Madam Speaker, I would like to make a couple of comments on the member's dissertation.
I am very concerned about my fellow Canadians in Quebec. I am concerned when I look at their financial situation in Canada today. The government of that province does not seem to want to address the real problems facing the people of Quebec. I look at a province that has the highest per capita deficit on a provincial basis of all the provinces in Canada: $9,400 for every man, woman and child in the province of Quebec, a debt which is 40 per cent financed not only outside the borders of Quebec but outside the borders of Canada.
These people in the international trading environment are looking very closely at Quebec, at the debate that is going on here today. As the province of Quebec goes out to refinance its debt on the international marketplace it is going to find fewer and fewer people interested in investing in that province. I am very concerned that the average person in the province of Quebec is going to start watching their lifestyle and their standard of living decline.
I note also that the last election in the province of Quebec was basically on the matter of bring us good government. I am concerned with the premier of that province who was a finance minister during a period in time of Quebec's history that drove up the deficit higher than any other administration: 285 per cent during his administration of that system.
I simply want to ask: What is going on here, what is happening? The day after separation no new day, there will be no change. The reality is that we are talking about transferring powers from Ottawa to Quebec City. I do not know how that helps people in Chicoutimi.
The reality is that people want control of their own destinies. Our government has been spending a lot of time discussing social policy review and other areas that affect federal legislation and it is going to the people, it is talking to the people in the streets on how they want to control those aspects of their lives. Creating new embassies all around the world is a duplication of expenditure and a cost to the people of Quebec.
My colleague often talks about Canada as a hypothetical country. To me the state of Quebec is an illusion. People will not be any better off; they will be worse off.
We have some common things, the people of Quebec and the people of the rest of Canada, common things that unite us. One of the major ones is our proximity to the United States and the economic power that country wields on this side of North America.
I think it has always been in our best interest, as a united country and as a united people, to be part of a culture which is both French and English.
I would like to ask my colleague how she thinks things are going to be so magically different.