Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak about the Bloc Québécois opposition motion. First, I want to congratulate my colleague from Hochelaga who has done an excellent job all day trying to defend the interests of Quebeckers and to make the rest of Parliament understand that it is not true that Canada is always number one.
I have been pressured since my arrival at the House of Commons in 2000. The first lobbyists I met as a member were from the banks. They tried to make us understand that the banks in Canada needed to merge and grow in order to acquire other banks. They had the support of the Conservatives and some of the Liberals. The Liberals have always been divided on this issue. There was the pro-Martin camp and the pro-Chrétien camp. The pro-Martin camp was in favour of merging the banks, but the pro-Chrétien camp was not. The Bloc Québécois fought hard and managed to put off those decisions until an election was called. Since then, it has not been brought up again, which saved Canadian banks.
Moreover, as recently as last week, the new president of Power Corporation said he had made a mistake in 2000 when he supported bank mergers. He stated that the government was right not to allow the banks to merge, because they obviously would have bought a lot of bad debt. They would have bought American banks, which would have made Canada much weaker.
At the time, the Conservatives were in favour of mergers. I remember that the current Prime Minister, who was on the opposition side back then, fought for bank mergers. Today, I did not hear him say anything. He should have done the right thing, like the new president of Power Corporation, and apologized for the mistake he made back then.
The Conservatives are making a second mistake by trying once again to centralize. That is what the banks wanted to do in 2000: expand, centralize and be able to make acquisitions. Now the government wants to do the same thing, even though we have a passport system managed by the provinces that works quite well.
That is the reality and that is what our colleague from Hochelaga—a renowned economist and former minister in the Quebec government—has been trying to convey all day. Furthermore, he tried to make them understand that not only is this a mistake, but it will deprive Quebec of some of its powers. The Conservatives are trying to expand the system's administration in Toronto, while weakening Quebec, but more importantly, weakening the entire system that was created in Canada.
I thank my colleague for trying to make them understand the situation and I hope all hon. members will realize that when we defend Quebec, often we are also defending Canada, and we are trying to get them out of an impasse that will only lead to more mistakes.