Madam Speaker, I was very surprised to hear the hon. secretary of state for Parliamentary Affairs say, especially at the beginning of his speech, that when the Bloc members go visit the people in their ridings, they are not performing their duties as members of Parliament. I want him to tell me that I was not carrying out my duties as a member of Parliament when I met some fifteen senior citizens of Trois-Rivières to talk about the upcoming old age pension reform and listened to their concerns that the federal government would cut their old age pension as it did with the unemployment insurance benefits.
I think we are acting very properly when we get together with our constituents. This does not stop us from taking the opportunity to talk about the real solutions to these problems that would give the province of Quebec more control over its own development.
When we meet with people who complain about the unemployment situation and tell us that 40 per cent of all new welfare recipients end up on the welfare roll because of the new restrictions put on UI benefits by this new government, which is more Conservative than Liberal, are we not performing our duties as members of Parliament?
When the federal government decides to cut all research and development in sheep production, a promising new industry which is quickly expanding in Quebec and in Canada, and we are asked by the people: "Who took that decision, what is going on in Ottawa? What is wrong with them? Do they have their heads in the clouds? They are cutting R and D", are we not performing our duties as members of Parliament? I think the member for Saint-Léonard should reconsider his position on this issue.
On the other hand, given the centralization efforts of the current government, Quebecers will obviously have a very clear choice to make. This is the most positive aspect of the federal efforts. Everything is quite clear. When they talk about national standards and their willingness to interfere in the day care sector and impose national standards so that Alberta and Quebec are both treated the same way, we realize that their initiative does not make any sense and is doomed from the start.
It does not make sense for the federal government, which has no authority in education, to create a human resources investment fund and, by a devious device, intervene in the area of education instead of reducing unemployment insurance premiums, because less money is needed to finance the unemployment insurance fund, and giving the difference back to the people who do finance the fund. The unemployment insurance scheme is not there as an excuse to create an education department. It is there to provide benefits to workers between jobs. Is this not an intrusion of the federal government where it has no business?
There is also the agreement on internal trade. Let us talk about it. This agreement was signed by all provinces and the federal government. It is designed to ensure that internal trade is at least the equivalent of what we have with NAFTA in external trade. But the federal government tables a bill with the insidious provision that it will be able to rap the provinces on the knuckles if it does not like a decision, if a province does not measure up. It is acting as both judge and jury.
Is that not the return of the steamroller style we first saw in the Trudeau years? Is not the present Liberal government acting as the servant of federal bureaucracy, which is systematically denounced by Canadians as a whole? Everybody in Canada, sovereignists as well as federalists, is fed up with the fact that the federal bureaucratic machine dictates how things should be done, and what Canadians and Quebecers should think. This is why the official opposition is perfectly justified in rising up against it.
When we know that there are 800,000 welfare recipients in Quebec and 1,200,000 in Ontario, it means that it is not only the fault of the government of Quebec, which has been in power for less than a year. When we see that there are 800,000 welfare recipients in Quebec and 1,200,000 in Ontario, does that show that the Canadian system is working? Are the interventions of the federal government producing good results? I believe the member has to recite an act of contrition and reconsider his position.
As I was saying at the beginning of my speech, my question will be on this subject.
In that case, what choice remains to Quebecers but to side with those who want change, those who really want Quebec to be the master of its development? We are talking about the Bloc Quebecois, the Parti Quebecois, and possibly the Action démocratique du Québec party, all of whom want Quebec to be in charge of its own development.
Should not the member for Saint-Léonard try to convince his government to reconsider its positions and to backtrack on this decentralization project which will only lead to more results like Canada's present debt, an absolutely negative result of the Canadian federal system?