A colleague across the way says, “Because he is honest”, so it was not a mistake. I heard the heckle and I am picking up on the heckle and saying that is what the Conservatives actually believe. The member for Cambridge is only endorsing those comments.
Cambridge is a key element in the manufacturing sector of Ontario and he has associated himself now with this epistle from St. James to the Oshawans, saying that the last place to invest is the province of Ontario.
I want to indicate to the members of the House what would happen if this were said about virtually any other part of the country, if a prime minister or a first minister said that about the province of New Brunswick, or the province of Newfoundland, or the province of Quebec, or any other province.
If that had been said about the province of Quebec, if the Minister of Finance had said that Quebec was the last place he would invest, there would have been an open and not-so-quiet revolution in Quebec. It would not have been a quiet revolution, but a real revolution, because people would not have accepted that.
On behalf of the people of Canada who live in Ontario, we do not accept being singled out by the Minister of Finance for opprobrium and attack and we do not accept that we are somehow second class citizens. For the Liberal Party, our Canada includes Ontario and Ontarians, and that is what we believe. We believe in that economy.
With the increase in the value of the dollar having gone up 50% in the last three or four years, with the impact of higher oil prices and higher energy prices, of course competitiveness has been affected in the province of Ontario. Much of our exports and our manufacturing has had the benefit of a truly competitive economy and now we are in a more difficult position.
This is not the moment for meanspirited partisan attacks. This is not the moment for the Minister of Finance, because the government of Ontario happens to be a Liberal government, which defeated the government of which he was a member, to suddenly turn around and attack not only that government, but attack the people of the province and the business climate of the province and hold out to foreign investors the idea that Ontario is a place where business should not be done. It is shameful.
Let me remind the House once again of the words of the epistle of St. James to the Oshawans, “If I was an investor, the last place I would invest is the province of Ontario”. It is shameful.
I can assure members opposite that those words will not be forgotten. Those words will not be lost in the course of a parliamentary debate, because those words were spoken aloud by the Minister of Finance in a deliberate way.