Mr. Speaker, we are getting caught up in details here.
In reality, there are two reasons why the Liberals and the NDP are opposed to this budget.
First, there is political opportunism. They know that since the Bloc supported the first measure, that is to say the fiscal imbalance—and nothing else, Mr. Speaker—they can strut around and say that they oppose this budget.
Second, neither of these parties believes in a proper, lasting resolution of the fiscal imbalance. The Liberal Party members have never even been able to say the word without breaking out in hives and they turned green whenever they heard it.
Insofar as the NDP is concerned, it is very centralizing. When I chaired the select committee on the fiscal imbalance last year, I proposed some measures that would have transferred tax points to the governments of Quebec and the provinces, just as Mr. Pearson did for Quebec in the 1960s with Mr. Lesage. He offered them as well to all the provinces. The NDP was totally opposed to this idea and insisted on keeping the firm fist of a strong central government, with financial transfers used to bribe the governments of Quebec and the provinces with Canada-wide standards and all sorts of conditions. That is what he finds frustrating.
Moreover, one of the candidates for the leadership of the Liberal Party did not hesitate to say yesterday that we were destroying Canada by trying to find a solution to the fiscal imbalance. What ridiculous nonsense, when people are waiting in hospitals for operations, the college and university education system is crumbling everywhere, particularly in Quebec, and disadvantaged people are being left in the street! What sort of conception of the country do they have?
Because of this symbol, a strong central government, they are prepared to let people die in the street. For heaven’s sake! Let them use their heads a little. I no longer understand the reasoning of the ultra-federalists. Something is not working right somewhere.
On thing is for sure, and we said it earlier: the Bloc has never given up on the unemployed. Last year, the NDP abandoned the unemployed with Bill C-48. They were no longer one of their concerns. But the Bloc has always gone on caring. The Bloc has never given up on older workers who are victims of massive layoffs. We have always been consistent. We have never given up the battle against the fiscal imbalance, in order to provide proper services with a transfer of tax fields and equalization. We have always been consistent. Unfortunately, we cannot say as much of the other two opposition parties.