Madam Speaker, I have to say I am a little embarrassed and a little ashamed to be in this House this afternoon listening to everything going on and everything being said. I am talking about the Quebec bashing, the disparaging of the Bloc Québécois and francophones. Personally, I find it very difficult to witness everything said today, everything said during and after question period. If find it personally very difficult.
We have had calls from people who live in Quebec and in other provinces of Canada. They are asking what is going on and why the government is displaying this kind of obstinacy, this kind of contempt for francophones in Quebec and Canada. Maybe the government is not aware of what is going on right now, but I can assure it that this may leave deep wounds that will take a long time to heal. People will remember this.
This so-called economic statement is really an ideological statement. It shows us how little respect this government has for the members of this House, and for the people of Canada, whether or not they voted for it. The entire voting population of Canada, in the last election, voted for a government to be serious and pay real attention to the economic and financial crisis we are experiencing.
It there is any doubt remaining in the minds of our Conservative colleagues, I can assure them that Stephen Jarislowsky, at least, a well-known billionaire financier and investor, said today at the Montreal Board of Trade that he supported a coalition government and that this was probably the most important and most useful thing at present in Canadian politics. At this point, a government has to make major investments, and he criticized the Prime Minister for not doing that in a crisis as serious as this. When a man as well versed in finance as Mr. Jarislowsky tells us something, I think we should listen, whether we are sovereignists or not.
When we chose to form an alliance with the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party to create a coalition government, we did it in good faith, as we have acted in good faith for the 15 years that the Bloc Québécois has been in this Parliament. The Bloc Québécois, a sovereignist party, as always shown scrupulous respect for the protocol, rituals and members of this House. The Bloc Québécois has always taken its role seriously and fulfilled it responsibly.
Today, we see members trying to lay their own strategic mistakes at the doorstep of the Bloc Québécois because they are incapable of getting traction for the right-wing ideas we do not want, and nobody in this country wants, either in Quebec or in Canada. They are arguing from weakness and condemning the parties that have done their job properly.
In the past, we have made a number of proposals to the Conservative Party to ensure that the people we represent could get the help they need and would be able to say that their government was genuinely concerned for their welfare. Now, the only thing they can say is that the government is extending its hand and going right for their pocket. It has forgotten about the welfare of the people. When they tell seniors that 25% of their retirement income will not have to be withdrawn this year, that is not very much. This will be a very hard year for seniors who have to live on their retirement income and have to withdraw money from their RRIF. We would have hoped that the government could have shown some compassion and raised the age when they would have to withdraw money from 71 to 73.
We hoped that it would understand that people who have lost their jobs over the past few weeks and those who will be losing their jobs in the coming weeks need immediate access to employment insurance benefits to support their families.
We hoped that the government, despite its incomprehensible right-wing ideology, would understand that women have the right to pay equity, not equal pay for equal work, but equal pay for work of equal value. Women in Quebec have had pay equity for 10 years now, and they do not have to worry about taking pay equity cases to court. It is a de facto right, it is non-negotiable, it belongs to us and we are entitled to it. Pay equity is one of our rights.
We also hoped that the government would understand that families that have to work, single-income families that need two incomes, need more than $100 per month to take care of their children. The government failed to understand that. According to its ideology, a woman's place is in the home. We have seen it do things for the sole purpose of sending women back home. Every woman in this country, like every woman in Quebec, has the right to a job, the right to work, and the right to earn an income that belongs to her, not a virtual income. Under the government's proposed new programs, a woman who stays at home could virtually receive a portion of her husband's income.
As I said earlier, the Bloc Québécois has always stood by its commitments to the people it represents. As I said earlier to the Conservative member, we want to build one country, but that does not mean that we want to destroy another.
Many of my family members live in the western provinces, many of them live in eastern Canada and many of them live in Quebec. Never would anyone in my family think that I bore them any ill will. Never would anyone in my family think that I want to destroy this, the most beautiful country in the world. That is not what we want, but like all people and all nations, we have the right to self-determination.
In closing, I truly hope that we will one day have a government that understands that the members in this House have a duty. They have a duty towards the people who elected them and not towards the government, which claims to have all the answers and to know better than anyone what Canadians want or what Quebeckers want. We must listen to our constituents more closely and we must—I hope the Prime Minister will take this into account in his address tonight—work together and do everything in our power to get through this economic crisis together, growing stronger, in order to really help our citizens pull through this crisis.