Mr. Speaker, you know, when you are the finance minister, when you hold an economic portfolio in a government, and even when your portfolio is not an economic one as was the case for the Leader of the Official Opposition, you really care about people's priorities.
Obviously, the priorities of Quebecers, and Canadians as a whole, are job creation, and a meaningful future for their children and their fellow citizens. This is why it is so disappointing for Quebecers and Canadians to hear, day in and day out, the Leader of the Official Opposition and his acolytes talk about a political agenda which has nothing to do with the well-being of Quebecers.
This is why it is so disappointing not to hear them talk about deficit reduction, fiscal restraint, new technologies. They never talk about the environment. They never talk about what really matters to the Canadian people because they have a political agenda which creates uncertainty and has nothing to do with a country's true objectives in an increasingly interdependent world.
As a result, once again, we are presented today with an empty shell. The opposition really wants to waste the time of the House when it should be dealing with the real challenges facing our country and debate issues other than the fruit of the Bloc's imagination.
Let us be perfectly clear, the objective, the plan of the federal government was clearly laid out in the budget speech. In the budget speech, which can be read in both official languages, one can see that it does not intend to impose anything on the provinces, or deliver the goods in the manner unfortunately described by the Leader of the Opposition in the speech he just made.
Let us be clear, under the new system, there will be fewer conditions governing the use the provinces can make of transfers. The provinces will no longer have to abide by rules specifying which expenses are eligible for cost-sharing and which ones are not. They will be free-let us be clear about that-to adopt innovative mechanisms regarding social security reform according to their own priorities.
A more flexible needs test will allow the provinces to make income support and non-monetary benefits more universally available to low income earners or to people who were on welfare and are entering the labour market. It is for these people that we are here. It is for these people that we made these amendments. It is these people that each and every politician in this House should care about, instead of trying to deceive Quebecers with a political adventure creating constant uncertainty in a world in great need of more certainty.
Federal subsidies could be used to support, for example, the PWA program in Quebec and other types of income supplement programs for low income families and workers. That was not the case previously. Also, the Minister of Human Resources Development will invite all provincial governments to work together, through mutual consent. This means that absolutely no condition will be imposed to the provinces. Mutual consent means mutual consent. Both parties will have to be in agreement. They will meet to develop a set of shared principles and objectives that could underlie the Canada social transfer.
Through today's motion, the official opposition is trying to turn our project, which was so well received by the people in Quebec and in all of Canada-