Mr. Speaker, I too want to congratulate you on your appointment. As my colleagues before me have done, let me thank the voters in the riding of La Pointe-de-l'Île, the new name for the riding of Mercier. This new name reflects the geography and the history of this corner of East Montreal, on the shores of the St. Lawrence River. It is a reminder that Montreal is an island the east point of which is inhabited by proud people whom I want to represent to the best of my ability.
It is with pride that I take my turn to speak to and in favour of the Bloc Québécois' amendment to the amendment. I would like to remind the House of what it is all about since this morning I heard comments that made me wonder if those who were taking about it had really heard or even read it. Here is the amendment, which is worded with respect:
“and we ask Your Excellency’s advisors to ensure that all measures brought forward to implement the Speech from the Throne, including those referred to above, fully respect the provinces’ areas of jurisdiction and that the financialpressures the provinces are suffering as a consequence of the fiscal imbalance be alleviated, as demanded by the Premier of Quebec.”
When we talk about respecting the provinces' areas of jurisdiction in the amendment to the amendment, we are referring to the Constitution. We talk about the financial pressures the provinces are suffering, the very same words the Prime Minister himself used. If pressed, he will eventually cough up the same answer. We are not asking for the total elimination of financial pressures. We are not that demanding; we ask only that they be alleviated.
I will add right away that I heard the member for Outremont say that they were not going to relinquish their responsibilities to the Premier of Quebec. After “as demanded by the Premier of Quebec”, we could add “and by all the other provincial and territorial premiers as well as a vast majority of Canadians”.
We wrote this amendment to the amendment so that it would be acceptable to the government. That is what we want. Our leader said yesterday that we do not want to practice the politics of the worst-case scenario. We could easily vent the anger we feel, especially after a series of speeches such as those we heard this morning. I am as fired up as I was during the election. We wanted the wording of the amendment to the amendment to be acceptable so that the areas of provincial jurisdiction would be recognized and the financial pressures alleviated. Is there anything more sensible than that?
If the hon. member for Outremont were sitting behind a microphone, I am sure he would come to a very obvious conclusion. Not one of the commentators from Quebec, including those from the English-language papers and media, thought the throne speech would be acceptable to Quebec and the Bloc Quebecois. No one thought the Bloc Quebecois could support the throne speech. That was made very clear and in no time at all.
To make this totally unacceptable document more palatable, the least we could do is find the amendment to the amendment to be in order and see it as a manifestation of our goodwill.
It should not come as a surprise really. Last February, in the throne speech, the Prime Minister said:
Jurisdiction must be respected. But Canadians do not go about their daily lives worried about which jurisdiction does this or that. They expect, rightly, that their governments will co-operate in common purpose for the common good, each working from its strength.
Unfortunately, from what we can see, the Prime Minister seems to be saying that jurisdictions are not all that important, as long as the provinces have some money to spend.
Interestingly, Mr. Pelletier, the Quebec Minister responsible for Canadian Intergovernmental Affairsand Native Affairs, who is a Liberal and a federalist, said:
To say that the distribution of powers is obsolete is to say that federalism is obsolete.
I know that Benoît Pelletier is a true hard-line federalist. He believes in the sovereignty of jurisdictions, including areas of provincial jurisdiction.