Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be a Canadian, and I am proud to be a Quebecker. No, let me rephrase that. I am passionately proud to be a Canadian and passionately proud to be a Quebecker.
I would like to give a brief account of my personal history, not because it is an extraordinary history, but because, on the contrary, it reflects the history of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of Quebeckers.
On my maternal grandfather's side, I have Acadian roots, even though my grandfather, Louis Doucet, was born in Quebec and grew up there, including in Montreal. His roots went back to the area of the Maritimes known as Acadia.
My paternal grandfather came to Canada from Italy in the 1920s, via Ellis Island in New York. He became a barber and had a shop in the bus terminal on Craig Street, a building that no longer exists, where Montreal's convention centre now stands and where, in two weeks' time, my party and I will elect the next leader of the Liberal Party and the next Prime Minister of Canada.
My children speak both official languages. My two daughters are fluently bilingual and enjoy the fruits of English and French culture equally. My spouse is not from Quebec and is not French-speaking by birth. She comes from the west. She lived in Calgary, Alberta, for most of her life. But she is fully bilingual because, when she was five, her parents, who did not speak a word of French but were inspired by Trudeau's vision of Canada, decided to enrol her in a French immersion school. She now lives in Montreal. She is proud to be a Canadian, and she considers herself a Quebecker.
I would like to tell another anecdote, because it brings me to the central point of my speech. Because I have family in Alberta, I sometimes fly from Montreal to Calgary. One summer, on a plane, I sat next to a young, extremely dynamic francophone Quebecker, who had made a life for himself in Calgary. He was a general contractor who was caught up in the economic boom that has been going on in Calgary for the past few years.
I will support the government's motion on the nation of Quebec, but I cannot support the Bloc Québécois motion.
I can support one motion on the Quebec nation but not the other, and I will give my reasons.
Many people underscore the fact that the Quebec National Assembly has unanimously endorsed the idea of a Quebec nation. I would add that this is perfectly normal. The Quebec National Assembly is responsible for life within the boundaries of the province of Quebec. It is not responsible, in any direct way, for French-speaking minorities outside of Quebec.
The motion that the Bloc has presented is a territorial motion. It speaks of a Quebec nation as defined by the boundaries of the province of Quebec, and I cannot support a motion that takes a territorial view of the Quebec nation.
I do not believe it is the business of the federal government to define culture and society in a given province. It is ironic because whenever the federal government gets involved in grey areas of possibly provincial jurisdiction, many of the provincial premiers and provincial governments, rightly, and, of course, our colleagues in the Bloc Québécois, protest. However, when it comes to having the federal government bestow a definition on a culture or a society within provincial boundaries, it does not seem to bother anyone.
I am supporting the government motion because it speaks about recognizing the Québécois as a nation, not the territory of Quebec, and that is very important. Because, like the young Québécois man with whom I shared a plane ride to Calgary, he was not living in Quebec. Many Canadians of French-speaking origin who live outside of Quebec believe themselves to be and think of themselves as being Québécois because they trace their ancestry to those French-speaking people who came and settled in New France which became Quebec. The French-speaking people in eastern Ontario or in New Brunswick can identify themselves as Québécois, descendants of Quebec, of New France.
The other reason that I prefer the Quebec nation definition in the government's motion is that it allows for self-identification. It does not say that because people live in Quebec they must consider themselves Québécois. Some people are proud Quebeckers and some of them in my riding and in other ridings love Quebec. But they prefer not to identify themselves as Québécois as strongly as maybe others. The element of self-identification is very important.
If all parties agree to support this motion today to designate Quebec as a nation in a motion of Parliament, not in a law and not in a constitutional amendment, if we feel comfortable with that idea, it would be in no small measure because of successive measures and laws by successive Liberal governments that have built the modern Canada that we know, that have created the framework in which we can recognize, legally and constitutionally, the rights of a French-speaking society from coast to coast to coast. Whether we speak of the Official Languages Act or of the minority language education guarantees in the Charter of Rights, we have created, through successive Liberal governments and through the vision of Pierre Trudeau, a society, a country that includes a French-speaking society from coast to coast to coast of which many of those French-speaking Canadians can identify themselves as Québécois.
I know my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois and their Parti Québécois cousins in Quebec will try to use this as a pretext to continue with their independence agenda. If they do take that road, we must remind Canadians of the strength of this country, of our belief in the equality of Canadians and in the fundamental equality of provinces, and that through working with all the provinces and nations within this country we can create something very unique in the world, a society where people come together in solidarity to protect fundamental social values that we all share, values of social justice, values that have led to policies such as medicare and values that have made this country great.
I will be supporting the government's motion because it is not a territorial motion. I obviously will not be supporting the Bloc's motion, which, as I said, is a pretext for carrying on the fight for an independent Quebec.