Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Joliette on his excellent speech. It gives me an opportunity to put in my two cents' worth about this motion introduced by the Bloc Québécois.
I will go back to the original motion, because we have proposed an amendment. The Conservative Party has even made it a separate motion. Everyone is ascribing all sorts of intentions to the Bloc Québécois, when it is actually being true to itself. It wants recognition that Quebeckers form a nation. This is not the first time that the Bloc Québécois has introduced a motion to that effect in this House.
That surprises me and will always surprise me. I have been here since 2000, so obviously I was not around for the saga of the Clarity Act. But today I can see the federalist parties' position on Quebec, and I can imagine what things must have been like when the clarity bill was introduced. The original motion made by the Bloc Québécois was crystal clear. Excuse the redundancy, but it could not have been any clearer:
That this House recognize that Quebeckers form a nation.
That was the Bloc Québécois motion. The Bloc Québécois did not sit down one morning and decide that because these were nice words, it was going to write this motion. On the contrary, every word is important. That is why we chose “that Quebeckers form a nation”; we did not choose “that Quebec forms a nation”. It is simple. Dictionaries define the word “nation”. The word “nation” can be used in reference to a state or territory. For example, the word “nation” in “Quebec is a nation” would be synonymous with “country”.
But the Bloc Québécois did not want to trick the House of Commons. It wanted to show its openness and to avoid involving anyone in a partisan fight by asking for recognition that Quebec is a nation. Instead, it proposes to recognize that Quebeckers form a nation. Simply put, according to the definition in the Larousse dictionary, the word “nation”, when applied to people, means:
Large community of people, typically living within the same territory and having, to a certain extent, a shared history, language, culture and economy.
For the benefit of some, I can use an English dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary:
A large body of people united by common descent, culture and language inhabiting a particular state or territory.
The Bloc Québécois made sure that the motion it tabled in the House was crystal clear precisely so there would be no political partisanship.
The Conservatives did not choose to table an amendment or to ask the mover of the motion for an amendment; they simply took the motion put forward by the Bloc Québécois and made it their own, adding the words “within a united Canada”, which made it a partisan motion. That is what the Conservative Party chose to do.
Of course, I cannot help but smile when federalist parties that supported the clarity bill tell us today that the Bloc Québécois is not clear and reject our motion to table one that is a lot more partisan than ours. I have seen it all. Other colleagues in this House have said that they have seen it all; today, I have seen in all.
I did not take part in the debate on the clarity bill. However, I am taking part today in this debate on the motion put forward by the Bloc Québécois, a party that has never hidden the fact that it wants this House to recognize Quebeckers as a nation. It is not the first but the third time that it has proposed such a motion. Whatever the circumstances, we are always consistent. We tabled a motion that was meant to be as clear as possible, but it was not clear enough for the Conservative Party that had to put a partisan slant to it.
Today we are trying to clarify our situation and to make the Conservatives, the Liberals and the New Democrats understand that we do not want to force them into an ideological or political war. We are defending a sovereignist option and, one day, Quebeckers will democratically settle the issue. Two referendums have been held so far, and rest assured that there will be a third one. Quebeckers will make that choice. It is not something that we wanted to impose on the Canadian Parliament.
I will reread the motion, because earlier, I heard the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development explaining that the aim was to have Quebec recognized as a nation and accordingly a country. No, I am sorry. Let us read the Bloc's motion carefully. I will reread it for my colleagues in this House, in order to demonstrate our good faith:
That this House recognize that Quebeckers form a nation.
In order to clarify our position, we have added “currently within Canada”. Yes, currently, Quebeckers are within Canada. We say this perhaps in all honesty. You think we have some ulterior motive behind what we are after, which is recognition.
Other parties have problems in this House. Other parties have political problems. All we want is to simply have the House recognize what the National Assembly of Quebec recognized and passed on October 30, 2003, when it stated that the people of Quebec form a nation.
The members of that assembly did not use the word “Quebec”. The National Assembly used the words “people of Quebec“. We used the words “Quebeckers“. It amounts to the same thing—the people.
Let us return to the dictionary definition. I find the position of the Conservatives and the other members of this House nonsensical. The Larousse dictionary provides that the word “nation”, when applied to people refers to a large community of people, typically living within the same territory and having, to a certain extent, a shared history, language, culture and economy.
You cannot claim Quebeckers do not form a large community of people. Seven million five hundred thousand people—a large community, in my opinion.
Although it is not the subject of the debate, I will nevertheless say that, if Quebec became a country, it would rank 95th of 230 countries in the world in terms of its population.
It cannot be said that Quebec is not a large community and that Quebeckers, as a nation, do not form a large community with 7.5 million inhabitants. The definition also provides “typically living within the same territory”. Well, indeed Quebeckers do live within the same territory. This is not the subject of today's debate either, and I do not wish to be partisan, but should Quebec become a country, it would be 18th among the 230 countries in the world in terms of its size.
You cannot accuse us of saying that we are not living within the same territory or that it is not a territory with a shared history. Some federalist members have even referred to the history of Quebec. Quebec has its linguistic history. I cite the definition from the Larousse dictionary again; it says “having a shared history, language”. You cannot deny that Quebec is French. It is the largest francophone territory in North America. Nothing more needs to be said about this linguistic fact. In terms of culture, you cannot deny Quebecers have their own cultural structure. Our artists are known throughout the world, whether we think of Cirque du Soleil, Céline Dion or others. The definition talks about having a shared economy, to a certain extent. If Quebec were to be a country, it would rank 20th in terms of gross domestic product, out of 230 countries.
The purpose and objective of the Bloc Québécois are not to engage in a partisan debate about Quebec sovereignty. The objective of the Bloc Québécois is for the House of Commons to settle the nation issue once and for all. That is why the question was so lucid and so clear. The first motion that was introduced by the Bloc, and because of which the Conservatives introduced a motion in an attempt to have a completely new debate, was worded as follows:
That this House recognize that Quebeckers form a nation.
It was that simple. We extended our hand to the federalists who found it so difficult to recognize Quebeckers as a nation. I can understand them. Recognizing Quebec as a nation, according to the dictionary definitions, is like recognizing Quebec as a country. I say: the Bloc Québécois motion has been studied and analyzed. We have used the correct terms.
It is the Conservative Party that decided—once again, the ones who voted for the referendum clarity act—to take that clear motion, to eliminate it completely and to introduce its own motion. The Conservatives wanted to say: “Look, they are wrong”.
I hope they will understand that it is up to Quebec to choose a question for its referendum, it is not up to the Conservatives to decide that. Once again, in this House, they are incapable of accepting the clear position in a very clear and very lucid motion by the Bloc Québécois, a motion talking about the Quebec nation, that Quebeckers form a nation.
I hope that my Conservative colleagues will make a little progress and understand that there was no malicious intent in the position taken by the Bloc Québécois, other than to get federalists in the rest of Canada to understand that Quebeckers form a nation.