Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech made by my hon. colleague opposite. If we believe what he said, things could not be any better. So, why have not only his government but the previous federal government and all the governments during the last 30 years allowed the economic situation in Montreal to deteriorate? It did not happen overnight, it occurred over a certain period of time.
We only have to think about the Borden line which closed down three refineries in eastern Montreal. About Mirabel airport that reduced traffic in Dorval without increasing its own, which explains why air traffic shifted to Toronto.
Earlier, I heard the hon. member put the blame on the political instability and so on. In 1966, it was a federalist and not a separatist government that was in office in Quebec, as far as I know. And in 1976, Mr. Bourassa ran into trouble with the Borden line, which led to the closure of three refineries.
In 1984, Mr. Bourassa was re-elected and remained in office until 1994. Of course, we had Mr. Johnson the last few months but all these Quebec leaders supported federalism. Meanwhile, Montreal was getting poorer and poorer. To argue that the sovereignty issue or political instability was at the origin of Montreal's problems is totally wrong.
In fact, let us examine these things clearly. Canada has a free trade agreement with Israel. As far as I know, people are not throwing rocks or firing machine guns off in the streets of Montreal, but such things do happen every day in Jerusalem. So, please, do not bring up the issue of political instability.
We are talking about helping Montreal with some investment. We know that the government opposite donated $11 million to Vietnam. Vietnam is a fine country, I agree, but let us not forget that Montreal is the poorest city in our country. Montreal needs $7 million for the Tokamak project to go on. Can the hon. member tell me why his government seems to prefer Vietnam to Montreal?