Mr. Speaker, today, members will be called on to vote on my bill, which would require federally regulated companies to comply with Bill 101 in Quebec. The Liberals and Conservatives like to brag about recognizing the Quebec nation, but they refuse to give expression to that recognition by honouring that nation's only official language: French.
The leader of the Liberal Party can talk all he wants about being the first federalist in Ottawa to recognize the Quebec nation, but in actual fact he thinks like the Conservatives. He is ducking the issue and will be absent for the vote, and his fellow Liberals will vote against this bill. In 2006, the same Liberal leader said that recognizing Quebec as a nation within Canada did not mean making new concessions.
Quebeckers are not stupid. They know that there is no difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives and that these parties will never take real steps to recognize the Quebec nation.
The Bloc Québécois members, on the other hand, stand up to defend Quebec and the French language.