Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to respond to the member for Malpeque. I have a lot of respect for him. He works extremely hard on behalf of his constituents and he is very knowledgeable about farming.
It is important that Canadians get food at a good price and that user fees do not put an undue burden on them. The user fee concept is not new. Canadians have paid a passport fee since the 1800s. However, the extent to which public sector goods and services are being financed by users and beneficiaries is increasing in Canada as it is in other OECD countries.
The first principle is that those who enjoy, profit or benefit from government services to the exclusion of the public at large, should be the ones who pay the cost of providing them. That is the underlying premise of the user pay policy. This promotes fairness in the use of tax dollars, discipline in the consumption of services, and allows users to have a direct say in the service and how it is delivered.
The very existence of user charges permits the federal government to improve cost recovered activities that it might not otherwise be able to provide. It permits tax dollars previously used to finance these activities to be reallocated to fund general activities benefiting all Canadians.
The Treasury Board establishes government wide policies and provides general guidance to departments on their implementa-tion, but individual ministers are responsible for applying the policy to programs under their area of responsibility. Individual
departments are responsible for deciding where fees are appropriate and are to be initiated.