Madam Speaker, I heard the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Outremont. Unfortunately, his amendment simply did not hold water, it did not make sense.
We presented this motion because a federation exists between equal people. We are not opposed to federations; it depends on how people are treated. Usually, federations are created by people who consider each other equals. It can be a group of friends, neighbours or merchants. It can be a group of people who are different but who, in all equality, have decided to pool together a number of things. That is the principle and the basic principle is that none of the members of a federation takes precedence over the others. That is the very basis of that political concept.
Let us go back to 1867. It was determined, in a number of territories, that certain governance powers should remain close to citizens. Those entities which are now called the provinces—Quebec was one them—decided to do in their own way everything that affected their citizens directly and closely. That is why the establishment of cities, for instance, has nothing to do with the federal government. It is entities from Quebec and the other provinces that decided to create their own municipal bylaws.
The provinces decided they would keep education and health under their responsibility, as well as social affairs, culture and language, particularly in Quebec, for business relations with entrepreneurs, individual investors and small and medium size businesses, because they felt they were in the best position to look after these matters. They also decided to share a number of things that did not directly affect people or the public, such as the army, defence and borders.
I come from a family of entrepreneurs, of grocers. When I was very young, my father was an independent grocer. He was in control of his grocery store and no one could tell him what to do. At one point, we joined a co-op, a federation. It was called Les Épiceries Lasalle. Later on, it became Les épiceries Metro, and we pooled a number of things together. However, I can assure hon. members that no one, neither the Metro federation nor any Metro grocer could say anything to the owner of our family store. They had a say about things that were decided together, but certainly not as regards anything else.
As far as the federal government’s appropriation is concerned—and here is where we come back to our motion—I get the sense that the federal government finds it easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission. It encroaches and then takes a wait-and-see approach: if people complain, we will tell them that they have nothing to complain about; and if they do not, we will move in on such and such an area of jurisdiction and present it as a fait accompli. There have been many examples of this.
Let me now turn back to the very nature of power. If one has certain powers, one's principles determine whether one keeps or shares them. Things get a little trickier when it comes to using these powers. Money, taxes and levies are required. Things get more nuanced, and discussions or even disputes ensue.
If the money is coming from elsewhere, not from our own pocketbooks, we may be less critical. When children get a Christmas present, it comes from Santa Claus, not from their family. When they are really young, it is the parents who control the purse strings and decide what is best for the child. You often hear children say that they would like this or that, but Santa Claus does not listen to them for their own good. That is all well and good when the child is young and does not have any money, but what happens when the child is a teenager? It is a little tougher, and among adults it is a different story altogether. Everyone here has had the experience of giving children gifts. What do you do when these children are older? You give them money or a check and tell them to use the money as they see fit.
So there is a certain level of maturity required when wielding these powers, which are a gift from someone else. When it is my money and my taxes, I am not going to have someone come along and tell me what to do with it. Nobody is going to tell me how to spend my money. And that is when big problems crop up. There is a difference between being given a house, a car or a cottage with a mortgage, and having a mortgage-free one. At some point, you will ask whether you can decide that you do not want it because you would rather manage the tax field or mortgage yourself.
In Quebec, every government—be it the Parti Québecois government of which I was a part, or the Liberal government the member for Outremont was in when he was in Laval—has repeatedly observed that this spending power was never given to the federal government to be used as it is currently being used.
The result is that the federal government loves to spend. It decides to do this or that because it thinks it is good for Quebeckers and Quebec families. Where does it get the cash? From the pockets of Quebeckers. That is where it gets its taxes. No more water can be squeezed out of a sponge than there is in it. At some point, poor Quebec taxpayers start wondering which government is theirs.
If a survey was done across Canada asking Canadians which government was theirs and who their Prime Minister was, they would instinctively say the Government of Canada. In Quebec, though, it would be the Government of Quebec, regardless of who the Premier was and the government in power. We identify much more with Quebec than with Canada.
The federal government invades our tax room. Tax room is a space where there is income from which the government can decide to take a portion. We would rather look for tax room among people earning more than $150,000 or $250,000. We said so last year in our pre-budget submissions.
