Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary got part of our message. As far as the conclusion is concerned, I agree with him: we cannot support this motion. In fact, I have repeated it often enough that it should have been pretty obvious.
Our point is that equalization is designed to help those provinces with a capacity to raise revenue through taxes lower than that of other provinces. From the moment that a province reaches a level of wealth allowing it to catch up to the standard, currently a five province standard, it should no longer be entitled to equalization payments.
Do not think that Quebec is proud of receiving equalization payments. I can tell the hon. members that, the day Quebec's tax capacity is strong enough to do without equalization, we will all be very relieved and we will celebrate. It is not fun to receive equalization payments. We are happy that such a program exists, but it is no fun to know that our tax capacity is lower than the five province average.
We would far prefer it if the federal government would provide Quebec with equitable treatment in its structural spending, in R and D, in the purchase of goods and services on Quebec territory, and in the operation of major research laboratories. There is one on the Outaouais side, and all the others are on the Ottawa side. We would also like equity as far as the number of public servants on the Quebec side. If just all those items I have mentioned were adjusted to reflect the demographic weight of Quebec, 40,000 public service jobs could be created in Quebec tomorrow morning. Then perhaps we would not need to bother about equalization. If we had the same treatment per capita that Ontario does as far as structural spending is concerned, we would long ago have exceeded Ontario's fiscal capacity and performance. In six of the past eight years, Quebec's economic growth was, moreover, higher than Ontario's.
I would like to add that we are in the present situation because, during the election campaign, when the Prime Minister was on the ropes and did not know how to avoid losing, he went around making commitments all over the place, knowing full well that he could not meet them. So this is the situation we find ourselves in today. There are others I could mention as well. A ton of impossible promises were made and will not be kept in the years to come. That is what happens when people say anything at all with no intention of keeping their word.