Madam Speaker, first I want to tell my colleague from Elk Island that this is not about asking for an apology; it is simply about asking for acknowledgement. I agree with him that such a request should have been made to the Crown, but it was not possible thanks to our friends opposite. Let us hope that it will be possible some day.
I am not at all surprised by the speech by the member for Laval East, especially since it resembled previous speeches by certain colleagues. However, we were able to see the depth of the member's convictions, that same member who, my colleagues will recall, flirted with the Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance before joining the Liberal Party. That just shows the depth of her convictions, and I am not at all bothered by anything she may have said in this House.
That being said, I invite the member from the Canadian Alliance to read my speech tomorrow because history contradicts some of the arguments that he put forward regarding the fact that the Acadians were supposedly given a last chance to take the oath of allegiance. It was never intended that they be given the chance to take that oath. Their fate was sealed and they were to be deported.
Let us go back now to the issue of the Crowns' responsibility in this matter, because there have been attempts to minimize or trivialize it. The deportation order read by Winslow to the men gathered in the church in Grand-Pré clearly stated that he was acting on the orders of His Majesty. How could it have been otherwise since the Board of Trade and the Massachussetts government simply did not have the means to implement a plan of this magnitude.
As a matter of fact, in 1754, the British Parliament voted subsidies of about one million pound sterling to the American colonies. In May 1755, Monckton arrived in Nova Scotia with 2,000 men, while Admiral Boscawen and his fleet sailed into Halifax harbour in July of the same year. Everything was in place for the operation to start.
In spite of Prime Minister William Pitt's symbolic imprecations, London allowed the deportation to continue until the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763. Both Charles Lawrence and Robert Monckton were respectively promoted to the positions of Governor and Lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia in 1756, positions they held for several more years.
How can one seriously maintain that, for nearly eight years, London was unaware of what was happening in its American colonies, especially since this was a large-scale operation, which not limited to Nova Scotia but which also affected the people of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island—or Île Saint Jean, as it was called at the time—and Cape Breton Island—then Isle Royale—and the many colonies to which these destitute and downtrodden people were deported.
I know that I am running out of time. I will therefore conclude by saying that there is nothing wrong with recognizing the facts for what they are. Far from reopening old wounds, which would inflame relations between Canada's two language communities, this recognition would lay the foundations for true reconciliation between the two main language communities of this country.
I would like to express my appreciation in closing to a number of people who have supported me in this entire undertaking since 1999, and have helped me keep the debate going. These include my assistants, both past and present: Patrick Frigon, Mireille Beaudin, Luc Malo and Jean-François Bisaillon. Then there are Euclide Chiasson, Denis Laplante of the la Société nationale de l'Acadie. Then there are Jean-Guy Rioux, Robert Thibault of the SANB, Jean-Guy Nadeau, the MLAs on both sides of the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly, Bernard Richard in particular. I am grateful as well to the Mayor of Caraquet, Antoine Landry, University of Maine professor Roger Paradis, David Le Gallant, chairman of the Musée acadien de l'Île du Prince-Édouard, Maurice Basque and Kenneth Breau of the Centre d'études acadiennes, and Warren Perrin, the Louisiana lawyer who started the ball rolling. Then, of course, there is my colleague for Acadie—Bathurst, without whom I would never have been able to progress as far as I have.
I commend him for his courage in standing up to be counted and, unlike the members across the floor there, supporting a member who supposedly did not have the right to deal with this issue because he is supposedly a separatist.
Yes, I am a Quebecker, but if I am one today it is because of a historic event, a turning point, which had a great impact on my family history and as a result of I live in Quebec today. Otherwise I would likely be living in a little village by the name of Sainte-Anne's Point on the Saint John River, known today as Fredericton.
I wish to particularly thank Fidèle Théraiult, historian and president of the Société d'histoire de la rivière Saint-Jean.
In closing, I seek unanimous consent to have this motion made votable.