Madam Speaker, this is an important moment in parliament when we debate the budget, and we cannot debate the budget without discussing the government.
When the Prime Minister shuffled the cards and selected cabinet, he said “I need a cabinet with a lot of jacks, not too many queens and definitely a lot of jokers”. This is essentially the distribution that has inspired the government in implementing its policies.
This budget is disappointing, for two reasons. First, the government failed to deal with the right priorities. What would they have been? The fight against poverty, naturally. There have never been so many poor in Canada. A look at the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s or the 1990s reveals that there are more poor people now than ever before. What is the government doing about this problem? Nothing.
The people in the Bloc Quebecois are very committed to the fight against poverty. There is myself, naturally, but there is also the member for Québec and my colleague from Rivière-du-Loup, who has led and continues to lead a fight for an independent employment insurance fund. The government must realize that the poverty we are talking about is the poverty created by government measures, and we will come back to this.
The other disappointment we had with this budget is that it confirmed and perpetuated the hallmark of Canadian federalism—government intervention in provincial jurisdictions.
Historians will understand, on analyzing the years 1994 to 2002, that this government was one of those that had the least respect for provincial jurisdictions. It was one of the most interfering governments.
I see the Liberals smiling. As they say, the fool laughs and the sage smiles. There is no lack of smiles on the other side of the House. This is a bit disconcerting, because they did not react to federal government interference in the health field.
If one asked any of the government party members, whether from Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan, to point out the place where the constitution, which is supposed to strike a balance between the power of the provinces and of the federal government, states that the federal government is allowed to get involved in the health field, I am willing to bet that no one over there could find such a thing, because it is not there.
They just waded in to do their dirty work, with no hesitation whatsoever. I will give some examples of this. There is the creation of the Canadian institute of health research, an expenditure of $65 million by the year 2001 and another $175 million in 2001-2002. The federal government wants to get into the health research and development field.
Would it not have been more respectful of the provinces' powers to say “We are going to transfer the available funding”. There is no denying that the federal government has plenty of money at this time. Of course, these funds can be considered ill gotten gains, because the government passed its deficit on to the provinces.
At present, the federal government has a lot of money. If it had wanted to put it to good use, it could easily have transferred to the provinces funds that would have enabled them to fund research in the health sector, because we all agree that it is important to do research in that area.
Our population is aging, and seniors are living longer. We all have a pretty good chance of living until the age of 85, 90 or 95. I do not want to exaggerate, but the fact is that people are living longer.
Another example of federal intrusion is the research and evaluation fund for nursing staff. The government will spend $25 million on this over a 10 year period. Then there is the Canadian institute of health research, which will get $328 million to improve health information systems by applying modern technology. In short, the government's attitude is brazen, impolite, disrespectful and shocking, and all those who have some backbone in this House should be outraged. Of course, this excludes a good half of the membership here.
Be that as it may, if the government had wanted to do something useful, it could easily have accepted a number of the Quebec government's legitimate demands. This is a democratically elected government, one of the best we have had in a long time in the National Assembly.
I will give the example of the Montreal convention centre. Montreal is an international city, and a hub for the tourist industry. Montreal, and Quebec City of course—and I see my colleague from the Quebec City region nodding in approval—are both very important tourist destinations.
The Government of Quebec is going ahead and enlarging the Montreal congress centre, because it realizes that additional space is required for a number of important congresses that are planned years in advance. Reservations have already been taken for 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. Organizers of a congress—not a simple convention, but an international congress—must obviously begin their preparations a few years in advance.
In the past, the federal government has always contributed one third of the money required to expand congress centres, whether in Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax, London or Ottawa. Ottawa gives every impression of being a patronage, with the Minister of Industry giving Ottawa's congress centre priority over Montreal's.
The Government of Quebec decided to go ahead and expand the Montreal congress centre on its own. Now we must pay for this expansion. The Government of Canada owes Quebec exactly $58 billion. We would appreciate payment in the next few weeks.
Here is an area where the government had some leeway, but did nothing. When it comes to Quebec's interests, there will always be people on the government side ready to steamroller over them. If the Bloc Quebecois were not here in Ottawa, who would represent Quebec's interests? Certainly not the Liberal members from Quebec, who epitomize the “silence of the lambs”.
Like all his colleagues from Ontario, the member from Ontario is very vocal, but only when it comes to defending his province's interests, and certainly not those of Quebec. I could give many other examples, such as the harmonization of the QST and the GST, where the Government of Quebec, which was the first province to harmonize, lost out. We are still waiting for our $1 billion. The same goes for the ice storm; the federal government owes us $435 million.