Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Charlottetown.
First, I congratulate the Bloc on this motion. This is an important issue, and having chosen the subject, the Bloc has come armed with good arguments. Although I do not agree with the view taken by the Bloc members on this issue, I have to admit they have done their homework. My only reservation about the Bloc’s position in this regard is that we are hearing the same refrain. No matter what the subject is, no matter what the issue, it is always the same refrain. As many powers as possible have to be given back to Quebec. That is obviously the guiding principle of the party.
I think we have to go back to the principle that Canada is a country. We are not a country so that everybody can withdraw to their corner and tend to their own business. We are a country because we share certain values. Whether the Bloc wants to admit it or not, Canadians who live outside Quebec share the same values as Quebeckers with the Quebec people, the Quebec nation, as some are fond of repeating. That is why we work together on all kinds of things. We have to go back to that idea. Why are we a country? To share our wealth, and not just our natural resources or our monetary resources through an equalization system. We have to share our ideas and work together, sometimes in the same institution, as the Bloc in fact does. The Bloc works here in this House, shares this place with colleagues from across Canada. We must forge ahead and work together with others in the same system, in the same institution. Because we are hearing the same refrain, we have to ask ourselves a question: does the argument have merit? I am not saying they have not made good arguments and they have not taken the question seriously, but it seems to me that it is always the same refrain.
The same thing can be said of the NDP. In fact it is not entirely the same thing, because it quite often acts contrary to its guiding principles. The NDP is chasing the same votes as the Bloc, so it tries to position itself as the great defender of “decentralization”, like the Bloc. But we know that in the past it was always a very centralist party and it still is on some issues. Seeing the NDP switching tracks like this undermines its credibility somewhat. I would tell my colleagues in the NDP not to chase the same votes as the Bloc, because that will get them nowhere.
Listening to the speeches by the NDP members and the speeches by the Bloc members describing federalists, particularly those in the official opposition, as dedicated centralizers, and even colonizers—I do not know whether I have yet heard the word “imperialist”, but it may come up at some point—I thought I was back in political science class at university in the 1970s. It is not a matter of being a centralizer. The idea of creating an integrated system to regulate securities in Canada is a matter of effectiveness. Our colleagues in the Liberal caucus and the Conservative caucus have explained this.
I was rather disappointed by the finance minister's speech on this. He should have taken the opportunity to sing the praises of a cross Canada system to regulate securities, but instead he took the opportunity to deliver, once again, his miserable budget. He spoke of his savings plan. I do not think the plan will be very effective. It will not channel much capital towards the investment Canada so badly needs. I understand my Bloc colleagues' fears. How can a government that delivered such a washed out, miserable and thin budget set in motion a national securities system? I understand my Bloc colleagues' concern.
One of the main challenges facing Canada's economy is to attract capital. It has always been a problem. The NDP has recognized this in the past. Obviously it has changed its message, because it is targeting the same votes as the Bloc Québécois in Quebec. The NDP has always recognized that it has always been a challenge for Canadian industry to attract capital. And so, in the past, provincial and federal governments have had to get involved. This is why there are more government corporations in Canada than in the United States. The government has to find a way to channel capital. This is a fact of Canada's economic history. We have to compete with the United States. The biggest capitalist economy in the world is not a decentralized federal system like ours, but a highly integrated and truly centralized one. It is very effective for investors. We have to compete with this country, and Wall Street is only a few hundred kilometres from here. We must become more effective on the stock markets and investment markets, or we will once again have a hard time keeping our capital and attracting new. For this reason, we must proceed with the help of experts who are not politicians.
As I said earlier, I am not totally convinced that we can trust the government and this Minister of Finance to put the proposed system in place. We must turn to the experts, who will tell us how to design an effective system that will compete with our neighbours, the United States, and respect regional interests in Canada. It seems simple and logical to me.
I would like to address as well an argument raised by the member for Outremont. He compared provincial societies that govern the professions, such as medicine, architecture and engineering. That strikes me as fairly obvious, and I am sure that my colleagues recognize the evidence. I do not understand why the NDP has a hard time recognizing it. There are human beings, who are not as mobile as capital. And then there is the national securities—capital—system. Capital travels everywhere fairly easily. This is why greater effectiveness is needed at the national level—to better compete with international capital.