Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the much too lengthy comments of the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood who talked about almost everything, except regional development.
I want to point out to the hon. member that although it is true that the federal government is about to transfer $70 billion to Quebec in the next five years within the equalization program, this money comes for the most part from the pockets of Quebecers. The only pennies which are paid to Quebec but do not come from the pockets of Quebecers are those which are borrowed in their names. The government should know it and stop acting as if it was always playing Santa Claus because it is not true. The government is acting in bad faith.
Canada's accumulated deficit of some $500 billion is nothing to be proud of, even in Broadview-Greenwood. Our economy is in such a mess because of the accumulated debt that they should not dare play Santa Claus.
Members of the Bloc have been rightfully and legally elected to this House and they have a right to speak and the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood is not the one who will silence us. If this does not please him, he can always go behind the curtain. This is maybe where he will do his best work.
Moreover, we are here to talk about regional development. Did the hon. member tell us about regional development infrastructures? We would have expected him to talk about that. Did he say anything, for example, about regional airport infrastructures? This is an important issue. My riding of Chambly is located in the Richelieu valley and includes some large municipalities. We have a road system. We have provincial road infrastructures that were not given to us by the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood. They were paid for by the province of Quebec.
We have a nice road system that, unfortunately, is deteriorating rapidly because the Liberals have cut rail transport, because they have abandoned rail lines everywhere. That forces us to overutilize our roads, which are paid for with provincial funds.
The hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood tells us that the federal government helped make Hydro-Québec what it is today. If the federal government ever gave a penny to Hydro-Québec, Madam Speaker, I would like the member to compare that with the amount of money that the federal government gave to Atomic Energy of Canada, in Ontario, over the same period. There is absolutely no comparison possible. They are federalists. The hon. member for Madawaska said that some people in this House have a selective memory. I think that applies very
much to members of the present federal government. Talk about selective memory! The federal government never gave a penny to Hydro-Québec, as opposed to billions of dollars that were given to Atomic Energy of Canada.
The member did not talk much about Hibernia. Regional development is important. We need the infrastructures and we have to spend money for that. Let us take regional airports, for example. I said a few minutes ago that the town of Richelieu, in my riding, and all the surrounding towns, including Marieville-almost all of which have a small industrial park and a good road system connecting with the Montreal-Sherbrooke freeway, Highway 10, Highway 30 and roads to the United States, and are not far from railway lines which have not yet been abandoned-adopted resolutions asking for a regional airport.
Many people, including those from Sivaco, a fair-sized factory in Marieville, talked of closing their doors because the senior executives who come from God knows where in the United States find that there is an access problem because they have to land in Montreal and then travel the rest of the way by car in winter. They would prefer to have a small airport close by.
So the towns adopted resolutions to that effect and we are trying to wake the federal government up because it has the bad habit of investing only when it can see the picture of the minister responsible for the area in local papers; otherwise regional development does not interest it. They did that to me last week in Saint-Bruno, when the Minister of Canadian Heritage came to announce a contribution of $11 million from the infrastructure program and tried to convince the people there that that money was a gift from heaven, from a place not far from Toronto, probably Broadview-Greenwood.
I conclude by saying that instead of moaning as they have all day about the presence here of the Bloc Quebecois, they should shoulder their responsibilities and do some regional development. That is what we need and that is the subject of today's debate, whatever the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood may think.