Madam Speaker, I am honoured to be taking part in the debate on the motion moved by the member for Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher. I am also honoured to support this motion. And because I believe it is important, I will mainly focus on demonstrating why the amendment proposed by the NDP is completely contrary to our motion, to Quebec's traditional position and to the promise made by the Prime Minister during the 2006 election campaign. The member for Beauce seems to have understood this promise.
I would like to reread the motion and explain it paragraph by paragraph.
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should, as long called for by the Bloc Québécois and now called for by the Member for Beauce, end the so-called federal spending power in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces, eliminate the federal programs that violate the division of powers, and transfer tax points to the provinces...
This part is verbatim; it is exactly what the member for Beauce said. We give it our full endorsement. The fact is there is no constitutional basis for the pseudo-spending power that the federal has given itself. It is simply because of the fiscal imbalance that the federal government has been able to interfere—and it has been interfering for decades, since the end of the second world war, to be exact—in areas of jurisdiction that do not belong to it but that belong to Quebec and the provinces. This situation needs to be corrected.
Next, the motion details the way in which the Government of Quebec, the Quebec nation, the Bloc Québécois and the National Assembly are asking that the situation be corrected. The motion reads:
a) eliminating all federal spending in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces, unless express authorization is given by Quebec or the province;
Here we have reversed the traditional modus operandi of Canadian federalism, which is a dead end in that regard. Instead of the provinces being the ones to ask the government not to interfere in their areas of jurisdiction, the federal government must ask permission if it wants to intrude into jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces. If authorization is not given by Quebec or the province, it simply will not happen. It seems to me that unfortunately, the NDP leader did not fully understand this point. Regarding the Bloc Québécois motion, he said—and I am paraphrasing from the letter he sent to the hon. member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, the leader of the Bloc Québécois—that he did not understand why our motion, which applies the same formula to Quebec and the other provinces, disregards the fact that this House unanimously recognized the distinctive nature of the Quebec nation and is trying to impose Quebec's wishes on the rest of Canada.
That is completely false.
Quite clearly, we are reversing the traditional relationship between the federal government and Quebec and the provinces by putting the onus on the federal government. However, any provinces that want the federal government to continue interfering in their areas of jurisdiction are free to allow it to do so. Once again, if Quebec or another province says that it is out of the question, for example, that the federal government interfere in its jurisdiction over community based child care programs and family policy, since these are social matters, which the Canadian Constitution has delegated to the provinces, the answer would be no.
The next part says:
b) providing a systematic right to opt out with full financial compensation and without condition of all existing and future programs, whether co-funded or not, that intrude into jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces.
Once again, no one is forcing the other provinces. We understand very well that since provinces are nothing more than administrative divisions within the same nation, the Canadian nation, this nation would choose the federal government as its central government. We have no problem with that. We recognize that. However, the central government of the Quebec nation is the Government of Quebec, and its legislative arm is the Quebec National Assembly. So if Quebec wants to opt out of a program that falls under its jurisdiction, it must not only have the right to opt out, but must also be adequately compensated, with no conditions. That is the infamous opting out clause.
The motion goes on to say:
c) transferring, at the request of Quebec or a province, fiscal room in the form of tax points and/or GST to replace the amounts that the province would otherwise have received under the Canada Health Transfer, federal programs in its areas of jurisdiction and the transfer for social programs and postsecondary education indexed to 1994-1995 levels.
Once again, no one is forcing the provinces to do anything, and what the NDP leader said is completely untrue. If the other provinces do not want to convert the cash transfers they currently receive from the federal government into fiscal room, that is up to them.
We belive that this would benefit us, because we would not have a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads when a federal government has difficulties. Right now, it has problems with the deficit, which is at record highs. Cuts are sure to come. The Minister of Finance is hiding. It is clear that he must find a new strategy, such as eliminating corporate tax cuts, which was announced, but we have yet to see it happen. If the solution does not come from revenues, it will have to come from spending. It will be the same story as under the Liberals, when they plundered the employment insurance fund and cut transfers to the provinces or to individuals.
We prefer to have tax room that we can manage ourselves. We would no longer have to fear the kinds of unilateral decisions we have experienced in the past. I remember 1994-95 very well. We would prefer this financial autonomy. Let us recall that this was part of the plan to eliminate the fiscal imbalance that the Séguin Commission, the Government of Quebec, the National Assembly of Quebec, the Bloc Québécois and everyone in Quebec have been demanding for such a long time.
Let us recall that the plan has three components. First, transfers must be brought back to pre-1994-95 levels indexed to inflation. Members will recall how Paul Martin, the Minister of Finance in Chrétien's Liberal government, decided to solve his deficit problems by offloading them onto the provinces. Transfers must be restored to the levels they were at before the cuts.
Second, the tax room represented by those amounts, indexed at 1994-95 levels, must be transferred in tax points and GST points.
Third, in order to be sure that the fiscal imbalance does not reappear in a few years or decades, we need more than guidelines. We must eliminate the so-called federal spending power in areas under the jurisdiction of the provinces and of Quebec.
Our proposal is extremely reasonable. We are not forcing other provinces to withdraw from federal programs in areas under their jurisdiction. We are not forcing them to clear the tax room that is the equivalent of government cash transfers, if they want to remain dependent on the federal government. I understand that, because, for those provinces, the central State is Ottawa. But for Quebec, Quebec City is the State responsible for conducting the affairs of our nation. We have introduced a bill dealing with the elimination of the so-called federal spending power. That spending power has no constitutional basis, as the hon. member for Beauce rightly reminded us.
Federal intrusion into all areas of provincial jurisdiction in Canada came to $62 billion in 2008-09. That is a lot of money. That is a lot of intrusion into the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces and of Quebec. As I have just mentioned, there is consensus on that in Quebec.
I would have liked to have quoted Benoît Pelletier, a federalist. He wrote exactly what I have just said in Le Devoir on January 19, 2008. I provide the date so that hon. members can refer to it should they wish.
As for the proposal that the leader of the New Democratic Party made to us, he wanted to replace our motion in its entirety with:
...to honour the commitment to limit the federal spending power—although we wish to “eliminate” rather than “limit”—in Quebec's exclusive areas of jurisdiction, given the unanimous recognition by this House of the Quebec nation and the longstanding consensus in Quebec in this regard, the government should, in order to implement a co-operative and asymmetrical federalism:
If there is no constitutional basis for the federal spending power at present, then the situation is inconsistent with the Constitution. Therefore, there is no need to implement a co-operative or asymmetrical federalism; we need only respect the Constitution of 1867.
I will continue to read the motion proposed by the Leader of the New Democratic Party.
(a) provide a systematic right to opt out, with full financial compensation and without condition, of all existing and future programs, whether co-funded or not, that intrude into the exclusive jurisdictions of Quebec;
We agree and this is part (b) of our motion.
(b) eliminate all federal spending in an exclusive jurisdiction of Quebec after entering into a specific agreement by mutual consent with the Government of Quebec;
What that means is that we will allow the federal government to interfere and if we do not have an agreement with the federal government, this interference will continue for all time. That is not what we are asking for.
(c) transfer, at the request of the Government of Quebec, equivalent fiscal room.
But equivalent to what? We do not know.
Our proposal is much clearer. As my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé said, this is quite simply a flimsy excuse to vote against our motion. Quebeckers will not accept that.
