Mr. Speaker, if I left the impression that the rest of the country would not trade with Quebec, I certainly did not mean to do that. The point I wanted to make was how important trade is among all the provinces of Canada, including Quebec, and how vitally important trade is to the province of Quebec, probably more so than other provinces in the country, because Quebec has a resource very much built on trade and export.
What I did say was that the people of Quebec should not be misled into thinking that it would be automatic that things would go on as before. If the people of Quebec think for one minute that they would be able to exist behind trade barriers that would not be the case.
I would certainly hope, and I agree with my hon. colleague, that we would not do anything to shoot each other in the foot. That would not do any good. It would be a hard nosed commercial relationship. It would mean that instead of having our market, our critical mass would be 25 per cent lower. We would not have the same economies of scale. It would be far more difficult for Quebec in an international world market to be a world scale producer, because Quebec could not depend upon having the Canadian domestic market to enable it to be an international producer. It would hurt everybody, and it would hurt Quebec perhaps more than the rest of the country.
I would not suggest for a moment that we would do anything to shoot ourselves or Quebec in the foot.