Mr. Speaker, I will add a few words to the remarks made by the member for Berthier-Montcalm about exclusive jurisdiction. When I read the speech from the throne, it made me laugh.
The federal government says that it: "-will not use its spending power to create new shared-cost programs in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction- " that is what my colleague mentioned a few moments ago. "-without the consent of a majority of the provinces."
There is something wrong here. The people who wrote that did not know what they were talking about. It also says:
Any new program will be designed so that non-participating provinces will be compensated, provided they establish equivalent or comparable initiatives.
I looked it up in the Petit Robert and Petit Larousse dictionaries, and I found that "exclusive jurisdiction" excludes any sharing or participation, that it refers to a single person or group of persons or of things.
That means that if the Canadian government recognizes that a province has exclusive jurisdiction over an area, it is supposed to have complete control over it. It is just as if somebody told me: "I recognize this is your backyard. I know it is in your backyard. It is exclusively yours, you paid for it, it is yours. However, if the neighbours so wish, we will dig a pool in your backyard, and you will not have any choice. We will install a pool in it. Also, if you wish to do it on your own, you may not do so; we will help you dig your pool. But if you decide to share your pool with your neighbours, it will have to have a certain depth and a certain size".
It is very contradictory. I do not understand the speech from the throne when it speaks of exclusivity, and I appreciate what my colleague is trying to say when he speaks of exclusivity. It is incomprehensible. There is something wrong in the speech. The person who wrote it did not know what was meant by exclusivity.
In any case, there is a lot of hypocrisy in the government's approach towards the provinces. We must reread that. I wish my colleague could explain further what he really understands in this paragraph which I have just read. I find it incomprehensible.