Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the government's cuts was to preserve our social programs, and we did that. Reducing the deficit means we can now guarantee that the minimum level of funding for social programs will be $11 billion.
Furthermore, when the government decided to cut, it cut 40 per cent more in its own house than it cut in transfers to the provinces. The cuts in transfers to the provinces represent only 3 per cent of their revenue. Consequently, we made far greater sacrifices ourselves than we imposed on the provinces. And we did it to save our social programs.