Debates of Oct. 2nd, 2003

Supply

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the member talks about hypocrisy and scandal. I assume he is looking in the mirror because the Canadian Alliance, the former reform party, has never been a supporter of municipal governments in our country.

I will give members a simple example. A few years ago we had Bill C-10 before the House. It dealt with the issue of payments in lieu of taxes to ensure that we had guaranteed payments to municipal governments for federal properties within their jurisdiction. The party over there voted against it.

That party has not supported national infrastructure programs. That party has a shabby record on dealing with municipal governments. However, I can tell the member that this government is prepared at any time to work with provinces and municipal governments on the issue of national infrastructure. We do not need any lessons from that party, absolutely not.

[Monte Solberg, Canadian Alliance, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is passing strange that the member would stand up and proceed to lecture me and my party about our record when it comes to municipal governments.

It is his party that is only providing 2% of all the excise taxes that it collects for municipal projects. To me, 2% for infrastructure is a shabby record. That is a shameful record. I hope the member across the way apologizes by voting for our motion.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Secretary of State (Selected Crown Corporations)]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise and speak to the motion.

The Canadian public must look at the motion and wonder why all these members are fighting if they agree on all of this stuff.

It is an interesting problem. Let me take the suspense, about how the government would vote, away from the previous speaker who said he is anxiously awaiting the results of the vote. The government supports the motion.

However, what is interesting about this is that this is clearly a case of Canadian Alliance members seeing where the parade is going, watching it go right by them, and elbowing out in front so that they can pretend to Canadians that they are actually leading this. This is such utter nonsense.

[Vic Toews, Canadian Alliance, Provencher, MB]

Shame on the member that he would say that with a straight face.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Well, shame on the member. This is nothing but pure bald-faced political one-upmanship on the part of the Canadian Alliance because it has not got a clue about what these policies will do or what they mean.

Let me tell the House that this is the same party that wants to build a firewall around Alberta. We remember that statement. We remember that desire. I have heard members on the opposite side stand up and say the reason they put this motion is that they want to give this money to the provinces.

I thought we were talking about empowering our municipalities. I thought we were talking about new ways, a new deal for cities, because 80% of the people in this country happen to live in cities.

If it is for cities, then members should read Hansard . Why do members opposite stand up and say we need to find more ways to flow money to the provincial governments?

I want to admit one thing to the Canadian Alliance. One of the experiences I have enjoyed in the past six months has been working with provincial and municipal governments in the area of affordable housing. It might come as a surprise that one of the best provinces in Canada, under the terms of the federal-provincial agreement, is Alberta.

A lot of people would be surprised to hear that because at six o'clock at night on the news they see Premier Klein standing up and bashing Ottawa or taking shots at the Prime Minister or playing golf with Mike Harris or whatever. Yet in fact, the minister of housing, Stan Woloshyn, and I have had several excellent meetings. Alberta has actually built 420 affordable housing units. This is not a huge number. However, we must remember we are only talking three million people.

Alberta is building supportive housing and doing partnerships with municipalities. This summer I was in Red Deer with the minister. We opened a supportive housing project in Red Deer with the cooperation of the provincial government, the federal government, the municipality and the private sector. It is leading edge stuff that is coming out of the Province of Alberta.

What we hear in the House is members standing up and not knowing about any of that. They would not be aware that this minister and the minister of housing in Alberta are working extremely well together. They would only want to stand up and get in front of the parade so they can pretend they are actually leading the issue.

What this issue is really about, and the reason that the government and frankly the new regime when it comes in will support, is new partnerships. We must recognize that our municipalities are the economic engines of this country and they need our support.

The reason municipalities need our support would run contrary to what the Canadian Alliance would do in giving more power to the provinces. The provinces, and I talk now not of Alberta but of my own Province of Ontario--this being an election day and an exciting day in the Province of Ontario--as an example. It has downloaded to the municipalities and put incredible pressure on not just the municipalities, but on hospitals and the education system.

The provincial government cancelled the affordable housing program that was in place the minute that Mike Harris took over the premier's office in 1995. The province has downloaded the responsibility. It has downloaded all of the heavy lifting to the municipalities in the province.

Here is the problem. We may have a new government in Ontario today. Some of us are hoping for that to happen. However, whether we do or not, if we were to give a piece of the federal excise tax on gasoline directly to municipalities, not to the provinces as I am hearing members over there say, the provincial government of any particular political stripe could figure out how much money that is and claw it back in some fashion. We have seen that in program after program in the Province of Ontario. It is unacceptable.

There is no point in just shuffling the deckchairs. We have to make sure that whatever amount is finally worked out and committed to be transferred to the municipalities, that it goes to them for their programs that they know how to run and on which they can decide; that it is matched by a like contribution from the provincial governments and the territories; and that it is not clawed back in some other fashion, like the child tax credit, in my view.

All of the things this government has done, which the opposition of course dutifully fails to recognize, support Canadians, 80% of whom live in cities. Therefore, we could say that it supports cities. The people who get the child tax credit live in our cities. It is frankly one of the greatest accomplishments of the former minister of finance. Yet we hear people say we have not done anything.

The annual assistance rates for children in low income families were increased through the Canada child tax benefit by $10 billion by the year 2007. This represents an increase of about 100% since 1996 and will have risen to $3,243 per year for the first child, $3,016 for the second child, and $3,020 for each additional child. Is that important to cities?

