Madam Speaker, my wife and I spent the last two weekends in Montreal. We love going there. My wife says that no city in the world has smoked meat like Montreal has. She will also says that no city in the world has bagels like Montreal has.
However, on our last visit we were very depressed. We took a taxi from Dorval airport to downtown Montreal. When I want to learn what is happening in a city I usually talk to taxi drivers and barbers. I learn a lot from these two professions.
The taxi driver told us that he was not pleased with what was happening. He said that he was selling his taxi business, which shocked me. He was selling his home. I asked him why. He replied: "Things are not certain. I cannot go on living this way". When I asked him how long he had been in Montreal he told me 25 years.
He is selling his taxi business and his home. He is moving to Toronto. He speaks French, English and Greek. These are the kinds of human resources we have in our beautiful country and in la belle province, Quebec. He is selling out, moving out to join his brother who has a restaurant and an apartment business in Toronto.
That depressed me. Here is a true entrepreneur who helped to build the economy of Montreal and Quebec for 25 years, and now he is pulling out because of political uncertainty.
The member for Longueuil has been here as long as I have, if not longer, so I am sure he will take my question seriously. Rather than blame the federal government falsely, as this motion does, to say-
-the federal government's under-investment in research and development; its inequitable allocation of federal purchases of goods and services-
This is not true.
It is a false motion. Rather than blame the taxi driver I talked to who is moving from Montreal, what is the Bloc Quebecois Party doing to keep these entrepreneurs in Montreal? By falsely blaming
the federal government the Bloc is driving more of these entrepreneurs out of Montreal.
The Bloc Quebecois has a responsibility as its members were elected by a large group of people, and that I respect. The reason they are sitting here is because they were put here through a democratic process. What are they doing to prevent this flight of entrepreneurs from Montreal?