Madam Speaker, the most important role of the federal government is to ensure equality of provinces, to ensure that provinces are treated equally.
That does not rule out equalization. Our party agrees with equalization. We do not happen to think that three provinces should support seven.
We should also pay attention to outcomes. We should ask ourselves whether or not it has actually worked to subsidize some provinces to the degree we have. Has it created the type of prosperity that will allow them to stand on their own two feet? I would argue that it has not. If it had worked everybody in Atlantic Canada would have six jobs. Most of them cannot find one today.
Canadians disagree with the hon. member when he says that we should pour more money into spending. Recent poles indicate that people want to see the debt paid down. They want to see tax relief. Only 13% want to see some spending. Instead of spending more money in absolute terms, we should focus some of the spending, take it out of unproductive areas of which there are many in government and focus it on areas that are important to people like health care, education, and research and development.