Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the remarks of my Liberal colleague. He recited a list of many things the government has done, a sort of litany that tells us very little about percentages.
In August 1995, the Quebec department of industry, commerce, science and technology produced a study on federal R and D spending. The main conclusions of the study, which analysed specific federal spending in this sector using a grid with a number of criteria, are that between 1979 and 1991, six provinces out of ten were overfunded in R and D.
Ontario, of course, was at the top of the list. For the last 10 years, it has received 50 per cent of the funding. According to the study, during the same period Quebec came last, with underfunding of $2.5 billion, the amount it would have received if it had been treated equitably.
This study concluded that if federal funding had been equitable in 1991, the relationship between gross domestic spending on R and D and GDP, the indicator most often used to show the intensity of R and D effort, would have been higher in Quebec than in any other Canadian province.
The question I would like to ask my colleague is this: Can Quebec reach its full potential? In other words, by remaining in Canada, can Quebec hope to receive its fair share? We think it cannot. Recent history says it cannot. Quebec is not receiving its fair share.
As I was saying earlier, what we get from the federal government is social transfer payments. The central government has no policy for developing a specific region, as I see it, except that if you are part of the majority and you live in Ontario, you could care less. They say you should go where the getting is good, and the getting is almost always good in Ontario.
Does the member think that Quebec can hope to develop by staying within Confederation? I think not, and I would like the member to prove otherwise. If he cannot, this discourse that we have been listening to for 30 years and that is slowly but surely destroying us has got to stop.