Mr. Speaker, first off, I would like to call the hon. member for Outremont to order, because he accused the hon. member for Chambly of saying something that he did not say. I would also like to call the hon. member for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine to order for doing the same thing.
I think we have a good example of how members opposite play politics when they put words in the mouths of my Bloc Quebecois colleagues. I simply wanted to say this for the record. What they said about my colleague for Chambly is entirely untrue.
He also accused the Government of Quebec of shirking its responsibilities. I would call that sticking his nose into other people's business. We all know that the federal Liberal members from Quebec are not in the least bit, not even the tiniest bit, interested in the Government of Quebec. They are much more interested in making sure that Ottawa will control, manage and centralize everything. Because that is their outlook, they could care less about what is going on in Quebec right now. They have never had great faith in provincial governments, at any rate. For them, the only government, the only power in Canada, is the Canadian government.
Forcibly, they can only consider the provinces as managers of sorts. They confirmed this in the Charlottetown accord when they gave all of the power to Ottawa and the right to administer to the provinces. That is why this accord was flatly rejected. They claimed that they were decentralizing and giving the provinces the opportunity to manage or administer things. That is not what Quebec wants. Quebec wants powers, not just the opportunity to administer. And that is not just my message, not just the Bloc Quebecois' message, it is the message of the Commission on the Political and Constitutional Future of Quebec, the Bélanger-Campeau Commission.
The Bélanger-Campeau Commission sure was a big production, one of the biggest since Confederation. Altogether, they received 600 briefs, heard 205 witnesses while 55 experts were studying the issue. They concluded that for Quebec's well-being, it had to be given at least 20 real powers, for example, education, tourism, economic development.
And the federal government, with the support of the Liberals, hatched a proposal which purportedly met all of Quebec's aspirations. What hypocrisy!
Charlottetown gave Ottawa even more powers, and Quebec, even more administration. They treated Quebec as if it were a province like any other, with no particular status and nothing distinct about it at all. Now, they butt in and would have us believe that the Quebec Minister of Finance, Mr. Campeau, the eminent Quebecer who co-chaired the Bélanger-Campeau Commission, is botching his job. That complaint probably came from one disgruntled voter in Outremont.
And they are absolutely right when they say that we are playing politics when we say that Quebecers will pay more taxes if they do not vote for sovereignty. The federal Minister of Finance decided to wait before adding to the Quebec tax burden. He will hit Quebec next year only. Yes, we are in for it, and we will end up sending our tax money to Ottawa, and the federal government will skim a good billion from it before shipping it back to Quebec. And it is very clear that, once again, the Government of Quebec will be caught in the squeeze to some
extent, because the federal government fails to live up to its responsibility to give us back the money we send to Ottawa through our taxes. It gives us back less than we gave. It promised to keep paying. It made such promises. However, it does not keep them.
So in all likelihood the Minister of Finance of Quebec will have to raise taxes, because the federal government does not assume its responsibilities, pure and simple.
There was talk of jobs earlier. When it comes to jobs, we know that the job problem in Quebec is the federal government's problem. As I mentioned earlier in my speech, the federal government talks of political uncertainty, but political uncertainty does not take away jobs, economic uncertainty does. Top American experts, economists, American business people say so: they could not care less about politics when they are looking to invest in Canada. They say: "The reason we do not invest in Canada is because of its economic instability". This economic instability is the federal government's doing, as everyone knows. The Bélanger-Campeau commission report said so, and it was approved.
So this fine speech by the member for Outremont seems completely out of date to me. He did not understand. He really has not grasped what is happening in Quebec. I do not know where he comes from, but he is not from the same place as the rest of us real Quebecers.
No, what I mean, really, is that the real Quebecers are those who understand Quebecers. That is what I wanted to say.