Mr. Speaker, with supporters like that, our motion will certainly pass. It is obviously well received by some Liberals.
Before getting to the heart of the matter, I would like to tell you that I have the honour of splitting my time with the member for Châteauguay—Saint-Constant.
If we were talking about a football score, we might be talking about 49 to 10. Forty-nine Bloc members and 10 Conservative members. Not a wonderful outcome for them.
Far be it from me to boast about this result. The idea is to rein in the Conservative members who are preening themselves on their 10 members a bit. I would recall that the Liberals once had 74 members in Quebec out of a total of 75. Today, they have 12. Why? Because they did not keep their promises. They showed disrespect for Quebeckers, most notably when they unilaterally patriated the Constitution.
The question of the fiscal imbalance is somewhat similar. In the pact that was made regarding the division of powers between Canada and the provinces, there was a very clear division in terms of the powers and jurisdictions of each of these two levels of government.
I would recall that the motion we have introduced in this House says that having regard to the promise of the present government to eliminate the fiscal imbalance, it cannot be eliminated without the elimination of the federal spending power in areas that fall under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces.
The government will introduce a bill on the federal spending power. If the other provinces want, they can continue to be under the control of the federal government. That is not what Quebec wants. My colleagues said it earlier: what Quebec wants, as unanimously expressed by the National Assembly, is for the federal spending power to be eliminated in relation to areas under Quebec’s jurisdiction, with full financial compensation for any federal program, whether existing or not, and cost-shared or not, which invades Quebec’s areas of jurisdiction.
On the question of the division of responsibilities, the 1867 pact on the division of powers between Ottawa and the provinces was quite simple, in fact, if we look at it in the context of the 19th century. If something related directly to people and how they organized their society, it was under the jurisdiction of Quebec or the provinces. That was the case, for example, for the civil laws, which codified the relationships of people with one another and also the way the society itself was organized, through social programs relating to such things as health care, education, cultural matters and, later, agriculture and the environment.
For the responsibilities of the federal government, if something did not relate directly to people or the internal organization of their society, it could be federalized. Examples include monetary policy, international trade and the general regulation of business and industry. We can see very clear distinctions between the powers of the different levels of government.
In the Speech from the Throne, the Prime Minister repeated a commitment he made during the election campaign, to limit his spending power. It must be recalled that there are two important concepts when it comes to those limits. First, the limits apply to new programs. At present, the federal government subsidizes existing programs in the amount of $54 billion. Those funds have already been committed by the federal government and they compromise the provinces.
Moreover, there is another important distinction. It is stated that the federal government will limit its spending power and that provinces can opt out and receive reasonable compensation. What does reasonable compensation mean? Is it reasonable compensation for the federal government? That would amount to very little, for the reasons I mentioned previously. Indeed, almost no new program could benefit from this measure, since nearly all the programs under provincial responsibility are already covered by the federal government.
Earlier, the minister of the Conservative government referred us to the Séguin commission and its analysis of the federal spending power. However, what she did not say was that the Séguin commission determined that almost all the provincial fields of jurisdiction are currently affected by the intrusion of the federal government into provincial spending power. I rightly pointed out that we are talking about $54 billion.
I could list a number of fields of jurisdiction where federal departments have intruded, in particular, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the department of Veterans Affairs, some parts of the department of Citizenship and Immigration, the Treasury Board, the Privy Council Office and the department of National Defence. It also affects areas such as economic diversity, the environment and finance, especially taxation. Other intrusions are made by the departments of Industry, Justice and Canadian Heritage and the agencies that report to them, which should be provincial of course. As well, the department of Fisheries and Oceans does not deal only with its own field of jurisdiction but also intrudes into provincial jurisdiction in terms of the environment. The departments of Human Resources and Social Development, Natural Resources, Health, Public Safety, Transport, including Infrastructure Canada, also intrude; and I am only mentioning some of them.
The federal government must make a commitment to respect the unanimous will of the Quebec National Assembly and of all stakeholders across Quebec. The most recent motion on this topic was again adopted unanimously by the National Assembly in June 2002.
In short, it seems to me that the motion before us today is one that should be welcomed by all parties in the House of Commons. It reflects the commitments made by the last two governments, especially the current government. If that is not to be seen as a frivolous commitment, once again deceiving the people of Quebec, we must proceed in the direction of this motion from the Bloc Québécois. It is the only way to correct this very serious injustice towards the provinces.
I repeat, some provinces want to remain under federal control because it is in their interest and is what they want, but that is not what Quebec wants. I, therefore, invite my colleagues in the House of Commons to vote in favour of our motion.