My mayor, Mayor McCallion, would say that we have a lot of young families. We have our share of the burden of people living in poverty and people struggling to get ahead. Is it important to Mayor McCallion? Is it important to Mayor Fennell? Is it important to Mayor Lastman or the next mayor of Toronto? Is it important to the mayor in St. John's, Newfoundland? Is it important to Mayor Kelly? Of course it is important to all of them that their families get this kind of assistance.

Why members opposite cannot see that as direct assistance by the federal government to the people who live in the municipalities is beyond me. At the end of the day we will not be focusing on helping corporate municipal governments. We are interested in helping the people in those municipalities. We know through partnerships with the municipalities that we can achieve that.

For example, we signed an affordable housing agreement with the province of Manitoba. The federal government would provide Manitoba with $12.5 million and Manitoba would match that $12.5 million to create a housing fund of $25 million to build homes in that province. The mayor of the city of Winnipeg came to the table in the one and only tripartite agreement we have in this country. Mayor Murray signed an additional agreement with Manitoba and with us to add $17.5 million of municipal money into the affordable housing package. That is $42 million to build affordable housing.

The city of Winnipeg needs it desperately. It has a serious shortage of housing for urban aboriginals. It has a serious shortage of housing for the working poor. I wish I could take that template from Manitoba and Winnipeg and do it in every municipality across the country. That would be my goal, to use that template as the example of how we can work in partnership with our municipal partners.

We talk about infrastructure. What have we done there? I hear all these stories about how roads are falling apart and that we have not put money into them. Municipalities know that is not true. Is it enough? No, it is never enough. We all know that.

In reality we have committed $10 billion to infrastructure that has been tripled by partnerships with provincial governments and municipalities to generate $30 million in infrastructure programs across this country. If there is one area that I think we need to look at in the infrastructure file however, it is separating out what I call core infrastructure from cultural infrastructure and community infrastructure.

What I mean by that is many of our cities and communities have problems with water and sewers. The pipes are old. In some sections in the city of Toronto they were actually twinning the storm sewers and the sanitary sewers and it was going right into the Don River and into the lake. That is not acceptable in today's environment.

Our infrastructure programs need to focus on core infrastructure, which is sewers, water and roads. Then on the other hand we can deal with the community infrastructure programs for things like a living arts centre, a community centre, or an arena. These things cannot be ignored. We will do that in partnership with our municipalities and provinces.

One of the other really interesting issues is that the Canadian Alliance tries to generate this feeling that somehow we are ignoring the municipalities and at the same time it wants to give all the power and concentrate all the power at the provincial level. We know that is its agenda. We know that it is strictly a regional rump, if you will. It won a couple of seats in Ontario. We know based on the good sense of the people of Ontario that they will not be sending more Canadian Alliance members.

We do not know about the partnership that is on again, off again. I think the parties are in marriage counselling right now to see whether or not they can get together. One of my colleagues says that there are bunk beds over at Stornoway. But the reality is, there can only be one official opposition.

I just received some new information on Manitoba. It is actually $25 million. I correct myself. It is $25 million federally, $25 million provincially and then the city added $17.5 million. So it is a much bigger pot but the principle is the same. It is a tripartite agreement among all three levels of government. Frankly, that is the direction we need to go in.

The issue of gas tax is the one that is so visible to people. They see the pie chart at the pumps. In my view, if we can do this, if we can have an agreement between the province and the municipality, there has to be transparency. The municipalities should have a political resolution put on the books saying that they wish to collect this gas tax and we should change the pie chart so that people know where the tax money is going.

One of the criticisms that I think is legitimate of all governments in the country is that we tend to put everything into a central pot, a black hole, and then we order our business and we disburse it. Targeting things like a portion of the gas tax is an idea whose time has arrived. It is an idea where the public needs to know that its mayor and council are in fact getting a certain percentage on that pie chart on the gas pump and that the province and the federal government are kicking in a piece. It is all about transparency and understanding where the money is coming from and where the money is going. That is a critical part of it.

It is a much bigger issue than that in terms of the relationship with municipalities. I like to use the example around housing. Affordable housing is an issue that only reaches the front page or the front mindset of people when there is an eviction of squatters, or when there is a demonstration by an anti-poverty group or something like that demanding affordable housing. All of a sudden the media picks it up and all of the politicians and everybody start talking about it. We need to talk about this with our municipalities in true partnership without the stress of those kinds of demonstrations being what drive the issue.

There are 1.8 million people living in core need. This is a disgrace and it is something that I frankly intend to do everything I can to fix. I hope all members would agree with this. In Canada 1.8 million people are living in core need. Core need means that they are paying more than 30% of their gross income for the roof over their heads. They have a home. In Saint John, New Brunswick for example the vacancy rate is 5% and people might ask what the problem is, that there should be lots of supply. Once that is taken out of the equation, the number of homes that are literally unliveable, where the roof is leaking, where insulation does not exist and it is freezing in the winter and people should not be living there, the vacancy rate drops down below 2%.

We have a problem but just because we have somebody under a roof does not mean we have solved it. It has to be decent quality housing, not third world standards like we are seeing in some parts of the country and it has to be affordable.

