Mr. Speaker, I am not an economist—I do not have all the faults nor all the qualities—but essentially I know that a tax point is an agreement between levels of government. Tax points are dollars in the pockets of taxpayers. Governments agree to say that the money in the pockets of taxpayers is like a pie divided into a number of pieces, each taking its share of it.
Tax point agreements between the federal government and provinces allow levels of government to have revenues that follow the economic and, of course, demographic evolution of their area. That allows for some sovereignty, in the right sense of the word, for the various levels of government. Fiscal imbalance is essentially a fear of decisional imbalance—that is what it is—between the federal and the provinces.
When Quebec or other provinces ask for tax points, it is to secure revenues based on their own growth without any decisional imbalance from Ottawa. The poorest provinces are afraid of that. However, if the poorest provinces have additional development levers, then there will be a harmonious balance in the country.
Therefore tax points are agreements; in the end it is the flexibility that enables a government to get the money it needs and, I repeat, gives it balance and a certain sovereignty.