Mr. Boudria:

And rightly so.

Mr. Boudria:

This is supposed to be relevant.

Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell);

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be taking part in the debate on this Bill.

In fact, I was reading about past debates on the subject in some old volumes of Hansard, and I cannot help wondering why another attempt is being made to bring this legislation before the House today. I must say that I wish it were a quarter to six or six o'clock or whenever we are going to vote on this Bill this evening, because it will be very interesting to see how our Quebec colleagues in the Progressive Conservative Party vote on this particular Bill.

I intend to be very brief to give these Hon. Members an opportunity to take part in the debate and show us how they intend to vote.

Mr. Speaker, the history of the Acadians in Canada is very important, although at times many Canadians have trouble remembering that particular history.

The Hon. Member who is sponsoring the Bill referred to the Acadians earlier, but I think his remarks need some elaboration. We should remember what happened in 1755, remember the deportation of the Acadians and their arrival in large numbers in Louisiana and related events.

Today, we should also remember the day when the Conservative Government of our country closed the consulate in

Louisiana, which I think was a slap in the face of the people of Louisiana, especially Acadians. Today, this Bill is once more before the House.

Mr. Speaker, I must say that as a Francophone outside Quebec, I am very reluctant to support this kind of legislation. That is why I fully intend to vote against the Bill, and I also wish to take advantage of this opportunity to urge my francophone colleagues here in the House of Commons to do the same, especially our colleagues from Quebec on the other side of the House. I would urge them, first, to rise in the House and let us know what they think of the proposed legislation and give us their views, and second, before the House adjourns this evening, to vote against the Bill.

We are told that the reason for presenting this Bill is that in 1621, the province was given the name "Nova Scotia". That may be so. In fact it must be so, because the Hon. Member said so. However, Mr. Speaker, in 1621 legal texts were probably all written in Latin. I therefore fail to understand why it is so important for us to remember this particular incident today. It is quite possible that at the time, a lot of other things were given Latin names as well, but today, these have been translated into other languages. Prince Edward Island is called "l'lle-du-Prince-Edouard" in French, and when I go to the Maritimes next year, I want to be able to go to Nouveau-Brunswick, if that is what I want to call that province, and to "la Nouvelle-Ecosse", if that is how I want to call that province. If the Hon. Member wants to go on calling his province Nova Scotia, he is welcome to do so. I think we should keep the province's French name, the way it has been translated for centuries. It is correct, and I think especially in the present context, it is a way of showing the Acadians of our country some small recognition, and we certainly owe them at least that.

Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):

Mr. Speaker, some Hon. Members on the government side seem to be both confused and divided. With the apparent support of the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Carleton (Mr. Turner), the Hon. Member for Gatineau (Mrs. Mailly) has decided that a bridge would be built between Masson (Quebec) and Cumberland (Ontario) and that a preliminary study would be started very shortly, with the approval of the Minister of State for Transport (Mr. Bouchard). On the other hand, the Hon. Member for Argenteuil-Papineau (Mrs. Bourgault) has made the following statement, as reported in the Le Droit daily:

If such a study ever takes place, it will certainly not be funded by Ottawa, for this bridge has never been listed among the government's priorities.

Are we witnessing a tempest in a teacup? Knowing the atmosphere of secrecy within which this government likes to operate, I suggest that one of its Hon. Members should at least have the decency to tell the other the time of day, unless this is a case of two Hon. Members fighting to get the upper hand. Is the government going to clear up the matter, or will he let fate decide on the taxpayers' backs whether or not we will get a bridge or a study? The Deputy Prime Minister may be the only one who knows the answer to this question, but alas, as you know, Mr. Speaker, he was struck by a strange disease on September 4 which has rendered him totally mute.

Mr. Speaker, this rightist government is acting awkwardly, and it is clear that one right hand does not know what another right hand is doing.

Mr. Boudria:

Mr. Speaker, I think it is obvious that what the Member wants to do is to bring this matter to the attention of the Minister rather than to mine, and possibly to the attention of the House. It does sound like a very legitimate concern. As to why officials of American equipment manufacturers are held up at the border, perhaps the Minister would be in a better position to reply to that than I. As to whether or not there should be tariffs on boots, cowboy boots in particular, I was unaware that there was not as page 41 of the new Bill talks about tariffs on boots, shoes, slippers and so forth. Apparently the Hon. Member is saying that such tariffs may apply to boots but not to cowboy boots, which is something of which I was certainly unaware and of which quite possibly the Minister is unaware as well.

1 do believe that if we are to protect the footwear industry in this country, then the whole industry should be protected, be it cowboy boots, tennis shoes or any other kind of footwear. I do believe that in temporarily protecting the industry with a gradual phasing out of those protections, we could revitalize the industry, enabling it to obtain much needed new equipment and technology in order to compete on a long-term basis with other countries. It is obvious that the industry needs a certain period of time in order to be able to compete with those so-called developing countries with which it is very difficult for us in Canada to compete, even with the very low wages which prevail in that industry at the present time.