Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise to speak in this important debate on the budget implementation bill.
First, I want to say that all our hard work in the House seems in vain, because everything has come to a standstill since the Liberal leadership race began. No matter what decisions get made, no matter what amendments are moved, mad consultations are constantly underway on the opposite side to see which candidate so-and-so is backing and, as a result, nothing gets done.
I also want to say that it is getting harder and harder for the different committees of the House to have a quorum. Why? Because of these consultations. Either the current member for LaSalle—Émard, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance or even the Minister of Canadian Heritage is being consulted. Members come and go; they leave, they come back, nothing is working, to the point that Parliament is now paralyzed, no matter what we do. The member for LaSalle—Émard, who is apparently making a beeline for the Prime Minister's seat, recently stated that no matter what decisions the House made, he would ignore them.
However, we must not forget one thing: the current member for LaSalle—Émard was the Minister of Finance from December 1993 to June 2002. This same member thinks that the public will not remember the numerous consequences of his decisions.
Employment insurance was reformed for only one reason: to deprive the unemployed of benefits, but mainly to get money into the consolidated fund in order to lower the deficit. That is one of the accomplishments of the member for LaSalle—Émard. The second fine accomplishment of the former finance minister is the cuts to the transfer payments to the provinces for education and health care. We know what chaos these decisions have caused for the various provinces, Quebec included.
The various foundations created, such as the Millennium Scholarship Foundation and the Foundation for Innovation with its infrastructure program, are all means chosen by the member for LaSalle—Émard to divert funds, deprive the provinces of power and create what the Liberals have been working on since the referendum: a centralizing government, what they call “a modern Canada” but one with its modernity created at the expense of the provinces or the taxpayers, on the backs of the population as a whole.
This is the reason I have been asked today to speak on budget implementation, and I would very much like to move some amendments, make some suggestions, but this would all be pointless, because there is nothing happening over there. There is no progress being made any more in committees. Once again, I repeat, the member for LaSalle—Émard has said that regardless of what decisions are reached, when he takes over, he will rethink it all.
We have not seen anything like this in this Parliament in decades. There have been leadership races in Quebec and here, in Canada, but we have never found ourselves in such a situation, such an ambiguous situation. Who is bearing the brunt of this situation? The taxpayers, the unemployed, and the sick lined up in hospital halls. We have here the decisions, and their consequences, of the current member for LaSalle—Émard.
This gentleman would want the people of Quebec to forget instantaneously all that he has done since 1993. Let us be serious. We in the Bloc Quebecois will remind him that we cannot wait for him to take the Prime Minister's seat.
We will remind him of his shipping companies, and the of tax haven issue. We will also remind him that he was the only Minister of Finance to object when the G-7 wanted to set up an organization to eliminate tax havens. He lobbied to persuade nations not to sign this agreement. We will ask him about all that.
When the current member for LaSalle—Émard becomes the Prime Minister, his G-7 counterparts, such as the President of the United States, the President of France or the Prime Minister of Japan, will know about his past. Will he have any credibility to represent the Canadian government? He has been contemplating changes for several months without ever taking concrete action. I keep hearing him say that he will change the way things are done, that there will be more power for individual members of Parliament. I hope that he will at least tell the members to be more conscientious, to act more professionally and to take part in the business of the House.
In closing, I would like to tell everyone listening that regardless of what is done in this House, because of the leadership crisis and race in the Liberal Party of Canada, there is no longer anyone at the helm of this government. The big losers are the people, the taxpayers, the citizens of Canada.