Madam Speaker, the prorogation we are talking about took place less than a year after the last prorogation. I think this procedure is truly being abused, although it is completely legal from a constitutional standpoint. No one is questioning that.
What should be used by the government to recharge its batteries at the end of a political agenda, the Conservative government used simply to stall for two months, only to come back with the same old story, the same old unpalatable measures.
And they had better not suggest that they are talking about the same kind of thing done in Quebec under the René Lévesque government. That was not at all the same as what this Prime Minister is doing in Ottawa.
Regarding Alberta, we are not bashing that province, unlike many people here who like to bash Quebec. We do not have a problem with the oil sands, as long as there are regulations that comply with environmental standards similar to those that other businesses in Canada and Quebec have to meet.
I know some Quebeckers who are very worried about the fact that the oil being extracted from the oil sands is not regulated. I am convinced that if the oil sands development in Alberta were regulated, we would see greater foreign investment than we do now. Let me be clear; we never said to shut it down. We do not want to encourage it. We do not want those developers to benefit from tax shelters, but it has to be regulated. They are killing the cash cow, the goose that lays the golden egg.