Mr. Speaker, I will share my time with the hon. member for Beauharnois—Salaberry.
I am pleased to rise today in this debate on a motion put forward by my party, the Bloc Quebecois, asking for a committee to be struck in order to consider the possibility of the creation on a pan-American monetary union.
This is a very serious issue and I am very proud to speak to it. I am not dealing with it the way opposite members are doing nor in the way they have been behaving for the last few minutes.
On the eve of the year 2000, in a world where economy, science, politics and energy are changing rapidly, we must deal with this issue within the broad modernization process in the context of globalization.
Every day, the media report large business and economic mergers. How can we remain passive in the face of the strong possibility of the creation of a joint pan-American currency?
The arrival of the Euro on the market last January was the trigger and the real beginning of this important reflection.
Who would have thought that only 40 years of negotiation would be needed for European countries to decide to create the Euro? The creation of the Euro gives back to Europe the look of an economic power resulting from the interdependence of eleven different countries.
The printing of the first Euros is the tangible result of the hard work of European countries after the second world war on the economic and social reconstruction of Europe.
We will soon be in the third millennium, and we will enter into multilateral negotiations at the World Trade Organization.
The debate on a common currency for the three Americas should start right now. While the Prime Minister of Canada and the governor of the Bank of Canada oppose this concept, the deputy premier of Quebec, Mr. Bernard Landry, who was an adamant proponent of the free trade agreement in 1988, is supporting the position of the Bloc Quebecois and its leader.
The FTA, followed by NAFTA have given Canada and Quebec a better access to the American market, and exports from Quebec have risen annually by 7% or 8%. Mr. Bernard Landry was right, and this trade agreement was fitting nicely in our agenda for Quebec sovereignty.
The creation of a common currency is another political and economic issue that should be dealt with seriously, in the context of discussions and negotiations over international trade agreements and more particularly in the context of a sovereign Quebec.
That is why the Bloc Quebecois is requesting that a committee be set up to study this important issue. Even if the Prime Minister of Canada and his finance minister are completely opposed to this, all members in this House should do something concrete and demonstrate that a common pan-American currency is a most realistic project that should be examined right now.
The position of the Bloc Quebecois is that a sovereign Quebec should keep the Quebec-Canada monetary union, but we should go further than that in our thinking. We know that sovereignists are for change. They are open to this worldwide debate, contrary to the federal Liberals who do not want to move away from the status quo and who refuse any kind of change.
I remind members of the position taken by the Liberals in the 1988 debate on free trade. They were against the idea, including the then premier of Ontario, David Peterson. In 1999, it is the same scenario. Ontario Liberals are opposed to change and show no openness to prepare for the next 10, 15 or 20 years.
A few weeks ago, the Bloc Quebecois, a democratic party that listens to its grassroots members, formed a task force to examine the place of a sovereign Quebec in the world. The issue of a common currency will also be considered.
Personally, I support the creation of a common currency, as do my colleague from Charlesbourg and our leader. I am still convinced that, by the year 2020, three currencies will dominate the world market, namely the U.S. dollar, the Eurocoin and the Japanese yen. Twenty years is not a long time. Therefore, we must prepare ourselves for that economic possibility.
Members of the House of Commons must follow our lead immediately and consider the possible creation of a common currency. The federal Liberals still have closed minds and are incapable of dealing with such an important issue. They just refuse to get away from their old conservative way of thinking, from their unhealthy obsession with the status quo and from their narrow vision of Canadian nationalism.
I understand them. How can we expect them to be proactive and to renew their rhetoric when they are led by a man who is mostly inspired by the Trudeau philosophy of the 1970s? And what about the position of the New Democrats, who are also stuck on their old centralizing paradigms that are very close to those of the federal Liberals who are unable to have a world vision?
The Bloc Quebecois has taken the lead. Our members want to talk about this issue right now. We are a sovereignist party that anticipates the exceptional interdependent relationship of a sovereign Quebec with its other economic partners throughout the world. We are a party that looks forward to the future, not an old fashioned party like the Liberal Party opposite.