Yvan Loubier

[National Volunteer Week, April 21st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, during national volunteer week, I want to pay special tribute to the thousands of people of Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot and elsewhere in Quebec who, every day, put their time and skills to use helping their neighbours.

National volunteer week is a chance for the public to better understand just how much volunteers contribute to sports and recreation, community, institutional and cultural affairs. These individuals work tirelessly, and by working with local associations and agencies, they help tens of thousands of people attain a better quality of life, stay in touch with the rest of society and break the isolation and solitude that many suffer.

Volunteers are an essential resource in our society. I want to take this opportunity during this special week to thank all those who devote their time and energy to improving their communities.

[Westbank First Nation Self-Government Act, April 20th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this important bill.

The agreement with the Westbank First Nation occurs after years and years of negotiations between the federal government and the first nation. I recall that last December, before we adjourned for the holidays, the Westbank First Nation was assured that its agreement would be passed by this Parliament. I remember very clearly that in the galleries there was a large delegation from Westbank, which came to observe the conclusion of these years of effort, consultation and tough negotiations.

Instead of recognizing the success of their efforts in December, one Conservative MP refused to give consent for the rapid approval of this agreement. I said to myself then that this was not the right way to reward the work of the first nations who all seek, without exception, to enjoy the inherent right to self government.

This inherent right is not there for us to amend, debate or misinterpret. It is there, either because of ancestral treaties or because the first nations stipulate that it is a right given them by the Creator as the first inhabitants of this land.

I was very disappointed when I saw that these attempts at self-government were not gratified. I remember that, in 1998, the report by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Erasmus-Dussault report, invited us to undertake a vast reform. Over the next 20 years, this reform would resolve everything with all the first nations in Quebec and Canada. It would resolve the issue of self-government, which is the only healthy avenue available to our two communities to ensure harmonious development, and the growth too of the first nations, as well as the immediate resolution of the first nations' numerous needs.

We have yet to take the first step. The Conservatives, both those on the committee and here in Parliament, with all the means at their disposal, are trying to prevent the adoption of this self-government agreement, called a self-government framework agreement. They used dilatory measures in committee. Now, they are continuing by introducing amendments irrelevant to what we intend this agreement to do. They will probably keep it up as long as possible. They will probably also ensure that, if the election is called, Parliament does not adopt before prorogation this Westbank first nation self-government agreement. This is a terrible shame.

I want to come back to the Conservatives' amendment. I ask members to listen carefully. It is essential to read it carefully to see that it was illogical:

The force of law—

That is good.

In the bill before the House, subsection 3(2) states,

Persons and bodies have the powers, rights, privileges and benefits conferred on them by the Agreement and are subject to the obligations and liabilities imposed on them by the Agreement.

What the Conservatives were proposing was to strike this clause. Striking this clause is essentially abrogating the whole agreement. How can we adopt an agreement that confers no rights, powers, privileges or benefits to the communities identified in the agreement? This is illogical.

We know that 71% of first nations communities across Canada are currently being represented at 80 negotiating tables and that many years of work past and to come have been planned in order to reach a self-government agreement. People from the Westbank First Nation have worked very hard, drawing on a heightened social conscience to liberate the first nation from a position of underdevelopment. When a first nation such as Westbank has done its work well, then we can only disagree with measures such as the ones being proposed by the Conservatives that make absolutely no sense and are completely retrograde.

What is more, other self-government agreements will end here. I have the impression that the Conservatives will make other attempts to undermine these self-government agreements. It is a kind of knee-jerk reaction. They criticize first nations for being underdeveloped, unable to do anything about it, and dependent on the government. However, when presented with a self-government agreement, they object.

What do they want? Do they want first nations to remain utterly dependent, with an Indian Act that dates back 130 years and bears a strong resemblance to an apartheid law, or do they want things to change?

If they want things to change then we must act quickly. Six years have passed since the royal commission report was tabled. That leaves 14 years to settle all the cases if we want to implement the recommendations. There are cases and situations of unbelievable urgency.

With respect to drinking water alone, most first nations territories have problems with their water supply. It is hard to imagine that today, in 2004, in a developed country, there could be a situation where problems exist with the drinking water supply. This situation is pervasive for first nations.

