We have to see Bill C-3 in a number of contexts. What other programs has the federal government involved itself in of a similar nature?
My colleague earlier referred to the EPF, the established programs financing, where for health care and post-secondary education the federal government contributes about $11 billion. The Canadian assistance plan or CAP as it is referred to has $7 billion where the federal government shares in the development of a variety of social programs.
The whole area of tax points has to be included as well as a whole host of shared cost programs. Almost $12 billion last year was involved with a sharing program between the federal and provincial governments. In our province, the program that comes to mind is the forestry agreement, FRDA. It is a very helpful investment program where both provincial and federal governments work in co-operation with the private sector in British Columbia and invest in the future of the forest resource and ensure sustained development in the years ahead.
The federal government in its wisdom decided it would not do that any more. It would pull out of this program. Recognizing that forestry is our number one export in Canada, the federal government abandoned the ministry of forests and is moving out of its contributions to the FRDA program. It is a very regressive step.
One has to raise this issue. Recently when the government introduced the infrastructure program, it said that every province would have a certain allocation. The allocation in British
Columbia was $220 million. This was done on a population basis essentially plus or minus 5 per cent depending on the state of unemployment in a province. In other words here was an effort at some equalization. Often this takes place in federal programs.
The question I would raise is that if we have a whole program for equalization in which we try to create a relatively level playing field in terms of the ability of provincial governments to provide services and having relatively similar revenue systems in place as well, is it necessary when we take that step on such a massive scale as we are doing with this legislation to also have a whole set of other equalization programs in place? Is not one good one enough?
We have to look at this within that context and say we are dealing with equalization with Bill C-3, but what about all the other areas in which equalization is also attempted? To see the value of this legislation, whether it should continue, whether it should be expanded, whether it should be reduced or maintained as is, I think we have to see it in that context and we do not have enough information here. Perhaps in committee we could ask for that and then have a more serious discussion there.
I guess this is my complaint section during my presentation. I hear other provinces complaining that they do not get enough, that they have this size of population and so on. Over the years I have never been able to identify a single federal program in which the province of British Columbia gets its fair share. There might be one some place. I have yet to find a single one that is based on our population within Canada.