If a single mom is paying 50% or 60% of her gross income to put a roof over the heads of her and her two kids, that means she has 40% or 50% of her gross pay, maybe as low as 30% of her net pay, left to buy food, clothing and pay for transportation to get to work. It is impossible. I would defy anybody in this place to live with numbers like that. It cannot happen.

Can we solve it alone? No, absolutely not, but the federal government is back in the housing business and we have entered into partnerships with municipalities. It is my hope that if we find new ways to create a new deal for the municipal sector the municipalities across the country will do what Mayor Murray in the city of Winnipeg has done. They will put their money on the table to help build affordable housing.

It all begins at home. If we could elevate in the priority of people's minds the issue of affordable quality housing to the same level as health and education, I think we would start to achieve something. I think it should be there because good health begins at home.

Think about growing up as a child. I would suspect most of us in this place had an address, had a home, hopefully had a mom and a dad, and siblings. Fifty per cent of the people who live in shelters in the city of Calgary actually have jobs. They go to work every day and they come home at night and sleep at the YWCA or at a homeless shelter. That is deplorable. We have to stop that. We have to put in place programs that will help those people.

Some of those people actually have children. They go out of the shelter in the morning, they send their children to school, they go to work at minimum wage jobs and they meet their children back at the shelter. Think of the impact on those children when the other kids at school ask them where they live. Does anyone think that those children want to say that they live at the Y? I can guarantee that they do not want to say that. They are embarrassed. Those children love their moms, but they are embarrassed, ashamed.

Imagine the difference, the uplifting feeling and sense of security if, when a child is asked where he lives, he can say, “I live at 21 Birchview”, which is where I grew up in Toronto. Imagine that feeling. There are kids in shelters in this country who move 12 times a year. They have no idea what a home is.

Do we want to have a new partnership with the cities? We need the provinces to commit to this full bore. We have agreements signed with provincial governments. They are supposed to match the money that we have provided for affordable housing. Most of them are, with the exception of Ontario again, matching it and building it.

There have been 1,700 homes built in British Columbia in cooperation with the city of Victoria, the city of Vancouver, the city of Chilliwack, and the list goes on. There have been 420 built in Alberta, with the great cooperation of the city of Calgary, the city of Edmonton, the city of Red Deer and the provincial government. In Saskatchewan there are 200 units underway.

In Winnipeg, Manitoba, there are 117 underway. There are many more to come because of the leadership of the head of that municipal government.

In Quebec there are over 1,500. What Quebec did is it got $160 million from us and in partnerships with the municipalities they matched it, $120 million from the province and $40 million from the municipalities. They are building 1,500 units as we speak and are committed to 65.

Nova Scotia is off the ramp. It is going ahead with programs. We are looking at home ownership for the working poor as a pilot project. New Brunswick is on the way. P.E.I. broke ground for seven new homes just last month in Charlottetown in cooperation with the municipality.

Do not tell me the government is not doing it, because I know differently. The government believes in cities and municipalities. More important, we believe in Canadians. We will work with them to build affordable housing and provide fair, just taxation for our municipal partners and our provincial partners to continue building this great country.

[Roy H. Bailey, Canadian Alliance, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I hope every provincial premier in Canada was listening to that tirade of hate about the incompetence of provincial governments in not being able to make a decision regarding such things as the distribution of the gasoline tax. I think that is terrible.

For instance, the member just mentioned that the government will pay its share if the provinces pay theirs. In Saskatchewan we have to try to come up with 40% of a government program in a province that now has less than a million people and many times we cannot do that.

If the Province of Saskatchewan cannot determine the percentage of the amount of gasoline tax that comes into that province, or that goes to that city, what he is saying is that the government of Saskatchewan and all other governments are totally incompetent, that this government wants to deal directly with the municipalities. That is not the function of our Constitution and it is not the function of this government. No government can ignore provincial governments.

Let me read very quickly what the motion states: “That, in the opinion of this House, the government should initiate immediate discussions”, and members should listen carefully now, “with the provinces and the territories to provide municipalities...”.

It has to go through that. We do not go out and say, “Here is your health tax, but you must spend it here and here”. It is not done in health, so why would it be done with taxation from gasoline?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

I guess I struck a nerve, Mr. Speaker. I am not surprised, but I have to say that I do not know if this gentleman was in the room when I spoke or whether he was in some cloud.

Did I not say that the best province in the country to work with in affordable housing is Alberta? Did I not say that we are building houses with the cooperation of the provincial governments and the municipalities in every province except Ontario? That is my complaint. It is my home province that is not doing the job. I do not know what that was all about. What is he smoking over there? We have a terrific relationship with most of the provincial governments in this country and we will continue to have.

Those guys cannot take yes for an answer. We have said we are going to support the motion. What is their problem? We agree with it. We think it makes sense. The government believes in it.

But let me tell members that we have done a lot of other things that nobody gives us credit for and nobody on that side of the House recognizes. It is time that more of us talked about the positive things the government has been doing in signing partnership agreements right across this land. We are not ignoring the provinces. We are working with them in tripartite agreements with our municipalities to make this country better.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am always entertained by the minister when he speaks. Of course he spoke a lot about housing on a motion that deals with gas, so I assume that a lot of those houses would be heated by natural gas.

