Madam Speaker, I am surprised that the motion the House is taking up today is not a motion of non-confidence. I thought the Conservatives had said they were going to take advantage of every opposition day to try and topple the government. I do not know what is going on, but it does seem like part of a pattern, because today's motion strikes me as typical of the tactics employed by the member for Carleton. I call this the Carleton method.
What does this method look like? It often involves focusing on populist proposals based on simplistic notions in response to complex problems. Every time I see a Conservative motion, that is what it looks like. My colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé said earlier that the Bloc Québécois was going to vote in favour of this motion. However, we are doing so somewhat reluctantly, because the motion contains a trap. Reducing taxes may stimulate housing construction, but we need to go a little further.
That is why I think we need to ditch the Carleton method, which consists of overly simplistic proposals that often take the form of political rhetoric and catchy sound bytes. It seems to me that, during their last leadership race, the Conservatives chose a leader who would be better suited for an advertising agency than for the job of prime minister. I say this without rancor. He is great at coming up with slogans, but as for innovative solutions, I have yet to see any.
It is symptomatic of what we have been seeing in the House for a while now. For the Conservatives, politics seems to be boil down to chanting slogans. Some of my colleagues may have seen groups of people laying hands, chanting and expecting results. That is what I think of when I hear the Conservatives. Some of my colleagues may be familiar with the Conservative Party's chants: axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget. I do not know whether they intend to use a drill and a screwdriver, but they want to fix the budget and stop the crime.
Every time I hear the leader of the Conservative Party, all of those chants make me think about François Truffaut's films, of which I am a fan. It makes me think of the film The 400 Blows, as well as the sequel, Stolen Kisses. There is an interesting character in these films called Antoine Doinel. To illustrate his lust for Fabienne Tabard, Truffaut shows him in front of a mirror for a long time compulsively repeating the name Fabienne Tabard. He thinks he will get somewhere if he just keeps repeating it, but in the end, his lecherous desire will go unrequited. I feel like I am watching a cheap new version of a Truffaut film when I hear the leader of the official opposition repeat his political rhetoric and formulas ad nauseum.
The solution put forward in this political rhetoric is fundamentally cosmetic. When faced with complex political problems, one needs structuring measures. I will explain why I believe the Conservatives' proposal is not a structuring measure, even though we will be voting for it.
First, I listened to the leader of the official opposition's speech earlier. He clearly said that we needed to end bureaucracy. The most populist discourse is the one that accuses politicians of taking money away from workers, wanting to steal from them and rob them of what is theirs. They forget to mention that we also collect sales tax and income tax to be able to offer services. The leader of the official opposition is very careful not to mention that we collect sales tax and income tax to be able to offer services. In his speech, he said he wanted to take money away from the politicians and give it directly back to citizens, to workers.
I have a different interpretation of what he is proposing. I get the impression that the leader of the official opposition is funding a populist measure on the backs of the provinces. We see at the end of the motion that the member for Carleton clearly intends to ensure that the provincial premiers also remove the sales tax on new construction. In Quebec's case, that would be the QST.
That is quite problematic because, as my colleague indicated earlier, in Quebec's case, the forecast for housing starts next year is $18 billion. Removing the QST would mean a $1.8-billion shortfall for Quebec. The leader of the official opposition is not saying so, but in his motion he is asking the Quebec government to forgo $1.8 billion when Quebec's deficit is nearly $13 billion. Any reasonable person would understand that Quebec cannot agree to that.
There is a relatively simple notion in the Canadian federation, and that is fiscal imbalance. What does the federal government always do when it needs to tighten its belt? It cuts transfer payments and transfers the tax burden of its policies onto the provinces. That is the oldest trick in the book. Even Jean Chrétien said that it was the best thing since sliced bread, because that means there is no political price to pay. When the leader of the official opposition says that he will put more in workers' pockets, he means that he will get the money from the provinces, like Quebec, that are already having difficulty carrying out their responsibilities in education and health care. My colleagues know as well as I do that health care and child care in Quebec is chronically underfunded. If $1.8 billion is cut from Quebec and the deficit increases, that would once more compromise Quebec's mission, which is to put in place the social safety net that is helping families who are already having a hard time. Eliminating a service on the one hand and allowing them to save on the purchase of a house on the other is not a structuring measure. In my opinion, it does nothing to solve the fiscal imbalance. Let us take this a bit further. A quick calculation shows that, with this $1.8 billion, Quebec could finance almost 20,000 social housing units. In some way, the leader of the official opposition would deprive Quebec of 20,000 social housing units. For these reasons, the motion put forward by our Conservative colleagues could benefit from an amendment. I will get back to that later.
Why do I say this is not a structuring measure? It is because I feel that my Conservative Party colleagues never tackle the real problems. What brought on the housing crisis in Quebec? Immigration is responsible for much of it. I have never seen my Conservative colleagues hold an opposition day to oppose the Century Initiative, the Liberals' political commitment to act in such a way as to ensure that Quebec loses all control over immigration and that unprecedented pressure is exerted on the various services. I have never heard the Conservatives talk about that. They are not tackling a central problem, namely immigration. They have only started doing that recently.
Another problem they have been silent on is the one raised by the the Canadian Construction Association. The people in this association have made it clear to us, in numerous meetings, that home construction and housing cannot be considered in a vacuum. It takes infrastructure, but the municipalities' infrastructure deficit is so high that it might well take $128 billion to build this infrastructure.
I will close by discussing the TECQ program, or the gas tax and Quebec's contribution. If we want better municipal infrastructure, it is inevitable that the municipalities must have access to the funding they need. Unfortunately, however, the government did not renew the TECQ.
I move the following amendment: That the motion be amended by deleting the words “and call on the provincial premiers to match this proposal”.
