They were crippling cutbacks, as my friend from Winnipeg says. They were major cutbacks. They hurt most not in Ontario and Alberta but in New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Manitoba, the poorer provinces of the country. The larger provinces with stronger economies could afford to put more of their own money into social services, education and health.
I will give the House the example of my own province of Saskatchewan, where there are slightly over one million people. In the early nineties it was staggering with tremendous debt and deficit. Saskatchewan had a deficit that was the largest in the country next to that of the province of Newfoundland. The deficit was run up by a premier named Grant Devine who was probably more right wing than many of the reformers who are in the House today.
Despite the huge debt and deficit, the Romanow government decided to backfill every single dollar into the health care budget that the federal government had cut out. That was extremely difficult for a province with a huge debt. Fortunately, Saskatchewan's economy was not doing too badly. The farm economy was relatively okay compared to now. However, the government had to introduce taxes right across the board. Income tax went up and the sales tax went up by 2%. A deficit repayment tax was implemented in the province.
Provincial officials did that to maintain services. Despite that, right across the board many rural hospitals had to be closed because of those tremendous cutbacks that hit Saskatchewan. I am sure the same was true in the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia where hospitals were also closed largely because of federal cutbacks to the EPF.
These items are all part of the debate. The government has done a tremendous amount of cutting which has really hurt the cause of co-operative federalism in Canada. It has really hurt the cause of having a strong central federal government whose purpose is to create equality of conditions. It has hurt the cause of the vision I believed in so strongly when I was in university. It is the vision of a Lester Pearson or a Tommy Douglas or a Bob Stanfield, the vision of a co-operative federalism.
Members may remember the vision of co-operative federalism of Douglas, Pearson and Stanfield back in the sixties and seventies. That vision was to make sure everybody was brought up rather than brought down. That was the vision of co-operative federalism, with sharing, flexibility, strong provinces and a lot of diversity. It was a vision with the uniqueness of Quebec, two languages and many cultures, but a strong central government.
We have been sliding away from that vision over the last number of years. The bill is another small example of that. Sure the cap goes up this year, but the cap will suddenly be gone and will go back to what it was for the years that lie ahead.
The economy is not as strong as it was a few months ago, but it will likely rebound starting in the last part of this year. With the fiscal surplus we have today, I appeal to the government to spend more of that money on programs like equalization and transfers to the provinces for education, health and social services so we invest in the human infrastructure of Canada and create a country with genuine equality of conditions regardless of whether one lives in Fogo Island, Newfoundland, downtown Edmonton or Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. That has to be the vision of our country.