Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this official opposition motion put forward by my colleague from Calgary Southwest.
The motion reads as follows:
That this House urge the government to conclude an agreement with the provinces and territories, prior to December 31, 1998, and based on the unanimous resolution of the provinces as agreed to last August 7 at Saskatoon, to strengthen the partnership between the federal, provincial and territorial governments in order to secure Canada's social programs for the future.
This is a very important motion in the light of yesterday's election in Quebec. It is very important for this House to consider the issue of social union.
What we saw yesterday was Quebecers saying they are not satisfied with status quo federalism nor are they satisfied with the radical option of separation. What Quebeckers said by granting a parliamentary majority to the Parti québécois but an electoral plurality to the Parti libéral du Québec was that they do not support either the status quo or the radical option of separation.
What they said in the public opinion polls and the exit polls was that they do not support the radical option of separation but they do want change. In this desire they form common cause with most other Canadians, certainly with the representatives of the official opposition and the vast majority of those we represent in western Canada, with the various provincial governments which in August agreed on an entente to address the need for change in the federation, and apparently with all or most of the opposition parties in the Chamber.
The premiers and the governments they represented gathered together in good faith several months ago to put forward some constructive concrete proposals for the rebalancing of powers between the two levels of government. What did they receive in terms of a response from the federal government? Little or nothing. They received a duck and dodge which the provinces are all too familiar with from the government.
What does it come down to? Let us be blunt. The Liberal Party of Canada really believes its own propaganda, that it is the sole saviour of confederation, that it is the one and only political vehicle for federalism in this country.
It really is a kind of political arrogance that is endemic in the psychology of the Liberal Party of Canada. It is attached to the idea that Ottawa knows best, that top down big brother in Ottawa can unilaterally weave its way into areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction through its spending and taxing powers, that through this enormous intervention on the part of the central government the federation can somehow be kept together.
The story of our federation in the past three decades is one of growing and almost fatal tension between the centralizing, Ottawa knows best mentality of the members opposite who I believe hold the view sincerely. There is the growing need of the provinces and regions to more ably represent their regional concerns in a more flexible federal context. This is the tension that really lies at the heart not only of the sovereignty debate in Quebec but so much of the feeling of alienation and discontent in the rest of the country.
It is very disappointing for me to pick up the newspapers today and read various quotes of members of the Liberal government saying essentially that change in the federation is a non-starter, that we are going to just set our feet into concrete and that we are not going to allow the federation to evolve into the 21st century.
In an article in today's Ottawa Citizen for instance I read a statement from the hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River who said “I have not met an MP who is prepared to negotiate away an element of the federal government's role just so we can achieve temporary peace with the brawling provincial children. It just is not on”.
This is typical of the attitude of members opposite. Instead of a constructive, collaborative and co-operative approach, the kind of co-operative approach upon which a healthy federation must be founded, we find this kind of belligerent attitude regarding sovereign provincial governments. They are sovereign in their own jurisdiction, sovereign as defined in the original Constitution of this country in their own areas of competence.
Instead of regarding them as co-operative sovereign governments, the hon. member and many of his colleagues refer to those provinces as brawling children. He says that we just cannot negotiate a single element of what this federal government does, the government that spends $160 billion with a cabinet of 35 ministers.
This government has one of the largest cabinets probably of any federation in the world, much larger than the federation to our south, or Germany or Australia. It is a federal government that encroaches its way into virtually every area of provincial jurisdiction.
The most galling thing about it is that while these Liberals refuse to accept the kind of co-operative change proposed by the provinces, at the very same time they undercut the very authority upon which the federal government's spending power is asserted.
Look at the Canada Health Act. The only guarantee of the enforcement of federal standards in the Canada Health Act is the federal transfer, the Canada health and social transfer.
When the federal medicare system was developed 30 years ago, of course it was predicated on a commitment of 50% funding. That is the basis upon which the unilateral federal standards are imposed on the provinces. Yet today this government which prides itself on its commitment to unity and federal standards has reduced that funding share to 11%. And it still expects the provinces to accept the standards as defined by Ottawa.
What the provinces are asking for in the social union agreement of this August, what the official opposition and other parties are asking for is not unilateral imposition of federal standards but rather, co-operative national standards agreed to by all the provinces co-operatively, not by one of the governments, the central government, unilaterally. It is not a radical concept. It is a concept embraced by virtually every mature and healthy democratic federation in the world.
I appeal to my colleagues opposite to try to be a little more flexible when it comes to this.
A social union should consider collaborative approaches to the exercise of the federal spending power in provincial jurisdictions. This is very important for Quebec, as this is one of its traditional demands. Western Canada has asked for the same thing and, in this respect, it has a great deal in common with Quebec.
When the federal government spends money in provincial areas of responsibility or arbitrarily withdraws funding from a provincial jurisdiction, this may cause friction in federal-provincial relations and problems in service delivery. We need a new agreement describing how powers are shared between the federal government and the provinces. I would ask that the members of this House support this Reform motion.
In closing, much has been raised about the timing, the deadline in this motion, which was simply taken from the accord of the premiers in August. We would like to respond to the legitimate arguments raised about the deadline by members of various parties. I would like to ask for consent to move that the motion be amended by deleting the words “prior to December 31, 1998”, and substituting therefor the following: “before the next federal budget is introduced”.
