Mr. Speaker, I would expect our hon. colleague, with the responsibilities that she has, to be a little better informed and a little less of a grandstander.
Quebec's finance minister, Bernard Landry, an excellent finance minister, who has no equal in this House, may I point out, has clearly indicated that Quebec put the money the hon. member refers to in trust in order to protect itself from Treasury Board accounting practices that would not, had he included it in Quebec's operating revenues, have guaranteed the National Assembly that this money would be used for health.
The finance minister, with the agreement of the health minister, wanted to significantly increase the funding allocated to health care in Quebec. I want to reassure all my fellow Quebecers that, if there is a government in recent years that has fully assumed its health care responsibilities, it is the government of Lucien Bouchard.
I ask the hon. member if we can count on her as a committed voice in her caucus to make it known to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Health that we want transfer payments to be returned to their 1994-95 level.
How can she remain silent? We are waiting for the government caucus to provide something other than the sorry spectacle of silent lambs with the government's cuts simply being confirmed uncritically.
I ask her to join with the members for Rosemont, Hochelaga—Maisonneuve and our colleagues in the New Democratic Party to say that the real crisis in the provinces' public health care system can be laid at the federal government's doorstep. Unilaterally, as of 1994, the federal government made cuts in transfer payments. Since 1994, these cuts have totalled $33 billion, $6.5 billion for Quebec alone.
If transfers were to be restored tomorrow morning, Quebec's share would be $1.2 billion. It would use half of this amount, or almost $500 million, for health, and the other half for income security and postsecondary education.
I therefore call on the Liberal members to rise out of their stupor, to take matters into their own hands and to stand up and be counted with opposition members when we call on the government to restore transfer payments to the 1994-95 level.