There's only one taxpayer, so it's not the federal taxpayer or the provincial taxpayer or the territorial taxpayer or the municipal taxpayer. There's only one taxpayer, and each level of government is accountable to the people that elected it. The government's accounting treatment was acceptable because the government had entered into the agreements with the appropriate authorities, had authorization from Parliament to make the payments through trust with the passing of the Budget Implementation Act before the financial statements were finalized, and had not included in the trust agreements or letters to provinces and territories any condition to be eligible to receive these funds that would have been met by the provinces or territories subsequently and that had known the amount to the transfer. This is the way it worked under the previous government, and we feel particularly strongly about it. It's a different kind of federalism, where the provinces do not work for the federal government. They're elected by people in their jurisdiction and they're the people to whom they're accountable.
