Mr. Speaker, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot covered a range of items beyond the current bill. I understand his points. He represents the Bloc Québécois, the party that wants to separate Quebec from Canada. He is someone who I understand. Politically, he sees an opportunity to marry up with the Conservatives to cause some difficulties. This will be a big issue for Canadians.
However, I do not want to get into the political arguments. I want to talk about some of the issues. One thing the member talked about quite specifically, as it relates to Quebec, was post-secondary education.
Throughout his speech, he mentioned how critical he and his party were of the $4.6 billion of additional spending on environmental matters, like retrofits, low income housing, access to post-secondary education, foreign aid and the protection of workers' earnings. He highlighted post-secondary education and was very critical of the spending. He said that this was to buy votes. Then in the very next breath, he turned around and complained that it was not enough for Quebec.
The member is either for it or against it. He cannot have it both ways. If we are to have reasoned debate on some of these issues, one cannot argue all sides of the question and not let people know where one stands. It is important that the member clarify whether he does or does not support the additional spending on post-secondary education. He should make that clear. He cannot be on both sides.
The member also mentioned a matter on the question of fiscal imbalance. I know the member has been very active on this. He is the chair of that finance subcommittee. We had an opportunity to work together on it.
One aspect is very important to the question of fiscal imbalance, and that is the issue of tax points. The member knows of what I speak. He also knows that it is very difficult to somehow explain that the value of transfers to the provinces is a combination of cash transfers as well as tax points which have an economic value and a true cash value.
One thing we found out, and I have not heard how the member reacted, was when Ontario calculated the transfers, with regard to the health and social transfer, it calculated it only on the basis of cash only, not on the tax points.
As a result of his work, in terms of the economic equity issue, in his opinion does the issue of tax points have to be included in determining the effective transfers to the provinces?