My colleague says asleep. I would have said lethargic.
What I want people to understand is that there are structural pressures on the system. I need to point out to hon. members that $500 million more would be required just to keep the system afloat, without any change in service delivery, without one single additional person receiving one single additional service, if in the year 2000 we were to decide that exactly the same services would be delivered in 2001. The natural growth of the system is 4%.
When we say that the number of seniors among the population of Quebec will keep increasing, this has a number of implications. I have researched this and will share my findings with the hon. members.
I see the parliamentary secretary is joining us. I trust, and I say this in the friendliest way possible, that we will be able to count on the hon. member for Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies. He is my friend and I mean no disrespect, nor am I making any partisan remarks. I simply hope that we can count on him, as parliamentary secretary, to vote for this motion, since it is votable and that he will speak up very loudly to make this government restore the transfer payments.
If the Quebec Liberals do not speak up in this debate, we will have no other choice but to conclude that they are spineless creatures, doormats. But I do not wish to think such a thing, because there is still time for them to get hold of themselves.
Pressures on the system in 1998-99 resulted in 50,000 more people left on stretchers in emergency departments than in 1994-95. It will be no different in 2002-03. That is why more money needs to be put back into health.
As Pauline Marois has said, this does not prevent us from having a debate—in fact, she has called a summit on this—and it does not prevent us from rethinking the way we are going to deliver services. It is not true, however, that we can afford not to restore transfer payments for health.
We need to remember that this is our money. My colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot is going to prompt me with the exact figure for the taxes we send to Ottawa.