Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague opposite seems to want to have it both ways. He wants money to be transferred to provincial revenues and simultaneously he acknowledges that there is an enormous debt which needs to be dealt with.
He ignores quite nicely the earlier part of my speech in which I said that provincial revenues far exceed federal revenues by something in the order of at least $25 billion. He ignores the fact that the provinces have virtually the same access to revenue sources as does the federal government. He also ignores the fact that the equalization program is one of the few programs that did not get cut. His province is the major beneficiary of that program to the detriment, I would argue, in some respects of other parts of the country. It is probably the equalization moneys which have grown the most in the past number of years.
We can ignore all of these sorts of things. We can live in this fantasy world where we want it both ways, but I say to my hon. colleague opposite that we cannot have it both ways. We do have a nation. The nation has needs from coast to coast to coast. We on this side of the House will address those needs in a fair and balanced fashion.