People are already laughing because they know the joke. The film is a joke. Nevertheless, I would like to quote the lines where he is trying to explain his identity to a traveller. This is what he says:
I am...a French North American, a Quebec-Canadian francophone, a French-Canadian-speaking French Quebecker... We are Canadian, American, North American francophones, Franco-Quebeckers... We are Franco-Canadians from Quebec, Quebec-Canadians.
The film is a joke. It is a very funny social satire. It is also a harsh criticism of Canadian federalism. It uses many types of humour: irony, puns, black humour and parody. It also uses jokes. This scene, in the context of this satire, is a joke. It made us Quebeckers laugh a lot. I can see that it is still making federalists in this House laugh.
I must say that this Pierre Falardeau film, which has become a cult classic as I said earlier, has made generations of us laugh. But there comes a time when we must stop laughing and turn our attention to serious matters.
Yesterday's Conservative government motion is a lot like that joke. “Quebec nation in a united Canada” is also a lot like that Yvon Deschamps joke that gets told and retold: “An independent Quebec in a strong and united Canada”.
This film pointed out that Quebeckers' conception of their nation has changed over the years. After the conquest, Quebeckers called themselves Canadians, in opposition to the people whom they called the English. Then they called themselves French Canadians in order to differentiate themselves from the English who had decided in the meantime to call themselves Canadians. All that time, as a minority within Canada, they continued to define themselves in relation to their origin. French Canadians were the descendants of the original French colonists. A person was born French Canadian but could hardly become one. It was at the time of the Quiet Revolution that all this changed.
Taking their destiny into their own hands and with the help of the Quebec state, Quebeckers gradually stopped defining themselves by their origin and started defining themselves by their sense of belonging to Quebec society. Quebeckers see themselves less and less as a minority within Canada and increasingly as a separate nation with its own territory called Quebec and a national government called the Government of Quebec.
While the francophone population is increasingly mixed as a result of the integration of immigrant children into its schools, the term “French Canadian” does not mean very much to young people any more.
Anyone who joins us on this beautiful adventure to build a French-speaking society in North America, making a strength of its differences, is as much a Quebecker as the descendants of the 17th-century French colonists. The hon. members for Papineau, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine and Saint-Lambert are Quebeckers, but they are not French Canadians.
There are still some Quebeckers who take an ethnic view of their nation. Marking Quebec’s fête nationale last June 22, the Conservative member for Louis-Hébert spoke in the House about:
— St. Jean Baptiste Day, a day to celebrate the cultural pride and rich heritage of francophones in every region of Canada.
This is not the view that the Bloc Québécois takes of the Quebec nation and its fête nationale, nor is it the view of most Quebeckers.
Recognition as a nation is more than symbolic. Some people think that recognizing a nation is a symbolic gesture of little consequence. That was the view expressed by the Minister of International Cooperation and Minister for La Francophonie and Official Languages, who dared to say last June 23 that “people are not interested really in that question”. When asked whether Quebec City is a national capital, she said that is what the signs along the highways say.
Contrary to what she believes, recognizing a nation is more than just a symbolic act. Nations have rights, and one right in particular, which is self-determination. In other words, the right to direct their own development.
Two former premiers of Quebec, René Lévesque—a sovereignist—and Robert Bourassa—a federalist—agreed on this issue.
On June 9, 1980, René Lévesque said:
Quebec society has all the characteristics of a distinct national community, [and] has an inalienable right to self-determination. It is the most fundamental right the people of Quebec possess.
As for Robert Bourassa, on June 22, 1990, in a speech given to the Quebec National Assembly following the failed Meech Lake agreement, he said:
English Canada must clearly understand that no matter what anyone says or does, Quebec is and always will be a distinct society that is free and able to control its own destiny and its own development.
And those were the words of a federalist.
A people's right to self-determination has been clearly defined and set out by the United Nations. Resolution 2625 (XXV) adopted by the General Assembly in 1970 defines it best:
... all peoples have the right freely to determine, without external interference, their political status and to pursue their economic, social and cultural development, ... the free association or integration with an independent State or the emergence into any other political status freely determined by a people constitute modes of implementing the right of self determination by that people.
The Bloc Québécois does not want this recognition to be mere lip service. It is asking Canada to deal with Quebec for what it is. Established after the failure of the Meech Lake accord, the Bloc Québécois has learned from Quebec's repeated setbacks. We are not working on the renewal of federalism. It is up to the federalists to prove that they recognize that Quebec forms a nation and that they intend to take steps that will make this acknowledgement meaningful.
At present, the possibility of Quebec's self-determination within Canada, unfortunately, is not yet on the table. Sovereignty is currently the only means of achieving self-determination.
There is no hope that federalism will provide a sound option for Quebec. Disagreement about Quebec's place existed in 1867 and continues to exist.
The latest Environics poll indicates that 66% of Quebeckers feel that the Constitution must be amended to recognize the Quebec nation, whereas 83% of Canadians are against it. It is hard to see how Quebec and Canada will resolve that difference.
That being said, the Quebec nation continues to exist even without being recognized by Canada. It continues to pay its taxes, it continues to have interests of its own that are sometimes different than those of Canada. The Bloc continues to defend the interests of the Quebec nation.
Because there is a Quebec nation, there is a Quebec culture and a Quebec film industry. I will quote the representatives of the Union des Artistes du Québec, who were answering questions about the Interim Report on the Canadian Feature Film Industry on September 15, 2005:
We feel that there is a Canadian film industry and a Quebec film industry, no matter the language in which the films are created. First, this reality must be acknowledged and then the specific characteristics of each must be taken into account in order to define them and to find appropriate solutions.
For the Bloc Québécois, there is not a francophone market and an anglophone market in Canada. There is a Quebec film industry and a Canadian film industry.
Throughout the work of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on the 2005 feature film policy, the Bloc Québécois tried to make the committee members aware of this idea, something that is obvious to anyone who knows anything about films in Canada and Quebec. The challenges these two markets face are so different that it is impossible to have a single feature film policy. The National Film Board of Canada noted in its own position paper:
—as of September 2004, Quebec films generated 21.1% of revenues in the French-language market, while Canadian films generated a mere 1.7% in the English-language market.
However, for reasons beyond our comprehension, the committee chose to ignore and to silence any reference to the Quebec film industry, which is defined as part of the French-language market.
Films such as Mambo Italiano, The Blue Butterfly or Bon cop, Bad Cop do not fall within the English-language market, but within the Quebec market. Recognizing Quebec films would require the federal government to recognize the specificity of the Quebec culture, which it refuses to do.
There has been a misunderstanding between Quebec and Canada since 1867. Since Quebeckers were forming a nation and their first allegiance was to Quebec, and thinking they would finally have the right to direct their own development themselves, they accepted the Constitution of 1867. Canada did not formally recognize that Quebec formed a nation.
I do not think I will have enough time to finish, but my colleagues will quite certainly pick up the arguments on the misunderstanding between Quebec and Canada that has lasted since 1867. If they ask me why, I will be pleased to respond.