Madam Speaker, at the start of my comments I advise that I will be splitting my time today with the member for Lanark—Carleton.
Relating to the response and the question we have just heard, the British Columbia government passed a requirement that for healthy, employable people moving into the province, and it was very clear on that, there would be a three month residency requirement before they could access social services. That was the B.C. government supported by its population.
Because it ran counter to federal Liberal philosophy that the program should be available even to healthy, able-bodied people, the government put pressure on the B.C. government and said that it would fine that government every day the policy was in place. That was in direct contradiction to the democratic request of the people of British Columbia.
If we asked most Canadians whether there should be some kind of stipulation for healthy, employable people not to be able to immediately access social welfare programs, I think most would agree that there should be some kind of regulation and would not be in agreement with the federal Liberals.
It gives me great pleasure to rise today to concur with the Bloc Quebecois on the motion. I am being very careful in saying that. It is not often I am able to do so. On many issues such as the great question of national unity we do not agree with the Bloc, but wherever possible, as is the Canadian way, we strive to find common ground and proceed from there.
Today we are telling the government there is a common ground. We are asking the government to meet with the provinces to discuss the transfer of tax points.
The transfer of tax points was actually our policy before the formation of the Canadian Alliance. During the last election campaign the Canadian Alliance once again made the proposal to transfer more tax points to the provinces. It is therefore appropriate that we call upon the government to meet with the provinces to discuss, at the very least, the next step in a process which was begun by the Liberals in 1977. With the usual glacier-like speed of government we are trying to get the issue addressed.
All stakeholders should meet to discuss such a change because it affects all provinces. Therefore it should not be done unilaterally as the federal Liberals like to do on too many occasions. It is important to hear from all provinces so the merits and demerits can be properly considered.
Governments across Canada want to provide comparable services to all their citizens, regardless of where they live. We want these principles to be upheld; they are part of the Canadian tradition.
Allow me to put the issue in context by making an historical reference. The Rowell-Sirois commission, which was struck in 1937, made a proposal that only the dominion should levy income taxes. Although the proposal was initially rejected, when the war broke out it was adopted by the provinces strictly as a wartime measure. The provinces abandoned their income taxes and in return were supposed to receive unconditional payments to compensate them for that lost revenue.
In its agreements with each province the federal government undertook that at the end of the war it would reduce federal taxes so as again to create room for the provinces to resume levying their income taxes. In 1977 the Liberal government of the day ceded back to the provinces some of the tax room that the federal government had taken away. However the arrangement has been frozen since 1977.
The compromises provincial governments had to make 50 years ago to support the war effort must be recognized. The current Liberal government must act accordingly. We are not asking it to be generous, not at all, rather we are asking it to give back to the provinces the powers that are rightfully theirs.
A further transfer of tax points would also address two fundamental problems. The first is the present mismatch between the responsibilities of the provinces and the power they have to tax.
Last year three noted economists wrote a paper arguing that there “is a fundamental mismatch between the taxing power of the federal government and its restricted spending jurisdiction”. That is, the federal government simply takes in too much money compared to its constitutional responsibilities. It is an imbalance.
That generates the political problem of democratic accountability, since the government that raises the taxes, in this case the federal government, does not actually spend the money. Instead, the federal government transfers cash back to the provinces in the form of the Canada health and social transfer.
This means the federal government can cut the transfer arbitrarily, as the federal Liberals have done throughout their time in office. It has been their consistent approach. This has forced provinces to make drastic cuts in their areas of social spending, notably health care, and also undergo the consequent displeasure of the electorate. If the government does not transfer the full amount of resource, then provinces have to cutback and experience voter displeasure.
The CHST is still lower today than when the Liberals came to power eight years ago. They have removed a cumulative $25 billion from the CHST, but since they do not deliver the programs funded by the CHST the provinces then wrongly take the political blame for those cutbacks.
A further tax point transfer would help to realign democratic accountability, and that is what we are talking about. No longer would the federal government be able to reduce funding unilaterally and then place the blame for cutbacks on the provinces, as the federal Liberals have done consistently in the past.
The second problem is a related one. It simply has to do with trust. For the last seven years the federal government has rejected its responsibility for health, social and post-secondary education spending. As a matter of fact, it has spent over $100 billion on grants and contributions, while sacrificing the most important social programs which Canadians want.
Canadians are asking us how the federal government can then be trusted in the future to preserve that which is most valuable to Canadians? There is a lack of trust because of the history of the federal Liberals in this area. I believe that if the federal government feels it is necessary it will again act in a cynical, political way to abandon health care, if it is health care where the pressure is, or off-load cuts to education and social assistance to the provinces in order to preserve other items for their own public image. That has been their past history. I believe we run the risk of seeing that to be their future performance.
The present system of fiscal transfers encourages federal irresponsibility. The logical step to restore confidence and trust in the security of funding for our social programs is to realign the taxing power with the spending power, as indicated in our constitution, to make sure the government, which has the constitutional responsibility to deliver program, also has the power to go to its electorate to raise the money to pay for the program.
Can we trust the provinces? That is the next fair question. I believe we can. We can trust the provinces because those governments are all returned to office, or replaced and new ones brought in, by the very electors who share a broad democratic consensus for the need to have strong support for the social programs, especially health care. I remind the House that while the federal government was cutting over $6 billion per year from cash transfers for health, the provinces were increasing health care spending. They have proven their level of trust. They have earned the trust of Canadians and the government has not.
The issue of tax point transfers enjoys broad support among not only the provinces, but also the opposition parties in the House of Commons.
This area is one of great concern, as we have indicated. In 1997 Jean Charest's platform promised to convert $12.5 billion in CHST cash transfers to tax points in exchange for reaching a covenant defining federal and provincial roles in supporting health, post-secondary education and social programs.
This is an excellent position, which we fully support and about which we continue to be in agreement with Mr. Charest.
Accordingly we were very surprised and disappointed last week when we read what the current Conservative leader had told Le Soleil . I want to quote from the article:
Bernard Landry faces an uphill battle in bringing Ottawa to agree to the transfer of tax points to the provinces. Even the Conservative leader is refusing to get involved in this fight. For the time being, in any case, it is not one of his priorities. Therefore he will not champion it in the House of Commons or anywhere else in Canada.
That is why we support the Bloc motion.
