With that, now we'll fall into the part that we were quite able to advise the honourable member on, and that's with respect to the federal spending power.
With regard to the law in this area, as you know, there is no specific enumerated head of power in the Constitution with respect to the so-called federal spending power. The courts have accepted that it's a power that allows the federal government to spend in areas where it couldn't normally legislate. It's a power the courts have endorsed as allowing Parliament to impose conditions to regulate and safeguard the use of federal funds, but it doesn't allow the federal Parliament to legislate in provincial jurisdictions. So the key question in a federal spending power sense is the conditions that might be attached to the federal money.
Just by way of background, the federal spending power doesn't attach to a particular section. It's inferred from a series of sections: 91.1A, which is the federal government's power to legislate public debt and property; 91.3, which is the power to raise taxes; 102, which is the money raised in taxes is then deposited--the creation of the CRF; and 106, which is the ability of this Parliament then to spend the money by way of a voted appropriation.
The only other section relevant to this is section 36 of the 1982 Constitution Act on the equalization authorities, and that buttresses the federal spending power.
So that's really how it all works. By way of background, that would be the underpinnings of this type of legislation.