Mr. Speaker, I am always touched by the irony when members of the Bloc stand up in the House of Commons and defend the right to take a pension from Canada, "but by the way we want to take the province of Quebec out of Canada". It may escape members of the Bloc but I assure you, Mr. Speaker, it does not escape the people where I come from.
The point I want to make to my colleague from the Bloc is that in order to have the moral authority to ask other Canadians to tighten their belts, we as Members of Parliament must first tighten ours. We are asking Canadians to pay twice as much for less. Yet we think it is quite all right for us to go along merrily as we have in the past.
My question relates to the different vision that we have of Canada. This does not make one right or another one wrong. It is just different; the collective nature of Quebec and the fact that Canada pension plan premium increases have not struck a resonant chord in Quebec. I would ask my colleague to think about the 45 per cent of Canadian businesses, as reported by the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses, that say payroll taxes are a major disincentive to hiring. Unemployment, particularly among young people, in Quebec is a disaster. What affect will this payroll tax increase have on employment in Quebec?