Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, Mr. Minister. We are pleased to see you. We are asking ourselves a lot of questions about the budget you have brought to us.
Earlier, you mentioned the need for urgent action. Of course it is important to act quickly to kick-start our economy. But you will recall that, last fall, you preferred to plunge us into an election, and then to prorogue the House. So here we are at the beginning of 2009 with the same problem for which urgent action is required.
Perhaps we could have acted quickly, except, as someone mentioned previously, the budget implementation bill contains some major legislation that we need to think about, like pay equity, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, and the entire principle of collective bargaining. We are not necessarily experts in all these matters, and they deserve to be studied by other standing committees.
I previously sat on the Transport Committee, and, starting in February 2008, I was part of a process of study on the Navigable Waters Protection Act. In June 2008, we reached the point where we were ready to make recommendations for a bill. Now here you are with a budget implementation bill that you are asking us to pass quickly. At very least, it should have been studied at a joint committee, with the Transport Committee, the people who have looked at this whole matter, to see if what you have proposed in your bill is any good.
Anyway, I will forget all that; it is very problematic and you are not going to be able to solve it today.
I could ask you a number of questions, but I will just ask about securities. In your budget implementation bill, you propose a Canada-wide commission even though the matter is in provincial jurisdiction. You say that you have received a legal opinion on the scope of your proposal. I have asked your officials to send me a copy of that opinion. Could you make a note of it and have it sent?
I would like to ask another question, this time about the treatment of Hydro-Québec. There was no answer a while ago, though there was an answer about Hydro One. Electricity distribution, such as Hydro One is involved in, has been considered business income and so is not included in the calculation of assets. Hydro-Québec is considered as two divisions, one dealing in transmission and distribution, just like Hydro One. That division could also be considered not part of the assets, but as business income.
You were asked this question before and we did not get a reply. Why does Hydro-Québec not get the same treatment, which would result in $250 million more in equalization payments for the people of Quebec?