In terms of housing as well, it is quite incredible. I have personally had the opportunity to visit a number of aboriginal communities, and what I have seen is a disaster. At Weymontachie alone, for example, there are 113 houses and all 113 of them are under attack from chronic mould problems. These houses are overpopulated.

This morning, Mr. Fontaine, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, told us that there are currently 93,000 housing units on reserves, but there are 113,000 households. We can see this is an extraordinary shortage, and, in addition, most of the older housing stock needs renovations. Some houses need to be demolished because of the problems I have just mentioned.

At Barriere Lake, it is unbelievable: floors have completely rotted out. Vermin enter the houses, and children have to be put up in hammocks out of their reach.

These are emergency situations. When will the Conservatives understand that we must stop stalling properly negotiated self-government projects, with all the guarantees they may have, even for the municipality of Kelowna, because the time is up? That is not what must be done. The self-government process must be accelerated, and it must be done with enthusiasm. The same should be done with modern treaties so that first nations communities can benefit from economic development.

As you know, I am an economist, so I regularly follow the statistics on the economic development of Quebec and Canada, on employment, increased household wealth, investments in strategic sectors and so on. It has always struck me, particularly in the past two years since becoming the critic on this issue, that there is one segment of the population that cannot gain anything from this economic development.

Now, it has been given an opportunity to do so, and there will be others. The Innu of Quebec are well into the negotiating process. This situation must be addressed head on, with as much vigour and determination as one would use in defending one's own family members. We must be sure that, within 10 or 15 years, there will be no more problems with the first nations, and that they will be able to govern themselves, to develop, and to share in the benefits of economic growth.

There must be no more systematic obstruction on trivial grounds. This is a complete disgrace, and not appropriate behaviour by this Parliament. Nor by anyone else. It is inhumane to leave part of the aboriginal population in abject poverty, with undrinkable water and inadequate housing, with multiple drug use among their youth, and, in certain communities, with over 75% unemployment.

If there is any humanity at all left among the Conservatives, or in other words if even a few members have a social conscience, the only thing that can be done is to step up the entire process of self-government so that we can all develop in harmony.

We will therefore be voting against these amendments.

[Sponsorship Program, April 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, these documents should have been available a week ago now, and we are still waiting. The government has used all kinds of pretexts to delay having to produce the list of events paid for by the same fund used for the sponsorship scandal. We can see right through the government's little game.

Will the President of the Treasury Board stop playing games and make these documents public before the election?

[Sponsorship Program, April 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the government seems to be suffering from the disease of inability. Inability to guarantee that Chuck Guité will appear before the committee prior to the election, and now the President of the Treasury Board is suffering from the same disease, since he says he is unable to provide documents on the national unity fund, which was used to fund the sponsorship scandal, despite the commitments by members of the Prime Minister's Office.

Can the government guarantee that these documents will be available before the election is called?

[Rural Communities, March 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, a few days ago, I organized an evening of discussions on the future of our rural communities, in conjunction with Solidarité populaire and the Sans-Chemise Richelieu-Yamaska. Our exceptional guest speakers were Jacques Proulx, president of Solidarité rurale, Msgr. Lapierre, Bishop of Saint-Hyacinthe, Denis Marion, municipal councillor for Massueville, and Jean-Paul Saint-Amand, of Solidarité populaire.

This important event was attended by over 125 decision makers from the RCMs of Maskoutins and Acton. What is facing rural communities is not so much problems as particular challenges. There is a common denominator among all rural people: the desire to defend their difference and to refuse to allow themselves to be considered as second class citizens.

Twenty percent of the population is rural, but that 20% feeds and clothes the other 80%. The rural community therefore plays a vital societal role.

The Government of Quebec has understood this for some years now, and has systematically adapted its policies to rural specificities. It is high time the federal government did the same with its programs and policies. The Bloc Quebecois is solidly committed to fight for recognition of this rural reality, and support for it.

[Jean Vigneault, March 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, last week Saint-Hyacinthe and area lost a major figure, when Jean Vigneault, editor in chief of the Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe , editorial writer, radio personality and voice of conscience, died more quietly than he had ever lived.

