Madam Speaker, if there is one region where the employment insurance problem exists it is in the Pontiac region, where people are having problems qualifying for it, where they did not three or four years ago. They are now running into this problem. It is a problem particular to all the resource regions of Canada, but it is present in the Pontiac region as it is in all the other regions of Canada.
Therefore, the Bloc motion focuses particularly on showing its good faith and that of the other parties in this House by pointing out clearly that the social union is an attractive route to the future. It would permit sufficient autonomy, both for a province wishing to withdraw from a program and for another with an original idea wishing to implement it, so long as the majority of provinces were in agreement. I think the federal government would do well to listen to this program and arrive at results that would enable Quebec to assume greater autonomy.
If we want to achieve other successes in the future such as we did with the loans and bursaries system and the Régime des rentes du Québec, I think we have to develop some mutual trust. The federal government would be taking a positive step by saying “Yes, we think that, with a social union, we could achieve results if those with unique needs or problems are allowed to set up individual programs in these same areas”.
It is not a foregone conclusion that health care problems in Quebec are to be managed the same way as those in Ontario. Each province may have its own needs and priorities. One province may decide to put the accent on prevention and the other on cure. These situations occur. If the House were to adopt a motion such as the one proposed by the Bloc Quebecois today, it would solve any future problems associated with federal duplication of existing Quebec programs.
In conclusion, there are two issues here. First, the actions of the federal government in recent years should be strongly condemned, including the way it has slashed health care, thus depriving the provinces of funds that were sorely needed. Second, the provincial premiers have extended a hand, in that they collectively put on the table a proposal on which they agreed in Saskatoon, and which will allow each and every province to find what they need to implement the programs they feel are appropriate.
In Canada, we have been looking for a long time for a formula that would allow, for example, the nine predominantly English-speaking provinces to adopt a specific type of program, and let Quebec implement another one, while having the necessary flexibility for all these initiatives to be legal, wanted and justified. We are now in the last month of the period during which it would be possible to achieve this.
We urge the federal government to forget the inflammatory remarks the Prime Minister may have made a few months ago and to admit that there are some interesting ideas in the Saskatoon proposal.
That concludes my speech. I urge the Liberal majority in particular to pay attention. Quebec could develop its own social programs, with full compensation, and the rest of Canada could do as it saw fit, implement the programs it wanted, without the battles we have seen for the last 40 years.
Let us remember that, in Victoria in 1971, Robert Bourassa, as Quebec's representative, rejected the constitutional amendments because this issue had not been resolved. We have an opportunity to move forward, and I hope that Parliament will approve the Bloc Quebecois' recommendation.