Madam Speaker, I do not question our colleague's sincere desire to represent his constituents properly. I think, however, that he should not question our sincerity, as we are democratically elected members from Quebec.
I would like to point out to the hon. member that the government, in the throne speech, far from giving up its power to spend, the spending power of the federal government, has just shown that it intends to do the opposite. My hon. colleague said that, as with married couples, when things are not going very well, always threatening to leave does not solve any problem, and that we should not always be made to react because a gun is being held to our head.
I would like to remind the hon. member opposite that several members on this side have risen to point out to the government what the priorities of Quebec are in the area of occupational or manpower training.
Again, we have to remind this government that, in the throne speech, far from giving up their power to spend, they are at it again, overlapping and duplicating, in the section dealing with young people. I will read him a brief passage from a letter I received from the Quebec minister, Louise Harel, as a result of a meeting with a youth advisory committee within the Société québécoise de développement de la main-d'oeuvre, the SQDM:
In an opinion submitted to the SQDM, some representatives of youth groups question the federal youth employment strategy, pointing out that if the federal-provincial agreement of April 21, 1997 is a first step towards respecting the consensus in Quebec, the youth employment strategy put forward by the federal government goes in the opposite direction.
That is why we, as a group in the Bloc Quebecois, condemn this strategy of overlap and duplication in areas under provincial jurisdiction.