Mr. Speaker, the member of the Conservative Party makes an excellent point. I am aware of it. I fully agree with her. The premiers of Atlantic Canada, the Liberal premier and the three Tory premiers, have said the same thing as the two NDP premiers on the prairies, Romanow and Doer, that last night's budget will be a net loser in terms of transfers to the small provinces.
In my province alone, the transfer will be about $80 million for health care over four years. That $80 million for health care, according to the premier in his comments this morning, is enough to keep the hospital system going for three days in Saskatchewan.
It is even worse than that when we factor in the tax changes. The tax systems in all of our provinces, and I am talking to the member from New Brunswick, are tied to the federal tax system. Because there are changes to the federal tax system, there will be tax losses in the smaller provinces. The four smaller provinces in the Atlantic, Saskatchewan and Manitoba will be net losers as a result of the transfers that were announced by the Minister of Finance last night.
That is a really sad commentary when the smaller and poorer provinces are the net losers in terms of the transfers and social programs. It is about time we had a new vision that put people first, that invested in people first.
The government is far more conservative than any Conservative government we ever had under Brian Mulroney or John Diefenbaker. We now have $4 billion less in terms of government programs than we had in 1992-93 despite the fact that the cost of living has gone up and despite the fact that government revenues have skyrocketed since 1992-93. I commend the member for her question.