Madam Speaker, what is outraging is the fact that this hon. member was not saying the same thing when he was on this side of the House. Now that he is on the other side, he has changed his tune.
When plants were closing and my colleagues and I were raucous in the House, calling for help to be provided to former older workers of the Canadian Celanese and the Cavalier Textiles in my region, as well as in his, he told me “When my party gets into office, we will restore measures for former older workers”. He is now on the other side and his party is in office, but I am still waiting for the measures that will be implemented to help these people.
With regard to the CHST, I would point out to my hon. colleague that initially the federal transfer for health and education was supposed to be 50%. Since 1993, the federal government has withdrawn support and its share has now declined to 14%. That doesn't make sense.
There have been drastic cuts. All the provinces, not just Quebec, but all the provinces agree that, if our provincial health systems are in danger, it is because of the cuts made by the federal government. So it is very insulting to come and tell us things like that.
When the minister made his financial statement, for once we had calculated the same flexibility as the finance minister. We too had calculated $147.9 billion. We had the same forecasts. Each year we used to come up with forecasts and the finance minister would say that we were mistaken. However, we were right, our figures were right and he had to recognize it.
This time, he came up with the same figure as us, as I was saying, that it $147.9 billion, but it is probably more than that now.
With regard to the tax burden reduction, the Minister of Finance forecast personal income tax reductions of $75.2 billion over five years. What I wanted to say it that we were suggesting a different way of allocating the $147.9 billion to assist those who suffered drastic cuts, particularly in the area of health.