Mr. Speaker, first I wish to congratulate my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska for the quality of his presentation. He has restored the historical dimension of the issue and has also showed that he has a vision for the future.
There is one word which could have remedied not the weakness but, let us say, the imperfection of the motion. I am not afraid of the word imperfection because perfect people are always more disturbing than imperfect people. Maybe we should have used the word “re-establish” instead of “increase” unconditionally because we are not asking for an increase but for the re-establishment of what was there previously.
Instead of having a theoretical debate, I would like to mention that in my own region, indeed in several other regions in Quebec, health care is an issue of concern for all people. There are not many people in Quebec who are not aware of the present situation in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region.
We obviously agree with the unconditional re-establishment of health care budgets, but I am concerned about transfers to provincial governments—let us say we speak here about the Quebec government—because regions don't always get the benefits they deserve. In my own region, in the area of social services including health care, we are still getting much less than we are entitled to given our population.
I take the opportunity of today's debate to point out to my colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois that while they are asking for everything to be transferred to Quebec, in the regions we have a problem not with the Government of Canada but with the Government of Quebec because of its unfair allocations between various regions of the province.
This is a very serious problem, and to show how serious it is, I will quote from a story published this morning, not two years ago, but this morning. One hundred and sixty doctors, dentists and pharmacists in my region have said: “Mr. Bouchard can push around his ministers, deputy ministers and experts, but he has no power over us. He should have thought about that before”. That is the reality we live in. In our region, we are not even able to get adequate health care.
That is why I am in favour of transfers. The Bloc Quebecois and the Conservative Party are often fighting here in Ottawa over matters of principle. In the area of employment, we were in favour of budget transfers, amounting to hundreds of millions. But go see what is going on now in that area since federal funds were transferred to be managed by the provincial government. We are getting less than 25 per cent of what we were getting before.
As for funds for regional development in my region, here is what some were saying this morning: “Those who believe that the new entity created by the government, the local development boards, the LDB, will remedy these shortcomings in leadership are sadly mistaken”.
There is not one area where the transfers to Quebec have benefited regions. I ask my colleague if he—