Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her speech. I wonder if she could clarify something that caught my interest in the previous question. We talked about who is responsible for deficits.
The province of Quebec has the highest provincial deficit of all provincial governments. It represents $9,400 for every man, woman and child in that province. Of this debt, 40 per cent is owed outside the province of Quebec and outside Canada. It is owed to foreigners.
Interestingly enough, I went back and discovered that over the last seven years of the PQ administration it raised deficits in that province by 285 per cent at a time when transfer payments from the federal government actually increased to the province of Quebec. After the PQ government, I think in 1985, the deficit continued to increase but less than half the increase occurred while the current premier of Quebec was the minister of finance.
I wonder if the member could possibly give some comments on the previous speaker's dissertation about how all the debts have been created by the federal government.