Mr. Speaker, like Saturne Solutions, Quintiles and Ericsson recently announced major investments in Quebec. Highly sought by other provinces, not to mention other countries, these companies chose to invest in Quebec. This testifies to Quebec's ability to compete at the international level.
But how to explain that, every time a business decides to rationalize its Canadian operations, as CIBA did, Quebec gets the short end of the stick. It is not because Quebec is not competitive, as everyone recognizes its expertise in the pharmaceutical area. There must be other reasons.
We, for our part, feel that federal comments maintain an unhealthy climate for the Quebec economy. These comments, which were probably inspired by the famous plan B, hinder the Quebec government's efforts. Clearly, renewed federalism is not a panacea for Quebec. The time has come to move on to sovereignty.