Madam Speaker, I have to respond because I find that the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party is raising some quite interesting points. Unfortunately, I would really like there to be further discussion of Quebec's jurisdictions as opposed to Canada's.
I agree with him in the sense that we, members of the Bloc Quebecois, are very wary when it comes to federal intrusions in Quebec's jurisdictions. We just had blatant evidence of that this morning, with the tabling of the Romanow report.
However, the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party must understand the interests of the Bloc Quebecois, which, ultimately, are merely the interests of Quebec. That is often the problem. When we can join forces with other parties to confront the government, I say so much the better. However, it may happen that members of the Bloc Quebecois go it alone when it comes to certain issues, because we believe that we must conduct ourselves as though we represent a country, such as Quebec.
If Quebec were sovereign, perhaps it would want to seek shared jurisdictions, support and allies with the other provinces. But we are not sovereign. So, Quebec's representatives might say “This serves the interests of Quebec, so we will vote for it”. It may also happen—in fact, this is regularly the case—that it does not serve Quebec's interests. Then we do not necessarily seek associations. We have a job to do with regards to Quebec's jurisdiction, and this concerns Quebec's jurisdiction and defence.
This may lead to divisions among the different parties, but the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party must understand the context in which we are working here, which is to defend specifically the interests of Quebec with, if possible, some allies. If there are no allies, we will still defend the interests of Quebec.
This may lead to various problems. However, I would really like him to understand that we are still friends. But we have a job to do as Quebec's sovereignist members. We try to do that job as well as we can, with the support that we can find. When we do not have any, we are able to weather the storm alone, always with the goal of defending Quebec's interests.