Yvan Loubier

[Committees of the House, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak about this subject, which has been very important, I think, for a number of years. As my colleague from Bourassa said, the debate did not begin last year but nearly eight years ago. It was eight years ago that the RCMP's first announcements about rationalization were made. That is why I have been opposed to such closings ever since.

There has been quite a story in my region in connection with my opposition to the closing. Farmers and others have written letters to me and have come to see me and say that they had been warning the government for eight years about the RCMP's intentions. They told me that the RCMP detachments must not be closed because that would make way for organized crime, which would continue to squat on their farmlands and produce illicit cannabis.

This was news eight years ago because no one was talking about the problem. Even I, as the chief economist of the UPA for seven or eight years, had never heard about organized crime squatting on farmland and intimidating farm families.

I might mention in passing that I am going to share my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable.

So what came out of the debate about the RCMP's intentions was real news eight years ago. That was when the debate and the discovery of the problem really started. The arguments then were the same as now. When you close a storefront or an RCMP detachment in a problem region, as Saint-Hyacinthe was a few years ago, you deprive yourself of an instrument for fighting organized crime.

Now that instrument has been eliminated and an opportunity has therefore been left for organized crime, because the Saint-Hyacinthe office was quietly closed down. Last January 1, as a matter of fact, when everyone was celebrating the New Year, the RCMP deemed itself above Parliament, above the members, and above the consensus of all the political parties and quietly closed the Saint-Hyacinthe RCMP detachment. This is serious. People were saying at the same time that detachments should not be closed because there were problems with drug trafficking.

Four years ago, to address once again the rumour that the detachment would close, the people of Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot decided to set up an Infocrime citizens committee. It promoted a simple hotline number, 1-800-711-1800 for people to use to report crimes, threats made by organized crime, and the presence of marijuana plants in the fields and woods. The citizens decided to take charge and boost their preventive activities—especially among children—not only in terms of consumption, but also in terms of the henchmen used by criminal groups for planting and harvesting marijuana, especially in September and October.

This is a recent phenomenon and it is quite serious. In September, when criminals harvest cannabis in fields and woods, there is a very high rate of absenteeism in the region's schools. Why? Police have been monitoring this for a while now. Apparently, children are hired by henchmen of the South chapter, a Hells Angels associate, to harvest cannabis in the fields. Children aged 13 or 14 are being offered exorbitant wages to work for these bastards, to associate with organized crime, and, at such an early age, to establish ties with henchmen of the Hells Angels or any other criminal group. This is serious. Imagine what that feels like, at a time when detachments are being closed.

Not so long ago I heard Commissioner Bourduas say that it was not the role of the RCMP to hunt down luxury gardeners. I do not know if he still feels the same way after the unfortunate events in Alberta where three police officers were killed by a drug trafficker. I do not know if he is still of the same opinion, but I am starting to have a very bad opinion of him, especially for closing the RCMP detachment on January 1, despite the fact that all parties on the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness—remember, committees are an extension of the House of Commons—had agreed that the RCMP offices would not close their doors.

The RCMP feels it is above Parliament. It is making exactly the same mistake as the CIA did. I do not know if you followed the investigations after September 11, 2001, but the CIA was rightly faulted for having concentrated its operations in major capitals and not keeping its ear to the ground out in the field, which might have prevented these tragic events.

The RCMP is doing the same. It might be asked at some point what its role is. It no longer deals with drug dealers, borders, luxury gardeners as Commissioner Borduas called them, although these are the worst criminals and connected with well organized rings. What does it deal with? That is what needs to be asked.

I feel this is a bad decision. The four parties cannot agree on reopening the RCMP detachments without providing them with sufficient manpower to carry out investigations. They are talking about a critical mass of eight investigators. We cannot all be wrong.

Commissioners Borduas and Zaccardelli cannot know the truth. There is a kind of malaise somewhere if the Canada-wide police force is making decisions that run counter to the decisions made by Parliament. There is always a limit. The Minister of Public Safety and Civil Preparedness also believes she is above Parliament. She says all of us here are wrong, that we have no reason to be concerned, when a tool against organized crime has just been taken away from rural areas where the nearest neighbour may be 2 or 3 kms away. According to her, all of us are wrong.

What kind of Parliament are we sitting in? What is the government thinking, with such a disaster for our regions about to happen. There was rationalization carried out in Ontario. Now go ask the people in rural areas, particularly in northern Ontario, if they are pleased with that. RCMP operations were centralized in major centres and they are no longer able to respond to calls in outlying regions.

