Thank you Mr. Speaker. It is never too late to do the right thing.
Party politics aside, I would like to make a few comments and ask a question to the hon. member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques.
In this debate on issues which may enable the government to come up with a more rational budget, one that will better meet the needs of our fellow Canadians, the hon. member said a number of times that people told him this or that.
In the latest surveys, given that our colleagues in the Bloc continue to constitutionalize things here in the House of Commons and given that 86% of the people of Quebec are saying they have had their fill of the endless constitutional debates, does not, in fact, what we call Quebec's ambivalence concern the fact that what we put forward in the latest election campaign, the so-called Canadian pact, with the objectives of meeting the real needs of Canadians, not require us, rather than saying we are going to scrap one government and improve another, do people not recognize in this approach, in its ambivalence, which may not really exist, the fact that, when they find the two governments unsatisfactory, they can still, through their representatives define their priorities with one of the two governments and call for a consensus with the two levels of government to act in areas they consider important, such as industry, tourism, highway infrastructures and other urgent matters?
Quebeckers' common sense dictates that a balance be struck between the two levels of government. When 86% of Quebeckers tell us they are sick and tired of hearing about the Constitution left and right day after day, I think this means that we, as elected representatives, must try to act rationally, decide together what our priorities should be for each level of government and, if at all possible, put all available resources behind achieving objectives that they hold dear.
One can fake it only so far. In 1993, the Bloc Quebecois said it would get elected to hold real power. That is quite interesting. What is real power? Let us see the facts in two columns.