Jean Vigneault loved a good fight, particularly a political fight. I have more than once been the victim of his tongue and pen, and they were always sharp. Yet I knew him to be a man of unfailing social commitment, well aware of his influence and making admirable use of that sharp pen to bring about improvements for the common good.

Our last battles on the same side were about employment insurance and keeping the faculty of veterinary medicine. We were at least partially victorious.

Although we did not share the same point of view about the future of Quebec, I kept hoping to be able to convince Jean Vigneault of my views, and as a result of all our discussions we just naturally came to be friends .

My sincere condolences to his wife and family. We will long remember Mr. Vigneault, and our best memories will be of his powerful jibes in the print media.

[The Budget, March 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my illustrious colleague from Trois-Rivières for his question.

We have been aware of this trend since 1993. Perhaps it started a bit before that, but let us say 1993, accelerating after the 1995 referendum. The federal government is constructing a unitary state in Canada, a state that is not either confederal or federal, but rather on the way to becoming unitary.

Quebec's difference is being undermined. In Quebec, we are no better than the others, but neither are we worse. We have had a National Assembly for decades now. That National Assembly is more than just a place, or a label. It is called a National Assembly because it represents a nation. That nation is the Quebec nation.

Here, the Quebec nation is trampled under foot. Quebeckers have got the message. The next election campaign will, of course, address federal files, but it will also address the future of Quebec. We are going to explain, over and over, at every possible town hall meeting and every other opportunity we have, just what the federal government is involved in, that is, building a unitary state. It is ignoring the very Constitution it claims to be defending.

As I indicated earlier, the federal government's intrusions were costlier in 2002 than its expenditures in its own areas of jurisdiction. Imagine that. The motivation behind these intrusions is not pleasure, but a strategy. The government is systematically demolishing the National Assembly and what makes Quebec different. It is building the Canadian unitary state, while in 1867 it was a matter of a pact between two founding peoples.

That pact between two founding peoples fell by the wayside a long time ago. Those who say that federalism deserves a chance must be convinced. It needs no more chances. Our nationhood is being destroyed little by little. The powers of the National Assembly, the only assembly over which we, Quebeckers, have full control are being drained away. Here, our control is only 24%. That needs to be explained to the people of Quebec.

More and more of them are getting it. If we look at the tenacity reflected in the polls on sovereignty in Quebec, 47% of Quebeckers—and there is not even a referendum campaign going on—believe in sovereignty for Quebec and believe it will come to pass.

We have outrageous examples of what has happened here. I am talking not only about the sponsorship scandal, but also about the intrusions, about the social union, where Quebec was left out once again, as during the patriation of the Constitution of 1982. I am convinced that, with such outrageous examples, people will have enough of this regime.

It would be so simple, and this is what we will be explaining to our fellow citizens in Quebec, whom we have been representing so well since 1993, while the federal Liberals from Quebec are flouting them through their involvement in the building of a unitarian state here. We will remind them that it would be so simple if we decided for ourselves what more we could do with the 50% of taxes that we send to Ottawa, to meet challenges such as demography, population aging, regional development, particularly in rural regions, social and economic development, the family policy and parental leave that the federal government is refusing to provide us. It has young families waiting for this, out of stubbornness, because it is not a Canada-wide program.

What the government is doing here is terrible. This is quiet violence. There is no war, no quarrelling; this is a democracy, and so much the better. But what the government is imposing on an entire people is extremely serious. Through the fiscal imbalance, it is taking away the tools of the only assembly representative of Quebeckers. It is also undermining the morale of the troops by not providing adequate resources for health and education, and for families.

Only candidates and members of the Bloc Quebecois will bring the government to its senses and will convince Quebeckers that the way ahead is not to send a group of MPs here for a lifetime, but one last time, to pave the way for Quebec's sovereignty and make it a reality. This is our role.

[The Budget, March 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my illustrious colleague from Joliette for this question. This is indeed very solid proof. I would be ashamed to stand as a Liberal candidate after all the scandals I mentioned at the start of my remarks: the sponsorship program, the HRDC boondoggle, the Auberge Grand-Mère scandal, the $2 billion spent on the firearms registry, and so on.