A tremendous effort has been made in my riding, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. People took things in hand, as citizens. On the Infocrime committee, there are farmers, municipal representatives and young people working with those who have narcotics problems, for example. Police representatives also volunteer to help the community carry on its own fight against organized crime.

When one has the kind of success that has been seen over the last four years with Infocrime, using all the tools such as Infocrime, the Sûreté du Québec and the RCMP to fight drug traffickers, and one gets a decision like this, it is very frustrating.

A consensus among the political parties on a question as basic as this must necessarily have an effect. We must ensure that the RCMP opens its detachments—or keeps them open in the case of those that have not been closed yet—and gives them enough resources to help the Sûreté du Québec, in particular, fight organized crime.

Having been involved in the drug-trafficking issue for eight years and having experienced intimidation, along with my family, I think that one thing must be kept in mind. If we send a signal to organized crime that we are going to ease up, it will return. We must remain eternally vigilant.

In my riding, we have succeeded in improving things quite a bit in the last two years, so much that there were hardly any more cannabis patches to be seen by someone flying over the region. Seven years ago, it was unbelievable. There was not a field that had not been squatted on, with 1,000 or 2,000 plants per field. There was not a single farm family that had not been intimidated and seriously threatened by organized crime for daring to contact the police.

Things have improved. But production has moved on—to the Eastern Townships in particular—my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi mentioned that—and also to the Centre-du-Québec region. The citizens have to take things in hand too. They cannot be deprived of tools like the decentralized RCMP detachments with investigators. These detachments make the connection between the local networks and the national or international networks. The surveillance they do complements their work with the Sûreté du Québec and is a major contribution.

I demand that the RCMP reopen the detachments that it has already closed and give them enough resources. I also demand that the minister assume her responsibilities and respond favourably to a consensus of Parliament.

[Transfer payments, May 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, how can the Prime Minister justify his refusal to discuss the Bloc Québécois amendment denouncing the fiscal imbalance, something that is far from being an intellectual conceit, since once again this year the announced surplus will far exceed the Minister of Finance's forecast?

[Transfer payments, May 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, after 11 months, we learn that the surplus for last fiscal year totaled $11 billion, once incurred expenditures were deducted. Even the premier of Quebec has reacted and is calling for lasting solutions to the fiscal imbalance.

Having refused the Bloc subamendment which called upon the government to address the fiscal imbalance, does the Prime Minister intend to change his tactics and address this problem, which is recognized by everyone except the federal Liberals?

[Dalai Lama, April 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, a year ago, millions of Quebeckers and Canadians were deeply touched and moved by the visit to Canada of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In solidarity with his peaceful struggle, and that of the Tibetan people, we are proud to wear the khata, a traditional Tibetan scarf symbolizing peace and friendship.

The Dalai Lama promotes Tibet's right to independence, seeking meaningful autonomy for the Tibetan people within China. However, the issue is far from being resolved, because the fundamental rights of Tibetans continue to be denied.

Based on its strong ties with China, Canada must ensure that Beijing takes concrete action to ensure that the current dialogue between the representatives of the Dalai Lama and China results in a negotiated settlement on the status of Tibet.

Members of this House must add their voices to those of the millions of people around the world who struggle to help the Tibetan people reclaim their homeland.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, April 12th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, when we left off, before statements by members and oral question period, I had started to list the reasons we oppose the budget recently tabled by the Minister of Finance.

The first reason is the bogus consultation by the Minister of Finance of the opposition parties' critics. He claimed he was open to including the various priorities of the opposition parties in the budget. During our over 60-minute meeting with him, he seemed quite sensitive to each of our proposals. However, here we are, several weeks later, with a budget that makes absolutely no mention of the priorities we had identified to him. Among those priorities is the whole issue of resolving the fiscal imbalance.

I had the opportunity, in my seven-minute presentation, to explain the negative impact of this imbalance and what we expected to see in the budget to at least begin to fix the fiscal imbalance.

I want to repeat that the government has ample means to resolve this issue. Even given the health accord of last September, the equalization agreement and even the special agreements with Newfoundland and Labrador and with Nova Scotia, we know that, over the next six years and under the current federal tax system, the government will have over $100 billion in surplus funds. And that is a conservative estimate.

While the federal government pockets the excess taxes paid by Canadian and Quebec taxpayers, the governments of the provinces and Quebec are having a hard time and are barely achieving their objectives and fulfilling their responsibilities, such as providing front-line services to people.

There was the health agreement. It is obvious that the governments of the provinces and Quebec cheered the amounts that were freed up last year. They have been bled dry, in any case, since 1997 by the former finance minister, who is now the Prime Minister, and they lack funds. So any additional $100 million to meet the needs of an aging population is very welcome. But it is clearly not enough.

