Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the hon. member and the issue of sovereignty kept coming up. According to him, sovereignty would make everything alright. Mad cows would be healthy, smiling and walking around. Everything would be alright and there would be lots of money. That is fine and dandy, but we have to be realistic.
Money paid in taxes by Quebeckers and all other Canadians is used for services for Quebeckers and all other Canadians. This includes the surpluses that have been used to pay the debt for the services that were provided to them in years past when we ran deficits.
Now we are looking after the economy. We have surpluses. We can repay those old debts. In other words, we can provide even more services to Canadians from all the provinces, because we are no longer making payments on debts to other countries.
Let us take a look at these revenue sources. The hon. member talked about imbalance, about starving Quebec, but I remember that, not too long ago, some federal transfers to the Province of Quebec were put in reserve funds for future referendums, instead of being used to provide medical services and equipment.
If we look at the provinces' revenue sources, we can see that they, like the federal government, have the personal income tax. The provinces have the same capabilities as the federal government. They also have the revenues from corporate profits, sales taxes and employers' taxes. Only the provinces can tax resources: the federal government cannot do so. The provinces can impose a tax on games and alcohol, and they can collect property taxes. The federal government can only impose a tax on non-residents and for customs and excise purposes.
We can make a comparison between Canada and other jurisdictions to see who decides where the money is collected and spent. In Canada, the provinces, as is the case for the states in the United States, make absolutely all these decisions. Not long ago, Belgium was used as an example. There, only 8% of the decisions are made by the provinces, whereas in Germany it is only 0% or 2%, because everything is decided at the federal level.
The hon. member again talked about the imbalance, but let us not forget that the federal government must be able to make its payments, its equalization transfers, and it must also increase funds for health. We help the provinces a lot. We redistribute the money when we are able to do so. I think the system works very well.