Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the time to present my ideas about this bill.
I will begin by saying that I find it very ironic that the Bloc Québécois is introducing this bill, since the bill would prohibit federal spending in a number of areas for which the Bloc has sought increased federal involvement.
In fact, I have in front of me all of the demands the Bloc Québécois has made. They are probably not all here, but it is a long list of demands for federal spending that the Bloc Québécois has made here, in the House of Commons alone. For instance, it is the Bloc Québécois that has called for an expanded federal role in transportation. I will give an example. For the Quebec Bridge, a member said, on October 21, 2010, “What is the government waiting for to reclaim the Quebec Bridge from CN in order to repair it as quickly as possible?” That is an example of a federal acquisition that the Bloc Québécois is calling for in the House of Commons.
On October 20, 2010, they were talking about compensation for seniors. On September 21, 2010, and on September 16, the Bloc was calling for more infrastructure funding. On August 3 and July 5, it was assistance for industry. On July 16, it was awarding contracts in Quebec. On May 2, the environment critic called for the ecoAUTO rebate program. The Bloc Québécois is calling for assistance for the forest industry, which falls under natural resources, and in the bill, the Bloc wants to prohibit the federal government from getting involved in that area. But it is asking the federal government for more by calling for assistance for the industry.
The Bloc Québécois is calling for more transfers in more areas that, it says, are under exclusive provincial jurisdiction. Once again, we see a demand for assistance for several industries. I could go on. I have only read one page. I probably have in front of me 50 pages of demands the Bloc Québécois has made for greater federal government involvement.
Looking at the track record of the Bloc Québécois here in the House of Commons, we could say that it is really the centralist Bloc. It is the party that, day after day, continues to call for the federal government to play a greater role in what the Bloc is now describing as matters under exclusive provincial jurisdiction. Even today, the Bloc Québécois critic called for the federal government to play a greater role in the area of culture. She said the federal government was not doing enough and should spend more. So if she believes this is simply a provincial matter, she could have asked the provincial government, in Quebec City, to spend that money. But no, she did it here.
It is not hard to understand why Canadians are a little surprised to see a bill like this coming from the Bloc Québécois. Every day, we see the Bloc calling for more spending in the areas it wants to prohibit with this bill.
Allow me to give another example of a program that directly benefits Quebeckers and that the Bloc Québécois would like to prohibit with this bill: the Canada child tax benefit, which is paid by our government. The federal governments sends a cheque directly to parents in Quebec. I can tell you that I have never received a single call from a family asking that the cheque be sent to the provincial government instead of being sent directly to them.
That is exactly what the Bloc Québécois is calling for in its bill. A program like that one, which is managed by the federal government, would be prohibited. The provincial government would be entitled to claim that money directly instead of it being sent to families. That is what the effect of this bill would be, if it were to be implemented.
The problem the Bloc Québécois has is that it is supporting something in theory that it is directly opposed to in practice. This is one of the problems, or contradictions, that the Bloc Québécois will never be able to resolve. It is the same contradiction after 17 years. The Bloc Québécois says it wants to have sovereignty in Quebec, but it is here in the House of Commons of Canada.
I reiterate that the Bloc Québécois has made demand after demand for more federal involvement in a whole series of areas, which the Bloc now says are exclusively provincial jurisdiction.
I have examples of where the Bloc members want the federal government to take over bridges and where they want the government to spend. Basically in every area the government spends money, the Bloc has demanded that it spend more. By virtue of that spending, it would make the federal government larger and contradict, in practice, the theory advanced by today's private member's bill.
I think we can call the Bloc Québécois the “Bloc Centralists” as it is the party that demands consistently and perhaps most vocally that the federal government expand its activity in basically every realm. Just today a member of the Bloc stood and demanded more federal involvement in the area of culture, saying that the federal government was not involved enough and that it ought to spend more.
The Bloc members have to decide. They cannot say, on the one hand, that the federal government should be banned from doing the spending and then stand up in the House of Commons and demand that the spending be increased, which is what we hear from our colleagues across the way in the Bloc Québécois.
Our government is not interested in the theoretical debate. We are focused on real results. We have delivered those results for Quebeckers and, indeed, for Canadians in every province. We have lowered income taxes, cut the GST, brought in tax credits for kids' sports, student text books, bus passes and tradesmen tools. We have lowered business taxes. We have just created 400,000 net new jobs since the bottom out of the global recession. We will continue to work on the economic recovery.
We will not be distracted by a theoretical debate, which has no application in reality and which is of no interest at this time to people in any part of our country, including Quebec.