Madam Speaker, I am always interested to hear from my hon. colleague along the way. I had the opportunity to spend a bit more time with him when I was much more involved as a parliamentary secretary with respect to finance issues and the finance committee. His enthusiasm for his perspective has not diminished at all.
I still find it somewhat ironic that perhaps he was not listening earlier this morning when two members of his party were in debate and were talking about the participation of or the expenditure made by the national government with respect to health care in his province. I stand to be corrected, but I certainly understood the member to be suggesting that we were only participating to the tune of some 14 cents per dollar. If we calculate the cash transfer and include the tax points it is closer to 30 cents per dollar.
The hon. member might want to stand in his place and say that when members of his party first got here they acknowledged the tax points and the value of tax points. However when putting forward their position they continue in their rhetoric and continue to ignore the value of tax points and only speak about the cash portion.
If we take the position put forward by the hon. member, and this occurred a number of years ago, we must ignore the room that was ceded to the provinces with respect to tax points. I am not sure whether the hon. member is suggesting that we were to freeze the value of tax points back then. If we look at the value of those tax points today and the room that was ceded to the provinces, they are worth six times more today than in 1977. They were worth $2.7 billion then and today they are worth $15.7 billion.
We cannot have it both ways. While we acknowledge that the tax room was ceded to the provinces at that time, we cannot ignore the fact that those tax points were ceded by a national government. When we talk about transfers to provinces we must continue to look at the whole picture, and the whole picture involves the transfer of cash and the transfer of points.
When I meet with my constituents, and I am sure many members across the way meet with theirs, they are pressing the national government to ensure that it maintains some type of system of equality across Canada. Cash transfers are the way that is done. That is the way we uphold Canadian values and, for instance, the Canada Health Act. Equalization is the way we attempt to maintain equality of services for all Canadians across the country when some provinces are more prosperous than others.
We understand and accept that provinces have funding challenges, but it is somewhat irresponsible to suggest that the national government has played no role in trying to assist provinces. We must define the way we participate in that partnership. That is quite clear.
We help fund health care and post-secondary education and we do so by tax points and cash. I ask the hon. member to not only recognize that tax points were ceded back then but to acknowledge that tax points play a role in transfers to the provinces.