Mr. Speaker, I would just like to make a comment. We must always pay attention to what we say, particularly when we know that people listen to the debates and also read news originating in the House of Commons. Often we tend to exaggerate the facts.
When the members of the Bloc Quebecois say that there has been so many cutbacks to employment insurance, that the government has accumulated a huge surplus to wipe out the deficit, they neglect to point out to the public that this is the same phenomenon as in all provinces. This was a period of heavy recession, and all provinces, the country as well, were heavily in debt. Each government, therefore, accumulated a larger operating deficit with every passing year.
In 1993, the deficit was $42 billion. According to the Bloc Quebecois, the Canadian government should have borrowed still more money in order to pass it on to the provinces. That is more or less the mechanics of it. The more our budgets increase, the more the deficit increases, the more we borrow; the more we borrow, the more interest we pay on the debt. Asking the federal government to transfer tax points to the provinces, money to the provinces, when there is an operating deficit in excess of $42 billion, is like asking it to borrow money on behalf of Canadians and then give it to the provinces.
So a deficit at one place is increased in order to try to decrease it at another. When things like this are said, care needs to be taken.
The second point is that there is still reference to our ranking 25 out of 29 as far as social spending is concerned. I do not dispute that ranking of 25 out of 29. It refers to social spending, not the quality of services provided in Canada. The quality of services provided to Canadians is not what is involved here. They say Canada ranks 25 out of 29 in terms of social spending.
When spending in Canada is being considered, all social spending by the provinces is added in as well, not just federal spending. It is the total of spending in the country by each provincial government, plus federal spending, that makes up total social spending.