Mr. Speaker, I will share my time with the member for Manicouagan.
When voters give us a mandate to represent them and speak loudly and clearly on their behalf in the House of Commons, the seat of democracy, it is an honour and a great privilege. I was a member of the National Assembly. I have been teaching democracy for 30 years, and I believe it is important that all members have the opportunity to express themselves in this place, the very heart of our democracy, the legislative branch of government.
I would like to thank the people of Montcalm and assure them that they can count on me to speak on their behalf. I vow to represent them diligently and with determination. I will do everything I can to deserve their trust next time around as well.
I would also like to thank all the volunteers. We often forget that politics is not just one person's story. I would like to thank the entire team of people who believed in me 28 days before the election and who supported me so that we could have a strong presence and win a seat in the House. I would also like to thank my daughter, Laurilou, and my spouse, Josée, who has supported my political involvement for 25 years. At the end of the day, the only things a politician really has are his family and his integrity.
In Montcalm, there are 13 municipalities and three RCMs. It is a magnificent riding criss-crossed by several rivers and dotted with farms. Montcalm's main industry is agriculture. I will come back to that later.
The people of Montcalm sent a separatist MP to Ottawa. There is an old adage in democracy that says that if you pay taxes, you are entitled to be represented. Quebeckers pay taxes and they are entitled to be represented. I am a separatist MP, but I am a democrat. I would even say that since the Quiet Revolution, the separatist movement has demonstrated on a number of occasions that it is fundamentally democratic. I would say that the separatist movement is deeply rooted in democracy.
Look at the unilateral patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982. At the time, in response to an appeal by the Lévesque government, the Supreme Court declared that although this unilateral patriation was legal, it was illegitimate. We know full well that in a democracy, legitimacy is the foundation of legality. I would remind the House that still today, and since 1982, no premier of Quebec, whether federalist or sovereignist, has signed this Constitution. Nevertheless, Quebeckers continue to respect the courts, pay their taxes, respect democracy, and even send their representatives to the House of Commons.
Look at the 1995 referendum, where Quebec legislation was flouted when the no side exceeded the spending limit. Quebec's referendum legislation was completely disregarded. Many say that referendum was stolen because at the time there was no requirement to identify oneself and present photo ID to vote and there was a lot of duplication on the voter list.
This system was in fact updated in 1998. In 1999, Quebec began requiring voters to identify themselves using a voter card to be able to vote. Since 1995, however, Quebeckers have respected the results, despite the very narrow margin between the yes side and the no side, which was just 1% or 33,000 votes.
That was the case because the democratic ideal is at the very core of the concept of the sovereignty of the people. The democratic ideal is the very foundation of liberal philosophy, the very reason, in fact, that we, the members from all the parties, are here. Every nation state has the right to secure its own future and break free when another state is repressing it.
That is why the people of Montcalm elected a member who will represent them on issues such as gender equality, supply management and the TransCanada pipeline, which is not welcome in Quebec. They elected a separatist member who believes in democracy.
I am emphasizing democracy because in the throne speech, the Prime Minister of Canada said that he really wants to reform our parliamentary democracy. He said, “all members [of Parliament] will be honoured, respected and heard, wherever they sit.”
I would therefore humbly submit to all my colleagues that the 10 Bloc Québécois MPs, who were elected under the same banner and without a shadow of a doubt form a parliamentary group—that is a statement of fact and not a value judgment—do not have the same rights as all parliamentarians who sit in the House. We do not have the same means of ensuring that our voters are heard in the House.
The Prime Minister also said that he wanted to reform the electoral system. In a democratic society, the first thing to do so that the debate is not held by the experts or the politicians, but rather by the people, is to make a commitment to hold a referendum because it is the people who must ultimately have their say on changing these democratic rules. That was my experience when I was the official opposition critic on the reform of democratic institutions in Quebec and an attempt was made to change the voting system in Quebec.
It is my experience that a model that is put forward is often biased and quite often gives the advantage to the party that wants to implement it. How can the Liberal majority believe that unilaterally imposing a model respects the tenets of democracy?
Democracy is based on principles such as gender equality and the separation of church and state. That is why we said during the election campaign that people must vote, take an oath and provide services with their faces uncovered. Those are important symbolic moments when we show our commitment to our democracy.