I will use the example of Quebec because it is the one I know best. The agreement last September which provided more than $500 million for health will only produce enough funding to run the Quebec health system for nine days. This amount seems enormous, but the needs are very great as well. As I was saying, when the Prime Minister was finance minister, he cut the Canada social transfer, the transfers for health, education and assistance for the most disadvantaged families. So we find ourselves in a situation in which there is a lack of funds for the governments of the provinces and Quebec.

First, there is not even a hint of recognition of the fiscal imbalance, and second, there is no sign of any attempt to resolve it.

We also thought that the federal government would be better disposed toward the equalization issue. As we know, the bogus agreement reached last October between the provinces and the federal government only takes the amounts that the federal government paid in 2001-02 for equalization, caps them at $10 billion, which was the amount of the transfer for the recipient provinces at the time, and indexes this amount at 3.5% a year.

Such an agreement makes a travesty of the basic, prime objective of equalization. As for the two other agreements with Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, we will return to them in a moment.

Equalization is there to even out the fiscal capacity of all the provinces so that they can provide a variety of services of equal or nearly equal quality from east to west across Canada.

In order to achieve this, the true fiscal capacity, in other words, the capacity of the governments or a province to collect taxes from their taxpayers, needs to be determined. This is no longer done. The federal government simply takes the amount paid in 2001-02 and adjusts it for inflation without taking into account any change in the provinces' wealth.

In a given year, a province might receive an equalization payment because of a major setback. For example, if the price of oil dropped considerably, some provinces would perhaps experience some difficulties and might be entitled to equalization. Others could see an increase in cash flow another year, in which case they would not be entitled to equalization.

Taking the $10 billion amount from three years ago and simply indexing it without taking into account the change in the situation, is nonsense. This is a travesty of the equalization formula devised in 1947 by the Rowell-Sirois Commission.

The agreement reached with Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia is an example of this, but worse. We have nothing against Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. On the contrary, we have friends throughout Canada, in the Maritimes and in the west, in particular. I realized this during the work of the Subcommittee on Fiscal Imbalance. We have friends from east to west in Canada, from coast to coast.

However, to properly measure a province's fiscal potential, none of its sources of revenue can be eliminated. Nova Scotia's and Newfoundland and Labrador's offshore oil revenues, for example, cannot be excluded from the calculation of these provinces' ability to earn revenues from natural resources, property taxes, personal taxes, goods and services taxes.There cannot be a different treatment in another province that cannot have a special agreement like that. Nothing gets measured if a source of revenue is excluded. But this is what is happening with Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, which benefited from a $2.8 billion agreement over 10 years, with the first $2 billion paid already from the surplus of the last fiscal year.

Let us consider the amount allocated to Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia per capita under the agreement with Ottawa. If the agreement were applied to the residents of Quebec, the province would get a lump sum payment of $38 billion tomorrow morning. That is a lot of money. Mr. McGuinty and Mr. Sorbara of the Ontario government, whom I had the honour to meet three weeks ago in subcommittee proceedings, were disconcerted by this agreement. It means that the per capita fiscal potential of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia exceeds not only that of Quebec, but also that of Ontario. This is how they skewed the system.

Equalization is the only program in the Constitution, the aim of which, as I was saying, is to try to standardize provincial tax capacities so that Canadians are served well across the country. However, this objective has been totally ignored. Equalization would no longer exist but would simply be called a $10 billion subsidy indexed to inflation and it would change absolutely nothing.

There is one other problem, employment insurance. When I met with the minister, he was all ears and all heart when he spoke of the 60% of unemployed people who are excluded from the EI program. He said this was unfortunate, and was full of compassion at our meeting. Yet there is nothing in the budget to ensure better access and better coverage. There are just a bunch of very limited pilot projects for areas of high unemployment.

What kind of government do we have? Not only is its morality open to question now, it has already been questioned because of past actions. It has slashed EI, treated the unemployed as fraud artists, and excluded people who had paid 100% of the contributions to the EI fund when they were working. Yet now 60% of them, or 6 out of 10 workers, cannot benefit from EI. Is that moral? Is this not immorality?

Since this government has been in power, that is since 1993, it has done a number of immoral things. When I use that word, I am not referring to the sponsorship scandal, which is just one more thing to add to the dubious immorality of the present Liberal government. There is nothing for the unemployed.

I have met with agricultural producers and I am sure my western and Quebec colleagues do as well, every day in their respective ridings. These people are the victims of a disaster caused by one sick cow in Alberta and a ban imposed by the Americans. As a result, there is a total disaster as far as our farmers are concerned.

