Madam Speaker, the simple truth of the matter is that some of the people who have been advocating separation in the province of Quebec have not shown clarity in what could happen if the people of Quebec ever embarked on that voyage.
Let us take a look at a few of the situations, such as currency. My colleagues from the Bloc Quebecois have said that if something ever did happen, and God help us that this does not happen, they would still use the Canadian dollar. There is nothing preventing them from doing that. The Bahamas use the American dollar. But think about this. They say they want to be maîtres chez nous, masters in their own house. How can they be masters of their own house if they relinquish power to the most important thing, which is their monetary system? Think about it.
The member of parliament who is our Prime Minister comes from the province of Quebec. The finance minister is a member of parliament from the province of Quebec. They are putatively the two most powerful people in the government and they come from the province of Quebec. They can defend the interests of Quebec and the interests of other provinces with regard to the monetary situation.
Look what happened when former premier René Lévesque gained power and said that they were leaving, quitting and separating from Canada. There was a mass exodus of businesses from the province of Quebec. Why? Because business people want stability. Where there is talk of separation and independence people will not invest money. My colleague from Frontenac—Mégantic has a lot of money but perhaps he does not want to invest in Canada.
With regard to the province of Quebec, some people are saying that Quebec would automatically be a member of the United Nations, NATO, GATT and NAFTA. That is not necessarily true. One has to negotiate oneself into these organizations.
The United States has made it abundantly clear that Quebec would not automatically be in NAFTA. Think about that. Without the protection of the North American Free Trade Agreement the milk marketing board in the province of Quebec would be obliterated. There is enough surplus milk in the state of New York to flood Quebec. Tell the milk producers in the province of Quebec that it would be all over. They would not be able to sell any more milk because they would be undercut.
On citizenship, one thing which really puzzles me is that they say they will still retain their Canadian citizenship. That is like saying, “I am leaving home but I am taking the MasterCard and the family compact with me”. Why in heaven's name would they want to do something as offensive as separate yet retain the citizenship of the country which they were separating from? Because the Canadian passport is recognized as the best passport in the entire world. That will not automatically happen. That is something the country will have a say in.
On duplication, one of their famous mantras is “We can do things cheaper because we would be our own country”. Let us take a look at the Charlottetown accord of 1992. The province of Quebec held its own referendum as opposed to the rest of the country which held the national referendum. Afterward the cost of the referendum was figured out. In the province of Quebec it cost about $6.63 per person for its own referendum on the Charlottetown accord. For the rest of the country it was about $4.83. So much for doing things cheaper on its own. It is just not in the cards, and that was clearly evident.
Now on to transfer payments. I had a real job out in the real world before I got elected as a member of parliament. I was in business. I believed it was good business if I gave someone $10 that they would give me back $11, $12, or even $10.01. With the transfer payments, the people of Quebec should be made aware that they send the money to Ottawa. Somehow they have the convoluted idea that we just throw the money away and they get nothing in return. The opposite is true. They get over $3 billion a year more in transfer payments from Ottawa than they send to Ottawa.
