Mr. Speaker, despite the cuts we had to make, in his February budget the Minister of Finance directed $250 million more towards helping the poor through a system of tax rebates for their benefit.
I agree we have made cuts, but clearly, if the hon. member looks into this he will realize that when you take federal transfers to provincial governments-in his case, to the Government of Quebec-since we came to power we have not reduced our transfer payments. Some transfers have gone down, but equalization payments have gone up, so that today Quebec receives about the same amount it received when we came to power.