Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member, whose riding adjoins my own, for his questions and his comments.
When it comes to the question of federal transfers and the use of tax points and tax rooms, it is not a new innovation of my party, nor is it something on which we stand alone. This approach has been suggested by the Quebec Liberal Party in its recent report. The so-called six wise men in Alberta have also suggested it in their recent proposal. It is in fact a long standing proposal of various parties within Quebec. The Ontario government has expressed an interest as well.
When we look at Premier Hamm of Nova Scotia and his comments on the need to change the equalization formula, certainly the idea of using tax points is compatible with that.
A broad based consensus is evolving and emerging in opposition to the Liberal Party and the government which basically holds that there is an effective way within our own system of dealing with the fact that there is a fiscal imbalance between the revenue raising abilities of the federal government and the spending needs of the provinces.
He raised questions with regard to the manner in which the Fathers of Confederation saw our country and the question of disallowance and reservation. I am surprised, in all honesty, that anybody at this time would want to defend the powers of disallowance or reservation. The power of disallowance was most recently used in the 1930s and conventionally speaking is no longer regarded to be acceptable.
The power of reservation, if I am not mistaken, was used most recently in 1961 by the lieutenant-governor of Saskatchewan. He was either dismissed or at least reprimanded for attempting to use it. Both of these are constitutional provisions which have fallen into disuse.
With regard to the original intention of those constitutional provisions, we may recall that when Canada was founded it was not an independent country at all. Nor did the Fathers of Confederation want it to be an independent country. The debates that took place in the predecessor to this Chamber over the provisions of Confederation are full of strong emphases on just how we do not want to be an independent country. We want to be part of the British empire. We want to be in the position of a protectorate of what was regarded at that time as the freest and greatest assemblage of people in the world.