Mr. Speaker, when I meet the citizens of my riding, we often have the opportunity to discuss to what extent the federal tax system is ill-adapted to the choices made by Quebeckers. Children were mentioned, and this is a perfect example. On our federal tax returns, Canadians can claim child care as a tax credit when we send our children to day care.
Obviously, since Quebec society decided to collectively pay for child care and offer services for $7—low-cost child care—parents in Quebec receive fewer tax credits than parents everywhere else in Canada. Of course, parents in Quebec pay for these child care costs in other ways. They pay them through the taxes they pay to the Government of Quebec. However, they cannot claim a higher amount by saying that they pay $7 out of their pockets and the rest through their taxes.
This means that the federal government saves between $200 million and $250 million every year. I do not recall the exact figure at the moment, but the federal government saves a huge amount of money. The Canadian tax system is taking more money from the pockets of Quebec parents simply because we decided to create a system that is praised, incidentally, throughout Canada and around the world. This demonstrates just how costly federalism is for Quebeckers, and to what extent it is ill-adapted and does not take into account Quebeckers' choices and realities.
The medium- and long-term solution for Quebeckers is, of course, sovereignty. In the meantime, the Bloc Québécois is here to demand this correction, among others, to the Canadian tax system. I have often raised this issue at the Standing Committee on Finance. My colleague, who also sits on that committee, and I underscored the importance of correcting this. However, none of the federalist parties supported the simple principle of fairness, which is rather unfortunate.