Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I have presented this bill at least two or three times. On those occasions it was not votable and the Bloc Quebecois members rose to object to my bill.
I have trouble understanding why the hon. members of the Bloc would oppose the idea of being accountable to the communities they represent. The hon. members of the Bloc are members of the House of Commons and not of the National Assembly. They represent their communities. And together with the rest of us, they represent all of Canada.
Members elected to Quebec's National Assembly take an oath of their own. In addition to swearing allegiance to the Queen, they also say, “I swear that I will be loyal towards the people of Quebec and I will exercise my functions as a member of provincial Parliament with honesty and justice with respect to the Constitution of Quebec.
The members of the National Assembly recognize that they are accountable to their people. Thus, I imagine that the federal members of the Bloc Quebecois, who have always objected to my bill each time I have presented it, are surely accountable to their communities, their constituents, as are we all.
That being said, if such an oath is good for the provincial members in Quebec, then surely the bill I am presenting, which we are debating at second reading today, stating our accountability to Canada and the Canadians we represent, is based on the same principle. The Bloc members should acknowledge their accountability to the communities they represent. As I was saying, they are all members of one community, the House of Commons, where we all represent the entire community of Canada.
That is my reply to the hon. member's excellent question.