Mr. Speaker, I had prepared a speech but, given what I have heard here this morning, particularly from the Minister of Finance, I will start by replying to the Minister of Finance. I was flabbergasted to hear the Minister of Finance say what I heard him say this morning, when he talked about employment, compassion for the poor, people on welfare, the 808,000 Quebecers who are currently on the welfare rolls. He said, his hand to his heart, that he had done all he could to help these people and that it was our turn.
He is the one responsible in the first place for the hardship experienced by these people in Quebec as well as in the rest of Canada. It is his doing. He is the one who, out of compassion for the unemployed, cut $7 billion from the UI fund. He is the one who pushed some of the unemployed and more to come, with their families, onto welfare because of tighter requirements brought about by his cuts.
Now he has the gall to tell us to call upon our head office, in Quebec, to establish real policies to fight poverty when he himself, as the Minister of Finance, his government, and his Prime Minister in particular, are seriously interfering not only with economic recovery but also with improving the lot of the most unfortunate families in Quebec and Canada.
That is dreadful. I will tell the Minister of Finance right away that he better stop taking his instructions from the Power Corporation head office or that of the Bronfmans and the rest and start working for and serving the people who elected him instead of his friends, the large corporations, who benefit from a tax system of an unprecedented generosity because there are so many loopholes in it that it looks like Swiss cheese. The Bronfmans, the Desmarais and the rest take advantage of such loopholes.
I have a hard time containing myself sometimes when I see how few measures he takes and consider his personal situation, but I will not dwell on that because we, Bloc members, are too polite to engage in this kind of thing. But I find it despicable that such a man can say that he is compassionate, given that he is the one responsible for the hardship of these people.