Mr. Speaker, I am very much attuned to the comments of my colleague from Repentigny, and will moreover be in his riding this coming Sunday, in Le Gardeur, for a special event, namely his nomination meeting. He can count on my being there.
What we are seeing is a real shame. A real shame, because ever since 1997, that is for as long as I have been in this House, we have been aware of this dictatorial side to the government, the despotic side which seems to be sending the message: “We are the true possessors of enlightenment, the possessors of all knowledge”.
To review a few events, all provincial health ministers in Canada say there is a fiscal imbalance. Everyone agrees on this except this famous Liberal government. Over there, they say “No, that is not true”, because they are the enlightened ones.
Let us hearken back to the young offender legislation. Everybody said there was something wrong with that bill, everyone but the people over there. It was not just us nasty separatists who were saying so, it was everyone involved in the justice system everywhere in Canada.
The folks over there think they know it all.Their attitude: “We are right, we are the enlightened ones, we have a direct line to the Almighty”.
I will give my colleague from the riding of Repentigny the best answer I can. Just remember the tax credits, the tax points, they are all mixed up in this. Let us remember how the provincial governments allowed the federal to encroach on their areas of jurisdiction, to collect taxes during the second world war.
We tried to restore things after the war. In 1964, the Liberal Premier of Quebec, Jean Lesage, managed to regain a few of what were called tax points. Let us remember that we managed to regain a few of those points in 1997.
In those days, Duplessis described the Supreme Court—since we took this as far as the Supreme Court—as being like the leaning tower of Pisa, always leaning to the same side.
Those words are just as apt today. Truth always leans toward the Liberals, with their lord-and-master mentality. Yet there are a lot of things they could stand to learn, things I have pointed out in my speech. As for their forecasted surplus, they are in the wrong every year.
My apologies if I have gone on overly long, and I thank the Chair for his indulgence.