Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my hon. colleague from Timiskaming-French River. I must say, however, that I do not agree fully with his comments. He speaks of sovereigntists. Well, I am proud to be a sovereigntist, but I am even more proud of the fact that our leader addressed the sovereignty issue during the election campaign. Another distinguishing feature of Bloc Quebecois members is that they are realists.
The budget brought down this week is an assault on existing social benefits. We have proof of this. We have listened to our constituents and seen the impact of cuts, of lower unemployment insurance premiums, of the increase in the number of weeks of work for UI eligibility and of other reform measures which have either been announced or are being planned for them by the Minister of Human Resources Development. We are confused and worried. And we are rightly proud that we are sovereigntists and realists.
We are not trying to be divisive, to start any arguments or to score political points at the expense of Quebecers and Canadians. We have before us a budget about which my colleague spoke at greater length. I fail to see why one would seek out divisive issues. But, since we are talking about this, I would like to reiterate that the second distinguishing feature of sovereigntist Bloc members is their realistic approach in saying to Canadians: Be careful, you voted for the Liberals, the ones responsible for this budget. We have always maintained that there is very little difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives. During the election campaign, we used the expression "six of one, half a dozen of the other".
If we had to start another campaign tomorrow morning, in referring to the difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals, I would say that the Liberals are just Tories wearing red ear muffs. That is all I wanted to say.