Mr. Speaker, the member is wrong. He has been spoon-fed a line by the finance minister and other cabinet front benchers who have not told him the truth.
The truth is that the last increase was in September 2000. That money did not even make up the difference between the 1995 cuts and the previous federal share.
In the last budget we saw a tiny bit of money allocated for a few specific projects but there was nothing for the base of health care. There were no changes to the transfer payments. That is precisely why the premiers have been asking over and over again for the federal government to restore federal health funding through the CHST to at least 18% and introduce an escalator clause. If that does not set the record straight, I do not know what does. That is precisely what the government needs to do. It needs to recognize that its 11% or 12% share of health care funding is absolute peanuts. It is ridiculous, crummy, lousy. This has to be addressed.
The member is quite right in pointing to some provinces that have mismanaged the health care system and may be giving away health dollars in tax cuts that primarily benefit the rich. Starving all the provinces into submission with sick and ailing Canadians as the victims in this war of finance ministers and this jurisdictional dispute is not the solution. The solution is to ensure that the federal government plays its role by providing its proper share of funding for our health care system and showing that kind of leadership to build for the future.