Madam Speaker, what compassion for those poor banks which made profits of only $4 billion last year. I would have liked my hon. colleague to show the same kind of compassion for the unemployed in Canada, who do not count their benefits in billions, and made no profit last year, but have registered losses, year after year.
I would have believed that my colleague was better informed when he talked about the tax points used by the federal government and the fact that it gives money back to the provinces. Listening to the advocates of federalism, one has the feeling that it is a fantastic gift the provinces receive. The federal government generously redistributes among its poor little provinces its
God-given tax money. What are they complaining about? These are minor cuts.
Madam Speaker, I will simply say this: The federal government, which then was not allowed to collect taxes, asked for tax points to support its war effort and, later on, refused to give them back to the provinces, saying that the money they provided was going to be redistributed among the provinces to help them accomplish certain things.
One has to admit that there is a problem somewhere when one knows what the situation is, and that the Prime Minister has decided to keep on collecting taxes, which originally belonged to the provinces-check your history books-and to give them only half of what it collects. This is what is wrong with federalism. I do agree that the system does not make any sense. No wonder the provinces and the federal government are bickering. Besides, we have a very clear, very precise solution to that. We are the only ones to have one. No one else has one in this country.
In conclusion, when one talks about the necessity for the provinces to put their house in order, I will tell my hon. friend that I was a member of the Government of Quebec when we asked the public service to make enormous sacrifices and when we streamlined the administration. On a Canadian scale, the Quebec deficit would have been the equivalent of $10 billion a year. If the administration of the Government of Quebec had been as poor as the administration of the federal government, Quebec would be running a deficit of $10 billion a year.
Since 1985-86, the federal government's deficit has been close to $40 billion, whereas the annual deficit of Quebec has been roughly $3 billion, $5 billion last year. The generally good management of Canadian provinces is in no way comparable to the administrative mess at the federal level, as well as to the disproportionate debt of the federal government which, proportionally, beats all records of any developed country, with the exception of Italy.