The hon. member is absolutely correct. He has just proven that in politics one has to raise one's voice enough to wake the dead. Stones must hear the good message. I am glad that the stones opposite have also heard that the number is $3.5 billion today. It is an additional $8 billion over the next five years. That is much more than anybody had anticipated.
Yet what have we heard? The opposition said we took out $20 billion. That number was only $16 billion two weeks ago, and two weeks before that, it was only $6 billion. The amount of money that has been withdrawn has been growing exponentially as the opposition has seen the government meet the priorities of Canadians head on.
The Canadian government, through its finance minister, through its health minister, through the other cabinet colleagues, in co-operation with the provincial premiers of this vast nation has struck an agreement that would also ensure that those moneys would go directly to the citizenry. None of this bureaucratic in between let us manipulate this ministry hideaway. None of that sort of business. The business of the health of Canadians was going to be met by every single province.
Not only that, they agreed that the federal government ought to spend and in fact is spending an additional $1.4 billion. I cannot count that high but I can spell the number. It is a lot more than a million, $1.4 billion directly in health outcomes. What are they? This is what the opposition is lamenting. That is why I say it seems like this dark cloud is avoiding the silver lining. For health, research and development in the basic sciences, $550 million. Whether they choose to appreciate that or not, there is not a person in the basic science research and development community who does not think that this exceeds their wildest dreams.