Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a very friendly suggestion to my colleagues that they read a book that taught me a lot on the topic of this debate, since there seems to be some misunderstanding about it.
The book is entitled The Charter of Rights and the Legalization of Politics in Canada. My colleagues can take notes. It was not written by a Bloc member, a sovereignist or a separatist, as the member for Winnipeg North would say. It was written by Michael Mandel, a professor of constitutional law at York University in Toronto. If my colleagues want to be proactive, reading this book will help them understand the debate we may have to have about Bill 96. That legislation may be reviewed by the Supreme Court.
I want to begin by saying that I am a sovereignist and separatist. I am a democrat because I am a sovereignist and separatist. The democratic ideal is rooted in the sovereignty of the people.
The Canadian government used our money to fund groups to challenge Bill 21 all the way to the Supreme Court. It had to be said. All day long, the Liberals have refused to take a position on the substance, except for the member for Bourassa, who had the courage to say he was against Bill 21. Everyone is hiding behind the technical detail of the notwithstanding clause as though it were being abused. Iwill come back to that.
However, I would point out that, in law, legitimacy is the basis of legality, not the other way around. There have been many laws throughout the history of humanity that were passed but were not legitimate. For instance, I am thinking about segregation laws. To understand today's debate, we need to look at the sociology of law. When I hear Liberals talking about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution, I get the impression that it is locked up tight with five padlocks, that it must not change and that it is the most accurate representation of the reality in Canada and Quebec.
We are talking about the sociology of law in the sense that laws are not immutable. They change with the times in so-called free and democratic societies, obviously. Otherwise, it becomes a democracy of judges or a dictatorship in other cases. Before I address the federal government's claim that the notwithstanding clause has been misused, I will provide a historical overview to understand the context in which Bill 21 came to be.
When a human community established within a given territory has its own language, history, culture and heritage, when it is aware of its specificity, when it is driven by a desire to endure in history, and when it is organized around a common goal, then a nation exists. The people of Quebec form a nation. The fact that the House symbolically recognized Quebec as a nation has no legal impact. The Liberals paid lip service to it the second time. The government does not want this recognition enshrined in the Canadian Constitution. If it were, we would not be talking about what we are talking about today. Indeed, the Constitution would guarantee specific provisions to allow Quebec to have historical continuity. That is fundamental.
Quebec is not just a distinct society. We asked the question twice, there was a debate twice, and the rest of Canada said that we were not even a distinct society.
I want to remind my colleagues of something that has often been said: No Quebec premier, whether federalist or sovereignist, has ever ratified the Canadian Constitution. I just wanted to remind the 44 Liberal members who are lecturing us about the fact that they have a majority in the House. No—