Mr. Speaker, in today's edition of the Journal de Montréal , there is an article entitled Dumping and panicking'' which reads as follows:
Reductions in federal transfers to the provinces were much greater than the budget cuts within that same federal government. For the current fiscal year and the year 1997-98, the federal will cut close to $5 billion, including $1.8 billion in Quebec alone''.
This statement is inaccurate and we have a duty to correct it, so that the public is not misled.
Since we took office, federal government program expenditures have been cut by 12 per cent, while transfers to the provinces have only been reduced by 8.6 per cent. Even though Quebec only
accounts for about 25 per cent of Canada's population, it still continues to receive 31 per cent of all federal transfers.
In fact, Quebec pays roughly $29 billion in taxes yet receives over $40 billion annually from the federal government.