Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member raises this point. Indeed, Quebec offloaded some of its responsibilities onto the municipalities. However, it was not the Parti Quebecois that started this, but Claude Ryan, when he was minister of municipal affairs.
It was the Quebec Liberals who started this practice. They had no choice, since the federal government had cut transfer payments to the provinces. Look at the example for next year: the current finance minister, Mr. Séguin, announced that there was a shortfall of $3 billion. He said he did not want to touch health or education. We could not agree more.
That leaves $9 billion where cuts can be made to make up for the $3 billion shortfall. That is impossible. The timing is good, since the fiscal imbalance, or the portion paid to Quebec, is $2.5 billion. If the federal government were to transfer the tax points to the provinces, Quebec in particular, we would not be having financial difficulties
All the provinces in Canada are having financial difficulties, except Alberta. Ontario is running a deficit and Quebec will probably run one next year. The federal Liberal government and the future prime minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard, are mostly to blame.