Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for Longueuil for his comments. I totally agree with what he just said.
First of all, I prepared a list of all the commitments from the first throne speech which have been reheated, as we say, and reintroduced in the new throne speech, to make us believe that they are new commitments. This is a replay of the first speech. These are promises which were made and not kept.
The government promised to improve integrity, appoint an ethics counsellor, introduce a bill on lobbyists and institute free votes.
The ethics counsellor is normally appointed by the Prime Minister, not the House. His or her advice is secret and nothing guarantees that the government will take it into account.
The bill on lobbyists which was passed, was a very watered down version of Liberal promises.
As to free votes, there have not been any. There have even been sanctions against those who stepped out of line, as we have seen when the firearm control bill was put to a vote.
Then we were promised support for education and research. Instead we had cuts in established programs financing and in transfers for education. As I told you a while ago, the result is that universities must cut, including in the area of research support.
The social security system was to be reformed in close co-operation with the provinces; this was another promise. What we had was the Canada social transfer and a $7 billion cut over two years in the areas of health, education and social security, without any consultation with the provinces.
The replacement of the GST is something we are still waiting for.
We were promised that health would be protected. A national forum on health was put into place. We had been told: "in co-operation with the provinces". We ended up with a $4.5 billion cut over two years under the new Canada social transfer, and the national health forum was criticized by all the provinces. It is still going around somewhere and no one knows what it is doing and what results it will produce. At the present time, all the provinces have taken steps on their own to make their own health reform, because health management is a provincial jurisdiction. So what is the federal government doing with a national health forum?
I have nothing against the people who sit on that forum. They are certainly qualified people, but what has it got to do with the provinces? It is our reform. Health ministers in each province are taking care of our needs. The federal government is spending billions of dollars on window dressing. It says it is taking care of the health system.
I would like to tell people who are watching us, Quebecers and Canadians alike: Please do not let yourselves be fooled by big programs, big forums like the one on health care.