Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary cannot be serious. Such comments are despicable. This is the bleakest week that I have ever experienced in this parliament.
This member, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, has not spent sufficient time on the Standing Committee on Finance to have heard the witnesses' priorities. They told us “The Canada social transfer needs to be increased”.
According to the member, the government has given $3 billion, but he was not here when the government made drastic cuts that virtually drove the provinces to bankruptcy in 1993-94. With respect to education, the funding is at its lowest level ever. For health care, we are dealing with an aging population and increased costs for technology and drugs. And the government thinks it has done us a favour? First of all, this is a commitment that was made last year; it is not in this year's budget. These figures were announced in last year's pre-election economic statement. They thought they would do the provinces a big favour, but they never brought the funding levels back up to what they were in 1993-94.
Also, it was never indexed. The provinces are asking for several billion dollars. The provincial ministers met recently to ask the Minister of Finance—it is not the Bloc Quebecois that is asking—to increase the Canada health and social transfer. Meanwhile, the member opposite has just told us that the Bloc Quebecois does not know what it is talking about. Unbelievable.
What is more, he insults my colleague. In the budget forecasts for the past five years, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot has only been off by around $4 billion, yet the Minister of Finance has been off by $60 billion. I am not sure which of the two is more brilliant.