Mr. Speaker, yesterday, in response to the federal finance minister's intention to slash transfers to the provinces in order to reduce his deficit, the Quebec minister of finance issued the following warning to his federal counterpart:
-we told the federal government that this reform should not be achieved on the backs of the provinces and that the issue of government debt in Canada will not be resolved by offloading the federal deficit onto the provinces.
Will the Minister of Finance ever understand-now that his Quebec counterpart has joined with the Official Opposition in trying to make him understand-that he must cut federal government waste and stop dumping his deficit problem on the provinces?