Mr. Speaker, I appreciate greatly the interest shown by my colleague from Don Valley West for the Quebec model. I would like to elaborate a bit on what he said particularly on development strategies.
Because Quebec has a strategy in certain sectors, our colleague from Don Valley West says: "Listen, if a development strategy is good for Quebec, would it not be good for Canada as a whole?"
In some cases, I say yes. For example, for years we have had a proposal for a high-speed train between Quebec City and Windsor. We are anxious for the government to move on that because these technologies are important for the future and would benefit both Quebec and Ontario.
In other sectors, it is unfortunately not the case. That is not unfortunate, in a way, since the sectors we choose cannot always be the same. A good example is nuclear energy. The federal government has spent on nuclear energy hundreds of millions of dollars which have essentially benefitted Ontario.
Quebec has enough hydroelectricity for years to come and it has never really been interested in investing in nuclear energy. But, through the federal government, Quebec taxpayers have been forced to spend on nuclear research those hundreds of millions of dollars which now essentially benefit Ontario, which moreover competes with us on the New York market.
Then I say: "Listen, if it is true in an international context-in any case, Quebec like the rest of Canada is increasingly becoming an economic region of North America-we can no longer implement projects for Canada, with economic and competitive implications, without taking into consideration the whole of North America".
It is obvious that a region like Montreal is in direct competition as much with Boston and New York as with Toronto and other cities and can therefore also probably conclude joint ventures with them. The political structure is losing importance on the international scene. We must each invest in projects, in sectors that are important for our future.
We can have joint projects with Ontario because we have mutual interests. But we have diverging interests in other sectors, where both Quebec and Ontario will have to find other partners in the world.
