Madam Speaker, it is very easy to come off as someone who is unconcerned with how the governments spend money.
I mentioned accountability earlier, and I think that, instead of creating new programs or invading areas of jurisdiction, we need to resolve once and for all the fiscal imbalance. Here again, the federal government has given itself significant leeway. The leeway for new federal initiatives is $140 billion, while the provinces lack the resources they need to meet the public's everyday needs.
I find it insulting that the federal government then demands that the provinces report back to it. It is not that we should not be accountable to the public. I am saying, rather, that the federal government is acting in an area outside its jurisdiction. It may well ask for the provincial governments to be accountable up to a certain point. However, the federal government collects $40 billion from Quebec taxpayers. If subjugation is required in order for this money to be redistributed in our areas of jurisdiction, then clearly we are at odds here.
People could easily conclude that I am not concerned about accountability. I am well aware that the provincial governments must also report on expenditures made with taxpayer money. However, do we ever see protesters here opposing various federal policies? It is extremely rare. We need to mobilize everyone in Canada.
The protests are happening in the provinces, which provide those public services. And the victims of this potential fiscal mismanagement are the people. If the public were concerned, perhaps because it thought the government had mismanaged or abused the public purse, it could go to the National Assembly.
The federal government is a big bubble. No one ever worries and there are never any protesters knocking at the door. When the universities make major demands, they do not come here. Sometimes, they do, but there is no real impact. I think that the best way to ensure how the money is spent is to give it to the provincial governments.
That is what we are arguing in Quebec. When the government goes too far or not far enough or not in the direction the public would like in connection with social development, for example, the individuals concerned will call the provincial government on it.
The federal government's centralizing tendency is not a winning strategy. That is for sure. What pleases some provinces may displease others. Timing, issues and priorities vary from province to province. The leaders in provincial legislatures are from different political parties with different issues. They are democratically elected.
Even the federalists said in committee that it was not federalism. The centralizing federalism they are trying to have us accept here is not in line with Quebec's realities, nor with other realities outside Quebec. Voices of discord are being heard increasingly in Canada.
So, we would have expected flexibility. Since Trudeau, we have been promised greater flexibility. There was the great Canadian love-in evening in the 1995 referendum, the loving day, as it was called. Mentalities and approaches were going to be changed, the various premiers promised.
We have never seen one ounce of flexibility in this government, but it is asking the provinces to be flexible. The question of the government's lack of desire to resolve the fiscal imbalance is not to be raised. It is because it has enough manoeuvring room to bring the provinces to their knees, when it wants, as it likes.
I have not mentioned the gasoline tax or the way it was negotiated. In this file, there was a little more heart. In the end, funding was cut. It in no way resolves the whole matter of Quebec's infrastructures. As I have said, the network is lacking. We do not have enough money to develop public transit and are obliged to beg.
Mayors are being seen as visiting the federal government cap in hand. I am not saying this is how they should be seen, but it is the image the federal government likes to give them. It likes to see the mayors coming for money. They usually approach the provincial government, the Government of Quebec, in our case. That way negotiations are more direct.
They have neglected to say they do not want to do business any more with the provincial governments, but rather with the social players. That is the unstated goal of this government.