Mr. Speaker, while it continues to cry out for more federal health transfers, the Government of Quebec of Lucien Bouchard and his deputies Rémi Trudel and André Pelletier has done nothing with the $842 million allocated in the 1999 federal budget that was available to them anytime.
These PQ officials have let $842 million sit in the Toronto Dominion Bank, in Toronto, in the province next to Quebec. They did not even have the courage to transfer it to a caisse Desjardins or to a bank in Quebec, which might improve health care in hospitals in Abitibi—Témiscamingue and throughout Quebec.
According to the government of Lucien Bouchard, “The health care problem is not a money problem, it is a planning and management problem”.
So, Messrs. Trudel and Pelletier, why leave this money sit in the Toronto Dominion Bank in Toronto? The people of Abitibi are still waiting for you to wake up and transfer the money to Quebec.