Mr. Speaker, we had to cut spending. In 1993-94, our program expenditures amounted to $120 billion. In subsequent years, these fell by 13 percent to $105 billion.
While cutting spending, we kept the cuts in transfers to the provinces to a minimum. They were in the order of 8 percent and we retained equalization, which was really necessary for our vision of the future of Canada, a Canada in which we can share problems and opportunities with Canadians regardless of what part of the country they live in.