Mr. Speaker, the member opposite raises a valid point. As a matter of fact even as we speak the tariff on milk is 350 per cent.
It just absolutely boggles the mind how members of the yes group are able to go through Quebec like Johnny Appleseed spreading these little bits of misinformation all over the place. This
debate is on a level that has no intellectual veracity or honesty in it whatsoever. The debate is purely cosmetic. People who scratch below the surface of the debate will understand very quickly just how devastating the result of a yes vote will be to the people of Quebec. It will hurt everybody in Canada, but it will hurt the people in Quebec far more.
The tragedy is that nothing the Quebec nationalists want to achieve can be achieved outside of Canada that cannot be achieved within Canada. In my view, the very protection of the language and culture they profess to be so concerned about is better protected within Canada. Anyone can bet that on a wide open North American market the French of Quebec will very soon be like the French of Louisiana. They just will not have the bulwark of Canada to protect them.
Lest anyone in Quebec who is watching this thinks that my words are hollow and empty, they should be aware of trade by Quebec with the rest of the country. The hon. member's question has given me the opportunity to put this on record. Lest anyone thinks that a free ride will be achieved by the people of Quebec in terms of their economic future, they should keep in mind that in 1989, the last year for which accurate figures are available, interprovincial trade in Quebec had a balance per year of $1.8 billion dollars in favour of Quebec. If they think that would happen after a yes victory, they can think again. The bulk of that was in protected industries.
That brings us to the free trade agreement, internal trade barriers and how ludicrous it was for us to get involved and the hypocrisy of government members opposite supporting the free trade agreement now when they did not in opposition. I supported it wholeheartedly as a private business person. I certainly did not support the method by which the Conservative government took us down the road to free trade. This is apropos in my view to what is likely going to happen to the people of Quebec if they were to be irrational and vote yes.
We went into the free trade agreement and got clobbered as a country. We did so because we went into the agreement with the highest interest rates we had historically, the highest dollar we had historically and industries across the country which had been protected by tariff barriers for many years. Our industries were not competitive with those in the United States. Is it any wonder we got clobbered. Imagine the Monty Python movie "In Search of the Holy Grail". We were the knight at the bridge and when we finished we had the knife in our teeth and no arms or legs. All we could say was: "Fight fair".
I saw our chief negotiator, Simon Reisman, on the Sparks Street Mall the other day. I wanted to ask him: "Did you not think about this?" I have really wondered about this. Surely the government of the day must have been aware of the situation we were getting ourselves into. Maybe it was not, but it certainly should have been.
If that happened to us as a country, what is going to happen to Quebec as a country in a free trade arrangement with Canada and
the United States? Will Quebec have a high dollar? Probably not. Will it have high interest rates? Very likely. Will Quebec have industries that are capable of competing efficiently in the North American market? Probably not. Are they going to have an easy ride of it? Probably not.
It would seem to me to be very prudent for those people in Quebec who are wondering whether or not they should vote yes or no, if they choose to vote yes, the one thing they can be absolutely assured of is they will be paying a financial premium for many years for voting yes. They will have many years to think about it because it is not something that will cure itself overnight.