Madam Speaker, I paid careful attention to the budget debate on the monitor in my office and when I was in the House.
I do not mean to make light of interventions that colleagues make. I know they are studied and I know they are very sincere but I often think of dark clouds looking for that silver lining so that they can avoid it.
That in essence is the substance of the debates that I have heard from the opposition side so far.
I am especially struck by the desire to manipulate two contrary views, especially by one party opposite. On the one hand, the critic for health turns around and says that there are two words to describe what the contributions are and they are “not enough”. Then his colleague over to his right—and I mean that figuratively as well as geographically—turns around and says that we did not cut enough taxes and we did not take out more from that spending.
I do not know what it is that they want to do, but I want to remind colleagues that the Canadian public has been telling all members of parliament on that side as well as on this side that its priorities for government spending, government activity and government involvement in the life of all Canadians has had to be involvement in a health care system, a health care system that is at least from the federal government's perspective, constrained by what it can do jurisdictionally.
Canadians have asked all of us parliamentarians to look for solutions to ensure that the priorities of all Canadians, and again health is the number one priority of every man, woman and child in this country, be given the same status when we fulfil the most basic, the most important and the most significant functions of all parliamentarians in this House and that is to set a budget that establishes those priorities.
What do we have? People are whining that we are spending too much and doing too much to meet the demands and needs of Canadians everywhere. People have been saying that we have problems with our health system, notwithstanding the fact that in agreements with the provinces in the past we provided sustainable, predictable continuous funding. We gave the provinces the authority to go ahead and do what they would in establishing health priorities through their administrations. We moved back.
Notwithstanding that, the Canadian government recognized that it had to do something more directly for Canadians. In collaboration with the provinces, it struck a deal a couple of weeks ago, a social union. It is a reflection of the ability to work together with other jurisdictions. To do what? To meet the priorities of Canadians. In what area? In health. What were they looking for? Some said $2 billion would be more than enough to meet all the immediate needs. But no, the Government of Canada and the finance minister said we would give $3.5 billion today to meet the urgent and critical needs in health care.
What does the opposition say? “Not enough. It didn't go to my province. My province didn't get what it wanted”. Guess what? Wake up. The Canadian public got what it wanted, in fact it got more. Not only did it take the $3.5 billion—