Mr. Speaker, I am speaking today on this bill and the budget in general with great interest. The Bloc Québécois opposes this bill. Our logic is quite simple. We opposed the budget right from the start, because it is incomplete and inadequate, and it does not defend the interests of Quebeckers.
However, Bill C-43 should have been the opportunity to make significant amendments to satisfy the interests of Quebec. This was not the case. Not only did the Liberal government refuse to make the recommended changes to EI but, as my colleague from Saint-Maurice—Champlain said earlier, it also refused to correct the fiscal imbalance. It even went so far as to add things that are completely unacceptable to Quebec, such as the agreements with Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. Furthermore, it has adopted the polluter-paid principle with regard to the Kyoto protocol. Clearly, this budget does not protect Quebec.
We can name at least five reasons to vote against Bill C-43 and against all potential corrections to the budget.
The fiscal imbalance is one major reason. Even the word makes the government afraid. It cannot even say it, so it is far from recognizing it. The budget contains no additional measures to loosen the financial stranglehold on Quebec. Ottawa refuses to acknowledge this problem. Anyone who follows the political debates in Quebec City at all can see the effect of this financial stranglehold on Quebec's development and evolution. There is nothing in the budget for this.
The same goes for the agreements on health and equalization. Once again, it is clearly not enough, at the very least, to pay down the deficit.
The problem is that there is a contradiction. The federal government has the financial means to do so much more. What is lacking is the political will, or else it is acting in bad faith and directing its interests elsewhere. It has the leeway. The Liberals have enough financial leeway to do much more. Now, there is talk of $50 billion over the next three years. This is a significant amount of money that could have been distributed to the regions to resolve the fiscal imbalance or, at the very least, alleviate it.
The second reason has to do with employment insurance, a topic we constantly come back to. A subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities called for a comprehensive reform. However, no improvement to employment insurance be can implemented immediately. The 2005 budget goes even further and prevents any improvement to the employment insurance system. That is the second reason Bill C-43, the Budget Implementation Act, 2005, or Bill C-48 resulting from the agreement reached with the NDP, cannot work.
There is a third major argument that we have always defended and will continue to defend: respect for jurisdictions. For some time now, regardless of what bill is being considered, the practice is to encroach on Quebec's powers.
On the issue of parental leave, an agreement was proposed. Simply put, Quebeckers' money would be returned to Quebec. It is like a circle. It has nothing to do with asymmetrical federalism.
The same goes for child care, as mentioned earlier. I think that, currently, five agreements have been reached. However, in Quebec, the child care agreement is still unclear. Even the Prime Minister promised to allocate federal money for child care with no strings attached. We are still waiting. Again, even though Quebec is a model in this matter, pan-Canadian standards are still applied as well as accountability. Respecting jurisdictions is a problem that is seen not just in these bills, but also in Liberal Party legislation in general.
In connection with the gasoline tax, there is another important piece of evidence involving the municipalities. It concerns the distribution among municipalities, a matter also clearly under Quebec's jurisdiction. Here again, interference is systematic.
The fourth reason concerns the Kyoto protocol. A number of people have spoken of it. It is a blank cheque for the major polluters. It is a failure of the Minister of the Environment. A voluntary approach is being proposed to the major polluters. Obviously, they will stick to that. The standards are not very strict or precise. There are a few, but they are within easy reach of these companies. This way, the objectives can be reached in part, but surely not the greenhouse gas emission reduction objectives.
Under the Kyoto protocol, the public assumes the financial burden, not the major polluters. The budget penalizes Quebec in connection with its progress, the infrastructures it has set up and the model it created under the Kyoto protocol.
Obviously, there are others. My colleague for Saint-Maurice—Champlain spoke of social housing. The federal government has totally ignored the repeated calls of the Bloc Québécois in response to social consensus in Quebec, where the needs are critical. Meanwhile, it invests, as we have mentioned several times, in sectors that are not priorities of Quebec or the people of Canada.
In terms of international aid, the government's commitment is very timid. However, it may be bumped up at some point in order to attract votes, as we saw with Darfur. It was a one time thing and served the interests of the Liberal Party.
There is no new money in the agriculture budget either. We will come back to the francophone community in Canada. Based on this bill it is impossible to say whether there has been any development in economic or infrastructure terms.
As far as Bill C-48 is concerned, a new bill has been introduced. It enables the Minister of Finance to make certain payments. This is the outcome of an agreement with the NDP on this matter, but proper scrutiny will show that the agreement in question has not been respected. We wonder how the NDP could have been so taken in, and yet still support this government. First of all, the government has not done what the NDP asked. It has not cancelled the corporate tax breaks. Second, new measures have even been presented in a new bill, which will not be effective.
Quite simply, we see this as just one more last minute addition to the true budget, which is why we were opposed to the budget. It is unacceptable to Quebeckers for the reasons I have already given: fiscal imbalance and employment insurance. They are thumbing their noses at everything Quebec has developed.
In conclusion, we will be voting against this bill, just as we voted against the federal budget in February, because once again it is ignoring the priorities of Quebeckers. We cannot therefore support this bill, and even less so its implementation. It is, in fact, obvious that this bill will have a negative effect on Quebec.
The federal government has, however, decided otherwise. It has decided to refuse to make any improvements to employment insurance and fiscal imbalance. Rest assured, we are going to vote against Bill C-43, that is, against the implementation of the budget and the budget itself.