Mr. Speaker, on April 3, 2008, just over a month ago, I asked a question about the fiscal imbalance. I asked when the government was going to keep the promise the Prime Minister made in December 2005, to introduce a bill on spending power that would control the federal spending power. It is not very complicated. It is a matter of controlling spending power, or “providing the unconditional right to opt out with full financial compensation in respect of any new or existing federal program, whether cost-shared or not, which interferes in Quebec's areas of jurisdiction”.
That is precisely what Quebeckers expect when it comes to the federal spending power. This is an important aspect of the fiscal imbalance that has not been resolved. We have a hard time understanding why the government has not introduced such a bill. Where is it? The government has had more than enough time to introduce it. The Quebec nation has been recognized. The Prime Minister made that promise during the election campaign but he seems unable to keep it.
Why has the bill not been introduced? Is it being held up somewhere in the bureaucracy? Would the federal bureaucracy try to block such a bill in some way? Is the government afraid of how English Canada might react? I do not know why, but I do know that this is an important issue for Quebec. This is not just a sovereigntist issue.
I remember way back when I was just getting interested in politics, when Robert Bourassa was premier of Quebec, similar demands were being made. Then the Parti Québécois was in power, and then the Liberals were back in. Even the Action démocratique du Québec demanded this. Everyone wants the federal spending power to be controlled so that the federal government cannot intervene in areas that are under Quebec's jurisdiction, yet the federal government has not been doing anything to make that happen.
Quebeckers want the federal government to take concrete action to prove that it has a different way of seeing things and that its recognition of the Quebec nation is more than just words. Concrete action means introducing a bill to put limits on the federal spending power. Why is the federal government not moving forward on this? Why is it not keeping its election promise?