Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It is a pleasure for me to participate in these meetings of the Standing Committee on Finance. As a conservative member of Parliament from the Quebec city region, I feel doubly fortunate.
Twice, while listening to you, I felt as though I had been present at a historic moment, because I was there, last December, when Mr. Harper delivered a speech in which he committed to settling the fiscal imbalance within the Canadian Federation. I have also personally announced, six month prior to the Bloc Quebecois, that the conservative team from Quebec supported the Boîte à science project, the Centre d'interprétation scientifique et technologique, that we are in regular contact over and working on. We are pleased to have the support of the Bloc Quebecois for this project.
We wonder why the previous government over the last 13 years and despite opposition representations at the time failed to ensure that Quebec City would have a science centre when the 20 biggest cities in Canada have one and Quebec city is the seventh biggest in Canada.
So, yes, I am feeling though I am part of history in the making, even more so because in our most recent budget, $3.3 billion were granted by the federal government as immediate assistance to the provinces to settle the fiscal imbalance. Along with the budget, well, yes indeed, this was the first time any federal government was willing to recognize that there was a problem within the federation.
However, I would have one critical thing to say to our panel of academics, union and business representatives.