Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition should explain that the trip will involve only five or six days in China, not two weeks. After that, I am going to Hong Kong, then to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Council conference in Indonesia and, finally, to Vietnam. The business part of the trip is the visit to China, which will take three or four days. This is to create jobs. I am prepared to co-operate with all governments. As for the money we paid last week, we made sure that the promise made to Quebec was a genuine promise. I made that decision very carefully.
The Leader of the Opposition should have the courtesy to rise in the House and thank me for reversing the decision of the previous government, which did not want to pay. This was a case of Mr. Mulroney having said something in private but never having mentioned it, nor did Ms. Campbell, to the Conservative government at the time. I dealt with the problem. I am not afraid of how English Canada will react, on the contrary. All Canadian editorial writers approved what we did, with very few exceptions. The rest felt that we made the right decision. If people want to criticize me for being careful to avoid turning this into a controversy, I accept that criticism, but I can never be too careful with taxpayers money.