Mr. Speaker, when I met with my provincial and territorial colleagues some weeks ago, we provided them with the equalization numbers for next year, including, regrettably, the province of Ontario. We made it clear that equalization itself, leaving aside other aspects of transfers to the provinces, would not grow faster than the rate of growth in the economy, that is nominal GDP. The ministers, while not welcoming that, understood that in a time of a financial crisis we cannot have a program like equalization growing on average at about 15% per annum.
In the House of Commons on November 20th, 2008. See this statement in context.