Mr. Speaker, on a number of occasions today I raised the question of intellectual honesty in this debate. I know this agitates the Bloc members but the reality out there is that investment gets very nervous when it is looking at a province headed by a separatist. In other words, what confidence would that sort of uncertainty give a company in terms of investing in the province of Quebec?
What the Bloc members want is the best of both worlds. They want to play at this idea of separatism but the citizens back in Quebec are paying a heavy price for this fixation on separation. We know that because the reality is that if Quebec did indeed separate, would General Motors of Canada have any guarantee that this new country called Quebec would have a free trade agreement with our biggest trading neighbours, the Americans? What about the old auto pact? Where would that be? In terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement, would Quebec in fact have one?
We could also talk about currency. Those are all considerations that every corporation, big or small, take into consideration. Every economist will tell us that, even those based in Quebec. That is why the head offices of a lot of corporate entities and corporate citizens have fled Quebec.
The fact remains that if we had a choice between that jurisdiction and another one, would we not choose the jurisdiction with more political stability than the province of Quebec represented here in the House of Commons by separatists?