Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Manicouagan, who has to live with this situation.
The lower north shore and the north shore include much of the St. Lawrence and part of its estuary. In the early days of Confederation, it was already the most important engine of economic development in Canada. At that time, the federal government wanted the ports because this was the engine of economic development. But as the years passed, it became less glamorous. It was less profitable in political terms because commercial traffic was no longer necessarily by water, and was rather by land or air.
Health networks grew up, and health spending by the provincial governments grew as well. The federal government decided to make some political hay. I recall very clearly, when I came here as a member, the first speech that then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien made when he was in Europe. He gave the President of France a piece of advice. He suggested that he do what we did in Canada, leave health entirely to the provinces and then make decisions. For example, for emergency room waiting rooms, he could enact a law and decide to cut waiting time in the ER. He did not manage a single hospital. It made no sense. It is all very well to do that when, in France, it is the central government that manages all the hospitals.
That is the reality. If the Liberals wanted that, they should have told the provinces they were going…