Mr. Speaker, please excuse me.
The Secretary of State (Agriculture) was hoping that I was beginning to convince my leader to support the next federal budget so that the community development trust would see the light of day. The secretary of state was a week late because the Prime Minister sided with us the week before. He told us that the trust money would be separate from the budget. The Secretary of State for Agriculture likes to boast that the Bloc Québécois does not have any power; however, the Bloc won this one. The secretary is not up to date. A week after the fact, he was still going on about it.
Having said that, one important issue remains. On the weekend, the Premier of Quebec, Mr. Jean Charest, again raised it with the Prime Minister of Canada. He told him that it was a good idea to separate the money, that he himself had asked for that and that it agreed with the Quebec consensus that the votes should be separate. He also told him one more thing: that more money is needed. One billion dollars is not enough. More money is needed.
Last fall, the Bloc Québécois presented a $3.5 billion action plan, with $2 billion for the manufacturing industry, $1 billion for the forestry industry and $1.5 billion for employment insurance. That is a total of $4 billion. $1 billion has been put into the trust and the remaining $3.5 billion remains to be disbursed.
Will the government go ahead and respond to the second requirement of the Quebec consensus and agree to allocate the money, from this year's $10 billion surplus, as follows: $3 billion to the debt, $3.5 billion to recovery and $3 billion to help seniors? Is this not the right decision, which the government should make public as soon as possible?