Mr. Speaker, I used extremely polite vocabulary in my speech. I do not like being accused of exaggeration. Our party does not exaggerate, quite the contrary. Maybe those accusations can be attributed to the lack of experience of the member opposite. We can excuse him for his mistake.
I am not talking about forcing people to retire because of their age. When a 50 year old worker loses her job because the company she was working for closes its doors, and the only work experience she had was with that company, and she is too young to collect pension benefits, we must help her. That is the kind of situation I am talking about.
I talked about post-secondary studies. It is true that students in Quebec might have less debt than students in other provinces, but they have debt nonetheless, and they must pay back their debt. Thus, there is no doubt that we must reinvest in and help our young people, so they can continue to study.
It is not enough simply to toss $245 million at us. This is not enough money. Yes, we will take it and, yes, we are happy to have it, but it is not enough. It must also be permanent. It cannot be just one part, one time, one year. It cannot be money given simply to placate Quebec and to clear the conscience of the Conservatives, who can now say that they did a good job, because they gave money to Quebec. I am sorry, but these arrangements must be permanent.
Ottawa is raking in astronomical surpluses. We know this, because we can add them up. The Bloc Québécois has always been the best at doing so. Therefore, this money must come back to us, and be allocated to the files in which we would most like to invest. This does not mean that other provinces will want to invest in the same areas.
Thus, let us decentralize things, as the Prime Minister likes to say. If he wants to decentralize, he has an opportunity to do so. I wish he would decentralize and allow us to invest, with our own means, where it is needed most, where our citizens have the greatest needs. In Quebec, the areas that need the greatest investment are health, education and our workers. We would like to help all these people, but it is up to us to decide and not up to the federal government.
We want to take control of our own affairs, we want to make our own decisions. That is what it means to be independent. And one day we will be a country, we will be sovereign, and when that day comes, we will have everything we need to function.