Mr. Speaker, what surprises me about what he is saying is that, of all the groups he mentioned, some of them did support the budget, but they all denounced the cap on equalization in the same press release. He should have read to the end of the press release, instead of stopping after the first three lines. There is unanimous agreement about equalization and about the securities commissions.
Furthermore, what he forgot to say is that the Prime Minister wrote to the Premier of Quebec in 2007, telling him that the formula could henceforth be used to calculate the sums that would be paid in equalization. Yet by capping it, Quebec loses $1 billion this year and up to $2 billion in 2010. What this Prime Minister did was break his promise and go back on his word.
And while he claims that all the groups he mentioned and everyone else in Quebec support them, we just have to look at the results of the last election. Quebeckers decided that a Prime Minister who spent his time following in Mr. Bush's footsteps was not someone who represented their values and interests. I have often denounced the fact that this Prime Minister imitated Mr. Bush. I have one piece of advice for him: he should now follow in Mr. Bush's footsteps.