Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to be here today and to speak on the subject matter of certain clauses within Bill C-43 and I thank the committee for the invitation.
Just quickly, my name is Aaron Wudrick and I'm the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Our advocacy is centred around three key principles: lower taxes, less waste, and accountable government. It's largely on this third principle of accountable government that I appear today to speak to these provisions. My remarks are fairly limited in scope. We support the changes proposed in these provisions for the simple reason that, from our standpoint, they are purely jurisdictional in nature. We, of course, are not experts in refugee or immigration policy and we take no position at all as to whether or not provinces should actually set minimum residency requirements. We merely believe that, as the level of government responsible for the delivery of social services, the provinces are also the appropriate level of government to retain the power to make such a decision without the risk of fiscal penalty from Ottawa.
In short, if it is objectionable for the provinces to have this power, surely it must also be objectionable that the provinces already have the same power with respect to determining eligibility for health care services. As committee members are likely aware, many provinces already set a minimum residency requirement for access to health care services.
In our view, most opponents of these provisions are conflating two very separate debates. The first is whether or not foreign refugee claimants should be subject to a minimum residency requirement. The second is whether provinces should be able to make this decision without being penalized by Ottawa. It is, of course, entirely appropriate to debate whether or not there should be minimum residency requirements, but, again, this is not the area I'm here to comment on. The only contribution to the debate made by these proposed changes, however, is ensuring that this debate takes place in the provincial legislatures, and we view that as a positive change.
In our view, the real principle underlying these proposed changes is respect for provincial jurisdiction. When different levels of government overstep their constitutionally defined areas of jurisdiction, accountability suffers because Canadians are left unclear as to who bears responsibility for what. Only when each level of government takes proper responsibility can Canadians pass judgment at election time as to whether or not they approve of these policy decisions. Indeed, the inappropriate use of the federal spending power by federal governments to encroach upon areas of provincial jurisdiction has long been an unfortunate source of federal-provincial tension. These proposed changes would be one small step towards reducing that tension.
Thank you.