Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's compilation of yesterday's election results is a rather odd one.
In discussing social union, he referred to the Meech Lake Accord. As a Quebecker, I remember that the present Prime Minister, then leader of the Liberal Party but without a seat in the House, played a very specific role in the failure of Meech, with the complicity of then Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells. Today he gets all worked up about those who were responsible for the failure of Meech. He ought to look back at that.
Returning to social union, these are demands that go back 50 years, in Quebec and in the other provinces as well. It is also in part the outcome of the federal government's cuts to transfer payments to the provinces, of its brutal cuts to health care. They are what has triggered this discussion, since the other provinces were forced to make cuts to health care, to the hospitals. That is what they have been pushed to.
I hope the federal government understands the urgency for remedying the situation by restoring transfer payments as promptly as possible, in the next budget, for health care in particular, but also for education and social assistance.
I would like to know my hon. colleague's opinion on this matter, that is on the money the federal government has cut from the provinces in these areas.