Madam Speaker, I spent five years in the Quebec National Assembly on the opposition benches, and almost four years on the government benches.
I was in opposition during the Parti Quebecois's second term of office. Whenever Quebec's problems were mentioned, there were two solutions. The first was that everything wrong in Quebec was the fault of the federal government. That was taken for granted. Everything that was going badly in Quebec was because of the federal government.
Every time something went badly, summits were held to find a solution. We had endless summits. The summit master of them all, Mr. Landry, held summits every week, every month, every quarter: economic summits, cultural summits, summits on this, that and the other.
I see that times have not changed. The discourse here has not changed. It is always the same old song: "For 30 years now, Quebec has had a tough time, and it is the fault of the federal government, the fault of Mr. Chrétien, but it is never our fault in Quebec. We will hold a summit and everything will turn out fine. We will make wonderful speeches".
And now they come here and tell us that things are not going well in Montreal because of the federal government. I live in a very prosperous area of Montreal Island. One field that is doing well is high technology, as are the aerospace industry, and the communications, informatics, and information fields, and all these companies are doing extremely well. I am very familiar with them, having spoken to many of their general managers and shareholders.
I will give you three examples: someone built a computer company a few years ago from nothing. Today, this company has 700 employees and annual sales of $250 million.
What has happened? When it looks for scientists and research technicians, it cannot find them in Canada and has to bring them in from the United States, England, Germany and elsewhere. It cannot find them because they no longer want to come to Quebec. So what has it done? It has moved its research centre to Florida.
Second example: a thriving, fibre optics company. What has happened? After the referendum, it lost eight of its best scientists. The president wrote to tell me: "The very heart of my business has left".
A third company, also in computers, and also doing extremely well, hired all the managers it could in Quebec, through Canadian universities. It is still looking for 65 scientists, but cannot find any who want to come here. There is all the publicity in the schools about the referendum, talk every day about the referendum. These are examples from Quebec.
If businessmen are discussing it, they say "No, they are traitors to Quebec". If the Chamber of Commerce does, they say "It is the Chamber of Commerce talking". If it is the Conseil du patronat, they say "No, they are not us". But what if it is the mayor of Montreal himself? He was quoted in a headline in Le Devoir the other day as saying Political instability is what is finishing off Montreal''. What if it is your Mr. Dumont himself, the good buddy of the PQ and the Bloc, who says:
Put your referendum on hold for ten years''? We are not the ones saying this, nor the Prime Minister, it is your partner, Mr. Dumont.
No, you will not listen. You will not listen because you do not want to hear. I could list off all the investments in which the federal and Quebec governments have participated. I and my colleagues have been at some of the opening ceremonies myself, and we work very closely together.
Two years ago, I had the experience of working with a trilateral team, made up of the federal government, the Quebec government and the City of Montreal, to try to get the secretariat of the Convention on Biodiversity here to Montreal. We were successful, because on both sides we were neither federalists, nor Quebecers, nor Montrealers. We were instead all working together for the prosperity of our community.
We worked together, regardless of political stripe, regardless of what community we came from, whether Quebec City, Montreal or somewhere else. We worked together, and we were successful. Today we have formed that same trilateral team to get the Secretariat for the Convention to Control Desertification to Montreal. I am a player on that team, and very pleased to be a member.
This is proof that people can work together if there is good will. Let us put aside our never-ending quarrels about language and politics. Surely we can work together to build things that will make our community, our country and our province prosperous, without regard to race, religion or political considerations, for the sake of the people who live there. We can do it.
However, the only thing you want is to be negative and say that things are not going well and that the federal government, not you, is responsible for the present situation.
Every time we have an opportunity to build something together, you go back to the past and talk about Mr. Chrétien in 1970 instead of talking about today, the future and the new century and about the fact that Montreal is not well because of the chronic political instability which exists there and which everyone denounces. Americans and Europeans talk about it. Where there is instability there is no investment.
I urge you, as people who are proud to be Montrealers, Quebecers and Canadians, to forget your mean prejudices, your never-ending quarrels, your famous referendum which you will never win and persist in holding, and work instead to revitalize our city. Montreal is for everyone of us, on this side or on the other, something we all take to heart. So let us work together to build Montreal instead of having those never-ending quarrels.
I am just saying that we can work together if we want to work together. Every day the federal government, the Quebec government and the city of Montreal work together in harmony and peace. It is only because of the separatists who believe in division, who believe in quarrels, who believe in a negative option that today Montreal is suffering and sick. The only way to build it is to
breathe hope, unity and political peace into it so investments can return and Montreal can flourish again.
This is our most precious wish. I hope that next time you will introduce a motion it will be a positive and constructive motion for us all, whether we live in Montreal, in Quebec or in Canada.