The Minister Of Intergovernmental Affairs  Mr. Speaker, I have never blamed the Prime Minister for the referendum victory by the No. I have simply said that the promises made came too late to have a positive impact on the vote. That is why prompt action is necessary. That is why it is important to clarify things rapidly, and not to let the separatist camp exploit the confusion, and we are going to clarify a number of things.

Quebec  Mr. Speaker, I spent much of my professional life at university, fighting the claim of many of my Quebec colleagues who said "we in Quebec think this, we in Quebec think that". I know Quebec is a pluralistic society. And I am sure that British Columbia is a pluralist society. The hon. member does not have the right to say "we in British Columbia think this or that".

Quebec  Mr. Speaker, what strikes me is the absence of any argument to support the idea that the distinct society clause or whatever you may call it is against Canada. I think it is a great thing to do for Canadians to recognize that in an anglophone North America there is a strong francophone society and we are proud of it.

The Referendum Question  Mr. Speaker, there are polls, there are statements made by the moral authorities of this country, by various public figures. Obviously in Canada there is a convention that a population is not to be forced to remain against its will. The Minister of Justice has explained this in his speech.

The Referendum Question  Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for providing me with the opportunity to repeat my statement. Perhaps then she will understand that we in this country have accepted the idea that the country could break apart, if a population were to indicate very clearly that it no longer wished to remain in the federation.

The Referendum Question  Mr. Speaker, first of all, since I entered politics, I have never had to back down from anything I wrote as a university professor and I am prepared to take up the gauntlet. Second, the official opposition would do well to study foreign cases and international law. It will see that in many democracies, the very concept of secession has been excluded from public debate.

The Referendum Question  Mr. Speaker, I repeat, the Leader of the Official Opposition in Quebec urges the Quebec government to come and argue its case before the Supreme Court. He does so, using the same arguments that the Minister of Justice of Canada used to invite his counterpart, Mr. Bégin, to argue his case before the Supreme Court.

The Referendum Question  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Johnson is entirely correct in saying that the National Assembly is free to ask any questions it wants. But when such a question involves negotiations on an issue as serious as secession, the question must be such as to elicit a clear response from the people. What is needed is a clear question.

First Ministers' Conference  Mr. Speaker, the GST issue will be discussed very soon at a finance ministers' conference.

First Ministers' Conference  Mr. Speaker, one of the comments made was that the agenda was quite heavy and that there might not be enough time to deal with everything on it. This is a very good point, but I think that, if we keep a tight schedule, we should be able to go through the whole agenda. The opposition would like to add yet another item.

First Ministers' Conference  Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the meeting is to enable the two orders of government to work together, even better than they do now, to provide Canadians with better services at a lower cost. And we will succeed. In some areas, it is important to better clarify the respective roles played by the two levels of government, as in the case of mining and forestry.

First Ministers' Conference  Mr. Speaker, the provinces' financial weight compared to that of the federal government has not stopped growing since the 1960s. Does the book Option Québec by René Lévesque mean something to the official opposition? This book refers to a conference given by Jacques Parizeau in the late sixties, in which Mr.

First Ministers' Conference  Mr. Speaker, we already answered, in relation to job training, that there must be an effective partnership between the federal government and the provinces in an area that concerns both the provinces, through job training, and the federal government, through unemployment insurance and the economic union.

Federal-Provincial Relations  Mr. Speaker, in all other federations, federal spending power is exercised without limitation. The division of powers is, substantially, legislative. Where spending power is concerned, in the U.S., the federal government spends money in the various sectors. Here in Canada we shall go further than all other federations.

Federal-Provincial Relations  Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada respects the Constitution of Canada and the official opposition wants to tear up the Constitution of Canada. That is the truth of it.