Madam Speaker, after my great efforts to hear the hon. member's comments, I would respond briefly to him.
When we talk about generosity or balancing funds across the country, let us remember the amount of money which each province puts into Confederation. It has been made very clear to the hon. member through various publications, and I refer specifically to Robert Mansell, an economist from the University of Calgary, that Alberta has been a net contributor to Confederation. Quebec and some of the eastern Atlantic provinces have been economic beneficiaries of national dollars.
Let us step wider and more broadly at this point to look at some of the things which some hon. members may have complaints about.
If we are going to try to balance out every dollar or every cent that we gave or every cup of coffee that somebody bought for us, we have to look at this more widely and ask what is this Confederation that we are talking about.
It is important for all of us to note that this is something like the family of which I spoke in my remarks and which many others in the House have spoken of as well. In a family you cannot balance dollars and cents. Some children require more spending than others. We understand that. We appreciate that.
When talking about this whole situation let us not gripe about money or one thing or another. Let us look at it as a unit, as a family of 10 equal provinces in Confederation. I believe we are stronger. I believe we are more likely to be able to work in the international community as trading partners. As my leader mentioned earlier the BQ and Quebec would be far better off financially as part of a trading unit with Canada, a group of people 28 million strong, in dealing and trading internationally than trying to hunker off by itself as a market of eight million people.
My friend is bright. I know that he understands the whole idea of trading blocs and how we have seen blocs become much larger.
If Quebec tries to go it on its own, it will be a much smaller trading bloc. If the member thinks that his comments affect the financial situation in the country, let him beware. I really do not think going it on its own would be a viable situation. It would be much better for it to accept the invitation of the rest of Canada and say it will be part of this larger trading bloc than what it is attempting to do.