Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois has been fighting a long time to have the fiscal imbalance corrected. We have decided to support this budget because it starts to address fiscal imbalance.
We are well aware that this is a minority government budget, and that this government would never have begun to do anything for Quebeckers if there were not 50 Bloc Québécois members and a minority government. However, there is still a lot of work left to do, partly because the fiscal imbalance cannot be fixed without a tax solution. What we have here is a monetary solution.
I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary a question on equalization. It was completely arbitrarily decided that non-renewable natural resources would be excluded from the calculation and the inclusion rate set at 50% and even 0% in some cases. This is completely arbitrary and is designed to favour some provinces over others.
I would like the parliamentary secretary to explain why they made this decision. For example, why were aerospace revenues not excluded? It would be a good idea to exclude these revenues, 60% of which happen to be in Quebec. Why are hydroelectricity revenues not excluded, which would also help Quebec? Out of the entire tax base, why was the only tax revenue excluded one that just happens to be something that puts Quebec at a disadvantage in the equalization calculation?