Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière for raising this issue, which really bothers him, I know.
When, in political theory, we look at what a federation is made up of, we find that one of its elements is the distribution of powers. The distribution of powers is at the heart of what a federal system is all about.
The existence of a spending power intrinsically contradicts the very nature of a federal system. In other words, to allow the central government to intervene in provincial fields of jurisdiction, with a spending power or otherwise, goes against what a federal system really is.
With this spending power that the federal government has grabbed, a power that leads to centralization, as I have already said on numerous occasions, we can see that the Canadian federal system is less and less a federation, and more and more a unitary state. This use, by the federal government, of its spending power in fields of jurisdiction that are not its own--in other words, it goes against the distribution of powers at the heart of a federal system--is a denail of the true nature of Canada's political system.
Starting from there, Quebecers and Canadians will have to decide whether they want to live in a country that is increasingly centralizing and centralized or whether they want to live in another system where the state of Quebec could live in accordance with its own priorities and objectives.