In addition, farmers in Quebec and across the rest of Canada have had negative net incomes for three straight years. Do members know what that means? It means that these producers work 365 days a year or close to it—they do not take vacations because the animals cannot wait—and have nothing to show for it. They do not have one red cent to put in their pockets, even if they have dozens of animals and tonnes of grain to sell. They have been going through this for three straight years.

How does the federal government respond to the mad cow crisis, for example, or the grain crisis caused by an increase in American subsidies for wheat in particular? It responds by providing $1 billion, which it was very pleased to announce last week. Farmers have been going through an unprecedented catastrophe for 25 or 30 years now. What does this figure mean for a beef producer? It amounts to $20 a head. For two years, these people have been losing $800, $900 or $1,000 a head, and now they are offered $20, while the government claims that it has done all it can, that it tried to persuade the Americans and develop a coherent policy. Well, these people are all starving.

So this is the federal government's response, despite its ability to collect a $100 billion surplus out of our pockets over the next six years. It could have done more to help farmers escape the catastrophe that they are currently going through.

In my riding of Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot and in the rural ridings of most of my colleagues in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, farmers are expressing their dismay, even after the fabulous announcement last week.

Nothing is provided for social housing, even though people have been waiting for a long time. All that the government has done since 1991 is invest in maintaining the existing social housing, while nothing is provided for new construction. Many families currently spend more than 50% of their incomes on rent. It is said that when people spend more than 25%, they are living in poverty. When they spend twice that, they are living doubly in poverty. But there is no answer to this in the budget.

I will leave it to my colleagues who will follow, including the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, to speak about the environmental question.

In conclusion, those are the reasons why we oppose this budget.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, April 12th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I know that I will have only eight minutes for this speech before question period. I would like, therefore, to use this opportunity to begin my criticism of the budget brought down recently by the Minister of Finance.

First, we must condemn the fact that the Minister of Finance said that, for the first time, a Canadian finance minister would meet the critics of the official opposition and the other opposition parties to discuss the budget. I spent more than an hour with the minister explaining our party's priorities for serving the citizens. Now, we have a budget that fails to respond in any way to the priorities expressed to the Minister of Finance. I was extremely frustrated, as were all my colleagues, with this phony consultation by a minister who says he is open to new ideas for serving the community better, but failed to include in this budget any of the priorities that were expressed.

One of my party's priorities took precedence over all the others. This was the fiscal imbalance. I know that the Prime Minister has never acknowledged either the concept or the problem of the fiscal imbalance. He spoke about fiscal pressures. I do not know why this Prime Minister has an aversion to such a fine concept. However, I know very well, as chair of the House's Subcommittee on Fiscal Imbalance and having gone on a tour that took us from Halifax to Victoria by way of Toronto, Quebec City and other stops, and is still continuing, that people everywhere agree on the problem of the fiscal imbalance. People also agree on all its effects on the provincial governments and their responsibilities for health, education and assisting the most disadvantaged families.

There is agreement as well on the fact that Ottawa has too much money in relation to its responsibilities. The provinces, on the other hand, do not have enough to be the direct, front-line responders to the citizens. I thought that we would see a start in this budget on correcting the fiscal imbalance and that it would be recognized. It should be said in passing that this imbalance was mentioned in the Speech from the Throne thanks to the Bloc Québécois and the Conservative Party. We expected, therefore, that there would be an initial response in the budget. However, there was not even a hint of a response to this problem.

The Prime Minister and his Minister of Finance are saying that because of the health agreement and equalization there is no room to manoeuvre for the coming years. That is not true. There is more money than they know what to do with. Even with the commitments made in the September 2004 health agreement, even with the $10 billion in equalization indexed at 3.5% a year, even with the agreement reached with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador to exclude oil revenues from the equalization calculation, over the next six years there will still be a surplus of some $100 billion in the federal government's coffers. That is a lot of money.

This is not the first time we have been in a situation like this. In 1956, the Tremblay Commission recommended looking at the Constitution, the provincial jurisdictions, and the federal government's jurisdictions and ensuring that the fiscal capacity of both levels of government was consistent with this level of responsibility. It favoured transferring these fiscal responsibilities from one level to the other, in other words, from the federal government to the provinces. The Constitution is in fact very clear on this: education, health, and helping out families in need are not the responsibilities of the federal government, but of Quebec and the provinces.

Since these are basic services we must provide in order to meet the public's demands, is it possible that we are back where we were in 1956, at the time of the Tremblay report, when we needed to look at the balance and review the allocation of taxing power between the two levels of government?

