Thank you , Mr. Speaker. The Prime Minister promised he would do something. When the people of Charlevoix, the sans-chemise and the Mouvement Action Chômage read the speech, or heard it read by the Governor General, they said to themselves, “This makes no sense. We have been totally betrayed”. There was not a single word about employment insurance. Not one word.
As a result, they were extremely disappointed. We cannot see things continuing like this. When we in the Bloc are campaigning, we will be asking the people of Quebec to keep in mind that not one word from the Liberal Party of Canada can be believed any more. This is at least the third time they have lied.
They lied when they campaigned on the promise to scrap the GST. Now they have decided to give part of it back to the municipalities, which are the creatures of the provinces. Then, on page 6 of the throne speech in French, page 5 in English, they say, “Jurisdiction must be respected”. Now they want to talk directly with the municipalities, big governments that they are, because they are looking for political allies, of course.
Since there has not been much going on in government between November 10 and February 2, I have had a lot of time for reading. My recreational reading included Jacques Attali's
Le dictionnaire du XXI
e
siècle
, published by Fayard in 1998. On page 68 of this dictionary of the 19th century, there is a definition of Canada. I was curious to see what this might be. It reads:
Canada: Laboratory for Utopia....
As you know, Utopia is a scheme planned for planning for better and for worse. Continuing the definition:
Canada: Laboratory for Utopia. Its future will depend on the future of Quebec.
That is what it says in the dictionary by Jacques Attali, dating from 1998. He understood what the Bloc Quebecois has been explaining here every since 1993: the future of Canada is tied to the future of Quebec, and the future of Quebec is sovereignty. That is what we will continue to tell people. Particularly after a throne speech such as the one we have just had, there is no reason for us to set aside our plan for the future, a plan so dear to our hearts: to have a country of our own, and to have it as soon as possible.