My concern, and I am going to throw this in before my question, is that he talks about the child tax benefit, which we fully support, but of course the problem in Nova Scotia, as he knows, is that it was clawed back. When the government makes these deals with the provinces, it has to ensure that there is no clawback. He wants to know why the Liberals do not get the credit. That is why they do not get it: because they deal with the provinces and come up with this money, then they turn around and claw it back and the people do not get any benefits.

My question to him is on the motion dealing directly with this. I am thinking of the northern areas of Nova Scotia where the municipalities are not that large and have very sparse populations. If the federal government, through the former finance minister, wishes to deal directly with the municipalities, how does he envision that those people would get a fair share of the tax revenue in order to build up their infrastructure and to move forward in our economy?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is right on when he talks about the problem with the clawback. I could not agree more.

The reason I spoke about housing in this file is that, first, it is my portfolio, but second, whether it is the gas tax, affordable housing agreements, child tax credits or whatever, it is all about a new partnership with our municipal partners. It is all about restructuring how we work together. It does not mean that we have to deal directly with the municipalities. We recognize that we have a Constitution and a responsibility to deal with our provincial partners and our territories. We understand that.

But it means that if we set aside money out of the gas tax that is supposed to go to the municipal treasury, we want to make sure it goes there and does not get clawed back in some other form by the provincial government. That is all. Those agreements have to be put in place to ensure that it happens.

The best way to do that is to get the provincial governments to be partners in all of this and to have them sign on. I understand the problems that have happened in Nova Scotia. I met with the minister, who is now the reappointed minister there, and we are working together, I can tell members, to try to make things happen.

On the issue of rural Canada, let me stress this. I also represent Canada Post. There has been a lot of noise about closing rural post offices. Let me assure the House right now, on the record, that there is no intention by this administration to close rural post offices. That should be made absolutely clear and members can take that to the bank.

Let me say that we will not ignore rural Canada. While only 20% of our population lives in rural communities, that part of our population is a vital part of the character, the soul and the quality of this country and we are committed to working with them as partners as well.

[Vic Toews, Canadian Alliance, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I noted with interest the member's comments. In fact, I found it very difficult to understand exactly what he was saying. In one breath he is saying let us make tripartite agreements with provinces and municipalities and on the other hand he is saying let us give the money directly to the municipalities.

In the province of Manitoba, for example, we see a very important tripartite agreement, but let us remember where that money came from. The federal government cut off all the funding for health care for first nations people who moved off reserve. It cut off that money. Hundreds of millions of dollars were simply cut off. Now it has a new pocket of money and it comes up with $25 million. It is the money the federal government used to spend for first nations people off reserve, having cut it off and dumped that responsibility onto the province.

I know of what I speak. I was a minister when this government did that to our first nations people and the provincial government of Manitoba. It cut $100 million and it is now putting back $25 million, so I say thanks a lot to a government that owes the people of Manitoba at least $75 million on that deal alone.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know how the hon. member can say he did not understand what I was saying. I thought it was pretty clear.

[Vic Toews, Canadian Alliance, Provencher, MB]

Explain it to me again.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

If the hon. member would listen and leave the computer alone for a moment, maybe he would understand.

It is very simple. It is about cashflow. When we signed the health accord with the provincial governments, all of the money was put in envelopes and it had to be spent exactly on what it was provided for. That is what I am talking about here.

If we say we are prepared to share a piece of the gas tax with municipal governments, does it make any sense at all to anybody that we would say to the provincial governments to go ahead and pass the money through if they want to? It is not an option. We want to make sure it gets there. We believe that most of the provincial governments will want to do that as well.

We respect the Constitution and the role of provincial governments. It is about the flow of money and where it goes. I do not know how I could be more direct.

Let me also point out that Canada Mortgage and Housing, through the Department of Indian Affairs, funds $127 million a year for affordable housing on reserve. The hon. member should not tell me that we have abandoned that. Off reserve, particularly in urban areas, we have $680 million in signed agreements right across the country, and another $320 million. We are spending $1 billion and we are working with off reserve native communities as well as on reserve to build them good quality homes. It is all about partnerships, it is all about quality of life and it all leads to a greater Canada.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

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.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, this government is committed to working collaboratively with municipal governments and the provinces. That is why we have had very successful infrastructure programs over the years.

The member talks about off-loading by the federal government. He talks about trying to balance our books on the backs of the provinces. I would point out to him that the former PQ minister of municipal affairs, Mr. Trudel, on November 28, 1996, withdrew a 43% rebate to municipal governments in the province of Quebec without consultation. This impacted $76 million on those municipal governments throughout the province, and it meant that those municipalities which depended on this rebate, because of the harmonization of the QST and the GST, had to slash services.

The dependency clearly is that under the PQ in Quebec there was no guarantee of solid funding. Under the national infrastructure programs, this government in joint partnership and with the announcement by the Minister of Finance in February of a 10 year program, which will be of course added to overtime and in which we will be working with our municipal and provincial partners, at least we will have that guarantee.

I would like to have the member respond to the fact that in the province of Quebec under the PQ there was never stable funding by that government and in fact municipal governments. I could quote Mr. Vaillancourt, the UMQ president at the time, denouncing that unilateral move.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

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.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Oak Ridges, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member talks about a fiscal imbalance. When the government inherited the $42.5 billion deficit in 1993, that party never talked about the fiscal imbalance. However now that this government has turned in six budgets with surpluses, he now talks about the fiscal imbalance.

