Mr. Speaker, gasoline prices are the purvey of the provinces not the federal government. The federal government is responsible for the issue of competition through the Competition Bureau. If the member is unhappy about prices, he can talk to the Government of British Columbia. We know that in fact that is a provincial responsibility and if it wants to freeze prices, it can.
Often there are other problems with the issue of taxes. The Government of New Brunswick learned this a few years ago when it decided to reduce the provincial tax on gasoline by 2%, it was immediately eaten up by the oil companies which raised prices.
The fundamental problem with the member's argument across the way is that his party wants to dedicate a portion of the tax. We know that municipal governments are corporations. They are created by the provinces. Hence, any revenue sharing program between the Government of Canada and municipalities would be subject to provincial control over municipalities.
This is something, at least on this side of the House, that we do not support. In fact, Quebec has legislation which prohibits municipal governments in the Province of Quebec from entering directly into fiscal relations with the Government of Canada. And again, they need provincial approval.
Clearly, we also have concerns. We have seen other cases with tripartite arrangements, however in this arrangement it would not be tripartite. This is simply an arrangement where the hon. member is asking us to turn over moneys to the provinces and hopefully they would dedicate and direct them for municipal purposes, particularly infrastructure.
I would like to ask the member, how does he reconcile this mechanics problem? There is clearly a difficulty here to deliver something which constitutionally would be very difficult.