Madam Speaker, without a doubt, the presentation we have just heard paints a picture of Canada that is nothing more than an illusion. The Deputy Prime Minister is a master illusionist, skilled at relating facts in a very interesting, entirely believable way, while concealing certain realities that must be brought to light today. And we intend to do just that.
Let us not forget that as recently as yesterday, in her Canada, the Deputy Prime Minister questioned the right of the Leader of the Official Opposition in this House, and of a member whose father fought in Europe, to lay a wreath in honour of the Quebecers who died because they shared the same ideals as soldiers from other nations.
In the Deputy Prime Minister's Canada, francophones outside Quebec, in particular those living in Kingston, have to fight to get adequate French-language schools with running water and washrooms.
In 1994, in the Deputy Prime Minister's Canada, francophones outside Quebec must fight to obtain which has long been viewed as necessary in all civilized countries. In her Canada, each citizen inherits a debt of $18,000 when he or she comes into this world. This is reality, not an illusion.
In the Deputy Prime Minister's Canada, the job prospects of citizens are the bleakest of all industrialized countries. The rate of unemployment hovers anywhere between 12 per cent and 14 per cent, depending on the circumstances, and stands as high as 20 per cent in a region such as the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean to which she referred several times in her speech.
Yes, we intend to talk about the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, about young people who want to work in this country and about the Deputy Prime Minister's idealistic vision of Canada.
The Canada of which she spoke with such apparent sincerity a while ago is the Canada which patriated the Constitution in 1982 without the consent of the country's only predominantly francophone province. This is the country which imposed on an extremely important minority which accounts for nearly the entire population of a province, an unwanted Constitution hatched behind Quebec's back. This Canada is the end result of the odious work of numerous representatives of this govern-
ment over the years. Exactly what kind of work are we talking about?
Since you want to hear about it, let us set aside the traditional legitimate demands of the French-speaking majority in Quebec; let us set aside all these demands to take a closer look at the sorry, obscure role that the leading lights in this government played in our recent history. When did relations become most embittered in Canada?
Remember the reign of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Remember that period of very great centralization when the Prime Minister, obviously, decided that his conception of Canada, which was supported by his colleagues, was a country where power had to be centralized and the provinces were only secondary.
Do you want to know one of the major problems which explains our presence here in this House today debating a motion in which it is clear that the Deputy Prime Minister's great beautiful Canada is breaking up? One of the main reasons is the odious centralizing attitude that ignores the French fact which Prime Minister Trudeau had in a recent past.
Madam Speaker, I will remind you that in other circumstances it was possible to think that in this would-be ideal Canada there would be room for Quebec, a proper decent place for Quebec. But I tell you it always happened when the voters had gotten rid of a Liberal government. Whenever Canada was governed by the Liberal Party in our recent history, there has been no political peace. The people who are crying today, trying to tell us what a shame it is that the separatists are in this House-who were democratically elected, we must say-what a pity it is that these people offer a different political position from their own.
You must be blind not to see the frightful role played by successive Liberal governments in this Parliament which denied the very existence of the French fact in Quebec. These governments always strove for centralization, which is no longer acceptable in Quebec. Is that clear? Quebec no longer accepts the centralizing attitude that those people believe in.
You remember the Meech Lake Accord; everyone does. This was an extremely important political moment for Quebec. Yes, Quebecers gave Canada a last chance for a face-lift. Yes, Quebecers successfully negotiated minimum conditions with the other provinces, the other regions of Canada and the federal government. It cannot be denied that all Quebecers made a tremendous effort to accept the five conditions behind the Meech Lake Accord. Even the premiers, may I remind you, undertook to convince their respective provinces that these demands were acceptable.
What are these demands? Recognition of Quebec as a distinct society and of Quebec's National Assembly's role in promoting this distinctiveness. Was it surprising, outrageous, odious to ask that Quebec francophones, who form a people, be recognized as a distinct society? I think it is a basic requirement.
Recognition of the federal government's spending power but with the right to opt out and full compensation for the provinces because the central government's unfortunate tendency to invade areas of provincial jurisdiction had to be contained to prevent this society from expressing itself as it saw fit in the future.
Quebec's participation in the appointment of three civil-law judges to the Supreme Court; entrenchment of the Cullen-Couture Agreement in the Constitution, that is, Quebec's power to control its immigration and to protect the very nature of the Quebec people; the provinces' unanimous agreement to reform some federal institutions. Everyone in Quebec as well as many people in English Canada thought these demands were quite acceptable. They were very minimal but they at least made a dialogue possible.
