Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for Saint-Maurice—Champlain, who is our finance critic and does an excellent job, for allowing me to make some clarifications. Had I been permitted to introduce the letter, no explanation would have been required. My colleague knows that. Ms. Jérôme-Forget is Quebec's minister of finance. In the letter she wrote to the Minister of Finance on January 21, she said:
I also want to raise a matter of vital importance to Quebec that was raised...at the meeting of First Ministers—
On November 14, 2008, your officials advised their provincial counterparts that changes to the equalization regulations were under consideration...One of them concerns a change to the treatment of dividends paid by Hydro One to the government of Ontario. The federal government has decided to consider this source of revenue under the corporate tax base rather than the natural resources base. The argument made by your department is that this enterprise transmits and distributes electricity, but does not produce it.
However, it should be understood that two thirds of Hydro-Québec's revenues are generated by the distribution of electricity. That is also the case for Hydro One. The minister concluded by stating that “this unfair treatment will deprive Quebec of an amount estimated at more than 250 million dollars per year.”
Once again, colleagues from the other parties should not—