Madam Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Trois-Rivières.
The message I would like to share with the citizens of Canada and those of Quebec in particular is that the budget tabled by the Minister of Finance has left a bitter taste in our mouths as it is very generous with other people's money. For years now, the federal government has been saving money on the backs of the provinces, the disadvantaged and the workers.
Statistics show that, between 1994 and 1998, federal transfer payments to the provinces were cut by 52%. While the federal government reduced its own spending by only 12%, cuts in tax relief and transfer payments to individuals amounted to 37%. At the same time, the federal government gave itself a 51% share of any new spending to be incurred between now and the year 2000.
After impoverishing people and lessening the power of the provinces, putting them in a situation I would describe as perilous, the government then tries to pass itself off as a saviour and tells people “See, were it not for us in the federal government, you would not be getting the help you need right now”. The fact of the matter is that, were it not for the federal government, we would not be in this situation in the first place, a situation the government itself has dragged us into by spending wildly left and right in the past few years.
The federal government, which is primarily responsible for this situation, would have individual taxpayers believe it is their saviour.
In an editorial comment in Le Devoir , renowned journalist Jean-Robert Sansfaçon gives the following analysis of the situation:
In an effort to save about $6 billion a year, Ottawa presumably sent a $2.5 billion bill to the provinces. To add insult to injury, the Chrétien government cut transfer payments intended to cover part of the costs of social assistance.
On the one hand, there is the classic example of employment insurance. What has the federal government accomplished with it? It has given less money to the unemployed. In reality, there are far fewer unemployed persons eligible for employment insurance. What do people do when they are not eligible for employment insurance? They turn to welfare, which is a provincial responsibility.
Indirectly, through its employment insurance reform, the federal government has imposed an additional financial burden on the provinces, because people turn to welfare in order to survive. As we know, welfare is a provincial responsibility.
Provincial expenditures are increased because of the welfare burden, yet their transfer payment revenue from Ottawa is cut. The provincial governments therefore have more responsibilities, but lower revenues to meet them. Why is this? Because of federal government actions.
That is why it has always been said that this country had one government too many. One government—the federal—never stops trying to acquire powers, with the result that the powers of the provincial governments are increasingly becoming merely symbolic. I am certain that the underlying intent of this federalist government is to one day end up with a single government in this country, the one in Ottawa.
This is what Quebec has been opposing for years, because it knows that such a system would result in Quebeckers being assimilated. They would see their culture assimilated, their traditions assimilated; their language, their fundamental values and everything that makes Quebec different would be drowned out under a single government, which would be called the Ottawa government, the Canadian government.
This is sadistic; every time the government, from one budget to another, from one election to another, gains a year, or four or five years, this is just one more step toward subjugation of the provinces to the federal government. This is the ultimate objective of this government, one that never changes, regardless of which party is in power.
Right now, we have a Liberal government, but the situation would be exactly the same if the Conservatives or the Reformers were in office. This is because the underlying objective is not to create a true partnership with the provinces, as could have been developed and implemented since 1867, but to subject the provinces to the authority of the federal government.
Here is another example. I just referred to employment insurance and welfare, two areas of provincial jurisdiction the federal government has encroached upon. Another example is that great initiative announced in the Liberal budget, the millennium scholarship fund.
As was said, and it is worth repeating again, this is a spending initiative in an area of provincial jurisdiction.
Quebec already has a loans and grants program that is the envy of all the students and stakeholders in the other provinces, whether at the elementary, secondary, post-secondary or university level. These people are unanimous in praising Quebec's loans and grants program, which is unique in the sense that the other provinces do not offer grants.
The federal government, under the pretence of helping less fortunate students, decided to spend $2.5 billion in the country, with the obvious goal of being able to tell students “What the province cannot do for you in education, the federal government can, thus helping you continue your education”.
Why are the provinces hard pressed to resolve the educational problem? Because the federal government, since 1993, has cut billions of dollars from education and health care. It has cut money to the provinces and now wants to give back some—and I mean only some—to individuals, like students, so they will realize the situation they would be in were it not for the federal government. That is what is ironic about the situation.
Everytime the government has a chance, it deprives the provinces of real and potential revenues, which it should be giving back to them as transfer payments, and then, it uses that money for other purposes.
The millennium scholarships are simply a means for the government to raise its visibility and the number of votes for federalism. That is all. The average debt of students in Quebec is $11,000. In the other provinces it is $25,000. The problem is really different in Quebec. There a system of loans and grants already in existence. In the other provinces it is not as well developed or sometimes there is none.
Quebec is calling on the federal government to allow it to withdraw from this program and to give it financial compensation to enable it to set its own educational priorities, wherever it has identified them. It considers it is better placed to identify its own priorities.
Children arrive at school in the morning without eating or having a glass of milk. For the most part, these children live below the poverty line. I hope to have an opportunity through questions and comments to finish explaining the example I wanted to give you.