Madam Speaker, I would certainly like to thank the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce for his speech, but at the same time remind him that we have one thing in common: we both represent ridings in the Montreal region. And someone who represents a Montreal riding is automatically sensitive, like the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, to the issue of poverty and to the hardship that the past two recessions, the last one being the 1982 recession, imposed on a good many of our constituents.
I find the hon. member very courageous, because he belongs to the government majority and it is to his honour that he is able to rise above the prevailing opinion. However, I told myself that he is asking us to remain keepers of the social conscience. He is asking us to make sure that we have an interventionist government and that we maintain one of the government's reasons for being, namely redistribution.
However, we have diverging views on the causes of the deficit. What I found surprising and very pleasing about the hon. member's speech, and I say this without any ulterior motive, was that he states that his government has no other choice but to cut transfer payments. By doing this, his government could destabilize provincial governments and force them to cut services which are basic necessities and financed through the Canada assistance plan.
I would like to hear the hon. member's opinion on the causes of the deficit. As far as we on this side of the House are concerned, the deficit is caused by the fact that it is impossible to maintain a continental country like Canada: Canada is the first and last example of a federation with a narrow ecumene stretched out between two oceans. We say that one of the causes of the deficit-when we analyze how we got into debt-is that we have had a strong central government which meddled in jurisdictions in which it had no right to. The hon. member will recall that he was a member of Parliament when Ottawa created, for example, a department for urban affairs and for recreation, which, under the constitution, were in no way related to the powers granted to the central government.
I would like to know if the hon. member will agree with me that it would be much simpler for Canada and for its financial situation to reorganize the country to give Quebec more power and for Quebec to create its own national government and for us to begin dialogue on the basis of our status as associated states.