Mr. Speaker, with all due respect for my colleague, he is rerunning the same old tape he often plays, just like his colleagues.
We have barely concluded a four-month Canada-wide consultation. From Halifax to Victoria, via Quebec City, Toronto and Regina, the Subcommittee on Fiscal Imbalance, which I had the honour of chairing, heard the same thing everywhere: the current financial relationship between the federal government and the provinces cannot continue. It is impossible to plan for the future when the federal government is generating such astronomical surpluses each year in relation to its responsibilities to the public, and most of the provinces, with the obvious exception of Alberta, do not have enough money to provide the public with the fundamental services set out in the Constitution.
These days, even Mr. McGuinty in Ontario is fighting just as hard as Quebec has fought for the past three or four years. This battle began under Bernard Landry, who was, to some extent, the father of the Séguin commission. How is it that everyone, even Ontario, recognizes there is a fiscal imbalance, agrees on the need to correct it and is aware of the lack of resources required to provide services to the public, while the Liberals, on the other hand, are still wondering if the fiscal imbalance even exists?
I would be careful if I were the hon. member because he comes from Ontario. If the Ontario government thinks there is an injustice and wants to make changes, the hon. member should watch himself during the future election because he will be held to account.
On the matter of the wording of the bill, a senior official appeared before the Standing Committee on Finance on Monday evening. He said the government had no obligation in the bill. In other words, it can do what it wants. The word “may” is not so insignificant or innocent. The government knows full well that with a bill like this, it can do what it wants. It can take initiatives during the year, get to the end of the year, not have the necessary surplus and completely thwart its so-called promises. I did not say that, a senior official from the Treasury Board did.