Maxime Bernier has called on Bloc Québécois MPs who left the party Wednesday morning to join ranks with the Conservatives.

The Tory MP made the remarks just a few hours after the Bloc announced that seven members were leaving the party to sit as independents as a result of conflicts with leader Martine Ouellet. With just three Bloc members left in caucus, independent MPs now make up the fourth largest group in Parliament, with nine sitting in the House.

If Bernier — a former separatist himself — gets his way, seven of them will help bloat the Conservative ranks.

“What I’m saying to my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois, if they believe in a strong Quebec, in a united Canada, they will come in our party. If they want to fight for Quebec interests and the interests of all Canadians, they will come in our party,” he said.

Bernier added that the Bloc is experiencing “a huge crisis right now.”

That appears to be centred around the question of Quebec sovereignty. The group leaving the party sent out a statement claiming “the new direction, advocated by the leader of the Bloc Québécois, subordinates the interests of Quebec to the promotion of independence.”

Leader Martine Ouellet, however, doubled down on the importance of sovereignty to the party’s platform.

“The best way to be able to defend the interests of Quebec (is) through independence. We’ve tried to have our place in the past,” she said. “We have all the expertise, all the means, all the economics to be able to do it. We just have to decide it.”

Bernier said the former Bloc MPs who are willing to let go of the sovereignty goal to instead defend Quebec’s interests in a united Canada are welcome in the Conservative party.

“(The former Bloc MPs are) looking at the reality right now in Quebec and I think that the future is not so great for them. If they want to have a good future, they can come with us.”

Now that Michel Boudrias, Rhéal Fortin, Simon Marcil, Louis Plamondon, Monique Pauze, Luc Thériault and Gabriel Ste-Marie have left the Bloc, only Mario Beaulieu, Xavier Barsalou-Duval and Marilène Gill remain.

Correction: An initial version of this story said Independent MPs will be the third largest group in the House. They will actually be the fourth largest, after the NDP.