Mr. Speaker, some time ago a group of young children were standing in a small ball field. They were not yet playing; they were awaiting the arrival of little Lloyd and little Diane. These were the two kids, a brother and a sister, brats though they were, who had the bat and ball so the game could not start until they got there. The father of little Lloyd and little Diane was quite wealthy. In fact, he had got most of his wealth from the parents of the other children who were waiting to play ball. He took so much money from them that they could not afford to buy their own bat and ball.
Finally little Lloyd and little Diane showed up at the field and the kids were ready to play. Knowing all the positions and all the rules they were ready to start but little Lloyd and little Diane said: "No, just hold it a minute. We cannot play until we explain the
rules of the game to you". The kids said: "But we already know the rules of the game and we know how to play", to which they replied: "Yes, but it is our bat and ball, so you are going to play by our rules".
Sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution lay out the federal and provincial responsibilities. In the Constitution it is the provincial responsibility, not federal, to provide health care. It is the provincial responsibility, not the federal responsibility to provide welfare. This applies to many of the other areas as well that the federal government seems so anxious to interfere with. It is the old story of it is my bat and my ball and I make the rules once again.
The federal government recognizes it has absolutely no authority to interfere in the actual operation of the health care system for example. It has its own brand of rules it wants to place on the various provinces, so it says: "It is our money. If you want it, you will play by our rules". In essence it is perverting the very acts contained in the Constitution of Canada creating many problems in our social services.
Saskatchewan solutions are not necessarily the solutions for New Brunswick. Ontario solutions are not necessarily the solutions for British Columbia.
I would say to my colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois, some of whom I have talked to at length: Stop talking of and working toward separation. We have to make some changes but instead of changing the boundaries of Canada we should be changing the government itself. We should get rid of the last bastion of the old traditional political parties of the past that have neither served them nor any other province well in these areas.
For some strange reason members of the federal government seem to think they have this divine power, this extreme knowledge that in coming to Ottawa, they know better than the people in the provinces, that know better than the Canadian citizens. They think that Canadian citizens are not smart enough within their own provinces to tell their provincial governments what they want, what solution is going to work in their province.
We have the same old problem coming to the provinces. It is in the form of the Minister of Human Resources Development and the Minister of Health who say the same thing as those two spoiled brats with the rich father: "It is my bat and ball, so I am going to make the rules". Those rules do not work.
We agree with the concept that we have to have a devolution of many of the authorities from the federal government simply because we are not getting the solutions that work. We are duplicating the services. We are getting many problems that could be resolved better at the local level.
Last summer I attended the official opening in my riding of a new water treatment plant. As I stepped up to the microphone to say a few words of greeting to the people gathered, the mayor of the town was sitting beside me. As I went to speak he whispered to me: "Give us money, give us money, give us money". I said a few words and then said: "Your mayor is sitting beside me saying money, money, money. He sounds like Liza Minelli in an old movie".
One thing the mayor did not realize, and maybe some others at this point still do not, was that I do not see my mandate as going to Ottawa to try to get federal money for the riding. I see it as trying to get the federal government to stop giving so much money to other ridings and ultimately to stop taking so much of our money in the first place.
There is something inherently wrong with a system that takes away all one's money at the beginning of the year in taxes and then has one begging and pleading to get some of that money back. That is the way social transfers are working. It is not the federal government's money. It is our money. It is the Canadian taxpayers' money. The federal government takes it out of the pockets of taxpayers. It takes it away from the jurisdiction of the provinces which have the constitutional responsibility for most of these programs and then says the same old adage of it is my bat and my ball: "You still must play by our rules or we will not give you your own money back".
That is unacceptable. It does not work. It is leading to debt. It is leading to the erosion of the very programs the Liberal government would have us believe it is trying to save. It is not saving the health care system by overtaxing, making rules that do not work in various regions of the country. It is creating the very problem it claims to be trying to resolve. The sooner the government stops doing that, the sooner it gets away from the rules and regulations it is trying to entrench with Bill C-76, the better off all Canadians will be.