Mr. Speaker, in light of all the debates that have taken place in the past few months, and even years, I wonder if anyone can reason with this government and make it understand what the facts are.
On August 7, 1998, a historical consensus was achieved when all the premiers, including Quebec's Lucien Bouchard, asked the federal government to reinvest in health.
For some time now, opposition parties in this House have been doing likewise. They have constantly asked the Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health to give money back to the provinces for health. But they have yet to get an answer.
During the prebudget consultations that will end in a few days, I travelled across Canada—I went to Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal. Everywhere, the chambers of commerce, unions, administration officials and hospitals were asking for the same thing.
More specifically, what did we do in Quebec? When the Bloc Quebecois realized that this government would only allow us one day to make representations on behalf of Quebeckers, it conducted a vast prebudget consultation in which most of my party colleagues took part.
This is what we found out. Whenever the Minister of Finance opens his mouth, two or three days later he changes his tune, with the result that we never know which figures or numbers are true. It was said at that time that the budget surplus would be between $12 and $15 billion, and that these figures were supported by many respected economists in Quebec and in Canada, including those of the Mouvement Desjardins.
We consulted our people. It was not the kind of fake consultation that we often see in the rest of the country. It was a serious consultation process that led to a summary report on the opinions of the people in 26 ridings and 10 regions in Quebec. More than 2,500 people took the time to come to see us or to call our offices to say how outraged they were by the federal government's attitude.
Among those people were three provincial colleagues of mine, Jean-Guy Paré from Lotbinière, Jacques Baril from Arthabaska and Michel Morin from Nicolet—Yamaska. They took the time to contact us because they also have to deal every day with people coming to them with health problems. They took the time to tell us that they had had enough of the federal government's attitude. That goes to show that the consensus arrived at in Saskatoon is strong, real and credible to Quebeckers.
But I am not at all surprised to see our dear Liberal government act this way. The things it has done over the past year and a half speak for themselves. It is just the result of the unhealthy partisan strategy behind the throne speech made in the House in October 1997.
I will now say a few words about the credibility of the Minister of Finance. What credibility. In February 1998, when he brought down his budget, the minister announced “a zero deficit this year, 1997-98; a zero deficit next year and a zero deficit in the year 2000”. In fact, what the finance minister said really means he foresaw that his marks as an administrator for those three years would be zero. That is what this finance minister's score in administration is. Zero.
Let us now take a look at the credibility of the saviour from Sherbrooke, Jean Charest. He has a strong tendency to take after the finance minister, as evidenced by the way he announced his budget forecast a while ago; I think it was in Rimouski. On the very same afternoon he made his announcement, Liberal fiscal and financial experts were wringing their hands in desperation; it just did not make sense. He had not realized that, while he thought it was for four years, the forecast put out by Lucien Bouchard and his government, by Quebec's minister of state for economy and finance, Bernard Landry, was in fact for five years.
Some credibility. Shall we talk about his credibility? During the debate Tuesday, how did Mr. Charest respond when Premier Lucien Bouchard pointed out to him that he was $1.5 billion short in order to deliver on his promises? He was unable to say where the money would come from. He really could not say.
This means that, should the people of Quebec put their trust in this individual, he will have no problem working with the current Minister of Finance of Canada. It means that we in Quebec will be taking a step backward, that we will be the losers.
Therefore, we must impress upon Quebeckers and upon all stakeholders the importance of keeping Mr. Bouchard at the helm so we have a strong voice and so he can continue to put pressure on the Canadian government to obtain what we have a right to expect from that government.
Now we will move on to the real problems in our health care system, not those Jean Charest has been trying to bring to light since the beginning of the campaign. He goes around talking about billions of dollars, but we have no idea where that money is going to come from. In any case, I already said that he has no credibility. He is like our federal Minister of Finance. That Liberal leader speaks only about concepts. He has all the rhetoric, but no figures.
At this stage, I am pleased to move an amendment, which reads as follows:
That the motion be amended by replacing the word “a” with the following:
“an immediate”
That is the change I want to make to the main motion brought forward by the leader of the Bloc Quebecois.