Madam Speaker, with its latest budget, the federal government has launched an unprecedented attack against Quebec and the provinces' powers. We saw it coming with the striptease leading up to the budget, when the Prime Minister, worthy successor of his dear old dad, proclaimed that Canadians did not care about jurisdictional matters. Although the federal government has always tried to centralize powers, this time they are doing so without reserve, without restraint and without shame.
Let us take housing, for example. While, on the one hand, the government has finally recognized the crisis and is proposing positive measures, on the other, it is taking advantage of the situation to launch an unprecedented centralist offensive. According to the budget, it is now in charge of everything related to housing, the provinces and municipalities being relegated to the position of executors of federal priorities.
For example, the government is forcing the provinces to sign an agreement by next January. According to the budget, if Quebec rejects the conditions set by know-it-all Ottawa or argues that it has different priorities, the federal government will ignore Quebec or any recalcitrant province and will negotiate directly with the municipalities. This approach is illegal in Quebec. In fact, since a decision rendered by Robert Bourassa's government in 1971, Quebec's municipalities cannot transact directly with Ottawa. The goal is to prevent the federal government from adopting a divide-and-conquer approach, and from diminishing Quebec's negotiating power at the bargaining table.
The federal government is encroaching on municipalities' urban development plans by imposing specific requirements for receiving infrastructure transfers. It is going so far as to establish the height and density of residential neighbourhoods within an 800-metre radius of educational institutions and public transportation routes. If the cities do not authorize the construction of certain types of multiplexes in these sectors, they will not be entitled to federal transfers.
The government is also encroaching on property tax rights by announcing a tax on vacant lots in urban areas. Lastly, it intends to purchase land from the provinces and municipalities and lease it long-term to developers to construct buildings. Since these constructions will be built on federal land, they will automatically be exempt from municipal bylaws and provincial laws. This is a significant risk.
The budget is full of interference in Quebec's areas of jurisdiction that will cause repeated disputes concerning jurisdiction and delay service delivery to Canadians. In addition to housing, the federal government is interfering in health care with the announcement of a bill on Canada-wide standards for long-term care and with its prescription drug and dental insurance plans. The same is true in education.
Ottawa has announced a lot of money for the energy transition. The budget explains how it will be distributed. The private sector and western Canada will receive generous subsidies and credits for carbon capture and nuclear energy development. In terms of compensation, Ottawa is offering a 15% tax credit to publicly owned corporations like Hydro-Québec for developing green projects. However, the federal government is going even further by interfering in how provincial publicly owned corporations are run. For example, it is imposing conditions on Hydro-Québec's rates. The publicly owned corporation can have the 15% tax credit for investments in its projects only if it complies with the federal government's conditions. Ottawa is forcing Hydro-Québec to use it to reduce electricity bills and publicly report how the tax credit has improved ratepayers' bills.
The budget is a demonstration of the effects of the fiscal imbalance. Jurisdictions no longer exist in the eyes of the federal government. With this budget, the Prime Minister is declaring himself the Prime Minister of Canada, the premier of every province and the mayor of every town. Since the Liberals are busy messing around in Quebec's jurisdictions like sorcerers' apprentices, we are entitled to ask who is taking care of federal responsibilities like managing the borders or employment insurance, which is badly in need of a long-awaited reform. This budget was made on the backs of Quebeckers. It is a clear demonstration of the damage that can be caused by the combination of the fiscal imbalance and the federal government's spending power by reducing Quebeckers' ability to manage their own society themselves.
The Bloc Québécois presented its requests to the government. It asked that the government provide support for seniors, give Quebec the right to opt out when it comes to federal interference, address the housing crisis, pay Quebec back for the money it spent helping asylum seekers and put an end to its oil worship. The budget does not address any of those things. There is also not one word about the aerospace policy that the government promised. Quebec's $11-billion deficit caused quite a stir, but people seem fine with Ottawa's $40-billion deficit.
Ottawa's continued interference is resulting in an unprecedented centralization of power that robs Quebeckers of the ability to evolve in accordance with their needs, strengths, characteristics and desires. Centralization is a trend dating back to the dawn of Confederation, but we must not forget that, in 1867, our nation agreed to be part of Canada on the condition that the federal model recognized two equal levels of government sovereign in their respective jurisdictions.
Ottawa's conditional transfers and interference are eroding Quebec's autonomy. Quebec is supposed to be completely sovereign in areas under its exclusive jurisdiction. Quebeckers agreed to the Constitution of 1867 on that condition, but it is this very principle that is being challenged by the almighty spending power. Every time Ottawa sets up a program or spends money in an area that Quebec is supposed to be in charge of, Canada decides how Quebec society will be organized. Every time Ottawa sets conditions before transferring funds to Quebec, it forces the Government of Quebec to act on Canadians' priorities rather than Quebeckers' priorities. As the Séguin report on the fiscal imbalance noted, these transfers or expenditures always “limit the decision-making and budgetary autonomy of the provinces in their fields of jurisdiction”.
More and more, as a result of the fiscal imbalance and its offshoot, spending power, the Quebec government is being relegated to the ranks of a federal government subcontractor. That is true in almost every sector. Again I quote the Séguin report:
Given the amounts in question, federal intervention through the “federal spending power” has a considerable impact on provincial policy in the provinces' fields of jurisdiction because the use of the “federal spending power” affects practically every one of the provinces' fields of jurisdiction.
What about the Quebec nation in all this? The House of Commons recognizes that the Quebec nation exists. That is good. However, recognizing a nation is more than just a symbolic gesture. Nations, like people, have fundamental rights, the most important being the right to control the social, economic and cultural development of their own society, in other words, the right to self-determination. Two former premiers of Quebec, a federalist and a sovereignist, Robert Bourassa and René Lévesque, agreed on this issue.
In 1980, René Lévesque said:
Having all the attributes of a distinct national community, Quebec has an inalienable right to self-determination. It is the most fundamental right the people of Quebec possess.
In 1990, when he gave a speech in the Quebec National Assembly following the failure of the Meech Lake accord, Robert Bourassa said:
English Canada must clearly understand that no matter what anyone says or does, Quebec is and always will be a distinct and free society capable of taking charge of its own destiny and its own development.
The federal government cannot recognize the Quebec nation and its right to make choices that are different from Canada's and then turn around and deny that nation the ability to assert that right by maintaining the federal spending power. Denying Quebec the power to spend undermines its very existence as a nation. Instead of Quebeckers being masters in their own house, the federal government is acting like it is the master everywhere.
We will have a choice. We can let the federal government and the neighbouring nation dictate their priorities from the top down and decide our societal choices for us with our own money, or we can choose to fully assume our sovereignty. In the meantime, I urge the members of the House to vote in favour of this motion:
That the House: (a) condemn the federal government's repeated intrusion into the exclusive jurisdictions of Quebec, the provinces and the territories; (b) remind the Prime Minister that, despite his claims, it is not true that “people do not care which level of government is responsible for what”; and (c) demand that the government systematically offer Quebec, the provinces and territories the right to opt out unconditionally with full compensation whenever the federal government interferes in their jurisdictions.