Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the finance minister.
I also want to make a quick mention of the fact that, as you're probably aware, we were in New York and Washington last week. We had many meetings, and almost without exception we heard from our friends and neighbours in the United States about how envious they were. Again, each meeting started with sort of complimenting Canada on our banking system, on our economy.
That, to me, as we learned about the challenges in the U.S., or heard from the IMF, just reconfirmed in certainly my mind how fortunate we are to be heading down the track that we're heading.
I would really like to target in on two specific areas. The first is health care transfers, because I think health care is near and dear to all our hearts. I heard the announcement you made in terms of how we're increasing transfers for health care. The NDP of course, falsely, are standing up in the House on a regular basis saying we're cutting transfers.
I would also like to make note of the quote from Scott Brison, the current Liberal finance critic. He said that shifting the burdens to provinces—which the Liberals did in the nineties—is the “easy but cowardly way to accelerate deficit reduction.... The Chrétien-Martin cuts sent the health care and education system into crisis in every Canadian province.”
I repeat and underline the word “cut”, because it points to an important contrast. Unlike the Liberals in the 1990s, we're not cutting transfer payments; rather, we're ensuring that they can continue to grow at a sustainable level. Indeed, health care transfers will continue to grow from $27 billion in 2011-12 to a minimum of $38 billion in 2018-19.
I'd like you to focus in on how this new health care transfer arrangement proposed in Bill C-38 will provide certainty and stability to the provinces.