The report of the Tremblay commission led to the initial first ministers' conference in Quebec City. At that time, the first ministers were Mr. Pearson for the federal government and Mr. Lesage for Quebec.

The taxation powers of both levels of government were redefined at that conference. Why? Because, at that time, the federal government wanted to implement a pan-Canadian education system, with a loans and bursaries program, a pension fund, etc. The Quebec government refused to conform and asked for the right to withdraw with full compensation.

In 1964, it became possible to withdraw with full compensation. This compensation was then offered in the form of tax points to all the provinces, but only Quebec accepted. The tax points from 1964 and others from later years, particularly 1977 and 1978, are now worth $18 billion and the revenues go directly to the Quebec government.

Why deny the evidence? Why not admit that the current situation is identical to those in the 1950s and 1960s, and that the balance needs to be restored? There is no hint of a solution, or even any recognition of the fiscal imbalance in the budget, even though it is in the throne speech. There is nothing about it.

Year after year, the provinces record major shortfalls. For just this year in Quebec alone, we are talking about $2.5 billion that should have gone to the Quebec government but which has gone to Ottawa, due to the fiscal imbalance. If Quebec had that $2.5 billion, clearly, the underfunding of education over the past 15 years and the shortfall in the health care system would be history.

But first, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance would have to understand, which apparently is not the case at present. Our first major disappointment with the budget is this whole issue of the fiscal imbalance, which this government continues to deny. Perhaps we need to shove this question down its throat more forcefully in the next election campaign. I will come back to this after oral question period. As the saying goes, “The best is yet to come”.

[Supply, March 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank my Conservative colleagues for this opportunity to discuss the important issue of equalization.

I listened carefully to the speech by the Minister of Finance. I think some of his information is inconsistent, particularly when he said, “We have taken note, in the past, of problems with the equalization formula. We have started to make corrections, to fix the inequities and to consider all the provinces as equal”. I must tell him that if we are questioning, now, the equalization formula and the special agreements with the provinces and if we are debating the pros and cons of such agreements, it is thanks to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, and I do not mean that in a good way.

During the election campaign, when the current Prime Minister thought the rug was being pulled out from under him, when he felt the power slipping through his fingers, he travelled across Canada making lots of absurd promises and commitments.

One such commitment was to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. During the election campaign, he promised that offshore oil and gas resources would be exempt. He knew quite well—or if he did not know, he is completely missing the boat—that he would create huge distortions in the equalization formula, if he carried through on his commitments, as in the case of the special agreement of $2.6 billion over eight years he concluded with Newfoundland on January 28, and another one for $1.1 billion over the same period with Nova Scotia.

By doing so, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have created an extraordinary precedent. Obviously, amendments to the equalization formula have been made since 1957. Changes have been made for example to the revenue sources, part of the formula which determined how much equalization each province is entitled to. Some revenue sources were added, others were eliminated. At one point, the formula was based on a 10-province standard, and then on a 5-province standard. However, this kind of special agreement is unprecedented. This generosity of this agreement is also unprecedented.

This agreement totally altered the objectives of equalization as set out in subsection 36(2) of the Constitution. I will remind the Minister of Finance of this, if I may, since I have the impression sometimes that he does not fully understand what the program is all about. Subsection 36(2) of the Constitution says that equalization aims “to ensure... reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.”

The preamble to providing “reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation” is to treat each province consistently fairly, based on a single formula. That is the principle of equity.

Parallel agreements that exclude offshore oil revenues, one of the 33 revenue sources used in evaluating the fiscal capacity of each province, that is the wealth of the province and its capacity to provide quality services at more or less comparable levels of taxation, skew the calculation.

This is the case for two provinces in particular, so the whole formula is skewed. The objectives of the equalization formula, objectives set out in subsection 36(2) of the Constitution have been skewed, and we are being told this is a first step to improvement. There has been no first step to improvement. It is a total travesty of equalization and its objectives, so much so that even Ontario is now complaining about it.

A week and a half ago, we were in Toronto in connection with the committee on fiscal imbalance, which I have the honour to chair. Ontario finance minister Greg Sorbara told us that, since this agreement, Ontario has been questioning its participation in the federal tax base and Canada wide programs. It is not that Ontario no longer wants to contribute to these programs, but rather it feels that, in a great gesture of generosity, with a specific agreement like this one, the government has undermined one of the basic principles of the equalization program, which speaks of equity.

There is no more equity. The Prime Minister has gotten us into an unprecedented mess. Such a mess that, instead of lessening the inequities between provinces and reducing fiscal imbalance, horizontal as well as vertical, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have heightened disparities.

