Mr. Speaker, I may not be right all the time but I am consistent. On issues like that I like to be consistent, of course.
In my own judgment the best thing that Quebec can do is move from its rather socialist current program to where the role of government in Quebec is much smaller. If I were asked I would say if Quebec tomorrow turned itself into the Hong Kong of North America, welfare would shoot up enormously.
Imagine having a much lower tax rate because your services are much smaller. Imagine having the lowest corporate tax rate in North America. You would have so much capital flowing in wanting to pay these low tax rates you would have higher revenue than you have at the current rate. On top of that you would have huge employment effects from all of them.
My problem is that I am not worried about Canada erecting trade barriers to Quebec if it chose to be stupid enough to choose sovereignty; what worries me is from the evidence that I have seen coming from the French tradition of dirigisme from the French tradition of big government, everything can be engineered to the perfect world.
I am not optimistic that Quebec will choose to move in the direction of being the Hong Kong of North America. I am worried that Quebec will choose to be more like the Albania of North America, and that saddens and worries me a great deal.