But on top of that, not a single Liberal member from Quebec has ever stood up in this House to uphold the consensuses that emerged on various issues in Quebec, or to promote the issues and priorities of Quebeckers. These are members we used to call doormat members. Maybe we should still call them that. They are just a backdrop in this House, and their only ambition is to become cabinet ministers. If you want to become a cabinet minister in a Liberal government, you had better keep your mouth shut and not rock the boat.

When they say, with the Liberals, the House will be more consensual, and that the Prime Minister's new approach will humanize government, it is just hogwash. Each Liberal member in this House is one voice less for Quebeckers to state their position on the fiscal imbalance, on the lack of transfers for health care and the resulting waiting lists.

Not a single Liberal member from Quebec stood in this House to speak out against the health care scandal, the lack of transfer payments, so that the sick in Quebec can get adequate care. Not a single Liberal member from Quebec opened his mouth or spoke out against the sponsorship scandal. I can understand that, because they have been caught in the act.

Not a single one of them condemned the employment insurance program, a program that is totally inconsistent and poorly managed, with the result that 60% of those who should benefit from it do not qualify. Has anyone heard a Liberal member raise this issue? Of course not. They keep repeating what their ministers are saying, because their only ambition is to become cabinet ministers themselves. They are not interested in serving the public. They are not interested in representing their constituents. The only ambition that most Liberal Party members have is to become ministers, to look after their own interests, not to serve the public.

If they had wanted to serve the public they would have condemned these scandals a long time ago, because they knew what was going on. They can say whatever they want now, they knew what was going on. They should have condemned a long time ago the lack of care for the sick, a situation for which the current Prime Minister and former finance minister is responsible, because he made drastic cuts.

But things are beginning to come out. Yesterday, I was listening to the hon. member for Hamilton East during a popular program on Télé-Québec. People are beginning to open up a little. Some may have a greater social conscience than others. However, this was not a federal Liberal member from Quebec. Federal Liberal members from Quebec are tight lipped, they are not saying anything, they do not talk about the consensuses that exist in Quebec and this is very sad.

People will remember this in the next election. Bloc Quebecois members are the only ones who can protect their interests in the House of Commons, promote our distinctiveness as Quebeckers and explain our different ways of doing things, including in areas such as the economy and social development. It is not Liberal members who will do this; it is Bloc Quebecois members. People will remember that.

[The Budget, March 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I was wondering how I was going to get back to the subject of the budget as I began my speech, but the hon. member for Mississauga West has given me my cue, because he has asked us to look at the record of the Liberal Party as a whole, after 10 years in government. I am looking at it, that Liberal Party record after 10 years in government, and I am not sure that the hon. member will be as proud as he is now after I have listed what that record amounts to. It amounts to a series of scandals.

There was an employment insurance scandal, where the government systematically stole the $45 billion employment insurance fund surplus, money that comes from employers and employees, thereby ignoring nearly 60% of the people who would normally have been entitled to employment insurance.

There was also a scandal at Human Resources Development Canada. When the current health minister was minister of HRDC, many irregularities were never clarified.

There was the Auberge Grand-Mère scandal. There was the gun registry scandal. That program, which should have cost $60 million, has now cost nearly $2 billion.

There was the sponsorship scandal and the fiscal imbalance scandal, which has become the health scandal. What people have to understand is that the fiscal imbalance leads to problems in the health care system and a lack of resources for taking care of the sick.

I do not know whether, after hearing the list of all these scandals that have blemished Liberal mandates since 1993, my hon. friend from Mississauga West is still just as proud to be a Liberal. He will not be present in the election campaign, unfortunately, but others will take his place. We will make it our duty to remind them that such has been the Liberal administration since 1993.

Let us return to the health scandal. Far from having corrected the fiscal imbalance in the latest budget, the government has made it worse. It has interfered and has not increased transfer payments for health, even though there is a consensus not only in Quebec but all across Canada: the increase is zero.

When we look at the budget charts, we think it shameful that in the supplementary expenditures for 2003-04, there is the infamous $2 billion that has been announced five times or so, which had already been committed by the Prime Minister's predecessor, Jean Chrétien.