Let me illustrate the financial magnitude of this agreement with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Huge amounts are involved. Equalization is paid per person, that is to say, on a per capita basis. If we take the amount that will be provided to Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, namely $2.6 billion over eight years, including $2 billion immediately from the Minister of Finance's surplus for the 2004-05 financial year, and apply it to Quebec on a per capita basis, the payment—listen to this—would be $38 billion over eight years for the Government of Quebec. That is if the generosity of this agreement with Newfoundland and Labrador is taken into account.

It is so generous and it so upsets the delicate financial balance of the equalization formula and its concern for inter-provincial equity that at the present time—it can be seen and we have heard it from Mr. Sorbara and from Messrs. Audet and Séguin in Quebec City—at this very moment, if this agreement is taken into account, the fiscal capacity of Newfoundland and Labrador has surpassed that of Quebec, of course, but Ontario's as well. The term fiscal capacity refers to the ability to generate revenue from property taxes, individual income taxes, the GST, etc., in short, the 33 sources of user fees and taxes taken into account in the equalization formula.

It is hardly surprising that Mr. McGuinty and Mr. Sorbara have come out saying that this no longer makes sense. One cannot have special agreements like this, which upset and completely mess up a system that the government wants to improve. Instead of the system being improved, it has been messed up even more than it was. It can hardly be said that corrective action was taken when everyone revolts and wants to have special agreements like this.

Is the federal government not teetering on the edge of a slippery slope here and at risk of losing its balance because of this special agreement? Instead, a comprehensive approach to and reform of equalization and taxes and comprehensive reforms of them.

In fact, the equalization debate is actually part of a broader discussion about the fiscal imbalance. Everybody can see it in Canada, from Halifax to Regina. As a matter of fact, we were in Regina just yesterday with Premier Calvert. Everyone knows that it makes no sense for the federal government to have individual agreements like this and pit the provinces against each other in this way. Over the next five years, with special agreements as generous as the one for Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, the federal government 's surpluses are expected to total $70 billion.

All provincial governments are staggering under the burden of their responsibility to provide quality services. These services are enshrined in the Constitution as part of the equalization program. Everyone wants to provide quality services, but front-line health, education and social services are the responsibility of each province. They are staggering under the load and do not have sufficient financial resources to be able to adequately respond to these fundamental needs, which rank among the highest priorities of Quebeckers and Canadians.

Meanwhile, the federal government is piling surplus on surplus. In the next five years they may well reach $70 billion. The federal government negotiates individual agreements in order to get the provinces bickering, so that it can ride to the rescue and be lord and master of the allocation of funds.

This approach is unacceptable. It cannot continue.

The minister was talking about equity. Allow me to give an example that disproves his statement. When we talk about treating the provinces fairly, the formulas and the weights for each province are based on very clear and very fair rules.

This special agreement has been reached with Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, which has already added more pressure to the fiscal imbalance caused by the election promises of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance.

In addition to this special agreement, another was reached with Saskatchewan. This year, it was decided to give that province $582 million. Even though the province was not entitled to equalization payments, the Minister of Finance, a native of Saskatchewan, found a way to manipulate the figures so that it would receive $582 million.

Since we are talking about equity, let us talk about it truthfully. While special agreements are being signed with certain provinces, the Government of Quebec is being asked to return an equalization overpayment it is claimed to have been paid in recent years, in the sum of $2.4 billion.

Side deals were made in order to exclude sources of significant income, as in the offshore oil revenues in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. A side deal was reached with Saskatchewan that would pay it more than $580 million, even though it is not entitled to equalization, and British Columbia's equalization debt of roughly $132 million—if I am not mistaken—was forgiven. However, Quebec is being asked to reimburse $2.4 billion. This is fair. That is how the provinces are being treated fairly and according to strict and fair criteria invariable from one province to the next.

The Minister of Finance should be ashamed of the gulf between his actions and words, which he passes off as a solution to the equalization problem. This is no solution. Anything the government has done about equalization from the start simply makes an even bigger mess of it. The formula does not convey the fiscal capacity of the provinces very fairly. I will come back to this later.

There is a double standard when it comes to negotiating with Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Quebec. We call that inequitable, unfair and irresponsible. The Prime Minister made a commitment that has put us in an unbelievable vicious circle where everyone is dissatisfied when they do not get a side deal like Newfoundland and Nova Scotia did.

Yesterday in Regina during a session of the Subcommittee on Fiscal Imbalance, which I chaired, I had the opportunity and immense honour of welcoming the Premier of Saskatchewan, Mr. Calvert. I must say, his presentation was extraordinary. He truly presented things as they are, with perhaps one of the best analysis that has been presented to the Subcommittee on Fiscal Imbalance since it began its work. We were very proud to include him among the distinguished guests of the committee.

