Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques to whom I owe this opportunity to debate Motion No.382 today. This is surely the last speech that will be given in this House during this session on the deportation of the Acadians, since everything points to the dissolution of Parliament very shortly.
That said, it is very likely that this will not be the last time we have an opportunity to debate this subject here, because I am determined to be re-elected and, who knows, to raise this matter again, in order to at last gain recognition by the British Crown of the wrongs done to the Acadian people.
It would, however, be a disservice to me to claim, as some have done without any hesitation, that this debate arises solely out of my stubbornness, and that this time it is a new effort on my part following on the royal proclamation of last December.
The parliamentary process being theoretically independent of the decisions of the governor in council, Motion No.382 could not be dropped from the Order Paper of the House of Commons merely because of the royal proclamation. If we now find ourselves having to debate Motion No.382, and then to vote on it, this is essentially the result of the carelessness of the authors of this proclamation who, in their desire to keep me out of the loop at all costs, foolishly neglected to think about what would become of this motion.
At this point, the fate of the motion, which was merely returned to the order of business, no longer depends merely on the wishes of the member who is behind it, but on that of the entire House. It could not, therefore, have been withdrawn from the Order Paper except with the unanimous consent of the House. That, incidentally, could still happen today. I am not therefore prepared to accept others maliciously trying to lay the blame at my feet for a situation which seems to really be bothering my Liberal colleagues, as we embark on this special year which marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of Acadia and also, and most particularly, as we are on the verge of an election call.
It is most unfortunate that today we are having to force a vote on Motion No.382, something I have tried my utmost to avoid.
I had wanted to discuss the issue with my Liberal Acadian colleagues, but no such luck. At the last minute, the Minister of Labour unexpectedly cancelled the meeting scheduled for this purpose. She was the one who kept saying during the debate on Motion No.241 that I should have taken the time to talk to her.
Yet all I wanted was either to have Motion No.382 simply withdrawn or to have the House of Commons fully back the government's fine initiative—following the informal steps announced by the former heritage minister—to have a formal invitation sent to Her Majesty asking her to come and read the text of the royal proclamation.
I was looking forward to the conclusion of this debate. Not only had the government decided to make the royal proclamation public, but the new Prime Minister, who had been in favour of my initiative last summer, said he wanted to establish a new climate of cooperation with Parliament, particularly with the opposition parties.
With the royal proclamation in the picture, I realized that Motion No.382, as initially worded, seemed somewhat outdated. I was prepared to change it. My hopes were cruelly dashed.
Those Liberal colleagues who have thus far spoken on the issue have shown a narrowly partisan, dogmatic and overly simplified attitude, not wanting to appear to be negotiating anything with a common separatist such as myself, at the risk of seeing Motion No.382 defeated. They trotted out the same tired old arguments, delivered the same extreme, fractious speeches that have nothing to do with the heart of the issue.
They seem to have put the interests of the Liberal Party of Canada ahead of the interests of the Acadian people. Obviously, these colleagues are having a hard time letting go of the culture of confrontation that the former prime minister seemed to encourage. Their uncompromising and even hostile attitude toward separatists, which underlies their fundamental position toward any step I might take on this issue, does not send a message of unity, but rather tends to reinforce the notion that sovereignists do not have, or no longer have, a place in Canada.
Some day, they will have to face the fact that almost half of all Quebeckers have at some time supported the idea that Quebec should become a sovereign state. Either they deal with half the people of Quebec or they continue to avoid millions of Quebeckers like the plague, maintaining in place a process that is getting us nowhere but is slowly but surely ruining Canada.
The position taken by some of our Conservative colleagues is no better. After showing great openness in massively supporting the amendment to Motion No.241, they are now raising issues that have nothing to do with the terms of Motion No.382, which is word for word identical to the proposed amendment.
Let us be very clear once and for all. The current motion is not asking today's generation to carry the responsibility for the wrongs done 250 years ago. In fact, responsibility is not even mentioned in the motion. The motion only asks the British Crown to officially acknowledge the wrongs done to the Acadian people in its name.
It is not asking for history to be rewritten or revisited. It is only asking to acknowledge the obvious.
I do hope my hon. colleagues will vote in favour of this motion.