Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister can say whatever he wants, but his government has cut $4.5 billion from social programs. That is a fact. That is what it has done.
As far back as the 1995 budget, the government was announcing its intention to reduce its overall expenditures, with a $4.5 billion cut in social transfers to the provinces, and that has been fully accomplished; siphoning off $5 billion from the unemployment insurance fund to reduce the deficit, and that has fully accomplished; a $10 billion reduction in departmental expenditures, but that has not been accomplished.
My question is for the Prime Minister. Are we to understand from these figures I have just given that, for the government, it was far easier to impose cuts on the provinces and on the unemployed than to cut its own expenditures?