There is no money for health under the other two columns, for 2004-05 and 2005-06. It is not because the government does not have the means; my hon. colleague from Joliette sets the surplus at around $9 billion or $10 billion for the next fiscal year. Should we not have met the public's basic needs? The response from coast to coast is unanimous: additional expenditures in health are needed because the system is under pressure. Why is it under pressure? Simply because the needs are increasing as the population ages. Health expenditures are said to be increasing by 7% per year.

Two weeks ago, I read that, in Quebec, 10,000 women with breast cancer had launched a class action suit against the Quebec government because they had not received treatment in time. But the Quebec government is not responsible, the federal government is. The former finance minister, now Prime Minister, was the one who decided again this year not to do anything to respond to the top public priority.

When the current Prime Minister was finance minister, he liked to beat records. He chose to beat the record with regard to the debt to GDP ratio of his G-7 colleagues. This is his focus, and therein lies his ambition. The rest is not important.

I was saying that this budget, instead of correcting the fiscal imbalance, does not contain any direct transfer payments for health to help the sick. However, federal interferences in exclusive provincial and Quebec jurisdictions have continued.

An amount of $600 million was announced for a new Canada public health agency, and $500 million for a public health surveillance system in Canada. There are already structures in place across Canada with responsibilities similar to those of these two institutions; Quebec, in particular, has the Direction de la santé publique. Nevertheless, nearly $1 billion is being invested to create structures that duplicate ones already responsible for public health surveillance. As for the new public health agency, its role, as outlined in the budget, is identical to that of the Direction de la santé publique.

Many people have been left out of this budget, and that is disgraceful. As I said earlier, one of the scandals tarnishing this government's reputation is employment insurance. Come election time, this government will be held accountable.

Some 40% of people entitled to receive employment insurance benefits are actually receiving them. The other 60% are being excluded because of the former finance minister, the current Prime Minister. This has not been resolved. The eligibility criteria have not been relaxed—far from it. Seasonal workers have been ignored.

It is not just the workers, but the seasonal industry that is affected. Imagine what an impact this has on the regions. Year after year, they are in a situation where workers are denied employment insurance benefits. They go through a gap—as it is called—during which time they do not receive any income. That might work for a year or two or three. They come back to the seasonal industry, but eventually the seasonal industry will be short on manpower.

Do seasonal workers want to keep going through this gap situation for much longer? There is going to be a labour shortage and we are in the process of killing the regions that rely on seasonal industries.

The employment insurance scandal continues. Some $45 billion has already been stolen from the employment insurance fund. The government continues to help itself to the surpluses that come out of the pockets of employers and employees. The scandal continues.

There is also the softwood lumber issue. Workers and companies have been waiting for a long time—years. The current Minister of Health, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister responsible for Official Languages, who is very convincing in his speeches, sometimes departs dangerously from the truth in what he announces and says, particularly regarding equalization. I will come back to this later.

This minister has done nothing for them but deliver fine speeches. The softwood lumber industry has been left to fend for itself. Workers affected by this sector have been left to fend for themselves. The government has not so much as deigned to make the employment insurance rules more flexible to take into account a crisis that neither the industry or the workers have control over. They have been forgotten.

Social housing has also been forgotten. Sure, it looks good on camera for the Prime Minister, the former finance minister, who has never shown any concern for social housing, to be in the company of François Saillant of FRAPRU. The Prime Minister gave these people a lot of hope. This budget has dashed their hopes: there is nothing for social housing.

There is another scandal I neglected to mention earlier. This is my opportunity to return to it now. It is the guaranteed income supplement for seniors, which is intended for the low income seniors of Quebec and Canada. These are the least well off. It was kept from them for years that they were entitled to the guaranteed income supplement if their income came close to the poverty line. They were not informed.

When my Bloc Quebecois colleague from Champlain put his finger on the problem, revealing that the federal government was concealing this program so that the least well off seniors did not receive benefits, he began to tour Quebec to bring into the loop all the organizations working with seniors in any capacity. All my Bloc Quebecois colleagues were associated with that campaign to inform and support low income seniors, so that they might benefit from the GIS. This spurred the government to action.

