Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Timmins—James Bay talked a lot about nation-building and now we are facing nation division.
He also mentioned two founding nations. As he well knows, the first nations were also involved with those two founding nations.
Unlike the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, who cited George Brown, I would like to mention George-Étienne Cartier, who was the hon. minister of defence in Macdonald's government. Cartier's position is debatable among historians but, according to historian, Claude Bélanger, in accepting the compromise of 1867, several guarantees were sought and obtained by the provinces that feared they would be overpowered by other provinces. Quebec received a fixed number of seats and would serve as the basis of calculations for seats in other provinces so that as the country grew the historical weight would be maintained.
Could my hon. colleague speak to that again for the House?