Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services recently inaugurated her department's new web site on the Internet. According to her press release, a video camera will transmit images of the Parliament buildings on the World Wide Web 24 hours a day.
The minister justifies this expenditure by arguing "that the Peace Tower is one of the most widely recognized symbols of Canada, just like the beaver and the maple leaf". Perhaps she wanted to announce the imminent appearance on our screens of interactive maple leafs and beavers.
What the minister is not telling us is the number of loonies taxpayers will have to shell out to promote the beaver. This new web site is nothing more than another element in the strategy of her colleague, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, to promote artificially and at great cost a feeling of belonging among Canadians.
Since the referendum, the people of Quebec know that Canada is living on borrowed time, but what we did not know is that its Parliament has now become a virtual reality.