Mr. Speaker, I apologize to my colleague who could not finish his speech. I would have liked to have heard the end of it. He was eloquent, but it seems that it is my turn now.
I want to congratulate you on your being appointed Deputy Speaker of the House. I will respect your authority. I had the opportunity to act as deputy speaker of the National Assembly on a temporary basis and I know it is not always easy to ensure that the rules are adhered to.
I am very happy to be once again the member for Champlain, which is one of the greatest ridings in Quebec and even Canada.
The riding of Champlain covers 30,000 square kilometres. It is as big as some countries in Europe. The riding of Champlain is extremely varied. It goes from the river all the way up north. Its population is scattered across a territory which includes communities such as Champlain and La Tuque.
I take this opportunity to thank all my constituents for the trust they showed in me by re-electing me. I was an MPP from 1976 to 1984 with the team of René Lévesque.
There are also Indians in my riding, including the Attikamek, north of La Tuque. I take this opportunity to particularly thank them.
As everybody may know, I was elected in Champlain with a majority of 15 votes. I am the only member whose majority has doubled within a week since, after the recount, it went from 7 to 15 votes. It is not much, but I got all the Bloc votes.
It is wrong to say that the Bloc has lost some of its popularity, because in my riding the Bloc vote went from 43% to 46%. If a Conservative candidate had run in Champlain, as was the case during the last election, I would have had the same majority as my predecessor.
A 15 vote majority shows that we are not independent here. As members, we must devote ourselves to the people. Every time someone tells me “Marcel, I voted for you”, I thank him and say “Thank you, it is thanks to you that I was elected”. I had to wait 10 days, and I was increasingly aware of how important one vote is.
One may wonder why people did not get more involved than they did during the last election. The answer is that the election was not necessary. Every journalist said so. This election was meant to allow the Prime Minister, not so much to set a record, but to get what he wanted. If people had felt this election was necessary, they would have gone out and voted.
What brought me back into politics is, to a certain degree, the arrogance of the Liberal Party, the arrogance of the government. I believe it has given ample proof, in the past, that it ignores Quebec, among others. And it still does. The throne speech is another example of how it ignores us. It continues to intrude into areas of provincial jurisdiction, as is the case in Quebec.
During the last parliament, this government introduced contemptuous and offensive bills. I am thinking of Bill C-20 for example. I am also thinking of another bill that is coming back, the one to amend the Young Offenders Act. They government is always trying to interfere in areas that come under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the other provinces, and by doing so, in my opinion, it shows contempt for the people of Quebec.
I came back to politics when I was invited to do so, because I wanted to add my voice to the voice of all the Bloc Quebecois members who defend Quebec's interests. I want to tell this government that one day it will have to stop laughing at the people of Quebec. I believe in Quebec's sovereignty. At 64 years of age, I plan to use all the energy I have left to ensure that we achieve sovereignty as fast as we can.
There is a people in Quebec, even if the Liberal government across the way does not acknowledge it. We are a people. We have the right to emancipation. We have a right over our territory. The very existence of this people is being denied. This is what brought me back to politics, and I intend to say so as often as I can.
As far as I am concerned, Quebec sovereignty in not against anybody, it is for Quebec and for the people of Quebec. Our development does not mean we have to take anything away from others. We want everything we deserve as founding people, as a people who had to fight to survive in the Americas, which includes 400 millions anglophones and allophones.
European artists who come here are constantly congratulating us for the energy we have shown in surviving as francophones in North America. Maybe the natural wealth of Quebec is its distinct people, which is like no other, a people which has the right to live and the right to possess its own territory.
This people is the francophones, the Quebecers, not only the francophones but the whole people of Quebec, all of its 7 million inhabitants, who have the right to have their own territory.
As a Quebecer, I have had enough of seeing my government having to beg for what it is owed. I find it insulting that to get the money we are entitled to, money paid with our own taxes, we have to kowtow. It is insulting to be forced to resort to see overlap in Quebec.
Let us take, for example, the millennium scholarships. This is our money. Education is Quebec's jurisdiction and a jurisdiction of other provinces as well. This money belongs to us. The government has spent millions of dollars to intrude into Quebec's jurisdiction. Worse, Quebec has been placed under trusteeship. A certain Jean Monty, for whom we have not voted and who has never been elected, has been appointed to administer the millennium scholarships.