The member knows quite well that the province of Quebec, in fact all provinces, have the same fiscal capacity as the federal government. If there is a fiscal imbalance, it is only in the minds of the members across the way. The reality is the Quebec government and every other government can work to raise their revenues because they have that power. Fortunately now in the province of Quebec we have a government that we can deal with and that we can sit down with and discuss these kinds of transfer issues.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the parliamentary secretary that Quebec's current finance minister is Mr. Séguin. He wrote this report at the request of the Parti Quebecois government. This report, which clearly proves that there is a fiscal imbalance, has received broad support throughout Quebec.

The only ones who disagree are the federal Liberals. Liberals in Quebec unfortunately march to the same drummer. As a result, we will not be told tales. The federal government has managed to eliminate its deficit by offloading it on to the provinces. It still is.

For example, here is a quote from the Canadian Medical Association report. This is not the Parti Quebecois or the Bloc Quebecois speaking. This comes from a brief tabled by the association before the Standing Committee on Finance. Here is what it says:

Instead of reinvesting in public health, the federal government is planning to reduce departmental spending in this sector. According to the main estimates, expenditures on public health in current dollars will decrease in 2005-06, to their lowest level in ten years.

The current government is continuing to pass the buck on to the provinces and Quebec. It has the money to put things right, but it has chosen to make the debt and income tax cuts its priorities.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that speech was so enthusiastic, how can we not be too? And how can we not be floored by what we are hearing from the other side of the House?

Earlier, I heard my hon. Liberal colleague say that the provinces had the same means as the federal government. That is not true. The provinces have backed into a corner and left hanging, so much that most of the provinces are currently having serious financial difficulties.

Quebec's financial problems are due to the lack of stable federal transfer payments, and these transfer payments have shrunk drastically, particularly since 1995.

The person responsible for these cuts, the person responsible for the problems inflicted on Quebec and the provinces, with the exception of Alberta, is the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard. He was the finance minister. When he becomes leader of the Liberal Party, he will not be a greenhorn; he will not be a political virgin. He will be a man who can never shake his past.

It is a disgrace that here we have a man who claims to want to head this government announcing his intention to negotiate directly with the municipalities, to transfer part of the gasoline tax to the municipalities, whereas that same man has deprived the governments of Quebec and the provinces of some $25 billion since 1995 in net transfer payments. Those payments are for health care, among other things. Sick people have to be dealt with. There have been $25 billion in cuts to transfer payments for health care, education and assistance to the most disadvantaged members of our society.

He has just said that the Government of Canada intends to invest part of the gasoline tax in the municipalities. If he were serious, and not merely seeking a higher profile, seeking to increase the popularity of his so-called new government, he would remedy the problem of the fiscal imbalance.

There is nothing theoretical about this problem. Too much money is going into Ottawa's coffers in proportion to its responsibilities, and not enough into the coffers of Quebec in proportion to its huge responsibilities: health, education and assistance to those who are the least well off. He could solve this problem.

That is where the problem lies: too much money in the federal coffers in relation to its responsibilities. So much money, in fact, that they keep making announcements: direct payments to the municipalities, direct investment in education and so on. Let the federal government start interfering in the education of my granddaughter, who is seven, and I will be quick to tell it to mind its own business. There is a Constitution, after all.

As my colleague from Joliette has said, this is rather strange. We are sovereignists. We want to get out of the system, and yet here we are, because of these repeated encroachments on provincial areas of jurisdiction, the only ones in this Parliament calling for the Canadian Constitution to be respected. What a ridiculous situation. There is a contract, and when there is a contract, there are certain rules that have to be followed.

Section 92 of the Constitution is very clear on this: municipalities are a provincial responsibility. So let the federal government stop its constant interference. If it wants to solve the problem, I have a little recipe for success to suggest to the member for LaSalle—Émard, the future prime minister and former finance minister, he who is responsible for the catastrophic state of the public finances of the provinces and of the Government of Quebec. I have a suggestion for him. It is nothing new, but it is one of those tried and true recipes.

When Quebec's current minister of finance signed the report that bears his name, the Séguin report, he said that there were two ways the situation could be settled once and for all. The first option would be for the federal government to transfer tax points, particularly income tax points. We will come back to that one in a moment because it is a problem related to the great imbalance in the income tax system. The second solution he proposed would be to give us the revenues from the GST.

By doing that, the problem would be solved once and for all. There would be no more fiscal imbalance and the provinces and the Government of Quebec could live up to their responsibilities and could settle the problem once and for all.

It goes on and on. The revenues from the GST increase each year, just like income tax. And there is the big problem. If there is too much money going to Ottawa, that is a major factor. In fact, there are two factors: cuts, which we will come back to shortly, and tax structure.

If we take the example of Quebec, federal income tax is 58% of the income tax collected in Quebec, while 42% goes into the coffers of the Government of Quebec. Federal income tax and revenues from the GST increase the most, year after year.

The current fiscal imbalance is only the tip of the iceberg. This will continue because of the tax structure itself.

As a result, 58% of the tax base is growing. That is higher than the federal government's other tax revenues. That is a lot of money, year after year.

There was a $10 billion surplus for the last fiscal year. My colleague, the member for Joliette, estimates it will be $6 to $7 billion for next year. It could be more, since it seems there has been an economic recovery over the year.

