Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the member. First, almost all of his remarks are based on a fictitious surplus of about $13 billion. Given that he is the only economist in the country with such a far-fetched forecast, my question for him is the following: why should the government believe him rather than all the other economists in the country, unless he is perhaps the most brilliant economist in the land?
My second question concerns health. In terms of health funding in Canada, it seems to me that the BQ and the PQ are talking from both sides of their mouth. On the one hand, they never acknowledge income tax points that we have given in the past as federal transfers. The federal share of government spending in Quebec is actually 30%. They never mention it, because this figure includes tax points. On the other hand, today they are asking that tax points to be transferred; in other words, they want the federal government to provide the Quebec transfer in the form of tax points. After which, Quebec would not count these transfers. So, from the separatist perspective, this is a great idea. However, from the perspective of the federal government or of Canadians who are not separatists, why would such a proposal be considered?