Mr. Speaker, Quebec City may not have been founded by sovereignists, but it certainly was not founded by federalists either.
The Prime Minister and the Governor General would have us believe that the 400th anniversary of Quebec City celebrates the birth of Canada—we just heard that again from the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. In other words, the conquest, the Durham report, the patriots rebellion in 1837, never happened.
Instead of celebrating the encounter between British people and the French-speaking world, as the federal Web site claims, should the Prime Minister not be sticking to the truth? In 2008, we are celebrating the founding of Quebec City, the cradle of the Quebec nation. Period.