If this were settled, in other words, if the GST revenues were given to Quebec, there would no longer be any problems with the municipalities. I can understand the municipalities because the municipal representatives in my riding tell me they would appreciate having more money. I understand that, but the most effective, stable and intelligent way to find a sustainable solution to the problem is to resolve,once and for all, the inequities between the federal tax revenues and those of the Government of Quebec and of the provinces.

If not, we will be no further ahead. We have to beg the federal government for money. Quebec's taxpayers want health services and education. They want us to support the less fortunate, and for the municipalities to be able to provide services directly to the public.

These problems have to be resolved once and for all. The only way to do so is to give back the Government of Quebec and the provinces their share of the taxes paid by Quebeckers and Canadians. This share has to be given back to the governments that provide the most direct services, in other words, the Government of Quebec and the provincial governments.

I support the municipalities that are asking for money. I understand them, since they provide services at a grassroots level, close to the people. They want money and we will do what we can to make sure they get more, but in accordance with the contracts; otherwise, there will be anarchy. At present, the main contract that should guide the federal government is section 92 of the Constitution.

Transfers of money should not involve the ridiculous sums that the member for LaSalle—Émard was proposing, that is, a portion of the federal gas tax. It has to be a considerable amount to settle the fiscal imbalance once and for all. The money has to be paid to the Government of Quebec and the provinces. There should not be any negotiations without consulting the governments.

Quebeckers realize that Quebec's identity is being undermined as a result of these efforts to curtail the powers of the National Assembly, the only assembly where all members are Quebeckers, the only national voice—it is called the National Assembly—the only voice of the Quebec nation. This also means that the primary instrument for our long term survival is being rendered ineffective. That is what they are doing. That is what the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard is doing. The National Assembly's powers are being curtailed, when they should be reinforced.

Consequently, this motion is unacceptable. The Bloc Quebecois will fight so that Quebec taxpayers get what is rightfully theirs. It is not normal that the federal government should overtax, and it is not normal that federal initiatives should deprive Quebec of its resources, when the feds have money coming out of their ears. We must provide services to the public. People want their money's worth.

Consequently, if we resolve the fiscal imbalance, municipalities will not have any more problems. The members opposite think this is hilarious, but we have news for them. We will be there during the next election campaign. We will campaign on real issues. We will say that the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard, the former finance minister and future prime minister, is responsible for all the problems. We will say that, because of him, health and education are underfunded. We will say that, because of him, plans for parental leave fell through in Quebec. We will say that, because of him, there is not enough social housing, and that he is telling shameless lies when he says he wants to resolve the problems, because he caused the problems related to the fiscal imbalance.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

I would remind hon. members to choose their words carefully. What the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot has just said verges on the unacceptable, and I would remind hon. members to take care.

The hon. member for Joliette.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since February 2003, certain Liberals have been telling us that the problem in health has been solved because an arrangement has been reached between the provincial premiers and the federal government. I would remind hon. members that this was accomplished because we had a knife held to our throats.

Does the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot think it is normal for the present finance minister to make use of thinly disguised blackmail, telling us that if the surplus exceeds $3 billion, then the promised $2 billion will go to the provinces for health services? If it is under that $3 billion figure, tough luck, the provinces will have to scrape up the money somewhere, perhaps through cuts in other areas such as the municipalities, in order to be able to deliver health services. Does he find this normal?

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Joliette for his question. No, it is not normal. It is not normal that we have just heard the members opposite talking about stability in financing. I was listening to the parliamentary secretary, who was talking about stable arrangements and other things. There is nothing more unstable than federal transfer payments.

One year, they were $800 million. Two years ago, an envelope of $800 million was provided. Now they say for next year, “We'll see...”, because we do not know what the financial situation will be. How can anyone manage a country that way? How can anyone manage Quebec that way? How can anyone run a health system that way, knowing only that this year we have $800 million and next year we do not know how much we will have?

Doctors have to be hired; investments have to be made in medical equipment, which is amortized over 10 or 15 years; and no one knows if there will be enough money to maintain the contracts and invest the funds needed to finance the medical equipment. That is no way to manage. It cannot be managed from day to day, depending on varying surpluses. This is shameless blackmail. But we have to expect that this blackmail will become institutionalized.

They have money coming out their ears and they are feverish with the need for visibility, on the other side of the House. They want the minister to make an appearance when he hands out a cheque; they want the Canadian flag everywhere, and hospitals are nearly wallpapered with Canadian flags. They have now gone into the primary schools. It is amazing. But it is obsessive.

Services as essential as health and education cannot be managed on a day-to-day basis, or with a knife at our throats, which is what the finance minister tells us every day, when he says, “We will see, but we do not know”.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member seems more concerned about dogma and about a bankrupt philosophy than he does about the state of municipal governments in the province of Quebec. I use the example of the PQ in 1996 cancelling a 43% rebate to municipal governments without any consultation.

If he was really concerned about the state of infrastructure, concerned about the state of cities in the province of Quebec, he would be working with the federal government and with the UMQ and others in Quebec in order to make sure that we have stable funding, but he is concerned about jurisdiction. He is not concerned about the roads. He is not concerned about the playgrounds. He is not concerned about the sewers. He is concerned about ideology, an ideology which has been certainly repudiated in the fact that the treatment of municipal governments under the PQ was abysmal.

