Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments. I suppose we can look at it in two different ways: We can talk about discouragement or we can talk about encouragement. I suppose I have a tendency to have a more positive attitude to this and think we want to encourage.
I agree somewhat with the member. I do not believe it is the duty of government to make those kinds of choices, but I believe we as a nation need a better and higher technologically trained labour force. I believe it is unjustified for governments simply not to acknowledge the fact that we cannot continue to educate people for jobs that do not exist. We must give our labour force some guidance in the areas in which we think we are going to evolve.
I noticed the member in his comments talked about fiscal irresponsibility. I have often heard members of the Bloc talk about this as if it were a federal problem. In fact deficits are rampant throughout the western world. I would like to point out the fact that the province of Quebec, by its own creation, created a $70 billion deficit and, remarkably enough, 40 per cent of it is financed outside not only the borders of Quebec but the borders of Canada.
The province by itself has some significant problems to deal with. They are not unique to the federal system by a long shot.