Mr. Speaker, this country has been a tremendous success. It is the project that was the vision of the bringing together of English and French, the vision of Sir John A. Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier and those who worked with them as Fathers of Confederation, who saw the possibilities and the potential of a united Canada that included those founding cultures.
There were some at the time who opposed it, including some from Quebec. In fact, a fellow named Sir Wilfrid Laurier was one of the fiercest opponents of Confederation, yet he too, over time, came to see the benefits and the opportunities that this country presented to his culture, to his home and to the Québécois.
We have seen what has happened since within a united Canada. We have had un épanouissement of the culture of Quebec, something that could never have happened had Quebec been alone in North America, when the Québécois culture might have been reduced to something little more than the Cajun culture in terms of the French Canadian tradition. It is the fact of the Canada of Quebec, a Quebec in Canada, and the Québécois being in Canada that has allowed the protection of that culture, the blossoming of it, as I have said, and the opportunities to build the greatest country.
Does the member opposite really believe that the cultural opportunities and the strengthening of Québécois culture that have occurred would have been possible had that people been subject to the ebbs and flows of North American culture and the strength of American culture? Or would they have been reduced to little more than what we see among the Cajuns today?