Mr. Calvert mentioned the unfair treatment Saskatchewan has suffered with regard to equalization payment clawback rates. The Minister of Finance should show some sensitivity. He also said that his province has suffered as a result of the treatment of the mining sector. Under this miserable equalization formula, which should have been overhauled a decade ago, the mining sector is compared to a national average, which does not take into account specific regional and sectoral differences. This means that the Government of Saskatchewan's mineral resource revenues are unreasonably inflated and so its equalization payments are reduced accordingly.

The panel of experts should have asked to seek a solution to this situation. In passing, the panel members are highly respectable individuals, such as Robert Lacroix, an economist and my university thesis advisor.

Mr. Lacroix is a very competent economist with a great deal of experience. Furthermore, he is a nice person and he was my professor. As a result, I cannot criticize my alma mater, the Université de Montréal, and the economics department, as well as the then department head, who was Robert Lacroix, my professor and thesis advisor. All joking aside, I am extremely pleased that Mr. Lacroix is on this committee along with various other people whom I respect, of course.

However, their mandate is not to review the parameters of equalization or, for example, the treatment afforded mining or property taxes. This is not something Quebec alone is demanding; almost all the other provinces are asking that the parameters of the equalization program relating to revenue sources and fiscal capacity be overhauled.

It is, for example, so easy to introduce provincial property values directly into the formula that some technologists somewhere have found a way to make things so complicated, to develop approximations and to tell us that variables had to be taken into account, ones that were totally wrong. As a result, we end up today with an evaluation of Quebec's property tax capacity for 2002 at $71,400 per capita.This figure is arrived at using a convoluted process that makes no sense and gives some people with some rather original ways of thinking the latitude to complicate the formulas. In fact, with the latitude to come up with just about anything. This figure of $71,400 is supposed to be Quebec's per capita property tax capacity.

The real figure for 2002 was in the order of $30,000. With the formula the government used, it is over twice that. What does this variable end up doing? Inflating Quebec's property tax potential and reducing equalization payments accordingly. Over the years, the government has used a number of similar ruses to avoid having to measure true tax potential and to get away with paying less in equalization payments than the recipient provinces ought to have been entitled to.

As for the yardstick, fiscal capacity is evaluated and there are already problems with the assessment, as we have seen with property taxes. The average is calculated on the basis of five provinces. Why five, when there are ten provinces and two territories? Because, at some point, the arbitrary decision was made to use five rather than ten because this meant paying less to the recipient provinces. The federal government did calculations using the 10 province standard and found the figure too high, so it lowered the number to 5. Why? Had they used the real average, that is the average of fiscal capacity for all of Canada, including all the provinces and territories, they would have come up with a far better figure. That too needs to be corrected.

Yesterday, I also spoke to Mr. Calvert about the mining industry. Corrections need to be made there as well. This is not the mandate of the committee of experts, but it should be taken care of. I will give an example. There needs to be the intellectual honesty and the political honesty to explain the real reasons and to say that reforming the equalization formula would correct a good number of interprovincial inequities and allow us to achieve the constitutional objective of equalization, which is to provide public services of comparable quality with comparable levels of taxation. If this were done, Saskatchewan would receive $364 million more a year. This would be the case if the property tax base—the distinction when it comes to the mining industry—were corrected and if we used a 10 province standard rather than a 5 province standard. This should please Mr. Calvert and my colleague from Prince Albert, who, by the way, does more to defend the interests of Saskatchewan than the Minister of Finance does. I commend him on this. Yesterday, at the committee hearings, he correctly indicated he would work to defend the interests of that province.

True corrective measures need to be taken with equalization that take into account interprovincial equity and the true fiscal capacities of the provinces. The government's divide and conquer approach in making side deals with a given province must end, otherwise the other provinces will rise up against it, as we saw with Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.

We must reform equalization payments, but we must also settle the fiscal imbalance issue. That is the mandate of our committee and I hope that the Minister of Finance listens to it today. In the end, part of the federal government's expected $70 billion surplus over the next five years must be redistributed to the provinces through the transfer of tax fields and by changes in the equalization formula to provide equitable benefits to all recipient provinces. In that way, even the provinces which do not receive payments, such as Ontario, could recover some of the room to manoeuvre they once had.

For example, Ontario had a deficit of $6 billion this year and $10 billion the year before. The Government of Quebec is also headed towards a deficit this year and next year. It is not reasonable to be accumulating surpluses here and creating problems of this sort for the provinces.

