Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to voice my opposition to this particular clause as well. There are a lot of intellectual inconsistencies here.
For members of the Bloc, they don't believe the federal government should utilize the spending power to effect priorities in provincial areas of jurisdiction, but that's exactly what this bill does. Even including clause 4, they seem to believe it's acceptable for intrusion into provincial jurisdiction utilizing the spending power for nine provinces, if not ten, but somehow they're supporting this bill. I think that's inconsistent.
The second problem with this clause is that it makes the members of Parliament from Quebec essentially voiceless when it comes to a say in how things are being run in this country. It effectively exempts members from that province in the federal Parliament from effecting the supposed priorities in this bill in their very own province.
For members from the rest of the country, I don't know how you could argue that this constitutes a national program when the eight million or nine million Canadians resident in the province of Quebec are not being treated the same as Canadians living in other provinces. I don't see how Liberal MPs can support something like this, which treats Canadians from one part of the country differently from Canadians living in other parts of the country. That's intellectually inconsistent.
I think this clause should be opposed. I think it's a fundamental flaw in this bill.