Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate today in the debate on the opposition motion put forward by the Bloc Québécois. It is an exciting subject for me. I will take this opportunity to say that I will be sharing my time with the member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges who is, in my opinion, an example and symbol of Quebec democracy.
The riding of Vaudreuil-Soulanges has almost always belonged to the Liberals, at least until 2004. With the sponsorship scandal, Quebeckers woke up. They saw things clearly and they decided to place their trust in the Bloc Québécois. They were sure of being well represented. The member defeated the Liberal minister, and in the next election, in 2006, she defeated a very high profile candidate, who is now the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie. In the last election, she defeated a senator. So for us, the member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges is a symbol that tells us that the Bloc Québécois has very secure roots and that there is a reason why Quebeckers have marked a little x on their ballot, democratically, for the Bloc Québécois candidate for six consecutive elections.
I have listened to the speeches by members of the House of Commons. They have to stop saying that the Bloc Québécois is not an acceptable party because it wants to divide Canada. Quebeckers have made a democratic choice. They are the ones who have the last word, and who decided to choose us. When they no longer choose us, it may be because they have already said yes to the country we want to have. But as long as we are here, we will speak for Quebeckers, we will represent them, and most importantly, we will stand up for any consensus that is reached in the National Assembly of Quebec.
I would note in passing that it is the supreme democratic governing body of the Quebec nation. There are bills and positions, whether they come from the government, the Liberals or the NDP, that do not have the support of the members from Quebec to respect these consensuses. A consensus of the National Assembly of Quebec means that all parties in the National Assembly, the Liberal Party, Québec solidaire, the Parti Québécois, federalists and sovereignists together, are united. They are united in telling the federal government that what it is preparing to adopt, that what the Liberals are preparing to do by supporting the Conservatives, is contrary to the consensus of the democratic governing body of Quebec.
We have to stop downplaying things and softening the edges. I was just listening to the speech by the member for Eglinton—Lawrence, who has a lot of experience. He has seen and heard many things. He has witnessed historic moments, but he has to stop saying everything is fine. Everything is not all that fine. I know some people would like the Bloc Québécois to die or disappear, but as long as Quebeckers want us and choose us, we will be here to represent them, strong, with all the principles we have, and most importantly with our passion for Quebec, our passion for standing up for the Quebec nation.
Last Saturday, the newspapers were talking about a conference I attended. It was a very well organized conference, with intellectuals, very educated people, who have put their minds to it and shared the fruit of their efforts, which is: we have tried everything. We tried the Meech Lake accord and the Charlottetown accord, two accords that wanted to share a little more power with Quebec and treat it like a nation. And they both failed.
I was particularly interesting to hear what two speakers had to say, one of them being Ms. Andrée Lajoie, whom some of you may know. She graduated in law and political science from the University of Montreal and Oxford. She explained to us that the Canadian Constitution is more the constitution of a unitary system instead of a federal or confederal one, and that it gave the federal government five different possibilities or ways to control the provinces.
I am a young member of Parliament, which does not necessarily mean I am young. I have not been a member of Parliament for a very long time, and I do not know by heart these five possibilities. Ms. Lajoie taught me there are five, and she urged us to make them known. That is what I would like to do during my remarks today.
The Canadian Constitution gives the federal government five legal ways to amend the Constitution unilaterally. The power of disallowance is certainly obsolete by now, and it has been seldom used, but it is still there. There is no guarantee it could never be used again.
There is also the declaratory power. Ms. Lajoie told us it has been used 472 times since 1867, twice since 2000, 118 times in Quebec only. I was anxious to know what this declaratory power is. It has been used for tramways in Montreal, Quebec City and Ottawa, local bus systems, hotels, restaurants and theatres. As a matter of fact, it can be used in a lot of situations we find in Quebec.
There is also the power to acquire public properties. Expropriation is an unfortunate example for many people in Mirabel. Their lands were expropriated to build an airport.
And then we have the spending power allowing the federal government to spend in a normative way in provincial jurisdictions.
The fifth possibility is based on interpretative theories, especially implicit jurisdiction, paramountcy, residual jurisdiction, national importance, and state of emergency.
The Supreme Court frequently makes use of these possibilities in its decisions. When we hear, read and peruse Ms. Lajoie’s speech, we realize we should better explain to Quebeckers the real meaning of the sharing of powers between the provinces and the federal government. The number of sovereignists would probably rocket up very quickly.
The goal of Bloc Quebecois members is to teach and convince. Our movement is young, and it may take time to build a country. Contrary to Mr. Bouchard, I think Quebec will become a country in my lifetime.
I also found another speaker to be quite interesting. Stéphane Paquin is a lecturer at the Institut d'études politiques in Paris and also teaches at the Université de Sherbrooke. He explained something very important to us; the fact that almost every international treaty will have local, regional or provincial consequences. There were reasons that the European Union, when negotiating a free trade agreement with Canada, insisted that the provinces be present at the negotiating table, and one was that it is interested in having access to government contracts. Because these government contracts are under provincial jurisdiction, the European Union wanted the provinces to sit in and participate in the negotiations. That is the trend with new treaties.
Canada is signing new treaties, but Quebec will feel the impact. Again, if we were masters in our own house, masters of our own country, Quebec would be at the table negotiating free trade agreements with other countries according to its values, culture and distinct character.
I would like to finish by saying that sovereignists are not people who are against Canada, rather, they are people who are for Quebec. Our fondest hope is to belong, to hold our country's reins, to be able to share and live side by side with the nation of Canada and have trade relations, as we would with other countries. I believe that if Quebec were to make that choice, Quebec-Canada relations would be much better and nationalist discussion would flourish within Quebec and would no longer be up for negotiation because Quebec as a nation would have chosen its country.