Paul Martin

[Health, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I will say it again: $31 billion, a new high.

This year, as last year, we also transferred money. It is in a bank in Toronto, and Quebec's finance minister can go and get it.

[Health, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the member must know that our transfer payments are now more than 33 cents on every dollar, or $31 billion over the next year, which is a new high. Equalization payments will hit a new high next year as well. As for the specific question, what I can do is cite Quebec's Minister of Finance, Bernard Landry.

[Gasoline Pricing, April 3rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, members on this side, including the member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge who raised the point, have been studying this issue closely for months now. And now, suddenly, the Bloc Quebecois finance critic discovers that there is a problem. We have known for a very long time that there is a problem and we are in the process of doing something about it.

[Gasoline Pricing, April 3rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the member must know that only the GST is tied to price increases. The other taxes remain the same.

Furthermore, as I have already suggested, the provinces are welcome to sit down with us—and it was Quebec's Minister of Finance who said that it takes two governments working together to lower prices substantially.

[Banks, March 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I will be pleased to raise this issue with the banks. As members know, we are currently setting up a new ombudsman agency, which will deal precisely with this kind of problems.

[The Budget, March 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, we are one of the few industrial countries that is actually retiring its debt, $6.5 billion over the last two years, over $20 billion of market debt. Our debt to GDP ratio was at 71% four years ago and today it is at 61%. It will be below 50% in the next four years.

I congratulate the member for Simcoe North for having asked me the first budget question since the budget was brought down over a month and a half ago.

[Gasoline Pricing, March 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the member must know that taxes are levied at the federal and provincial levels. I have always said that I was ready to sit down with my provincial counterparts to discuss this issue.

[Gasoline Pricing, March 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the member must know that the reason for the hike in gas prices is certainly the international cartel.

Yesterday, we heard that OPEC countries had reached an agreement. The expectation is that gas prices will go down in the weeks and months to come.

[Taxation, March 23rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, the idea of the Tobin tax passed by most members of the House and certainly by all members on this side of the House has been raised on numerous occasions at G-7 meetings and the IMF.

Unfortunately a number of the major financial markets do not support the plan, albeit we will continue to work on it. That being said, the G-20 is the ideal forum to deal with the many ways of dealing with speculation and that is what we will be doing at the meeting. I will be delighted to report to the hon. member if he is still a member of parliament in the fall.

[The Economy, March 22nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member first of all has the wrong years. They were much more recent than that.

What the hon. member ought to understand, and perhaps the question he might want to address, is that in the Tories' tax plan brought down about a month and a half ago, not once did they mention rising fuel prices. Not once did they mention the plight of ordinary Canadians.

It is members on this side of the House who have led the fight to make sure we take care of them.