I just wanted to express my disagreement with the arguments that the government has been using. The decision to reduce the increase in health transfers to the provinces was made without consultation. Previously, there was consultation. It is wrong to say that the government speaks to the provinces regularly in order to secure their agreement, because, in this case, that was not done. Provinces found out at the same time as opposition members of Parliament and the media that the government had decided to reduce the growth of transfers by half. We do not expect to see consultations anymore. The government acted without consulting.
Consultations would have been important. If the government had been in any doubt about the decreasing growth in health costs compared to previous years, when historically, it was greater than the growth of the GDP, it would have been interesting to have been able to consult the provinces to find out why. The government did no research and held no consultations to find out that information. This is something, perhaps a trend, that could be changed in the future. At that point, the provinces will be faced with a deficit in transfers in comparison with what was provided before.
In this particular case, the government is showing that it does not understand and that it does not want to understand the provinces' reality, and that is why we are going to vote against this proposal.