I continued my summer tour of Quebec last week with a stop in Montreal’s West Island. I was the guest speaker at the Lac St. Louis Conservative riding association’s annual fundraiser. I spoke about conservative values and the need to reduce government meddling in the economy. The regional paper, The Suburban, covered the event. You can read it here.

On the picture, from left to right, I am with Montreal Alouettes football legend Peter Dalla Riva, Beaconsfield municpal councilor Rhonda Massad, Lac St. Louis Conservative Party President Peter Fletcher, and Senator Larry Smith.

At the end of July, I began a summer tour of Quebec’s regions to meet entrepreneurs and local officials and discuss with them tourism development and various regional issues in which the federal government is involved. As I do in all such meetings, I explained our government’s efforts to foster a better business environment by reducing red tape and the tax burden for businesses.

Here I am with business people in Sept-Îles and Gaspé.

The village of Mont St-Pierre in the Gaspé peninsula held this year the 35th edition of its Fête du vol libre (a hand-gliding festival). I met the mayor, Jean-Sébastien Cloutier (centre) and the prefect of Haute-Gaspésie, Allen Cormier.

In Matane, I kicked off the 20th edition of the Festival country with its director, André Rouleau.

Still in Matane, I stopped by one of the largest soft ball tournaments in Quebec, the Festi-Balle Coors Light, organised by Sylvain Caron.

Among the many activities taking place in my riding this summer is Nashville in Beauce, a festival offering all kinds of activities, in addition to country music. I was there last week.

Last week, the Financial Post ran my article criticizing the leader of the opposition, Thomas Mulcair, for his comments on the oil sands and the so-called Dutch disease. MB

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Let entrepreneurs tackle tailings ponds

Maxime Bernier, minister of state (Small Business and Tourism)

Financial Post, 28 June 2012

Critics of Alberta’s oil sands development have been saying for years that it should be scaled down, stopped or at the very least highly taxed and heavily regulated to help contain its effects on the environment.

A more recent criticism, popularized by the leader of the NDP, Thomas Mulcair, is that the oil sands are harming the manufacturing sectors of Ontario and Quebec by pushing up the value of the dollar – the so-called Dutch disease.

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I made a quick trip to British Columbia last Friday for an announcement and some official meetings.

First, with my provincial counterpart, Minister Pat Bell, we announced an extension of our BizPaL service to 10 communities, in partnership with the government of British Columbia and the municipalities involved.  BizPal is an online time-saving tool to make doing business easier. It’s a one-stop shop where entrepreneurs and business people can access permit and licence information for their business from all three levels of government—federal, provincial and municipal—at the click of a mouse. The BizPaL service is now offered in more than 630 municipalities situated in 11 provinces and territories.

I also visited the Canadian Health Food Association trade show at the Vancouver Convention Centre. This event is Western Canada’s largest natural health and organics trade event, with over 450 exhibitors and a wide range of educational seminars. (In the picture above, I am with Helen Sherrard, president of the Association.)

Finally, I took part in a business roundtable with my colleague Wai Young, MP for Vancouver South. There was a particular focus on business with China and the Asia Pacific region.

On March 18, the Réseau Liberté Québec organised a series of conferences for a full day in Lévis, near Quebec City. The organisers asked me to address the participants for a couple of minutes before a panel and I took this opportunity to encourage them to continue their efforts in defending liberty. Here is the text of my short presentation.

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Dear friends,

I would like to briefly discuss three ideas with you this afternoon: liberty, tenacity and popularity.

Liberty is the fundamental value that draws us together here today. It is not an egotistic desire to do whatever we want without any constraint. That’s the perspective of those who believe they know what is best for us and who want to force us to adopt it.

Liberty is nothing less than the basis of our civilisation. Human dignity and equality of rights, social pluralism and cultural dynamism, scientific advancement and economic prosperity: all these achievements are impossible in a context where there is no liberty.

We are the defenders of civilisation and we should not be afraid to affirm it. I believe we have the duty to be tenacious and persistent in the defense of freedom. We have a duty to not hide anything to our fellow countrymen that we believe is necessary and true.

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A few weeks ago, CPAC aired another report in its series “Politics on the ground”, this time in my riding of Beauce.

Reporter Danielle Young from the program Revue politique followed me during a typical day last November to see what kind of relationship I have with citizens in the Beauce.

The video (in French only) can be seen on the CPAC website.

My opinion piece published in the National Post last week provoked a critical editorial from Vincent Brousseau-Pouliot in La Presse this past Saturday. The paper published my reply yesterday followed by a last response by Mr. Brousseau-Pouliot. These articles are reproduced below (in French only).

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La leçon d’économie de Maxime Bernier

Vincent Brousseau-Pouliot
La Presse
Publié le 18 février 2012

Alors que le gouvernement Harper s’apprêterait à faire d’importantes réductions de dépenses, son ministre Maxime Bernier a pris la plume cette semaine dans le National Post pour réfuter les théories économiques de John Maynard Keynes selon lesquelles l’État doit augmenter ses dépenses pour combattre une récession.

Le ministre Bernier a droit à ses opinions, mais ses généralisations à l’emporte-pièce et ses omissions factuelles sont gênantes pour un ministre assigné à un portefeuille économique (Petites entreprises et Tourisme).

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I delivered the following speech on February 3 before the Toronto Board of Trade. Yesterday, the Financial Post published an excerpt under the title “Give Keynes the boot.”

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Today I would like to discuss the issues of how to solve the global economic crisis that began in 2007.

As you all know it began as a financial crisis caused by a real estate crash in the United States. It then spread around the world and caused a recession. Most governments reacted with ambitious stimulus packages that were added to the high debt levels they already had. It has now transformed itself into a sovereign debt and a budgetary crisis in particular in Europe and the United States.

Some countries in Europe like Greece are close to bankruptcy and need to be bailed out. Others such as Italy and Spain are in serious trouble. Some of them are expected to be in recession this year. Many analysts are saying that this may eventually break the European monetary union.

The U. S. for its part has been accumulating huge and unsustainable deficits for several years.

In Canada, on the contrary the situation is under control. We’ve created more jobs since the recession than we lost during the recession. Canada did pretty good in part because we had sound public finances before the crisis and because our stimulus plan was limited and well targeted mostly on needed infrastructure.

We did not lose control of our spending. We did not create unsustainable deficits. And today we are on a clear path to a balanced budget and unless the international economic situation gets worse sustained growth.

Why is it, that Canada finds itself in a relatively favourable economic situation while our partners are still having serious difficulties? Because our partners follow the economic school of thought called Keynesianism. This theory was developed by British economist John Maynard Keynes.

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Last Thursday (February 2), I was interviewed by George Stroumboulopoulos during his show on CBC television. I had given interviews in French some years ago about the circumstances that led to my resignation as Canada’s Foreign Affairs minister in 2008, but that was the first time I talked about it for an English Canadian viewing audience. I also talked with him about the ideals of individual freedom and responsibility that motivated me to stay in politics.