Madam Speaker, I would like to make a brief comment and then ask the member a question.
The member will know that the Canada health and social transfer is made up of two components, the cash component as well as the tax points. The sum of those two equals the total entitlement of a province.
The member will also know that as the economy grows and more people are working and provinces earn additional revenue, the amount of cash does go down, all of which is subject to a floor which is going to be set at $15 billion.
I wanted to raise that with the member because the cuts are not simply the cuts that otherwise would not have been made. As other members have already pointed out, some provinces like Ontario gave $4.3 billion in tax cuts and the cut from the federal government was only $1.2 billion. Clearly the provinces have priorities and clearly the province of Ontario showed that health care was not its priority.
My question to the member regards his final comments on homelessness. The Golden report in Toronto identified that 17% of the homeless in Toronto were aboriginals. The member will well know the amount of dollars invested in aboriginal health and wellness issues by the government, as well as in the last budget.
The member will also know that transfers to the provinces have increased because of these health transfers and that about 30% of homelessness has to do with mental and physical disabilities, and that money is addressing that.
He also knows that 28% of the homeless in the Toronto survey were youths. He knows how much money has been spent on youth employment initiatives and youth programs to ensure that our youth have the training and the education they are going to need to participate in society.
With those few statistics, I would ask the member whether he agrees that homelessness has been addressed directly by this budget and by other policies of the government.