Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the remarks of my colleague. I will especially dwell on his two or three first sentences. He said without any distinction that the current instability in Canada was the result of the actions of the Bloc Quebecois here, in this House. I am sorry but I think that all the Bloc Quebecois has done since its advent has been to inform Canadians of the position they are really in.
I say that the political instability in Canada only reflects the situation of the federal system. I do not want to address again here all the issues that we raised, but I will simply go back to the theme of the debt.
The debt has become so huge that the federal government is forced to borrow overseas to meet its commitments. It is as if one of my constituents visited his or her bank manager each and every year to ask for a loan to be able to keep afloat and assume his or her family obligations.
The instability also stems from the written word, from the daily newspaper reports.
Instability was created, in January 1995, when the Wall Street Journal , New York's main financial newspaper which investors from all over the world refer to, compared Canada to a third world country. It openly evoked the possibility that Canada could go bankrupt. The Bloc Quebecois did not bring Canada to that level. No.
My question is this: It is easy to see that, due to the budget, Canadians are now taxed more, $2.2 billion more. One cannot deny that, or that cuts of $13.4 billion will be made over two years. This is not the work of the Bloc Quebecois. Cuts will be made, but not in the right places.
The government also offloaded some expenditures onto the provinces, so it taxed, cut and transferred other things, raising the debt by 17.4 per cent over three years. So much for putting our financial house in order according to the current government. Is this the direction in which the federalism will go? If so, the solution we have in Quebec is to become sovereign.