Mr. Speaker, I would like to indicate at the start that I shall be sharing my time with the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.
I am pleased to speak to this motion by the Canadian Alliance, a motion that contains many things. Some are good and some are bad. It gives us an opportunity to debate an issue that is essential for the Bloc Quebecois and for all Quebeckers, namely, the fiscal imbalance.
I would like to read the motion again:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should initiate immediate discussions with the provinces and territories to provide municipalities with a portion of the federal gas tax.
Clearly, what is good about this motion is that the Alliance, like the Bloc Quebecois, recognizes that there is a fiscal imbalance. The provinces and cities have needs which can never be met the way things are going, because of the provinces' and Quebec's lack of financial resources.
On the other hand, the first bad thing about the Alliance motion is that it invites the federal government to trample on the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces. It does say “to provide municipalities with a portion of the federal gas tax”, perhaps after discussions with the provinces and territories. We are totally opposed to this direct link between the federal and municipal authorities which bypasses the provinces and Quebec. It runs counter to the Constitution of Canada. We seem to be almost the only ones left defending this document in the House. Section 92 is very clear that municipalities come under provincial jurisdiction.
Secondly, if we were to support this motion we would be playing the Liberals' game, in particular, that of the future prime minister and member for LaSalle—Émard, who is the father of the fiscal imbalance. Many times in his speeches, he has broached the idea of direct payments to municipalities—especially the big cities—out of federal money.
Thirdly, the Bloc Quebecois is going to oppose this motion because Quebec is not and never will be a conduit from the federal government to the municipalities and all of Quebec.
Consequently, we will be voting against this motion. We recognize, like the Canadian Alliance, that we are dealing with a situation where the federal government has too many resources in relation to its responsibilities. It should indeed transfer the gasoline tax and tax points to rectify this situation.
The motion should have called for discussions to be held to correct the fiscal imbalance. Repatriating a portion of the gasoline tax would perhaps ensure that the provinces have the means to help municipalities meet their needs and the needs of those who live there. Had this motion been amended accordingly, we would have had no problem voting in favour of it.
As I was saying, this is quite clearly a dangerous motion. The speech by the secretary of state confirmed this impression when he said that they were going to vote in favour of the motion and that it is quite normal for the federal government to send money directly to the municipalities.
This motion by the Canadian Alliance is a bit surprising, because it plays into the hands of the Liberals. It plays into the hands of the future prime minister who, on several occasions, showed his desire to create an alliance with major cities. This must be publically condemned. He said this again recently in Vancouver.
I have other quotes. I will only give a few, but some date back to the spring of 2003, others to this fall, meaning September 2003. Here is the latest quote from September 2003:
I said that we are going to provide Canadian municipalities with a portion of the federal gas tax. But what is really important is that we work with municipal and provincial governments to set the common consensus.
Here the future prime minister is putting himself on the same level as the provinces and municipalities. He continues:
To do this, we will have to sit down and look at the timing and the size of the tax transfer.
This from the member for LaSalle—Émard, the future prime minister. As I was saying, we find this unacceptable because it is inconsistent and would encroach on Quebec's jurisdiction.
When we ask the federal government not to interfere in provincial jurisdictions, especially Quebec's, it is not just to defend the 1867 Constitution. In fact, we want to get rid of it. But there has to be consistency on an economic and social level.
When the federal government deals directly with the municipalities, as with all sorts of other public or parapublic institutions, it follows its own agenda that is based on Canada's vision of things, not Quebec's.
When we are talking about infrastructure, especially municipal infrastructure, this has economic and social repercussions. It all has to be integrated into a general plan approved by the Government of Quebec, through the National Assembly, and reflecting Quebec's vision of development.
Not only is this inconsistent, but it also detrimental to other mandates of Quebec and the provinces. For instance, if they go with this alliance that the future prime minister is talking about between the federal government and Canada's big cities, including two major cities in Quebec most likely, this would—if it goes through, which it will not—be detrimental to the regions of Quebec.
If this goes through, the regions of Quebec will inevitably pay the price. The money that will be distributed directly by the federal government, in accordance with Canada's vision, will not be transferred to the Government of Quebec, which would have seen that the money went to the regions, in accordance with Quebec's vision.
As I said, it would have been a good thing if the motion had directly addressed remedying the fiscal imbalance. It is, moreover, noteworthy that the 1.5 cent gasoline tax inaugurated by the future prime minister of Canada, the member for LaSalle—Émard, is a perfect example of just that imbalance. It is a totally pointless tax, having been put in place by the February 27, 1995 budget in order to eliminate the deficit. That deficit was eliminated at least seven years ago on the federal level.
Thanks to this tax, the federal government has been able to help itself to between $1 billion and $1.2 billion of Quebec taxpayers' money. That money could have been put to other uses, either by those taxpayers themselves or by being put back into Quebec's tax base. While this is part of the fiscal imbalance, it is not the whole story.
Looking at the way the federal government's revenues and expenditures have evolved over the years, even if we go back only to 2001, we can see that those revenues have risen 53% since the Liberals came to power. From 1993 to 2001, there was a 53% increase in the government's revenues, along with a 3% reduction in expenditures. Essentially, that reduction is in two main areas: transfer payments to the provinces and the employment insurance fund, the contents of which have been quite simply diverted away from the unemployed, employers and the workers paying into it.
If I compare Quebec's program expenditures over the same period, these rose by 16%. Of that increase, 71% went to health services. At the same time, the federal government was cutting back its transfer payments, as I have already pointed out. Cuts in the order of $24 billion were made, and one-third of that was for Quebec, although we represent only one-quarter of the population of Canada.
This means that the federal government, having withdrawn in order to solve its own financial problems, only shoulders 14¢ of the health care dollar invested in Quebec, and 8¢ of the education dollar, despite the existence of a surplus, year after year. For example, last year, we were told the surplus would be about $4 billion. In the end, the surplus was $10.4 billion, exactly what the Bloc Quebecois had predicted. As I have said many times, our resources are limited compared to those of the Department of Finance. Thus, it is not an error on the part of the current finance minister or the former finance minister; it is a deliberate attempt to avoid a public debate on these surpluses.
This year, the Minister of Finance announced one day that the surplus would be $3 billion, but another day said it would be around $5 billion. He does this to avoid correcting the fiscal imbalance. Given the situation—and Quebeckers are dealing with it—it is obvious that the future prime minister does not want to correct the situation despite the consensus in Quebec concerning the existence of a fiscal imbalance. Then, Quebeckers ask: When the foundation is cracking, do you fool around patching the walls? Because until the crack in the foundation is repaired, the walls will keep falling apart.
The choice of the Bloc Quebecois and of many Quebeckers is sovereignty for Quebec—that is, thoroughly repairing the foundation in order to make the walls solid—so that we can develop properly.