Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the member for Stoney Creek. It is not out of ignorance that he made such ill-chosen remarks. He is familiar with the issue since he was, for a few years, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. I find it hard to understand how he is approaching the issue and how he can make such ill-advised comments.
First, he said that the Bloc Quebecois never cared about tax points. The fact is that we have cared about them since we first got here. As early as 1994, we suggested that the transfer of tax points to the provinces, particularly Quebec, would provide some protection against the deep cuts made by the Minister of Finance—who was putting his fiscal house in order at the expense of others—to the Canada social transfer, for health, education and income support.
We were the first ones in 1994 to raise the possibility of transferring tax points in order to free up some area of taxation for the provincial governments, so that they could protect themselves against the federal government's slash and burn approach. Second, we were also concerned about the interpretation made by these professional demagogues of the use of tax points.
In the 1960s, the federal government transferred tax points, specifically at the Quebec City conference in 1964. Mr. Pearson was much more open-minded than this bunch of demagogues. In 1977, he transferred other tax points, freeing up the tax field and telling the provinces “From now on, I will look after my responsibilities in certain areas of jurisdiction, and I leave the tax field to you. You can collect taxes in my stead”.
Once you sell your house, you no longer have a say in what goes on there. That is the business of the new owner.
It is the same thing with the tax points. The Bloc Quebecois is denouncing the demagogic use the Liberals are making of these tax points transferred in the 1960s and 1970s. Do members realize what this allows them to say as a result? It allows them to say “On the contrary, we increased the Canada social transfer”.
The government has managed to almost double the value of federal transfers by factoring in old tax points over which it no longer has any say; the house has been sold. There is a new owner. The government's figures are misleading.
So, I ask the member for Stoney Creek how he can grandstand on an issue as important as this. He will recall, if he knows his Canadian history—although he does not seem to; it is a bit odd that a sovereignist is instructing a federalist on Canadian history—that in the 1960s and 1970s, we were looking at a fiscal imbalance. In those days, there were intelligent people on both sides, in Quebec and in the rest of Canada, who could sit down together and negotiate new tax sharing agreements. Could we see a little more intelligence and a little less grandstanding and cynicism on the other side of the House?