Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Berthier—Maskinongé for his question.
When it comes to changing points of view, I think the Bloc Québécois should explain its own about-face on this issue. We were pretty surprised to find that, when the government put pressure on the industry and the Bloc Québécois, the Bloc simply dropped the arguments it had been making last April. Now they support what we believe to be a bad deal.
The member referred to loan guarantees. I agree with him that when the Conservatives were in opposition, they insisted on loan guarantees. I agree with the Bloc member. As soon as the Conservatives came to power, they dropped the issue.
I would like to remind the House that it was the current member for Vancouver Kingsway who, as a minister in the Liberal government before his own about-face, announced a loan guarantee program.
This summer, I had the opportunity to talk to Mr. Chevrette, the spokesperson for the Quebec industry. He talked about the Liberals' loan guarantee program, the very program that had been announced by the current minister of International Trade. He is not sure to what extent the Quebec industry supports the current agreement.
This means that if the Liberal program were still in effect, and if the Conservative government had not simply cancelled the program in an effort to threaten or pressure the industry, I think the Canadian industry would have been able to resist the pressure to sign on to a bad agreement.
We know that the money on its way back to Canada will not end up in the hands of companies to be invested in communities and new technology. In the end, the bankers will be laughing all the way to the bank. That is what the government will accomplish in the end.