If other provinces do not want that, it is okay, they can do things their way and use their tax room as they see fit. If the Canadian provinces want to give more powers to the federal government, they should do it and give the Government of Canada taxing authority. They may regret it though. In Quebec, that is not how things work. In Quebec, the fiscal imbalance led to the Government of Canada’s excessive use of too much tax room. We made the decision in Quebec to pay for social services, education, day care and health care. At some point, there is very little tax room left. It is all gone. When two governments are in the same tax room, we have what is called a fiscal imbalance. It does not come out of nowhere. It happens when governments cannot agree to come to terms on a certain tax room and use it well.
When a government takes advantage of tax room, it is because it is entitled to do something with the money it collects. When there is tax room, people give their government the ability to collect taxes and provide services. When one of the two parties does not merely offer but imposes services and says things will be done its way, and it wants to fund these things with money from our pockets, at some point, a huge problem arises. The fiscal imbalance in Canada was never resolved, regardless of what our Conservative friends might say. We are always aware of that in Quebec. I repeat: all Quebec premiers, whether from the PQ, the Liberals or even the old Union Nationale, have agreed that the fiscal imbalance problem has never been solved. Never. It is an illusion.
While we wait for a majority of Quebeckers to get behind the idea of having a government that uses the entire fiscal room and adopts its own measures in relation to health, social services, education, culture, languages and everything else, what are we doing in the Bloc Québécois? We are working, and for example, under the leadership of the member for Saint-Lambert, we have introduced Bill C-507, which is up for consideration in the House. At the press conference I held with my colleague, I said it was a reasonable accommodation. It is our way to say yes, let us do that while we wait for Quebec to be a sovereign country. What do we say about that? We say that in Quebec, we should have the sovereign, inescapable right to take all of our powers, to prevent the federal government from allowing new spending, to get the federal government out of areas where it has no jurisdiction, and to stop this kind of behaviour. There is one other aspect that we must keep in mind and that is that money must come with those measures. What kind of money? We are not expecting a cheque, we are expecting fiscal room. If someone is delighting in the cheque they got from their parents, or cash as a gift, when they became a teenager or an adult, and then keep expecting such handouts the rest of their lives, at some point they will be waiting a long time. What does a person do? They say: “I am going to create my own fiscal room, I am going to be independent and I am going to create my own wealth.”
That is what Quebec wants. The federal spending power should be limited to what it originally was; it should withdraw from the entire room it has invaded since then; and the government of Quebec should get a transfer of tax points and be able to work with them, either by giving the money back to the taxpayers or by using it according to its own standards. We have seen that in the past. The Government of Canada took one or two points off the sales tax. At that time, and that was the same government we have now, the Government of Quebec used it by returning it to the taxpayers of Quebec. That was its decision. Did we agree? That is not the issue, here. It was the government that decided. Personally, I would have liked to use it differently, but we respect the authority and power of the Government of Quebec. It is the federal system that we have a problem with.
Just now, they were making fun of the Bloc Québécois’ new guru, but it has to be said that there are mirages in life. Sometimes, there are flashes of brilliance. Sometimes people see UFOs and are convinced they have seen them.
This is what the member for Beauce said:
Ending the federal spending power, eliminating the federal programs that violate the division of powers, and transferring tax points to the provinces would be the right thing to do from several perspectives.
That is what he said. The speech is on his website, and in it he also said:
Instead of sending money to the provinces, Ottawa would cut its taxes and let them use the fiscal room that has been vacated. Such a transfer of tax points to the provinces would allow them to fully assume their responsibilities, without federal control.
That is not a new guru. That is someone who saw a UFO, and who claims that that is the way it should be. That is what he might have thought, but it will not happen. The Government of Canada simply does not want to go that way. It is telling us that if are not happy, we either accept it, or we go away and become sovereign and independent.
Is it the same everywhere in Canada? No; some provinces are perhaps fine with the federal government having control over certain things. Good for them. We do not want that. That is where we differ. When there are conditional transfers, we refuse them. Who has power over whom? That is the question.
Is this a more sensitive issue in Quebec? Perhaps not. Is it different in Quebec? Yes; it is different because we are different. That must be accepted. We will remain in North America. We will continue to do business with Canadians and Americans. We will continue to trade. Canada has Quebec to thank for being so open to the world. However, a nation does not let someone else control its culture, its social development, its education or economic development. Is that simple enough? We cannot accept that Canada acknowledges we exist, but that it retains control over us. In Quebec, we say that we exist, so we will control our own affairs.
