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That the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada... they've been telling us this is just words, that it's just symbolism, and that it's merely a motion. Well, words are what we live by. They are the foundational marble of our intellectual, moral and civic existence. Some of them – home, country, nation – constitute the deepest meaning in our lives.

As for symbols, well, the flag is a symbol. Symbols are extremely powerful. They are concentrated meaning, the emblems of our deepest common passions. And as for it being merely a motion, the Parliament of the nation of Canada is the ultimate deliberative and legislative body of the nation of Canada, a motion passed with all-party approval in that Parliament specifying one group of citizens, the Québécois, as a nation, well, that's the highest imprimatur any words about Canada can have.

So trying to brush off as just words the idea of the House of Commons recognizing the Québécois as a nation within Canada is absurd.

The Commons hasn't done anything as significant in years. This is of the ultimate importance. It is changing the grounds on which we, all of us, understand our idea of Canadian citizenship, and the idea of the one nation to which we, all of us, give our fealty.

How important?

Today a minister, Michael Chong resigned. By the way, good for him. It's refreshing to see so dignified a stand on a matter of principle and a politician willing to lose cabinet rank because he thinks something is fundamentally wrong. Mr. Chong deserves respectful credit.

The motion itself is a train of mischief and ambiguity as is the entire concept of nominating subsets of Canadians based on their ethnicity or historical associations or geographical boundaries or constitutional past — Newfoundland would be an example — as nations in their own right. But it is particularly mischievous and ambiguous when it sets the Québécois as the designated category for nation status.

What is the Parliament of Canada doing declaring the Québécois a nation? Has that not been the principal aim of the Parti québécois and the Bloc, the separatists, since their formation? The idea behind this motion has been a mischief since the train was put on the track by Michael Ignatieff in his leadership bid, and as it gained momentum with the Bloc's embrace and Stephen Harper's too-clever response last week, it has become more divisive by the day, igniting the call now by the premier of British Columbia to go one more step and incorporate all aboriginal peoples in another group nation.

There's no reason to stop there. It sets a division within Quebec — who are the Québécois? All Quebecers? Some? French-speaking people across the country, are they part of this new nation too? And it will spark division outside Quebec.

Why not a Ukrainian nation?

A nation of Labrador?

An Alberta nation?

The House of Commons, the House of Commons of Canada, should be underlining only one nation, Canada. We are all its citizens regardless of height, colour, province, language, history, religion or politics. Canada is the nation, and the biggest quarrel I have with this motion tonight is that our parliamentarians seem to have the courage to declare a bit, a slice, a portion of the country a nation when they are timid about asserting and constantly asserting and proudly asserting that Canada is the nation, and all Canadians now are already and deeply a part of it. But I forgot, it's only words. For "The National", I'm Rex Murphy.

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