Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be able to raise some questions with the member for Scarborough East. He has stood in this House and has talked about the priorities that he believes the Liberal government has. He also outlined for us, in a surprising fashion, that it actually has health care as a priority. I just want to review that for a moment.
As I recall, in the 1993 federal election the Liberals had three priorities: to abolish, get rid off, cut and eliminate the GST; to re-negotiate and roll back the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement, which they then embraced; and to support our health care system.
I am a member of parliament from Saskatchewan. The hon. member opposite talked about the Ontario experience. In terms of Liberal priorities, the Saskatchewan experience has been interesting to say the least, but they would not be viewed in Saskatchewan terms or in any other terms as priorities.
For example, we used to have a 50% cost sharing arrangement with the federal government for health care. Do members know what it is now? It is not 50%. It is not 40%. It is not 25%. It is not even 15%. The federal share of funding for health care in Saskatchewan has dropped to 14%. That is how the Liberals define priority for health care. They slash, hack and cut medicare so it is bleeding from a thousand cuts. Fourteen per cent means that 86% of the cost of health care is funded by Saskatchewan people for Saskatchewan people. This is a priority that I hope the member will address in the upcoming budget.
In five years we have seen $1 billion taken out of our health care system by the Liberal government which has prioritized health care. How much would it have taken out if it was not a priority? Maybe it would have been $5 billion. We are not sure. A billion dollars in Saskatchewan is $1,000 for every man, woman and child. That is what we have lost from our health care system. But the NDP government, in its wisdom, found that $1,000 per man, woman and child and did not pass on the cuts the feds made to the health care system. We backfilled every dollar into health care which those members opposite said was a priority.
We have also seen their wonderful priority in terms of tax cuts for Saskatchewan people and other Canadians. They have eliminated the Crow benefit, which is another $1 billion that has been taken out of the Saskatchewan economy. On top of that they raised railway transportation costs by between 25% and 33% to every farmer selling and shipping their products by rail. That is a priority.
When we look at the issues of health care, transportation and agriculture, what we see in Saskatchewan is that even the provincial Liberals are saying that health care is a priority and that the NDP in Saskatchewan is not doing its job with respect to health care. The NDP found $1 billion that this government cut, but the Liberal cousins in Ottawa continue to attack the health care system.
Will the hon. member put his seat on the line? If health care is not the priority that he says it is come the budget, will he resign his seat?