It began to think it should start paying attention. After keeping this hidden for years, they now had to pay attention. Seniors, among the most disadvantaged, were fleeced out of $3 billion. In Quebec, 68,000 seniors were and still are eligible for the supplement. We contacted some of them through our actions the length and breadth of Quebec. We tried to contact all seniors, but were not wholly successful.

Was it not the responsibility of the government to help seniors, who are among the most disadvantaged, and to give them guidance so they receive up to $6,000 a year in supplemental income? That amount is the price of a magnificent bottle of wine, a Petrus or a Bordeaux Premier Grand Cru, such as Jean Lapierre says he shared with the people of Lafleur Communications of sponsorship scandal fame. He did remember drinking a Premier Grand Cru or a Petrus. That, I have said and repeat now, costs $5,000. With that kind of money, I would have helped a senior in my riding get out of poverty. This is shameful, particularly when that $5,000 bottle was the by-product of the sponsorship scandal. And Jean Lapierre boasts of it. That I find absolutely disgusting.

On the topic of aboriginal peoples, the government always wants to look good. There is never a throne speech without a reference to the first nations, respect for the first nations, respect for the treaties and respect for section 35 of the new Constitution of 1982, which recognizes aboriginal self-government and related rights. It looks good in speeches, and in the lovely Canadian mosaic.

But when it is time to take action, budget after budget, all there is left for the many problems facing the first nations of Canada is small change. For example, there is the housing problem. This year, 400 housing units will be built in Quebec and Labrador. To meet the urgent and dramatic needs of the first nations, 8,000 ought to be built. This makes no sense. There is no mention made of this in the budget.

Of course, there is a few tens of millions of dollars for education, and a little for health. It is clearly insufficient. First, funding has to increase to accelerate negotiations on first nations self-government. That is the only hope the people of the first nations, from east to west in Canada, have of one day getting out of poverty.

Instead of that, self-government agreements are signed once in a while. But there is never any political will to bring about what the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples asked for in 1998: to set the scene so that, in 20 years, all self-government problems would be solved. That is the only viable path to harmony of relations between the first nations and ourselves, and it would also be a way to provide them with development tools. There is nothing in here, just a mention and a few million dollars in order to look good.

With respect to day care, we can congratulate the government. They have put money into day care in the rest of Canada—$150 million. Since 1998, the year in which we established the $5 day care system, which has become $7 because of the lack of federal transfers, we have been demanding that the money that parents in Quebec have lost in income tax credits for day care be transferred to the Government of Quebec. This year, it will amount to $225 million. This would help finance $5 day care, which has become $7 day care.

Since 1998, this represents a $1 billion shortfall in federal tax credits. So, the amount of $150 million that the federal government is providing for childcare in the rest of Canada was funded by Quebec parents. It was funded by the Quebec government, because the federal government refused to negotiate anything in terms of fiscal flexibility or transferring the money lost by Quebec parents to the Quebec government, to help fund the $5 a day daycare program.

There is nothing either for education in this budget. There is, of course, the student loans program. However, an enhanced student loans program will make things more complicated with the loan and scholarship program that Quebec has had in place since the early sixties. In 1964, Lester B. Pearson and Jean Lesage met for constitutional talks, and Mr. Lesage put his foot down. Letting the federal government get involved in the student loan and scholarship area was out of the question. This is a Quebec jurisdiction.

We find ourselves in a situation where the Canada Student Loans Program is enhanced, but without any compensation for Quebec. It is always like that.

We could make a list of all the injustices done to Quebec. Quebec is penalized because it goes further and faster than the rest of Canada with its policies. This is the case with the $5 a day daycare program, which is the envy of all industrialized countries and serves as a model all over the world. But we are penalized because we act more quickly.

As regards equalization, is it not scandalous to read, in documents accompanying the budget, that the federal government has unilaterally decided to impose a new equalization formula for the next five years? The Minister of Health used to tell us tales when he was the Minister of Human Resources Development. When he was Minister for International Trade, he used to put his foot in his mouth regarding the softwood lumber issue. Now, this same minister has the nerve to tell us that this new equalization formula meets all the requirements of Minister Séguin, in Quebec.

