I hear the Minister for International Trade, who is a candidate in a possible Quebec Liberal Party leadership campaign, tell us 2040.
I remember that when I first joined the Parti Quebecois, at the age of 17 or 18, they were predicting that the referendum held in 1995 would never take place. But it did take place, and much sooner than anticipated.
So, let us leave Quebecers go at their own pace and make their own decisions at the appropriate time. They will make this decision when they want to. I respect this. We will go at the same pace as them and follow their aspirations. However, I am convinced that they are not headed toward less autonomy, but greater autonomy in the future.
That being said, in order to fight this movement, Ottawa chose to invest in its sponsorship programs. It took this opportunity to reward all the friends who helped set up campaigns for the referendum and for various candidates, and who supported defeated candidates between elections.
All these friends of the government found two objectives. They thought “We are going to promote Canada and at the same time we will line our own pockets. We will justify it to the Canadian public by claiming it is good because it is being done for the benefit of Canadian unity. Everything done in the name of Canadian unity will be accepted”.
I am happy to see that people outside of Quebec are waking up and condemning this situation because it is unhealthy, in a true democracy, to work this way. It is also unhealthy, in a true democracy, to pass a law telling Quebecers how to practice democracy when they already have extremely high standards in this respect.
This same logic is behind the clarity bill, the sponsorship programs and others. This logic was brought here by the Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs; his vision is shared by the Prime Minister. We could talk about this for a long time.
However, I do not believe that what is before us now will deal with this fundamental problem, namely that the government does not understand what is going on in Quebec. It may be boasting now but the wake-up call will be all the more difficult to take. Their little Liberal cousins in Quebec are not doing too well. If I were them, I would avoid spitting up in the air because, as they say, what goes up must come down.
In the same vein, I would add that if the government wants people to believe it when it talks about ethics standards, it will have to be a lot less shallow than it has been of late.
I have a problem with the fact that only two days before we are scheduled to adjourn and a week before the end of the session which, as we know, will very likely be prorogued this fall, the government is all of a sudden announcing its great plans regarding a code of ethics.
We question its real motives, all the more as in the background there are major internal struggles among our opponents across the way, which explains why some of them are behaving the way they are.
In short, I would tell my colleague from Trois-Rivières that, unfortunately, what is there will not assuage his concerns. I do not think there is any major motivation for the government to do so, because it has explained that losing a few millions here and there, for the cause, could be justified.
Now it is up to the voters of Canada to judge. I am sure that they will find this increasingly unacceptable in future, especially if the other opposition parties do their homework and speak out against practices like these.
It is one thing for them to go about boasting the merits of what they consider a good system, but it is quite another to mess with public funds in order to buy off people or to pay back friends for political support and co-operation with party activities. Ultimately, unlike the Prime Minister, I am not convinced this will serve their cause.
To put it succinctly, all this will also be affected by the motivations of each of us as far as this bill is concerned. There is one thing for sure, however: we will be extremely vigilant.
Something has just come to mind now that I had neglected to mention. The sponsorship program is one of the rare programs in which Quebec got more than its share from Ottawa. I have listened to my colleague from the NDP asking how it was that there were no sponsorships in his riding, in his region. Quebec was heavily advantaged in this $40 million program, whereas we would have liked to have been equally advantaged for programs relating to real problems such as health care funding and post-secondary education.
If they really want to give people tangible assistance, let them inject funds into these programs, rather than sponsorship goodies—