Yesterday, the students' federation of the University of Ottawa was invited by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs to a public consultation on the social program reform. The minister remained silent throughout the hearings and did not take any notes. Moreover, the minister's assistant led students to believe that the discussion was being recorded. A verification revealed that no recording was made. This illustrates the federal government's real idea of what public consultation is.
Flexible federalism is nothing but federal indifference.
The government is more interested in imposing its already set ideas than in discussing issues with the others concerned. Mr. Speaker, in a report tabled yesterday, Liberal members are paving the way for a new tax increase affecting all taxpayers, thus reneging on the election promise made by the Prime Minister not to raise taxes. Besides recommending this possible surtax, the Liberal majority on the finance committee proposes to increase the tax burden of the middle class by imposing a new tax on gasoline and by giving the Minister of Finance full scope to tax RRSPs and pension funds in particular. Faced with these unacceptable recommendations from the Liberals, the Bloc Quebecois, in a dissenting report, proposed ten progressive and specific recommendations to reduce the deficit and create jobs. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, during the debate on the Quebec referendum process, Bloc Quebecois members were quite surprised by the lack of historical perspective shown by Liberal members as a whole, and more particularly Quebec Liberal MPs.