Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the member for Gatineau's speech, but I do not understand. I do not understand the Bloc Québécois' position at all.
Since the provisional implementation of this agreement, 2,000 jobs have been lost in Quebec. Jobs have been lost in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, plants have been shut down in Abitibi, and jobs have been lost in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and on the North Shore. In short, more jobs have been lost in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada. Yet the Bloc still says it will support the agreement. It will support the bill even though we all know it is a bad deal and not at all in the best interest of Quebeckers.
We also know that this agreement has an anti-circumvention clause, which also appears in the bill, that directly affects Quebec's power to act. This clause forces the Government of Quebec to go to Washington if it wants to change its forest policy. The province has to get approval from the Bush administration for any changes even though forest policy falls exclusively under provincial jurisdiction. Even though it is within the purview of the Government of Quebec, we have just ceded the Government of Quebec's sovereignty.
The Bloc's policies in this House are inconsistent. The Bloc is not defending the Government of Quebec's right to make changes to its forest policy, nor is it fighting for all of the jobs that were lost because of this bad deal.
Why?