Madam Speaker, since this is my maiden speech, you will certainly bear with me if I thank the electors in my riding of Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou for the trust they put in me. This is a riding that adopted me in 1954, perhaps unknowingly, but I have to say I have always been welcome and well considered.
These people are hard-working, dynamic, and resourceful. Their only handicap is the lack of vision of the various levels of government, since Quebec does not have enough money and wants to concentrate its assets in bigger cities to compete with federal investments in English-speaking Canadian provinces. For example, in 2002-2003, the western Canada economy, which represents 16.8% of the Canadian population, received $267 million, and the Atlantic provinces, with 7,3% of the population received $361 million, but Quebec, with 24%, received only $327 million, even if the squandered funds of the sponsorship program are taken into account.
Again, these figures do not give an appropriate picture of the redistribution of Canadian wealth. Let us remember the auto pact, implemented with an exaggerated fervour, which made Ontario the wealthiest and most privileged province in the Confederation. By the way, that was what prompted Pierre Elliott Trudeau to declare, in the case of Volkswagen, a car maker which Quebec was trying to woo, that the auto industry was Ontario's prize and that Quebec's was aeronautics. It should be recalled that Quebec offered Volkswagen substantial assistance for it to set up shop there and that PET, on behalf of the federal government, had more than doubled that offer, on the condition that Volkswagen set up shop in Ontario.
We should also point out that 25% of that amount came from the wallets of the people of Quebec. That was structuring aid which probably has not been included in the expenditures of Canada Economic Development.
When this government subsidizes nuclear and thermal energy in Ontario, it is structuring and polluting. When the government subsidizes GM for it to shut down its only plant in Quebec and open it in Ontario, a plant which, by the way, was preparing to make auto parts with raw materials from Quebec, this is structuring for Ontario--