Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his pertinent comments.
We in Quebec believe ourselves capable of building and maintaining bridges. The federal government must have a say in accepting, rejecting or verifying what we are doing, but it must not dictate what Quebec should do. In my opinion, this bill was not created in order to allow Ottawa to tell us what to do, although it could be interpreted that way.
We prefer to regard it in light of a province's full capacity to build and maintain a bridge. We believe that the federal government's responsibility consists in accepting or rejecting a province's plans. We do not have to participate in a commission, where we will always be a minority, I might add. We believe that it would be much more practical to implement a plan. The province submits a plan to the government that is either accepted or rejected. If Ottawa does not accept it, the province submits another plan. But the details are not discussed in committee.