Mr. Speaker, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. The people who oppose Quebec sovereignty are people who would like to see Quebec in a position they would never accept for themselves. For example, I do not believe that English Canada would agree to join the United States as a group of states. English Canada wants to keep on running Canada in accordance with its own concerns, its own values, its own interests. We have the same concern in Quebec.
I was Quebec's delegate general in Tokyo at the time of the Quebec referendum. When the Japanese asked me why Quebec should be a sovereign country, I asked them whether it made sense for Quebec, which is a nation in itself, to be relegated to the status of a province of another country. I asked them whether, as Japanese citizens, they would agree to have Japan be a province of China. Now, one could say that China has many faults. But even if China were perfect, a highly democratic and prosperous nation, would they want Japan to be a province of China? Embarrassed, they would smile and acknowledge that there is nothing unusual about Quebec's aspirations. We do not want to be a province of another country; we want to be our own country.