally changes the motion before us.
There is a problem there because, in principle, an amendment to an amendment should only change the amendment and not the entire motion. However let us not dwell on that. He said it changed everything. Well, I think he said something that calls for comment at this time.
The basic proposal before us, not everybody has been following the debate since this morning, is that the federal government should join with the provinces in establishing national standards. We brought forward an amendment, which was agreed upon with the Progressive Conservative Party, to ensure that provincial jurisdictions are respected.
So far, so good. All the parties who spoke seemed to support the idea of working together to establish national standards if provincial jurisdictions were to be respected. Then an amendment on the amendment was put forward, saying that any province that so desired could opt out.
A province that so desires, that could be a province that has not met the standards or it could be one that has met or exceeded federal standards could opt out. This means that members of the Bloc Quebecois are simply saying no to national standards because they want to allow any province that so desires to not to endorse such standards.
My question to the member for Manicouagan is this: Does he realize that the wording of his amendment to an amendment leaves the door wide open for a province that would not have met the federal standards to opt out?