Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois expectations of this budget included some major financial impacts for Quebec. Among other things, we expected recognition of the fiscal imbalance by this government, but this has not happened. We expected improvements to employment insurance, and were told these would be in the budget. We also expected something to be done in the budget to improve the softwood lumber situation and the promised assistance to the farmers, including the floor price. Our main expectation was to see some respect for Quebec's jurisdiction over certain areas, such as child care and parental leave. As well, we expected a government announcement of 1% or the equivalent for social housing.
Unfortunately, those things are not to be found in the present budget. One day, the present government—or the next, if there is an election—will need to acknowledge the existence of the fiscal imbalance.
All of the provinces, and in Quebec in particular, all parties, including the Liberals—and goodness knows they are federalists—and the Parti Québécois agree, and here in Ottawa, three out of four parties acknowledge that there is a fiscal imbalance between the federal government and Quebec in particular, and with the other provinces as well.
Piecemeal solution of these issues is not the way to solve the fiscal imbalance, which is the approach this government has been taking in recent weeks with its injections of millions and billions of dollars. This is not the solution. An agreement between the parties, between the provincial and the federal levels, would be required to remedy the imbalance.
For those who are listening, I should point out that there is nothing complicated about the fiscal imbalance. The expenditures are in the provinces, and the money is in Ottawa. What are the key expenditures at this time? In Quebec, mainly education and health services.
At the present time the federal government is trying in every way possible to buy its way into provincial jurisdictions, with a million dollars here, a million dollars there. This is particularly the case with health. That is not what solving the fiscal imbalance is all about. What they are creating now is no longer a fiscal imbalance but a social imbalance between the needs and the means the federal level has for meeting those needs.
We expected to see measures in this budget to counter that, or at least to find a solution, if only for certain amount of time. With the right measures, the fiscal imbalance could have been resolved in a year or three or five. This was not the case.
Despite unanimous recommendations by a committee of the House on employment insurance, we still do not have an independent fund or the measures that should be implemented so that workers in Canada and Quebec can finally receive the benefits to which they are entitled.
We are currently experiencing a crisis without precedent in the employment insurance fund. The government has been in power since 1993 and has cleared the deficit, but it did so on the backs of workers and the unemployed. It took $47 billion from the EI fund at the expense of workers and the unemployed. The government need not tell us there is not enough money, because there is. We expected to see an EI fund to help workers.
I think my time is running out. I imagine we will soon be called to vote. I will continue my speech later on.