Mr. Speaker, no matter how much smoke the Treasury Board president blows at it, the facts are very clear. The government has forced the provinces to eat $7 billion in cuts to health and education while keeping billions of dollars extra in its own departmental budgets, money that it promised it would cut.
These are the facts. The government has overspent in agriculture by $126 million; transport, $400 million; regional development, $812 million. The total is $3 billion plus.
How does the government justify cutting $7 billion from health and education transfers to the provinces when it is billions of dollars short in reducing waste in its own departments?