Mr. Speaker, to listen to the member for Markham, a former chief economist of the Royal Bank, people would think that he would make a much better novelist than an economist, especially with such wild imaginings.
On the matter of sovereignty alone, I say this to him: no motion of the House of Commons will bring it about. If he thinks it is a step in this direction, he is mistaken. We will decide on sovereignty at home in Quebec with a referendum the issue of which will be decided by the people of Quebec. He will have nothing to say on the matter. That is the first thing.
Second, if the single currency is linked to separatism, is Thomas Courchene, North America's top macroeconomist—at least considerably better than he is—, who supports a single currency, a separatist?
Is David Dodge, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who sees the single currency as unavoidable in the three Americas within the next 10 years, another separatist?
I think the member for Markham has a problem somewhere.
There is another problem with what he has just said. He talks of economists' forecasts. He is looking out for himself. He was one of the small group of four or five economists that gravitated around the Minister of Finance until last year. Not all of them predicted such ridiculous surpluses as this gang, the buddies of the Minister of Finance.
When the real non partisan economists—and here we can see he is partisan, he became the federal Liberal member for Markham—were consulted, they thought the forecasts of the Minister of Finance were laughable and forecast surpluses of about the same amount as we had.
If he is here today, I put the question to him, is it because he lacked the ability to forecast at the Royal Bank, in fact?