Mr. Speaker, I thought you were boycotting me. I was getting scared; I was surprised because this is not a habit of yours.
I have a two tiered question for my hon. colleague, our critic for foreign affairs, something it is important to remind the House of.
I know she does some excellent work and has to represent Quebec and the sovereignist movement all over the world. She has had the opportunity on several occasions to visit embassies abroad, where there are often offices of the Canadian tourism commission.
I would like her to tell us a little about how she sees things. When she visited these offices, what was the image of Quebec shown abroad?
Not too long ago, I was the critic for international trade, I also had the privilege to visit these offices. Canada is a big country and when one tries to promote tourism for almost all the provinces, some of them are left aside, and it happened quite often that I saw little or no information about Quebec.
I would also like to make another comment. By trying to repatriate everything to the federal level—I have seen this in different English provinces—does the federal government not give quite clearly the impression that provincial jurisdictions are second class jurisdictions, that it is the one who has to do the real work and leave minor details and trivia to local authorities, which are expected to carry out the orders taken by the superior minds, as they see it, in the central government?
All the government's bills smack of its smug attitude toward all institutions. As the hon. member for Mercier said quite clearly, in Quebec, there is another example of a principle that works. Tourisme Québec has been around for a very long time. It has developed through regional divisions, and this is working. I would like to hear the hon. member on these two issues.