Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for this opportunity he is giving me to add a few comments. Since the tabling of the last government budget, the Bloc Quebecois has gone out of its way to propose numerous solutions to help reduce the deficit. One of the first measures we recommended
was the creation of a joint committee on the financial situation. The Bloc Quebecois would have participated and we could have studied possible solutions together, out in the open. The government refused.
Given that situation, we took a different approach. We proposed solutions to the Standing Committee on Finance. We asked that government pass legislation to prohibit family trusts as we know them today, because they are tax havens for a privileged few in our society. These are real solutions. There are billions of dollars in those trusts.
Here in this House, and also in committee, we suggested that the government should focus more on finance and tax control. I have just spent the last ten minutes talking about taxes. Just think that there are now $6.6 billion in unpaid taxes which delinquent taxpayers will not pay; $6 billion is a lot of money and the interest on such an amount adds up to more millions. We asked the government to provide for stricter controls on those overdue accounts.
We asked the government to look into the issue of businesses, tens of thousands of businesses, which have not paid taxes over the last ten years, in spite of profits earned in Canada. Why do we allow those companies to profit from such a tax exemption system, albeit a legal one? That is not normal; all taxpayers, corporations as well as individuals, should pay their fair share of taxes in Canada. That is another solution that we proposed to the government.
We also proposed to slim down the government machinery. We talked about that many times. We also asked the government to avoid duplication in the various administration sectors, duplication of provincial and federal spending in the same areas.
These are suggestions that we made to the federal government and, each time, we were met with an outright refusal. Why? Because in each of these solutions, the government saw an opportunity to decentralize its powers to the provinces, which it does not want to do, because its leitmotiv is to further centralize powers and to leave the provinces with their problems.
It is clear today that this government does not intend to make concessions to the provinces. On the contrary, it intends to give them more responsibilities, without the tax points which would go with those responsibilities.