I would like him to comment.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, is it dogma to be concerned about the sick, who do not have adequate care because of federal cuts? Is it dogma to deny young parents an adequate parental leave system, when we are perfectly entitled to $50 million from the employment insurance fund, the one that gets pilfered every year? This year, $3 billion will be stolen. Is it also dogma to denounce the actions of the federal government?

Is it dogma to say that all the provinces, except Alberta, are currently having financial difficulties because of the $25 billion in cuts, since 1995, to transfer payments for health, education and social services? Is that dogma? Is it not a question of being concerned about the well-being of others? The member's remarks are shameful. This is not dogma.

The Bloc Quebecois serves Quebeckers, and Quebeckers only. We lay awake at night worrying about them. We dream about improving their well-being.

I do not know what the member dreams about. In any case, his virtual country does not resemble the real one. The real country has an unacceptable poverty rate for a country like Canada. In reality, people, especially the elderly, do not have adequate care and do not receive a guaranteed income supplement because this entitlement was hidden from them for years. That is the real country.

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure today that I rise to discuss and to support the motion to see a gas tax transfer to Canadian municipalities. It is one element of fiscal imbalance that exists. I agree very strongly with my colleagues from Quebec that the issue of fiscal imbalance in Canada between the federal government and the provincial governments is a reality and I agree with the provincial Liberal minister of finance in Quebec.

I agree with the Quebec finance minister, Yves Séguin. The fiscal imbalance must be addressed. It is not fair for the federal government to have almost all the powers to levy taxes and for the provincial governments to be responsible for providing all the essential services such as health and education.

It is wrong to have a government federally that has the power to raise money and has most of the tax levers, and then to have provincial governments with so much constitutionally enshrined responsibilities to provide the essential services of health care and education. These are growing costs. The cutbacks from the federal side in terms of the transfers to the provinces, combined with the rapid growth in costs of providing the essential services at the provincial level have led to a tremendous fiscal imbalance between the federal and provincial governments. I will be coming back to that later in my comments.

First, the responsibilities of municipal governments in terms of the expenses to provide necessary infrastructure and investment have grown significantly over the last 10 years or 20 years. The municipal governments have even fewer fiscal levers than the provincial governments.

When there are federal cutbacks which lead to provincial cutbacks and ultimately to less money for municipalities, the buck stops at the municipal level. There is really no place except for property taxes for municipal governments to turn to try to raise funds.

The infrastructure programs have been flawed by partisanship in a lot of cases and political interference. That is one of the flaws of it. We have municipalities that know exactly where their infrastructure investments have to be made and ought to be made but then we have the role of the federal government which is getting more involved than it ought to be in terms of the direction of infrastructure money. I do believe that partisanship has played a role in terms of the infrastructure programs that has reduced the ultimate effectiveness of the infrastructure programs.

With the infrastructure programs there is the issue of the candy toss approach. These programs appear every several years and there is a rush by municipalities to submit applications for funding. To have that sort of cyclical approach to important infrastructure funding and investment is simply wrong.

There should be an ongoing program or vehicle through which municipalities can obtain the funding they need to make the types of important investments that are required. It ought not to be cyclical in this sort of candy toss approach where there is a rush for the money every several years when these infrastructure programs appear. This would be a step in the right direction.

We also have to recognize that the municipalities and the municipal governments that are closer to the people being affected by these decisions have a better capacity to determine where to spend the money. There is a democratic accountability issue too, that the same government that has the responsibility to provide the service ought to have the ability to raise the revenue. Without that there is no democratic accountability. It is hard to hold a politician at the municipal or in fact provincial or federal levels accountable for the decisions being made.

I also believe we should work with the provinces and consider the idea of federal tax free or federal tax advantaged municipal bonds. These exist in the U.S. Tax free municipal bonds have helped municipalities across the United States raise billions of dollars for infrastructure investment. The beauty of that system is it represents an indirect transfer from the federal government to the municipalities because of the federal tax free nature of the bonds.

The power ultimately is with the municipal unit, the municipal government and the municipal leaders who can determine how much money they need and where the investment will take place. These bonds are regulated through bond rating agencies. It is good from a Canadian investor perspective. It provides another relatively safe and secure investment for Canadian investors.

These bonds would be good for the investment community. They would be good for municipalities and really good for all Canadians. Canadians would find that they would be well served by their municipalities having the capacity to raise the money and invest in the types of infrastructure requirements that they know are the appropriate ones for their unique situations.

That is an idea that we ought to study in this place and in committee. We could determine whether or not it would be possible and what the advantages or perhaps the disadvantages would be of a federal tax free or a federal tax advantage to the municipal bond approach here in Canada. It would be just another idea that we ought to be considering when we are talking about finding ways to address municipal infrastructure.

The infrastructure issue is extraordinarily important. We have had a tremendous deficit in infrastructure funding and maintenance across Canada. I do not think there is a municipality in Canada that has not faced significant problems in terms of meeting basic infrastructure. We are talking about sewage and water type infrastructure requirements. These are not the types of requirements that can be ignored.

The cost of not dealing with them on an ongoing basis from a preventive maintenance perspective and an ongoing investment perspective is compounded by a decline in the infrastructure. It is bad economics to let the infrastructure requirements of our municipalities grow, and in fact, to let the quality of Canadian infrastructure decline.