I hope that the Minister of Finance has understood and that the Conservative Party has realized that we cannot support such a motion. On the other hand, we are prepared to work toward more general and more suitable solutions for all provinces.

[Supply, March 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Joliette. His comments are always relevant and he is very eloquent when it comes time to defend the interests of Quebeckers. In this case, it is really the interests of Quebeckers that are at stake in every possible way. We are talking about the fight against organized crime. There is also the fact that the burden of proof is reversed and that the taxpayers should not have to pay to demonstrate that a criminal's assets are the proceeds of illegal criminal activities.

I would like to ask my colleague a question regarding RCMP detachments. Further to last week's unfortunate events in western Canada where four RCMP officers were killed by a drug dealer, how does he see the future of Joliette's detachment? Does he not feel that we should leave all those detachments open, including the one in Joliette?

I know that he is fighting hard for that. As he said earlier, he was responsible for setting up the Info-Crime committee in his region. It is a very dynamic committee that is proving successful in a difficult region. Where there is a lot of agricultural activity, there are also a lot of cannabis producers connected to biker gangs. What does he think about the reopening of the detachment in his riding?

[Supply, March 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. Obviously, this will make things much easier. In fact, now, the Crown has to produce evidence beyond all reasonable doubt that the accused acquired some of his assets as the result of criminal activities.

When we talk about the “balance of probabilities”, we are looking at the bare facts. The accused will have to explain to Revenue Canada, for example, or Revenue Québec or the Ministry of Finance of Ontario—since the problem of marijuana growers and drug traffickers is in Ontario too because the Hells Angels are in Ontario—how he acquired $25,000 or $30,000 in earnings over the past five years, a home worth half a million dollars, a country house worth $250,000 and two Mercedes, three Harley-Davidsons and so on, and how his wife, who has no known employment, has acquired assets of almost equal value. He will have to provide clear proof.

The balance of probabilities means that, considering all the probabilities, including the lifestyle and employment of the accused, the following question remains: is it possible for a normal person—with the exception of a lottery winner, which is easily verified—to own so much. At that point, things will proceed quickly. In fact, the process will be a bit more normal than it is now with the notion of “beyond all reasonable doubt”, because the Crown is under the obligation to produce hundreds, if not thousands, of pages, incredible amounts of research, and public funds are used to better serve the criminals once again.

Furthermore, it is scandalous that, during the megatrial following the police operation in the spring of 2001, some judge somewhere decided, with all due respect, to increase legal aid fees for the Hells Angels Nomad chapter to $125 per hour for its defence. This is a complete outrage. I hope this will not happen in the future.

[Supply, March 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Joliette for his question. Indeed, I would like to pay tribute to him, for when we first talked about Info-crime and the possibility of setting up Info-crime committees all over Quebec, he was the first to launch an initiative in his riding. Since then, the Joliette Info-crime committee has been one of the most active in Quebec in terms of combating organized crime.

He has of course put his finger on something that is fundamental. When I was talking about luxury gardeners earlier, in reference to grow operators linked to the Hells Angels, that is not my own expression. I should have explained where it comes from. It comes from Commissioner Bourduas of the RCMP, who is responsible for Quebec and Eastern Canada. He was telling us that it was not the RCMP's role to hunt down luxury gardeners, as he called them. I hope he will reconsider his understanding of the situation. The Hells Angels, like the other criminal groups involved in the production and trafficking of narcotics, are not luxury gardeners. We saw a sad example of this in the west last week, with the murder of four RCMP officers. I take this opportunity to offer my condolences to the families and friends bereaved by this quadruple murder.

We must get back to basic necessities. When police forces are not on the ground closely tracking the networks, the establishment of networks and their connections with international networks, they cannot do their work properly. We had an example of this with the events of September 11 in the United States. The Senate committee looked into what the government should have done but did not do, what the police should have done but did not do, what the CIA should have done but did not do. It has become clear that the CIA did exactly what the RCMP is doing right now, which is to remove the police officers on the ground who were in the habit of doing surveillance, of getting to know the local networks and their international connections. They put them in central offices in New York and Washington and told them: “Now do the same work you did before”. There was nobody on the ground.

Now the RCMP is making the same mistake. This happened in Ontario, and now the RCMP is no longer in Northern Ontario. The distances are far too great. When there are 300 km to go in order to answer a call or tail people, it is not an effective way to start an investigation. We will therefore continue our fight to keep the nine detachments open and the RCMP continuing to do its outstanding job, together with the Sûreté du Québec, in order to fight organized crime better. Closing a detachment is giving organized crime another opportunity. It is they who benefit most from this decision.