Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his response and, clearly, he does understand the issue. If the Constitution was written today, I am sure he is quite right. However what we are going to see is a new relationship emerge between the federal government and the municipalities. The former finance minister, and mostly likely the next Prime Minister of Canada, has said as much himself.
It is true that municipalities will have to be given more power but there is nothing in the Constitution that would prevent making taxation between governments revenue neutral.
The hon. member said that the federal government has been continually reducing employment insurance premiums. While that is true, there is still an overpayment. He said that the federal government treats the municipalities the same as any other employer, and that is the whole point of it. He also said that the workers benefit from the EI plan. They would still benefit from the plan if the municipalities could get that overpayment back from the federal government. In that way, our property taxes would not be diverted to Ottawa.
This taxation by stealth to municipalities results in millions of dollars being siphoned away to Ottawa where it is wasted on questionable schemes like the firearms registry. That money belongs in the municipal tax base.