Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his question.
As we read the newspapers over this past month and a half we saw provincial government after provincial government, New Brunswick, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and probably tomorrow Prince Edward Island, coming in with balanced budgets.
The hon. member says we are offloading to the provinces. Is it fair for the provinces to expect the federal government to subsidize the provincial balanced budgets and not address our own budget problems? If he answered that honestly he would say no. We have a major budget problem, not only an accumulated debt but in our annual deficits.
We see provinces balancing their budgets. We know most of the provinces receive transfer payments of one sort or another. They are looking very good in front of their people and getting all kinds of support and applause for doing so. A lot of the money to those provincial governments is coming from the federal government.
I do not think any fair minded provincial premier would say we should not address our budget deficits at all; that we should continue sending money to the provinces and to individuals that we do not have and have to borrow year after year.