Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to this debate carefully. It reminds me that just last week the United Nations development agency, which annually does a survey of the quality of life among all the countries of the world, concluded that once again Canadians have within this country the best, the most tolerant and the most generous system of any country in the world.
There is a reason for that. It is because throughout our history as a country we have learned to share. We have brought forward a number of programs in health care and social assistance, education and training to ensure there would be some basis of standards across the country, that there would not be large disparities and that people would feel they were being equally treated.
That fundamental reality seems to have escaped the hon. member who has presented this resolution. In fact the benefits his and my constituents have been able to enjoy are because we live in a country of wide diversity and wide differences of interest, but we have been willing to share. We have been willing to work and live together to produce a country which has good economic and human values.
Maybe the unfortunate part of what has happened since the last election is that there is now within the House of Commons an Official Opposition which does not recognize or even accept that fundamental achievement Canadians have been able to bring about over the some 130 years of our country's existence. Bloc members look only from the point of view of one, narrow, limited, regional perspective. They have no sense of what this country has been able to do.
As a result, they have totally and completely forgotten-conveniently, I would suggest-just how important federalism has been to ensure that the poorer regions of the country are given a real chance. In the early 1980s we wrote into the charter of rights the principle of regional equality. We are probably the only country in the world that has put that in as a basis of its Constitution. We have lived up to that time and time again with attempts, not perfect, but attempts to ensure that was lived out in practice.
I am surprised the hon. member in talking about regional economic development somehow conveniently forgot that one of the first acts of the Minister of Finance in this new government was to substantially change the formula for equalization to ensure that those wealthier areas of Canada would share more of their wealth with the poorer areas.
The hon. member's province was a major beneficiary of that program, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. No one was carping or criticizing or saying: "We reject it". The fact is we brought in a program to ensure there would be equal treatment across the country.
I submit that that is a good example of how Canadian federalism is a good way to share efforts and goods among all Canadians. Unfortunately, the hon. member refuses to recognize the value of federalism as a way to share good-will in this country.
Let me give another example. The hon. member talked about unemployment insurance. I presume he is aware that last year the net transfer to the province of Quebec, in the UI system, was close to $1 billion from the rest of the country to aid those who were facing unemployment in Quebec. It was even of higher value than that of the Atlantic provinces or northern Ontario. Nobody is criticizing. In fact we say that is the way the system is supposed to work. I find it incredible.
It is unbelievable that the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Bouchard-
-is the one, as my colleague has said, who is going around upsetting the economy and talking about annexation of western Canada by the Americans. He is the one who is fragmenting, destroying and dividing the country. He is the one who is destroying the idea of equal sharing.
When the hon. member gets down from the pink cloud he has been living on for so long and comes back to reality, why does he not tell us how those transfer payments of equalization, unemployment insurance, the Canada Health Act, pension plans and student loans would be financed solely by that one province under its own resources when in fact it faces major debts?
Federalism has worked because we do not see each other in fragmentary bits and pieces, region by region. We see ourselves as one country. We realize if we can build the strength of all regions, we all benefit. That is why we have been prepared to share. That is the tragedy. The foolishness and silliness of what is going on today is that those members live in a dream world thinking that somehow everything would be better if only Quebec would separate. The hard economic reality is that is not true.
At some point there will be a reality check and I know where it will come from. The people in Quebec will make the very clear statement that it is all right for members of the Parti Quebecois and the Bloc Quebecois to live in a dream world, but they understand the realities of a job and support for their families. They understand the decent idea that we can share across this country and all benefit from it, not by separating or fragmenting the country. That is the reality.
In our present system there are many ways in which we can aid and assist various regions to develop. The basic transfers I have just talked about are a key element of that, but we also have to undertake the kind of support for direct intervention, for direct development.
I listened with some interest to my friends from the Reform Party who said they do not like regional development policies either and get rid of them all. I heard the member who said get rid of them all.
Let me just speak for a moment about western Canada. I am responsible for the program on western diversification. Over the last several years about 40,000 to 50,000 jobs have been created in western Canada as a result of the direct support of western diversification. We are trying to take an economy that is living in the broad global context and give it boosts in technologies. I will give an example.
We have just completed a revamping of our programs so that we can aid smaller business. We will give repayable contributions only to those enterprises with less than 50 employees. It means those very small businesses, which today, as the hon. member knows, have serious trouble getting equity financing or credit from banks or other financial institutions, are being given assistance by the federal government. They will be able to expand plants, buy new technology, develop a new marketing structure and hire people so that they can compete just as well as the big guys.
Now there is another party saying to get rid of that program for small business support and assistance. Yet we know that about 80 per cent of the jobs will be created by small businesses with the kind of assistance they need.
I want to talk about western Canada because unfortunately the hon. member who talked about regional development only talked about one region. This debate deserves a somewhat broader context than that, because we are talking about Canada and all its regions. Let me give one working example which illustrates what I mean about how important it is not to deny small business the kind of assistance we can supply through our regional agencies.
Through our efforts we were able to form a consortium of 150 small food processing companies in western Canada. We analysed that in terms of the export market into the United States only 3 per cent of imported foodstuffs on American supermarket shelves were Canadian, even though we are their next door neighbour. One of the reasons is that much of our food processing in western Canada is small. We do not have the big Westons and others; we have smaller firms.
As the hon. member should know, a whole new series of quality tests and nutritional tests have to be met in order to export. A wide variety of standards have to be met in the United States, Japan and other places. Companies with 15 or 20 employees making something out of a grain product or a dairy product do not have the extra cash to mount that kind of research and development and do the testing.
We have encouraged those 150 companies to come together under the name Food Beverage Canada. We have appropriated the name Canada for western Canada but that is always done in Ontario anyway. The support supplied to that association enables them to undertake marketing, promotion and research testing. Those 150 companies can now begin to export into the United States on a much more rational and effective basis. Once again, it is another example of sharing.
It is the same thing with the Beef Export Federation where it was trying to develop a market niche in Japan. The hon. member knows that people in the western Canada beef industry are the ultimate representatives of free enterprise; they do not want government assistance. However, that association asked us if we would work with it and help develop a major market in Japan. That market has increased by 10, 15 or 20 per cent per year as a result of intervention by a regional development agency sponsored by the federal Government of Canada.
