Mr. Speaker, permit me, first, to express my warmest thanks to the people of Verchères—Les Patriotes. This is now the fourth time my fellow citizens have sent me here to represent them in this House. It is a great honour and a great privilege to be able to do this work on their behalf. I thank them from the bottom of my heart.
I would also like to salute and congratulate all my colleagues in this House who were elected or re-elected. I would like to take this opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to congratulate you on your appointment as well.
I will, of course, be discussing the throne speech, which is before us today. First, I would like to note that I shall be sharing my time with my colleague and seatmate, the hon. member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup.
I would like to begin by saying that we are, of course, in favour of the amendment put forward by the Conservative Party of Canada. We support this amendment for a number of reasons.
The Speech from the Throne does not mention the one apparently revolutionary concept that was added to the landscape of federal-provincial relations at the first ministers conference on health, that of asymmetrical federalism. I think this is significant. As we know, there has been a certain amount of infighting among the Liberals and curiously the concept of asymmetrical federalism has been completely left out of the throne speech.
I think this just shows that this concept has not been unanimously received among Liberals or outside Quebec. So they return to a centralizing type of federalism—perhaps we could, in the words of Robert Bourassa, call it dominating—since the throne speech is full of references to interference in provincial jurisdictions.
If it were true asymmetrical federalism, they would not be talking about federalism where the federal government allows itself to interfere, to a greater or lesser degree, in provincial jurisdictions; they would speak of federalism that allows the provinces to interfere in the federal government's jurisdictions. We are far from that.
It would be more appropriately described as a concept of asymmetrical interference. In some cases, the federal government ventures deep into areas of provincial jurisdiction, while in others, where the provinces are a little more vigilant, it treads somewhat more lightly and discreetly.
Interference is showing through in this throne speech. The government is interfering in education and job training with the proposed workplace skills strategy. This is on page 3 of the English version of the Speech from the Throne. The government is interfering in health with a plan that holds all governments to account. Despite the fact that the Government of Quebec apparently opted out of that part of the first ministers accord, the throne speech says that all governments are accountable. That is what asymmetrical federalism Liberal-style is all about. We find this on page 7 of the English version of the Speech from the Throne.
The federal government is interfering in municipal affairs with the new deal for cities and communities that it is planning to enter into with governments within the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. That is on page 10 of the English version of the speech. Basically, there is interference at every step in this speech.
We are in favour of this amendment because it sets out the limits within which the measures proposed in the Speech from the Throne may be implemented, that is the limits imposed by the Canadian Constitution, which recognizes the exclusive jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces, particularly in health and education.
We also support the amendment to the Speech from the Throne put forward by the Conservative Party for another reason: this amendment is designed to ensure that parliamentarians will be consulted on the fundamental issue of whether or not Canada should participate in the missile shield program.
Independent of the intrinsic value of such a project—some would say this is absolutely extraordinary, while others will say it is unrealistic to think that anything workable could ever come of it—it is a very dangerous project, given the possibility of ending up with no control over weapons in space.
To repeat, independent of the intrinsic value of the project, I think it would be a perfectly normal thing, before Canada gets committed to something that is likely to have repercussions for our children and grandchildren, for the duly elected representatives of the population to be allowed to have their say. I hope that, when the time comes to vote on the amendment, my colleague from Gatineau will repeat what she has already said elsewhere on the obligation parliamentarians ought to have in this connection.
We will, of course, be in agreement with the amendment by the Conservative Party of Canada as amended by the Bloc Quebecois, which now also refers to fiscal imbalance, or what some call tax pressures. The terminology has changed sides now, with the other side using the expression tax pressures. Now it needs to be integrated into the throne speech. Very well.
The federal government collects more tax money than it needs to meet its responsibilities, while the provinces' have far fewer financial resources with which to meet far broader responsibilities.
It is time to correct this fiscal imbalance.The Conference Board predicts that within the next 10 years, the federal government will accumulate a surplus of some $166 billion, because of the imbalance, while most of the provinces will run deficits and accordingly increase their debt. This has to be corrected. We hope that the conference on October 26 will lead to a long-term solution to this fundamental problem of fiscal imbalance.
The real success of the last first ministers' conference will be measured in terms of the success of the October 26 conference. If the federal government pays the provinces for health with one hand, but takes the money away with the other through equalization, we are no further ahead. The problem remains and nothing is resolved. We are therefore waiting for the results of the October 26 conference in order to truly judge the success of the latest conference.
I would also like to say that we consider the wording of the Speech from the Throne unacceptable in many other ways. First, like many Liberal of the throne speeches we have heard over the past few years, this one is full of wishful thinking and hollow words. For example, on page 13 of the French version it says:
It will engage stakeholders in developing comprehensive approaches to encourage increased production and use of clean, renewable energy--
This is just empty rhetoric on the part of a government that has eliminated a relatively small annual subsidy of $7.2 million for research on nuclear fusion in Canada. Canada was contributing less than 1% of the investments in research on nuclear fusion, but was reaping 100% of the technological benefits. Alas, in its great wisdom, the government decided to forget the investments of some $100 million made over the past decade in nuclear fusion. It decided to eliminate its almost symbolic subsidy of $7.2 million, which was bringing in more money in tax revenues than it cost the government. In so doing, it put an end to the operations of Tokamak, in Varennes, which was Canada's only nuclear fusion reactor. This means that when nuclear fusion finally becomes a reality, in some thirty years, Canada will be a net consumer of a technology that it will have helped develop.
I will conclude my remarks with one last point. The speech also includes the following statement on the same page:
In 2005, the Government will bring forward the next generation of its Great Lakes and St. Lawrence programs, underscoring its commitment to protect and preserve these internationally significant shared ecosystems.
The same government that abolished the shoreline protection program is now telling us that it intends to protect the fragile ecosystems of the St. Lawrence. Again, this is empty rhetoric.