Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my NDP colleague on his speech and I also want to make a few comments.
First, we cannot talk about a deposit and investment fund in Canada without referring, as my colleague from Drummond did so cleverly, to the existence of as extraordinary an institution as the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which was founded in the 1960s. My colleague from Drummond spoke at length about the work of Jacques Parizeau, one of the great thinkers behind this fine institution.
Mr. Parizeau was one of the great premiers and one of the great finance ministers in Quebec. He was a very bold and courageous premier, a great manager of the province's finances and a builder of Quebec. He is a man of vision but, at the same time, he has compassion for the role of the state, a totally modern state despite what some of the new stars that we see in Quebec today may think. These people have obviously been planted in Quebec, just as is the case elsewhere on the planet, to promote neo- liberalism and to counter the good work that the state can do in a society.
Going back to the Caisse de dépôt et de placement, we should not forget that this institution was established in the heyday of modern Canadian federalism, when the federal government agreed to discuss and negotiate between equals with the provinces. This was the Lester B. Pearson era.
Members need to remember that this fine institution, the Caisse de dépôt et de placement, appears to have been one of the reasons why Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Jean Marchand and Gérard Pelletier, who have been called the three doves, entered politics. They ran and, unfortunately, were elected. They took it upon themselves to put Quebec in its place. The Caisse de dépôt came on the heels of the nationalization of electricity, as a means for a people to better control its own destiny. Thanks to the Pierre Elliott Trudeaus of this world, their meanness, their narrow-mindedness and their egocentricity toward Quebec, this kind of development was never seen again.
I have a question for my NPD colleague. How does he explain the really shameful attitude, as my colleague for Drummond put it, of Bay Street? How does he explain their attitude concerning the Caisse de dépôt?
My second question is this: Can we be sure, with this initiative of the Canadian government, that the Caisse de dépôt et de placement in Québec will not be subjected to the Canadian investment board? Quebec should be recognized as a distinct society, at least in the financial sector.