Mr. Speaker, I have a few comments for the learned, or formerly learned, member opposite.
I am very surprised when I hear the members opposite say that those nasty separatists from Quebec are asking for additional tax points.
Does the learned member opposite think that Jean Charest, the leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, is a nasty separatist? Is that what he thinks Mario Dumont, leader of the ADQ, is? For they too are asking that tax points be transferred.
The member opposite should get out of his ivory tower in Toronto and come to Quebec to see what this morning's papers, the Gazette , La Presse , and so on, have to say. All of them must be separatist papers, because they are critical of the federal government's budget. The federal government has generated its surplus on the backs of the poor, the unemployed, and women, and by cutting social transfer payments. That, dear learned colleague, is the sad reality.