Madam Speaker, I do not know whether the hon. member is a Progressive Conservative or a Bloc Quebecois member, because he has reached the stage of promising us referendums. I have some good issues of conscience to raise with him.
He has referred to the HRDC scandal. I would like to remind him that the consent of the provinces is involved. Yesterday's La Presse quoted Mr. Pinard, the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, as saying that the Prime Minister was doing excellent work and was working on behalf of the people of Shawinigan.
I believe the hon. member ought instead to be congratulating us for bringing the unemployment rate down from 11.4% to 6.8%. He says that he is going to give us figures comparing what was done during their mandate and during ours.
I would just like to remind him of a few such figures: their 3% and 5% surtax to eliminate the deficit, which we took out in our budget three years ago, their non-indexation of tax tables, to try to fight the deficit.
If he wants figures, we will give him some.
We have reduced the debt to $573 billion. We have eliminated the deficit. Do they talk about the $42 billion deficit that we have eliminated? We have generally reduced taxes by 15%. There were no tax cuts when the Conservative were in power. There were tax increases. That is what they managed to do.
There was also an increase in unemployment, whereas under our government the unemployment rate has gone down to 6.8%. Those are eloquent figures.
In order to give a break to families, we cancelled the 3% and 5% surtax they slapped on to help eliminate the deficit. In 2000-2001, the transfer payments will reach an absolute high, contrary to what a Bloc member stated this morning when he said it was a shame.
With the transfer of tax points that provinces want us to increase, the transfers will reach a record high. The Conservatives never did anything of the kind.
The Quebec finance minister said it was not a matter of money but rather a matter of management. I would have liked to hear Bloc members tell us what Quebec has done with the $841 million kept in trust when people had to go to the United States to get health care because of a lack of money.
They talk about referendums. The hon. member mentioned the figure of 49%, yet we know that 25% of those who voted yes believed Quebec would stay within Canada. This is a Conservative saying this and promising another referendum? I seriously wonder if he should not change seat and go sit with the Bloc.