Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the member for Outremont of a few historical facts.
First of all, the Bloc québécois, as a political entity, did not oppose the Meech Lake accord because the Bloc québécois did not exist when the accord died. I suggest the member take another look at his history books. All the more because the NDP played a major role in the failure of the Meech Lake accord. The NDP is his party. I will remind the House that at the time, Ms. McLaughlin chose to oppose the Meech Lake accord. That created a rift within the NDP, causing Ed Broadbent to literally leave the party. All this was on top of the fact that the Premier of Manitoba, who was a New Democrat, opposed the Meech Lake accord, in particular the parts dealing with the principle of spending powers.
The Bloc did not create the constitutional crisis; in fact, it is actually a victim of the crisis. It was all down to the NDP at the time. The NDP reached record lows in terms of committed voters a few years later, in 1993.
There are no lessons to be learned from the NDP, because although the party may claim today that federalism is a system which can evolve, it was first in line to shoot it down.