Mr. Speaker, I hope the hon. member who just spoke will remain in the House to listen to my speech. I have rarely heard so many falsehoods. Maybe ignorance is bliss.
This morning, the Globe and Mail reported that Quebec business leaders are highly optimistic. I quote “Quebec business leaders are more optimistic than they have been in five years. Not since the election of a sovereignist government in Quebec has the province been basking in such optimism. Quebec anticipates increases in sales, profits, price reductions, an increase in employment and a drop in inventories, all conditions needed for economic growth”.
When the hon. member says that Quebec is poor, he is treating Quebecers like a colonized people. This is exactly why we want out.
The hon. member should come to Quebec. He should see how we live, how dynamic a people we are, how we are getting known, especially Montreal, as the best centre in Canada for the new economy.
The members opposite should stop thinking that they are the fathers of Canada, that the rest of the country relies on them. I happen to think that the attitude of the federal Liberals from Ontario is one of the main reasons we will leave the country. We are sick and tired of their paternalistic attitude, especially when they convey falsehoods like the previous speaker just did.
Why are we so disgusted by the CHST? Because it will cost Quebec $350 million every year. The federal government has unilaterally decided to change the rules of the game and now Quebec will only get 8.3% of the extra $11 billion in transfers over five years. How can you expect Quebecers to be satisfied and say “we have 24% of the population and we get 8.3% of transfer payment increases, so everything is fine and dandy?”
I think there is something positive in all of this in that it has inspired the Bloc's position. In our view, now that these types of transfers are based on the population, we will simply keep the GST payments and the federal government can keep the corresponding Canada health and social transfer, and that will allow us to put money into productive spending. This is a fundamental problem in Canada: for 100 years, productive spending has been going to Ontario and that province has been systematically benefiting from the establishment of high technology centres. The maritime provinces and Quebec have had to make do with transfer payments. That is the kind of balance that Ontario has imposed upon Canada, and it is unacceptable for the country as a whole.
With regard to the budget, yesterday, the Prime Minister told Quebecers “I do not understand why people are not aware of the good things we do. We are unable to show who we are”. When a bill that gives Quebec only 8.3% of the $11 billion increase in CHST payments comes before the House the very next day, one can understand why Prime Minister is not welcome.
One can understand also why he is not welcome when he lets the issue of the millennium scholarships drag on for a whole year just to gain visibility. There were actions on the part of the Bloc Quebecois, the Government of Quebec and the Quebec National Assembly in this regard. The latter was unanimous on the millennium scholarships, not only the sovereignists, but also the Quebec Liberals, who are federalists, as well as the ADQ. The leaders of the three party wrote the Prime Minister of Canada to tell him “You absolutely must respect the resolution adopted by the National Assembly. Our jurisdiction over education must be respected”.
Maybe we will finally get results because Quebec is united and able to formulate requests, but let us think of all the time lost because we must always spend more energy than Ontario to get our fair share.
It is the same thing with productive spending. Anybody here would be ready to replace transfer payments with productive spending. If the federal government gave us our fair share of productive spending, it would not take us long to outpace Ontario in terms of economic development.
I will point out what I would have liked to see in the budget. I would have like a new balance in EI. Last week's consultations in the regions by the federal Liberals regional prove me right. The Quebec section of the Liberal Party of Canada is travelling around Quebec right now. There, as elsewhere, their own grassroots members are telling them that what they are doing does not make sense.
For example, a former liberal candidate in the 1997 elections, Jean-Guy Doucet, asked the Liberal establishment to re-examine some aspects of EI. “There are major irritants and unfair elements that need to be corrected” he said during the preliminary meeting leading to the provincial convention of the Liberal Party of Canada.
The message is coming from their own grassroots members. You saw it in Trois-Pistoles, where there were more demonstrators than people interested in the consultation. It was the same kind of reaction in Trois-Rivières. In Gaspésie, the Minister of Human Resources Development was even shut out. Are they waiting to be shut out, to be unwelcome everywhere in Quebec before acting and coming up with answers? We were hoping the budget would include something on employment insurance so as to give back some credibility to the program, but not so.
We were also hoping to find a shipbuilding policy. This is the kind of productive spending we had in mind. The federal government is sorely lacking in initiative and innovation; all it had to do is copy a number of measures that are implemented by the provinces, particularly Quebec, to revitalize the economy.
Why does the government not do so? Perhaps because the weight of federal Liberal members from Ontario is too heavy, they are just cruising along or they do not particularly care about nationwide development. Whatever the reason, the results are obvious. The government continues to want to send transfer payments to the regions while setting aside productive expenditures for Ontario. This is a fundamental option that leaves no choice to Quebecers but to leave this country.
There are also more concrete elements. Last week, a report was tabled on amateur and professional sports. I want to draw the attention of the House on a specific measure in that report. That measure could easily have been incorporated into the budget. We could have had the consent of the House to incorporate that measure and give it immediate effect. I am referring to the granting of a tax credit to parents whose children are involved in competitive sports.
Such action would have clearly reflected our belief that the physical and mental health of our children are perhaps the best way to avoid unacceptable situations.
The government could also have included measures to promote regional economic diversification. Again, there are no such measures in the budget. This is a straightforward budget, a budget that allows those who have more money to keep it.
With all these shortcomings of Bill C-71, clearly the Bloc Quebecois will be forced to vote against it. The interests of Quebec are at stake.
No member from Quebec will vote in favour of this bill and agree, with the increase in Canada social transfer payments, to Quebecers having only 8.3% of the $11 billion increase. Not one of the members from Quebec voting in support of it, when visiting their riding and being asked whether they did their job this week, whether they defended the interests of Quebecers, will be able to stand and say “Yes, we did a damn fine thing. We arranged for Quebec to get only 8% of the increase in the Canada social transfer payments”.
Nobody on the other side will be able to say that. When the Prime Minister of Canada says “No one knows about the good things we do”, it is true, because, when it comes to good things like that, there is not one member on the other side with the courage to mention it in his or her riding and reveal that he or she has become more the defender of Ottawa in Quebec than the defender of the interests of Quebec in Ottawa. That is the difference between the members of the Bloc Quebecois and those of the majority, who keep limiting our rights, trying to put a straitjacket on Quebec.
The member from Ontario who spoke before me would do well to take note of this message. Perhaps, in the next federal election, the federal Liberals in Ontario will hang on to a certain number of important ridings. However, the way things are going, they will certainly not have the small majority of five members they have at the moment. They will receive a clear message from all the regions in Canada “Out with the current Liberal government”.