Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
Equalization, which he brought up, refers to the government's redistribution of wealth. Under the principle of equalization, the have provinces give part of their wealth to the have-not provinces. The purpose of this policy is to balance wealth. There are calculations that have to be done and checked each year to ensure that they are accurate.
My colleague made reference to Quebec independence or sovereignty in his question. I think that if Quebec became a sovereign nation, there would be no more talk about equalization. There would be no more discussions about the amount of money a given province should receive. When a nation is proud of itself, its skills and its wealth, it can govern itself by keeping all its own tax revenue instead of giving half to another government that does not necessarily redistribute it according to the same priorities.
I talked about how a quarter of the taxes paid by Quebeckers had been used to help the auto industry. Quebeckers wound up subsidizing Ontario's auto industry. We never opposed that because it is important to Canada's overall economy, but it has to be said that Quebec is contributing to all of Canada's spending and wealth.
If Quebec became independent, we feel that by keeping all our own tax revenue instead of redistributing it to suit the majority of Canadians—who never have the same priorities as Quebec—we could strike a budget that would meet the needs of Quebeckers.