Mr. Speaker, I must say that is a speech I have been hearing ever since I was elected in 1981 to the Quebec national assembly, of which my hon. colleague was also a member.
It is as if the same record were played over and over. All the faults in the world lie with the federal government: it is monopolistic, it grabs all the tax points, it keeps all the money in Ottawa, it sends nothing to the provinces et cetera. I have heard that so many times that a time comes when it feels like backsliding. It goes on and on.
I want to ask the member a question. The federal government is grabbing, it is centralizing, it keeps all the money here and it gives no power to the provinces. What strikes me, as a Quebec citizen, is that the current Quebec government, which is responsible for municipalities, has passed the tax bill on to municipalities a few years ago, without any consultation. It has fobbed that off to municipalities which had to cope with it. There were signs in every municipality saying: “We do not want to take on your debts”. Then it passed the debt on to the municipalities.
Today, that same government is merging municipalities without any consultation. It has imposed legislation across the board. Today, in hospitals under its control, in all the hospital centres, the legislation has been changed so that members of the boards of trustees will no longer be elected because they say that people do not bother to vote.
The government of Quebec will be appointing the board members. This is the irony of it all. For example, the members of the board of the Jewish hospital will be appointed by Quebec.
This is what provincial decentralization is all about. It is the model—