Mr. Speaker, I talked to a Port Coquitlam city councillor yesterday actually and outlined what the government was planning on doing with regard to GST relief, that it would mean immediate money on their purchases on February 1. The city councillor's response was nothing.
The parliamentary secretary opposite has it precisely right. He said the benefit of this program is that cheques will start going out now. Municipalities will get the money right now. However the benefit is more political for the government than money for the cities. The benefit is immediate cheques cut by the government with IOUs just before an election campaign.
Before the member shakes his head and gets flustered, I will say that the benefit of this is that the money does start rolling now and that is fine, but it is not the long term solution. This is not a macro new vision, a new deal.
The Liberal government has been in power for a decade. When the Prime Minister was the finance minister he presented nine budgets. A majority government could have done this at any time. This is not a time crunch. Cities are not panicking. This is not a matter of cities needing money and cheques being cut immediately. The Liberal majority government had a decade to get it done and to rebalance that fiscal imbalance that I talked about. Two-thirds of the services are provided by the provinces. Two-thirds of the tax dollars are being consumed by the federal government. Yet the Liberals want a pat on the back because they are cutting cheques now before an election.
We need systematic, fundamental change and a rebalancing of fiscal federalism in this country so municipalities get steady financing. We do not need these kinds of cynical games.