Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Quebec for the fine speech she made. However I found some inconsistencies in it.
She stated it is completely unacceptable for the Canadian government to offload programs on to the provinces. At the
same time she said the day care situation in Quebec will not be resolved unless the province of Quebec is left to do it on its own.
I always wonder when I hear these types of statements where the money is magically going to come from. There seems to be some magical formula that is going to generate some money to pay for these programs if one level of government gets out of the act.
We heard it the other day when the member for Lévis was talking about job creation: if the federal government got out of it there would be money to create all kinds of jobs.
We heard it from the member for Gaspé. He said if the federal government got out of regulating the fish stocks there would be all kinds of fish in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to provide a livelihood for the fishermen there.
My question for the hon. member for Quebec is this. How does she see the money being available to provide for the problems she has identified? Quebec is one of the provinces that receives money from the federal government under the equalization grants. By the federal government removing itself, how on earth is that going to create the money to resolve the problems she has identified?