Mr. Speaker, in the wake of all the “innocent quotes of the week”, the Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec absolutely had to get in on the action. After hearing his colleague from the industry department tell us recently that the increase in oil prices was due to environmentalists, the Minister of Labour really lays it on now by saying that sawmills are closing and thousands of workers are losing their jobs and that too is all their fault.
Instead of insulting and blaming environmentalists and singers like Richard Desjardins, who believes like us in sustainable development, now that we know that the Prime Minister says the softwood lumber agreement is inadequate, what is the minister going to do? Will he retract what he said? Will he apologize to Quebeckers for comments more reminiscent of the 1950s?