Mr. Speaker, the federal government collects money from taxpayers in Quebec and other provinces. It then spends that money, after keeping some of it, on programs for manpower training, for immigration settlement and a whole range of programs, all with lots of strings attached that the provinces do not like.
My question is for any minister responsible for such spending programs. For the sake of unity, why do not the ministers responsible for this spending simply call up their counterparts in the provinces and say: "As of the first of next month we will send you the money, totally without strings attached, for you to spend any way in which you wish for the sake of unity"?