The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot understands me well when he whispers to me that it is per year. That means that we will not come to the end of the tunnel if the status quo in the fiscal imbalance between the provinces and the federal government persists.
The 5% is attributable to the aging population, to the acquisition cost of medical technologies. For a hospital, acquiring a scanner may cost millions of dollars and that is only for a single hospital and one piece of medical equipment.
Do members know what item is currently the most costly in hospital budgets? It is the increased spending on drugs. That expense cannot be cut down, so over the next few years there will be significant increases.
Let us acknowledge something. Has there ever been in the history of Canadian federalism, in the history of this parliament, a more hypocritical government than the one opposite? Has there ever been one? No.