Mr. Speaker, the proposed transfer program is a clear recognition that the provinces can take more responsibility for making decisions.
We are freeing up and making far more flexible their choices of priorities within a broad range of programming on education, welfare and health. That is the whole point of consolidating the existing transfer system, to give the provinces the freedom of choice to look at programming which suits the individual needs of their own areas.
At the same time, it is a national transfer program. There are base conditions and those conditions are already X stamped, as we said in the budget itself, such as the five conditions under the Canada Health Act and the condition under the Canada assistance plan which protect the mobility rights of Canadians so they can move from one region to another and still be eligible for some form of assistance. Those are the basic conditions which were put forward.