Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Bloc has, for some weeks now, implicitly sanctioned hateful and violent remarks made by a group of extremists that was denouncing the re-enactment of the battle of the Plains of Abraham this summer in Quebec City.
In doing so, the Leader of the Bloc Québécois has made a serious error in judgment. His lengthy silence in response to the hateful remarks, notably by Pierre Falardeau and Patrick Bourgeois, is completely unacceptable.
But this kind of attitude from the Bloc leader was predictable given that his top priority is to divide Quebeckers, as the French president so eloquently noted last month.
What is even more unacceptable is that, as a result, the Quebec City area, my area, has to kiss millions of dollars in tourism revenue goodbye.
In the midst of an economic crisis, the Bloc leader decided to play partisan politics to the detriment of the economic interests of the citizens and businesses in my city.