Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Témiscamingue. I would invite him to carefully reread what I said from my notes just now. What I said—and he says my figures were wrong—is that Quebeckers contributed 23% of the employment insurance fund and were the recipients of 31% of the envelope in active measures.
What is extremely important is that these people, who are constantly complaining of not having their fair share, receive more than their share in several areas. The hon. member for Témiscamingue did not mention the $4 billion Quebec receives in equalization payments, close to $4 billion, which represents 47% of the equalization payment budget. That is a sum Mr. Bouchard could have invested in health or education, had he wanted to, for those $4 billion are given by the Canadian government with no conditions attached.
Last week, I followed the work on social union very closely, because my colleague, the Minister of Justice, was there representing the Government of Canada. I was very pleased that, at the end of the day, this federal-provincial discussion ended on an optimistic note.
I am confident that we will manage to modernize the Canadian social union for the benefit of Canadians. There has been concrete progress at the sector tables to which I have referred, namely improvement in measures against child poverty. The national child benefit that was negotiated with the provinces in a superb partnership.
We have a new employability program for the disabled, a framework agreement but one that is renegotiated individually with each province. I have already mentioned some of the others.
The progress already made in each of these sectors encourages me to believe that, where social union in general is concerned, we definitely have an agreement that will serve our fellow citizens, not to try to play one level of government against another.