Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his eloquent speech and for his description of a city that has fallen on hard times. Many of us who live elsewhere in Canada also find this situation very distressing. I was born in Montreal, but have lived many years in Toronto. I also taught at McGill University and at the University of Montreal. I do have a question for my colleague and I ask it of him humbly and with no malice. Will he not concede that the problems experienced by the big city of Montreal, which should be a prosperous city after all, are due to his own policies and threats of independence? In order for a city to be prosperous, it needs to attract investment. Investors are shying away from Montreal. Even Montrealers themselves refuse to invest their money because they fear the current policies. You are responsible for creating this situation, and we are having to pay for it. This budget attempts to correct the imbalance created by your own policies.
Montreal first lost its advantage over Toronto when Mr. Lévesque was elected. I remember, because I living in Montreal at the time. We can trace everything back to this time. That is when Montreal lost its edge over Toronto. People in this world are free to do as they please. They are free to leave, free to travel, free to invest their money wherever they want.
I would like you to be honest and to ask yourselves whether your sovereigntist policies encourage investment in Quebec or whether in fact your policies are responsible to some extent for creating the problems which you have so sadly ascribed to us. I put this question to you very humbly, as all Canadians are very fond of Montreal.