Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Vancouver Centre.
It is with pleasure that I stand in this place to discuss the future of our country, a country that is the envy of the rest of the world, a country that has welcomed wave after wave of immigrants to its shore, a country that other countries hold as a beacon to follow.
Our country is made up of four pillars. The first pillar is the aboriginal peoples. The second and third pillars are the two founding peoples, the French and the English. The fourth pillar is the immigrants who have come to our country to establish themselves and to start a better life. Wave after wave of immigrants have come to the shores of Canada either fleeing religious and/or political persecution or just wanting to start a better life.
The rest of the world watching this debate today is perplexed. The rest of the world is asking why are we even discussing this issue? However, before we go down this avenue, I want tell member what Canada means to me.
When I was just 11 years, old one day my father came home and said that we were emigrating to Canada. I thought my world was coming apart. Why did my father want to uproot us and take us to a country, which I did not even know how to pronounce its name? I did not have an idea on which continent it was. It was a few weeks later that I saw a movie at school about Canada and I fell in love with the country and could not wait to get here.
I will not say that the beginning was easy, however, our country grows on people. It grew on me. It became my country. I see this effect on many new immigrants who arrive on our shores. I see the same effect on every new Canadian who takes the oath of allegiance to Canada when he or she becomes a Canadian citizen. I see this effect on people when I travel to other parts of the world and tell them I am Canadian. I see smiles on the faces of people and I sense they envy me because I live in the best country in the world.
For years Canada has been the best place in the world to live. To this day it continues to be the best country in the world of which to be a citizen. Our country has had successive leaders who led us from one milestone to another: Lester B. Pearson and his peacekeeping initiatives. It was his dream for a better world, which made Canada a beacon for the rest of the world to imitate. Every country wants to send peacekeepers to troubled parts of the world to be beside Canadian peacekeepers.
However, today we are discussing the future of Canada. We are here to discuss the word nation and how it relates to Canadians. We are asked by this Conservative Prime Minister to acknowledge that there are a number of nations within a united Canada. We are asked to discuss the particular nation, the Québécois, within a united Canada. Tomorrow the Prime Minister will ask us to discuss other parts of the country as nations, yet again within a united Canada.
It is at the expense of political expediency that this Prime Minister is playing Russian roulette with the term nation. To him and others who want to get votes from the separatists, they play around with the word nation as if it were like being in a restaurant and dividing a pizza. The word nation is not like a $5 bill and we decide how to divide it. The word nation is not like discussing how to mix and match different ingredients when ordering takeout at McDonald's.
To many of us, the word nation has a great meaning. To many of us it means the country of Canada. The word nation means from coast to coast to coast and north of the 39th parallel. The word nation means from St. John's, Newfoundland to Victoria, B.C., to the North Pole. The word nation means Canada, one nation, and not a number of nations. The word nation is what men and women of our armed forces give their lives for.
This fall I had the opportunity to visit the Battlefields of Vimy Ridge. I read the words of Brigadier-General Alexander Ross, commander of the 28th Battalion of Vimy Ridge, who said:
It was Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific on parade. I thought then that in those few minutes I witnessed the birth of a nation.
I realized that the struggle for the freedoms we enjoy today began there. I thought of the young Canadians on that cold and wet Easter Monday fighting together for the first time. They forged the nation; they forged our nation. I later visited the cemeteries where rows upon rows of young men were buried fighting for our country, fighting for a nation.
Three years ago I visited Afghanistan and saw firsthand the work which our troops are doing fighting for freedom in Kandahar. Today, the remains of two of our soldiers will be sent home from Kandahar with Canadian flags draped over their coffins. Our nation owes them gratitude. A nation owes them gratitude, not a number of nations. The Canadian nation owes them gratitude.
Yet, we are putting all this aside and we are playing politics in order to win seats away from the separatists in the next election. I cannot help but remember how in 1987 yet another Conservative prime minister, Brian Mulroney, brought back from France his friend and got him elected after spending millions of dollars buying the byelection in Quebec. It was that individual, Mr. Bouchard, who started the Bloc Québécois.
It is another Conservative Prime Minister today who is also playing with fire and wants to appease the separatists and brings us to this discussion that we are having today.
In the last few days since we have started this debate, I have received thousands of letters, faxes, emails and phone calls from my riding and right across Canada. People are expressing their support for the position which I have taken. A constituent told me that Mr. Trudeau would probably be rolling in his grave after hearing what we are discussing right now.
Many people are upset with the way this is being handled. Many people are saying that this is yet another political milestone, how this minority Conservative government disrespects Canadians and their view of what makes Canada a nation.
Let us be perfectly honest with ourselves. This is not a discussion about the future of our country. It is simply a discussion of who gets the most votes away from the separatists in Quebec. Many Quebeckers themselves are not impressed with what we are doing here today. Many are asking, why are we tinkering with the best nation in the world?
I will not be supporting this motion put forth by this Conservative Prime Minister as he plays politics with my country. When the Prime Minister is ready to have a serious discussion about the nation of Canada, I will be there to listen and participate. However, today he is failing us. Canada is a nation first, Canada is a nation last and Canada is a nation always.