Mr. Speaker, I will not question the statistics on poverty or the increase in poverty that the hon. member was just mentioning. I agree that indeed, there is increasing poverty and that is unfortunate. I too have mentioned the data from Statistics Canada on this.
I hear this question from the NDP often. They ask Quebec, which already has a law or legislation that is better than or equivalent to what is in the rest of Canada, why it refuses to allow the same type of legislation to apply elsewhere in Canada. We are not refusing to allow other places in Canada to legislate in order to counter, or at least limit, the actions of these businesses. What we are saying is that Bill C-26 is an encroachment into provincial jurisdiction.
I do not think this a concern for the NDP. It has always introduced centralist measures. That is the NDP's choice and its right. If people want to elect those members to defend that in Ottawa, that is one thing, but often those members will say that such and such measure needs to be imposed on the provinces because that is what should be done.
In Quebec, we do not operate that way. That would not be accepted and we would not be here in this House if ever we dared operate that way.
Every province is free to legislate on this and so they should. However, it is not up to the federal government to dictate what to do and impose its veto, or to put conditions on this jurisdiction since it belongs to the provinces. That is the problem.