I'll probably need about ten minutes, because there were a lot of questions.
Mr. Brown asked about 10 or 15 questions, and he's aware of the earlier conversation I had with Ms. Yelich, in which we talked about the data that the department doesn't have at the moment on these things. I guess what's interesting to me is that the Conservative side here doesn't want to talk about this bill itself and what it might do and its benefits. It wants to talk about the 12 years and two months the Liberal government was in power.
Frankly, when we arrived in government, we had a $42 billion deficit left by the previous Conservative government, and in 1995, when the budget was brought forward to make the reductions that helped to balance our books in this country, what did the Conservative Party do? It said the cuts weren't enough, and it voted for a motion that called for greater and deeper cuts to all of these things, including transfers to the provinces. That's what the Conservatives voted for in the House of Commons. Maybe you don't know that. I was here; I saw it. So I think it's a bit hypocritical to come here and suggest otherwise.
In terms of the provinces' clawing back, I think there are two things. First of all, you have to work with the provinces on that and work out an agreement with them not to do that sort of thing. But secondly, that is more of a concern when you have a broad program that applies to everyone, whereas when you have a more narrow program like this, which applies only to low-income people, I think it's much less likely to happen. But it's still worthwhile working it out with the provinces to ensure that doesn't happen. There were certainly large increases in transfers to the provinces when I was a minister in our government, and over the past six or seven years large increases were given to the provinces for health care and other matters because of the fact we put our country in a better situation fiscally and were able to afford to pay for those things.