Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague for his excellent speech. I thank him for sharing his time with me.
I am very pleased to speak on behalf of the Bloc Québécois and to re-read the motion introduced today by my brilliant colleague, our finance critic. The motion states:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should immediately abandon the idea of creating a common securities regulator, since securities regulations fall under the legislative jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces and because this initiative is unanimously condemned in Quebec.
I am all particularly proud that there is only one party that can rise in this House and introduce such a motion because there is only one party that defends the interests of Quebeckers every day. It is not the few members of the other parties. It is not the New Democrat member for Outremont. It is not the Liberal Party members for Bourassa or Saint-Laurent—Cartierville. Even less is it the Conservative members for Lévis—Bellechasse, Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, Jonquière—Alma and Louis-Hébert. Those are not the people who will stand up to defend the interests of Quebeckers. It is the members of the Bloc Québécois. This is even more important because this situation in Quebec has been analyzed and examined. The Quebec National Assembly made a decision to condemn this position.
That is not what I am hearing from the Conservative members. According to them, it is as though Quebec did not know where it was going. I just listened to a Conservative member stand up and tell us that. In their Canadian Constitution, this falls under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. That is the reality. If there is a problem with the Constitution, they know what they have to do: reopen it and renegotiate it. They will never dare to do that and that is the reality.
Obviously, for more than 40 years, the government has, from time to time, tried to interfere in provincial jurisdictions, especially when it comes to securities. But this has become even more evident since the new Minister of Finance took up his duties. It is no secret that he has his eye on the leadership of the Ontario Conservative Party. That is the hard truth. He can afford to criticize the Premier of Ontario. But he is pushing a plan to centralize securities in Ontario. So all the Conservative members who are saying that there is nothing political about this should look at the political interests of the finance minister. It is in his political interest to transfer all the securities to Ontario, because he dreams of becoming the Premier of Ontario. Quebeckers will not be fooled, or at least not the Quebeckers who are able to stand up for what they believe in—the members of the Bloc Québécois in this House. We can see what the finance minister is trying to do.
Obviously, within the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces, no one has been fooled by this attack. We will always be ready to stand up and denounce this position. That is why Quebeckers have elected us, to defend their interests and their values. Speaking of values, financial values are among those that Quebeckers want to see protected. Securities fall under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. In Quebec, the Autorité des marchés financiers or AMF is in charge of regulating financial markets. That works very well.
In a cross-Canada context, we know there is the so-called passport system, which works very well. That is to say that between the provinces, except for Ontario, which has decided to go its own way for political reasons, there is this passport system that allows for a coordinated approach in applying the law. It offers uniform protection for investors. This system enables each securities regulator to develop its own approach and areas of expertise. That makes it possible to have different but complementary approaches to compliance with the regulations by those affected. This different but complementary critical vision, while more onerous, makes it easier to detect and prevent scandals such we have seen in the United States, where these issues are submitted to a centralized authority. It is a benefit for investors. So, the Conservative position is difficult to understand.
Again, Quebec conducted a study and a second assessment, and, on October 16 of last year, the National Assembly decided to condemn this federal government's initiative. All parties, whether sovereignist or federalist, unanimously passed the following motion:
That the National Assembly ask the federal government to abandon its Canada-wide securities commission project.
That is as clear as could be. Quebec has decided to keep its powers in its own jurisdictions, and also its system, which is considered by the international community to be one of the world's most effective.
The fact that Conservative members were lead in that direction by their finance minister, who wants to run Ontario, is their problem. I find it much harder to understand why the Liberals are letting themselves be swayed in that direction. However, considering how they have been behaving in recent weeks, let us remain polite and say that this is just yet another contradiction. However, Bloc Québécois members will not be fooled, and they are going to defend firmly and strongly the position unanimously adopted by Quebec's National Assembly. That is why we tabled this motion. We hope that members from all parties in this House will clearly realize that, under the Canadian Constitution, securities are a provincial jurisdiction, and that they must respect the Constitution. I think they believe in the Constitution, since they patriated it. At the time, Quebec decided not to participate in that event. I hope they will now act in accordance with the Constitution that they wanted, and that they will respect provincial jurisdictions. The position of Quebec's National Assembly could not be clearer. Its motion, which was carried unanimously, asks the Government of Canada to abandon its way of doing things. I am going to read it once again, to ensure that it is clearly understood:
That the National Assembly ask the federal government to abandon its Canada-wide securities commission project.
That motion was passed on October 16, 2007, not 15 or 20 years ago.
I hope my colleagues understand that the members of the National Assembly and the people who helped draft this motion are very familiar with their responsibilities given that this falls in their area of jurisdiction.
Quebec will always be a leader in Canada, at least until we have a country of our own. Once again, we have blazed the trail. Every time that Canada has wanted to push Quebec back, it has found Quebec in its path. And every time that the federalist parties in the House want to push Quebec back, they will find the Bloc Québécois in their path. It is the only party that can stop them from pushing us back. That is what the Conservative Party wants, with the help of the Liberals. It wants to push us back in the securities file. They will find us in their path in Quebec.
This is all the more important in view of the fact that Quebec is unanimous about it, for historical reasons but also to protect its interests. The Autorité des marchés financiers is the final barrier to the disappearance of all stock markets from Montreal after the acquisition of the exchange by Toronto. It was not for no reason at all that the National Assembly came to this conclusion. The reason for blocking this pan-Canadian regulator is simply to protect Quebec’s interests.
The Autorité des marchés financiers has the regulatory authority to require a stock exchange in Montreal. The AMF oversees the exchange and establishes the rules by which it operates, including the percentage of shares held, etc.
The Quebec National Assembly wanted to protect its authority over securities and that is why a unanimous resolution was passed. That is why the only members who can really defend Quebec’s interests rose up today and tabled the motion of our learned colleague, the Bloc financial critic.
Once again we ask the other members to help protect Quebec’s financial authority. If they fail to do so, they will pay the price.