Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Wetaskiwin for his remarks on Bill C-17. He made several worthwhile points, some of which I will raise myself in a moment.
Let me just say that today is an historic day because this morning, for the very first time, the Chair was occupied by a sovereignist member of Parliament, namely my hon. colleague from the Bloc Quebecois and member for Chicoutimi. Having said this and extended my congratulations to him, I would like to speak to Bill C-17.
As history has it, Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned. This government is doing the same thing. While the country is crumbling down, while the poor get poorer and the unemployed despair of finding work, while middle-income individuals and families see their tax burden grow heavier and heavier, the government does nothing. Just like the previous government. You would almost think that they fit in the same shoes. This government certainly took no time to adopt the same pattern as its predecessor. My friend the member for Frontenac was mentioning that these shoes are probably Kodiak boots because we are not out of the woods yet with the current policies of this federal Liberal government which acts the same way as the Mulroney-Campbell administration did from 1984. That is to say doing so very little. Words, words, words. They are all words, but no action. None at all! The only movement we see in this House is when the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands walks from the table to his seat once in a while. Very little is actually accomplished.
I agree with the hon. member who spoke before me, the hon. member for Wetaskiwin, when he says that the key to economic recovery in Canada and in Quebec as well is small business. We have relied on big business, like Hyundai in Bromont, for too long. Great hopes had been placed on businesses like this one which is now in a very precarious situation to say the least, on the verge of shutting down and laying off its workers. So, the small and medium-sized businesses responsible for creating 80 to 85 per cent of jobs are really undervalued, underestimated and undersupported in the projects they can initiate.
We see it at our constituency offices when a small businessman or businesswoman comes to us with a proposal to create two, three or four jobs. It is hard to get the government
interested in setting up or improving a small business. It still likes to think big, an approach that harkens back to Mr. Trudeau's era. And look where that Trudeau-style vision got us.
Our economy is in ruins. Our debt currently tops the $500 billion mark. Of course, the Mulroney-Campbell administration has been blamed for the situation, but previous Liberal administrations were responsible for fuelling the debt crisis in the first place. It should be noted that when the Conservatives took office in 1984, the national debt already totalled $189 billion. The red ink was already flowing freely. In fact, several bottles had already been used up.
The budget measures now on the table offer no help to small business, no help to middle income families, no help to individuals as far as housing is concerned. There are no real measures to provide social housing assistance to low income families forced to spend more and more on housing. As Bernard Derome said, if the trend continues, low income families will no longer be able to afford proper housing. What the government needs to do is reintroduce a real social housing policy.