We have heard Minister Séguin on television and on the radio, and we have read what he said in the newspapers. He said that this formula was unacceptable to Quebec. The Minister of Health continues to tell tales. He continues to talk through his hat. Actually, one wonders why that minister is still there.

Where municipalities are concerned, do they not realize that they have announced the same policy ten times already? There is nothing new in the budget. We already knew about the GST rebate for municipalities, but we expected more than that.

We were expecting the government to do something about the fiscal imbalance, because it is the only route to go. The federal government, led by the Prime Minister while he was finance minister, never acknowledged this problem of fiscal imbalance. Until the issue is resolved and until there is a new reallocation of taxation sectors between the federal government and the provinces, including Quebec, we will continue to have a problem.

The underfunding of municipalities stems from the underfunding of provincial governments, especially in Quebec. Once that issue is resolved, municipalities will get more money. I would advise the municipalities to join together and come here to protest against the federal government. That is a key part of the solution to deal with the underfunding for the immediate needs of the public.

I have a lot of respect for municipal officials, because they have to cope with members of their communities and provide all the services required. But when Ottawa cuts transfers, it creates problems for the provinces and Quebec in particular which prevent them from transferring taxation sectors to the municipalities or generating new sources of revenue. That is a concept they need to grasp.

My eighth point with regard to the budget is federal interference. Jacques Léonard, who was President of the Treasury Board for many years at the National Assembly, chaired a committee. My colleagues from Joliette, Drummond and Lotbinière—L'Érable and I worked on what was known as the Léonard committee report.

There was a chapter on excessive spending. In terms of bureaucratic and administrative expenditures, we realized that, under the former finance minister, now Prime Minister, departmental budgets had increased dramatically. This increase exceeded 300%. This defied logic. This was the case, for example, for Communication Canada polls and also for Justice. Bureaucratic expenditures soared.

There was a second part to this report. It was the analysis of the situation since Confederation. This had not been done since Confederation, and allowed us to examine the evolution of federal interferences in jurisdictions recognized by the Constitution and the precedents as exclusive to the governments of Quebec and the provinces.

It was no surprise to us that, for the most recent year available, 2002-03, the federal government had spent more in provincial and Quebec jurisdictions than in federal jurisdictions. That is how things stand. Other than an important portion that went to paying down the debt, federal interferences accounted for the majority of excess spending.

This has continued. We see this today in this budget. We see this with the creation of the public health agency and public surveillance system. Health is an exclusively provincial jurisdiction. The federal government is haphazardly creating foundations, new institutions, to duplicate services and multiply the number of stakeholders, when there are already institutions and systems in place in each of the provinces, particularly Quebec, to meet the needs behind the creation of these entities.

Under agriculture, approximately $900 million, which may seem like a lot of money for the cattle industry, has been allocated, but Quebec still needs to get a reasonable share. Quebec's share is about $65 million.

Cull cattle have been forgotten. The former agriculture minister, who is now the Minister of Finance, promised that in compensation for cutting the 1998 federal subsidy of $6.03 a hectolitre, which gave $120 million to dairy farmers, prices would be increased. This promise was not kept. If that $120 million had been available to the dairy industry, it could have coped with the mad cow crisis.

I will raise one last point. Earlier I was listening to my colleague from Mississauga West talking about what was available in this budget for his shoe shiner. He should have told him that there was indeed something, but nothing good. The Canadian tax system is one of the least progressive in the world, one of the least progressive in the G-7. Federal taxes start at 20% of average income, while elsewhere they start at 30%. In Quebec it is 30%.

Here the poor continue to pay taxes, low income earners trying to reach middle income status continue to pay taxes, yet corporate taxes have not been cleaned up.

I could mention Barbados and the ships owned by the current Prime Minister, but that is a whole other scandal. We will have an opportunity to come back to that.

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, March 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, two RCMP officers in dress uniform took part in the nomination meeting of the Liberal member for Portneuf last Friday. According to the RCMP, the activities of its members should normally be related to one of its five priorities: youth, aboriginal communities, international police services, terrorism and organized crime.

Can the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness tell us under which of these priorities the partisan activity of the member for Portneuf falls?