Whether we are talking about highways, sewage systems or water systems, it is simply bad economics not to provide a funding mechanism through which provincial or federal governments can raise the money they need to pay for the essential infrastructure that their constituents require.

I would like to return to the federal-provincial fiscal imbalance issue. It does not make a lot of sense to have a federal government that has not been very good at dealing with issues such as trade disputes, has yet to provide a coherent foreign policy that is in Canada's national interest, and has not been able to invest in or manage a military effectively. It does not make a lot of sense to have a government that has not been very good at those purely federal areas of trade, foreign policy and the military, just to give three examples.

To have a government that has not been good at those areas interfere in areas that are purely under provincial jurisdiction, such as health care and education, does not make a lot of sense to me. It does not demonstrate a respect for the constitutionally enshrined jurisdictional rights of the provinces.

Beyond that, it is bad economic policy because in the same way that municipal governments have a better ability to recognize their own infrastructure needs and the best way to meet those needs, provincial governments in many cases have a better ability to analyze their own unique situations and to provide unique and, in some cases, novel approaches to health care and education.

It should not be a constant battle between a federal government that wants to have the control over the constitutionally enshrined jurisdictional enshrined areas of health care and education. It simply does not make sense from a fiscal perspective to have that level of interference.

We need to provide more respect for the provinces. We must encourage the provinces to try new approaches, whether it is in health care or in education.

We must keep in mind that medicare, our national socialized health care system, evolved from an experiment in the Province of Saskatchewan. Provincial experiments, whether in health care, education or other areas of public policy, can lead to national policy. However, that can only happen if we encourage provinces to try new approaches.

We must respect provinces not just in terms of them being best able to analyze their own situations and make the appropriate investments in the right areas, but also to respect the potential role for provinces as laboratories in public policy, and to, in fact, harness that sort of entrepreneurial approach that can occur at a provincial level that is more difficult to emulate at the federal level, particularly in the areas of health care and education.

Therefore, I think we need a new approach in federal-provincial relationships. They should be based on respect and a recognition of not only what is the appropriate role from a constitutional perspective for provinces but from a functionality perspective.

We should look at how we can develop better public policy in a wide range of areas by working with the provinces as laboratories for new approaches in public policy and best practice approaches. We should encourage the sharing of information between provinces and where there is a role for the federal government, for instance, to help identify best practice models from around the world.

I would assert that there could be a role where the federal government identifies some of these best practice models from around the world, whether it is in health care or education or any other area, even in terms of new approaches to infrastructure investment and makes available to the provinces, on a pilot program basis, funding if the provinces want to try a new approach in a particular area.

That would be very different than ramming down the throats of the provinces grandiose federal schemes to address issues. It would enable provinces to try new approaches on a voluntary basis and to participate in or to utilize some of the great ideas that have been developed outside of our borders to address some of these issues. That is just another idea on how we ought to consider federal-provincial relations.

One of the things we should always consider is the principle of democratic accountability. I will give an example in terms of federal-provincial relations. Currently, say in the Province of Ontario, if an individual goes to a provincial MPP and complains about the health care system, that provincial MPP will say that it is not the fault of Ontario, that it is the federal government that cut the transfers to the province. The same constituent then goes to the federal government MP in the Province of Ontario and complains about the health care system and the cuts to the transfers to the provinces. That federal MP might just say that it is not the federal government's fault, it is the fault of the provincial government. There is endless finger pointing. At the end of the day, the constituent does not know who to blame or where the accountability lies.

The provincial governments that face electorates every three to four years--and God help the provincial governments that do not do their utmost to provide the best quality in health care and education because those are two areas of public policy Canadians are very demanding of--face electorates based on those issues.

Therefore, it stands to reason that they are going to do their best to provide the best quality education and health care to their constituents in those provinces. As such, if they were to have access to the funding to provide those services, I think we could have a lot of trust in provincial governments to do their utmost to provide the best services.

We must get away from that patriarchal approach of the federal government, that sort of nanny state, and the federal government knows best approach on a wide range of these issues. It is not only consistent with respect to provincial jurisdictional rights but beyond that, it is good policy and will result in better services, better infrastructure, better health care, and better education for Canadians.

For a variety of reasons, it makes sense to find ways to provide a better ability for municipal and provincial governments to raise the money they need to provide the services they require.

Another debate we can have at another time in the House is how we can change Canada's equalization system to get back to the original principles of providing equal levels of services with equal levels of taxation across Canada and change it from what it is today.

It is a static approach that needs to be updated. It is an approach that is designed to take recipient provinces and find ways for them to grow their economies and prosper. The objective is to grow from being recipients to being contributors to equalization as an end game as opposed to accepting that the equalization system will continue to provide these equal levels of taxation on services. Instead of being satisfied with that, provinces would actually focus on changing equalization so that we strengthen the ability of the provinces to grow their industrial base to go from being recipients to being contributors.

That is a debate for another day, but it is an important one, particularly in light of the recognition that tax levers have a greater impact on growth and prosperity than would have been the case 10 to 20 years ago.

This is about respect for municipal governments. It is about enabling municipal governments to raise the money they need to invest in the infrastructure their constituents require. It is good fiscal policy. It is good from a democratic accountability perspective and we are supportive of this motion.