Usually, the truth is hard to take, Mr. Minister.
The government has no mandate whatsoever from the people of Canada to move forward with the FTAA project. In the last election, as was the case in each previous election, its platform was set out in its red book, which is getting thinner and thinner as time goes by the way. The red books have become thinner and thinner with time; there are fewer and fewer programs, less and less work in the House and more and more international meetings to negotiate a free trade area while refusing to involve us.
Why did the government not have the courage of Brian Mulroney who in 1988 called an election to ask Canadians if they wanted him to sign the free trade agreement? This government, which today is trying to negotiate a free trade area, was against Brian Mulroney's proposal. The people were for it, and thanks to the people and not to the Liberals, we were able to progress. Now, week after week, they are literally reaping the benefits of the free trade agreement. They crow over that as if it were their doing.
If the government does not have a mandate to negotiate the FTAA, it has to obtain one, either by calling an election or by organizing a referendum. There are not many ways of going about it, unless the new leader of the party could decide otherwise.
Our current Prime Minister stubbornly continues to refuse Quebec and the other provinces a formal place in the process of negotiating and adopting the FTAA, at least within the areas under their jurisdiction.
It is somewhat disturbing to learn that the Prime Minister described the march as “blah, blah, blah”. The marchers and those who held forums just involved in blah, blah, blah. It is somewhat disturbing to see these peaceful demonstrators dismissed in this way.
Another thing that is disturbing, in the government statement over his signature, is that they want to make more investments in order to have better educational policies.
This is the government that has, over thirty years, allocated the least to education and cut the most from transfer payments to the provinces, making the objective of improved educational policies difficult to achieve. It will do this without involving Quebec or the provinces, while education is a totally provincial jurisdiction, in the main.
With this experience of the summit, we have unfortunately been given a fine demonstration of the lack of democracy in our country. Where democracy is concerned, if the Prime Minister is incapable of demonstrating to us with concrete actions that he is a democrat, there being several questions still up in the air in this regard, how is he going to keep his promises?