Mr. Speaker, we have heard many inaccuracies in what the hon. member opposite and his colleagues have said since this morning.
First, in terms of tax points transferred during the 1960s and late 1970s, the principle is the following.
The federal government, mainly during the second world war, had asked the provinces to give up their jurisdiction over personal income tax. The provinces, including Quebec, agreed as their contribution to the war effort.
Under the constitution, which our colleague opposite says he respects, the federal government should never have had this jurisdiction. The federal government stole it from the provinces, because it refused to give it back to them after the war.
As a matter of fact, it was during the 1964 constitutional conference in Quebec City, between Mr. Pearson and Mr. Lesage, and the 1977 conference, which was held with all provinces, that the federal government decided to give back a part of what it had stolen from provinces, as their contribution to the war effort, in the area of personal income tax, inheritance tax and corporate tax. These areas were not under federal jurisdiction.
The hon. member says that constitutional jurisdictions must be respected, but how does he explain, apart from that, another undeniable fact? During the last four years, namely since the federal government has been raking in huge surpluses with other people's money, it has exponentially multiplied its encroachments on jurisdictions that are exclusively provincial, like education, health, early childhood and the family.
Why is it that this member, a federal member, a government member, cannot understand the facts? He has just talked about principles that go against the practice of the past four years. The transfer of tax points during the 1960s and the 1970s was done as a matter of justice for the provinces, which had generously accepted to lend a jurisdiction which was exclusively theirs under the constitution. Will the hon. member, a superior member of a supposedly superior Canada, understand that?