Mr. Speaker, my first comments will be for my constituents in Rivière-du-Nord who decided to put their trust in me for the fourth time. I want to thank them for that.
I think the motion put forward today by the Bloc Québécois is very important and quite original. I believe it can help fix a situation which continues to be unbearable in Quebec.
I would like to point out that the Liberal government had forecasted a $1.9 billion surplus and that, this year as every single year for the past 11 years, my colleagues who have successively occupied the position of finance critic have always been able to forecast the surplus more accurately than the government itself. The surplus is now estimated at $9.1 billion. It is a lot of money. It does make sense then that the provinces, which are currently in a stranglehold, ask for more. They cannot make ends meet. They cannot pay for everything they need in the area of health care, among others. The costs are humongous, and the provinces are now fully responsible for all health care expenditures.
If the federal government will not give us the money we pay in taxes, then clearly we will not be able to deliver services. As you know, there are serious problems throughout Quebec and the rest of Canada. We will only be able to resolve them when the government gives us the money we need to provide the necessary services to all our constituents. This is a priority.
I would also like to remind this House that on March 17, 2004, the Quebec National Assembly unanimously passed the following motion, which I will read, since it is very important. It was unanimous, which means that all the parties, the ADQ, the Liberal Party and the Parti Québécois, all voted in favour of the motion:
That the National Assembly demand that the federal government recognize the existence of the fiscal imbalance and that on March 23, 2004, it adopt budget measures to counter the effects on provincial finances.
This motion was passed unanimously in the National Assembly. We are very aware of the existence of fiscal imbalance. Recently we moved an amendment to the Speech from the Throne to add a few words about the fiscal imbalance, which have since been included. We are making some progress.
In our motion, we are now asking that:
—the House ask the Standing Committee on Finance to strike a special subcommittee to propose tangible solutions for addressing the fiscal imbalance, and that its report be tabled no later than June 2, 2005.
That should be enough time to truly do some research and open the possibility of having a discussion on the fiscal imbalance, so that the government can realize it indeed exists and we can find solutions to this problem.
After all, it is our public money that ends up here in Ottawa. It is money that belongs to Quebeckers. It is our taxes that are sent here. It seems to me that we should get a say in this and that the money should go where it is needed, not to programs that are being promised to us. We have been promised investment in jurisdictions that belong to Quebec, such as education. We do not need overlap. Education is entirely a Quebec jurisdiction. The same is true for health. We do not need an overlap in programs that already exist.
We do, however, need money to improve these programs. That is all we need. The federal government need not boast about doing things in our jurisdiction. It is not. Duplication is of no benefit to our citizens; it is causing a problem of another sort. Instead of trying to put another system in place, it should respect what Quebec is already doing. It should respect its jurisdictions and put money in the right place.
I want to address another important point. The Bloc Quebecois has set up a committee, the Léonard committee. This committee was not named after just anybody, it was named after Jacques Léonard, who was the finance minister for many years in Quebec. He is a very smart and very knowledgeable man. This committee set up to examine federal programs demonstrated that the fiscal imbalance has three fundamental consequences for Quebec.
First, the federal government has too much money for its responsibilities, which means that the taxes paid by Quebeckers are not being used to respond to their priorities. These taxes have been used in part by the federal government to spend more on its bureaucracy and to squander more, while the Government of Quebec lacks money for health, education, family policies and economic development. Speaking of family policies, once again, we are unable to get the government to promise it will not meddle in our areas of jurisdiction where our child care centres are concerned. We have a program that is working very well in Quebec.
In international fora, people ask us about it. Other parliaments want to know how this program works. They say it is extraordinary and they want to establish similar programs in their countries. Meanwhile, the federal government is telling us that it is going to interfere in our program. That is unacceptable.
That is why we are asking for the right to opt out. We are also asking for money that the federal government would be spending elsewhere, so that we can operate the program we already have in Quebec. Quebec needs money to continue to operate the program already in place.
As for the Léonard committee's second point, the federal government is taking advantage of its surplus position and of Quebec's tight fiscal situation to invade even more, as I was saying earlier. In doing so, it forces made in Canada decisions upon Quebec in areas where the people of Quebec should be making them.
Third, as the Canadian government grows stronger and pays down its debt, the Quebec government grows weaker and falls deeper into debt with each passing year.
I can understand that Canada's debt must be paid down. We see this as the responsible thing to do in the case of Quebec's debt also. However, not all taxpayer dollars should go solely toward paying down the debt. We have to be reasonable and do the calculations right. When we do our budget, we do not use our whole salary to pay down the mortgage. What about groceries and many other necessities? That has to be taken into account. With the present government however, this does not seem to be a possibility.
And what about money which is idle elsewhere? The employment insurance fund has racked up a $45 billion surplus. What is being done with this money when it should be reinvested where it is needed, given back to jobless people or used to improve the employment insurance program? What is being done is quite the opposite. The number of hours of work needed to qualify for employment insurance has been increased, and because of this women and young people, who often work part time, are heavily penalized. They never manage to accumulate enough hours to take advantage of the employment insurance program.
