Mr. Speaker, the more I listen to people like the hon. member who just spoke, they should get a lesson in listening. There are so many things I am supposed to have said which I never said. I will let Hansard stand for that.
I never supported Quebec separation. However I believe it is not in the interests of the people of Quebec or Canada for us to refuse to think about what policies they might adopt if they do decide to become independent. I will justify that any time.
Also, I never mentioned the people of China. If you go to China you will get shepherded around by a guide like I did. I have been to China. You see what you want to see. In the 1930s people came back from the Soviet Union saying: "There is no unemployment. The Soviet Union is a model for economic development. Let's go that way". The NDP for a long time pushed that line until finally somebody said what Stalin had done and what lies had been perpetrated on us.
Since we have begun to intervene strongly in our economy in the 1960s with all the programs the hon. member's party is so proud of, the rate of economic growth in this country has decreased. It has gone from one of the biggest in the OECD down to the middle.
Before Sweden started its massive programs of the sort members wish more of, it was the country with the highest per capita income in the world. However, it went to where it is now, which is in the middle. In the last 20 years it has had the smallest growth in per capita income. History speaks clearly that the model of maximum involvement of the government in economic development has failed. The empirical evidence is in.
I would like to reiterate what I have said and the advice I can give as a 30-year student of economic development. Quebec demands for decentralization of this process of economic development. Keep more of the money there and let them do with it what they want to. This would be in the interests of the people of Quebec. Similarly this kind of approach might very well be the solution to keeping the country together, a looser federation modelled after that of Switzerland. Nobody can say that Switzerland is not a country. We can achieve that here, but we have to have it as a goal.