Do you know what made the premiers go back on their word? Let us look at those mainly responsible for the failure of the last great historic opportunity to achieve this wonderful Canada described by the Deputy Prime Minister.
Do you remember someone called Clyde Wells? He does not belong to the Bloc, the Parti Quebecois or the Reform Party. Clyde Wells is a Liberal, Madam Speaker, just like the Liberals opposite.
Do you know Mr. McKenna? McKenna is neither a Bloquiste nor a Reformer but a Liberal.
Do you remember Sharon Carstairs? She was not a member of the government but what role did she play in making the Meech Lake Accord impossible to accept? Ms. Carstairs was not a Tory, a Bloquiste, a Pequiste or a Reformer; she was another Liberal.
Finally, Madam Speaker, we all remember the extraordinary role played by the hon. member for Churchill, also a Liberal, who resorted to technicalities to ensure that the Meech Lake Accord would not be accepted in his province.
Those are the people who played a major role in the failure of the Meech Lake Accord. Those are Liberals who, on the evening of the Meech failure, the evening of the Liberal convention, hugged the current leader of the party and Prime Minister. Those are the ones to blame. Those people, who prevented the ratification of the five conditions deemed acceptable by all the parties involved for Canada to continue to be a viable option, are the
true responsibles for that failure and the situation in which we find ourselves today.
Yet, these same people come here and try to teach a lesson to Reform Party members, to Bloc Quebecois members, and to everyone else, with their vision of Canada. These people are fooling Canadians. I want to be clear. You are fooling Canadians. Stop burying your head in the sand. Face reality as it exists in Canada.
Surely, not everybody on the other side is disconnected from reality. There must be people who are sensitive to the needs of Francophones. There must be people who are still able to understand that democracy has rendered its verdict in Quebec and that the Bloc Quebecois is here for a very specific reason.
We campaigned by promoting sovereignty for Quebec, and I have something to say to the Liberals opposite. Whether you like it or not, we will promote Quebec sovereignty in every possible way. We will use every argument to explain, not only to Quebecers, but also to other nations, to people abroad, and to others in Canada, how this eminently democratic project will be based on a serious, responsible, democratic and proper process which will be respectful of people and realities.
This process will be similar to our interventions here in this House. It will reflect the spirit of co-operation which we have always displayed to ensure that this Parliament operates the way it should.
I will conclude by saying that we have no lessons in democracy to receive from the other side. If there is a place in Canada where a minority is treated with respect and is an integral part of the community, it is the English-speaking minority in Quebec.
Which other region of the country provides its minority with a complete network of school boards, schools, hospitals, health care facilities? These institutions are not only at the service of the minority: They are also controlled by anglophones in Quebec.
Yes, we respect Quebec's anglophones. Yes, we intend to keep building bridges with a community that is an integral part of Quebec as it is today.
I suggest members opposite to do the same in their part of the country. We do not need any advice on how to be democratic and respect the rights of others. We are doing a very good job, thank you very much, as far as democracy is concerned, and we intend to finish what we have set out to do. I admit there were other alternatives in the past, but we intend to go ahead with our plan because across the way are the real perpetrators of the constitutional mess Canada has been in since the eighties.
Two Liberal Prime Ministers in succession have created a situation that has become intolerable in this country. They are the real culprits, and they keep denying it. They even got themselves an ineffable Prime Minister who, with 54 sovereigntist members elected to Parliament, went around saying: "There will be no debate on the Constitution during my mandate. There are no constitutional problems in Canada". That takes some doing, Madam Speaker.
As long as we have people on that side of the House who will not face the facts. As long as, day after day, we see ever-increasing attempts at centralization, as has been the case since we were elected to this House a few months ago. As long as we see these shocking attempts at patriating powers to the central government. As long as we see federal-provincial conferences being postponed because not only Quebec but most provincial governments can no longer tolerate federal intrusions into their jurisdictions. As long as we have a political situation in which people in Ottawa do not make the effort to understand the different realities of Canada's regions, not just the circumstances in Quebec but those in the other regions as well. As long as we are governed by people who show so little interest in what happens in Canada's regions, we will continue to see centralist offensives and provinces, premiers and citizens who protest, and they will have to deal with these problems in their own Canada, because Quebec, I am positive, will have decided, in a democratic way, to make its own choices.
