Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I speak today to Bill C-30, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 23, 2004.
As I said, the purpose of the bill is to implement provisions that quite often have created a true imbalance and perpetuated the fiscal imbalance in the provinces, including Quebec.
Furthermore, this budget implementation bill does not repair the social deficit created by the federal government, through the current Prime Minister, who was the finance minister at the time.
This budget is far from resolving the environmental imbalance as well. That is the least we could expect, given the considerable challenges and commitments the federal government must meet to implement the Kyoto protocol.
The biggest deficit is the fiscal imbalance. We are entitled to expect from a so-called new government that wants to establish partnerships and a better relationship with the provinces that it would first recognize the fiscal imbalance between the federal government and the provinces. This new government refuses not only to recognize the Quebec nation, but also this fiscal deficit that Quebeckers are suffering from the most.
It was all well and good for the government to announce in its March 23 budget $2 billion in funding for health, which corresponds to $472 million for Quebec, but in fact, this is not new money. This announcement had already been made by the previous government, the Chrétien government. This additional funding had already been included in the 2003-04 budget.
In the weeks to come I invite the public to stay tuned. Several months ago the government announced a $2 billion investment for health and repeated this announcement on March 23.
We also know that the government, which announced highway 175 a few months or years ago, is getting ready to make this announcement again in a few weeks as an election promise.
We can probably expect to again hear from the member for Beauharnois—Salaberry that there will be investments in highway 30. Hon. members will recall that, when he was running for election, the present member for Beauharnois—Salaberry made a commitment to the public for work on highway 30.