Mr. Speaker, the member for Hull—Aylmer is distracting me. Given that I live in his city during the week, and that we contribute to the economy of his riding, he should have the decency to listen to us. I live there during the week.
I will give the Romanow report one thing. He recognized that there is a shortfall, that health is underfunded and that there is a lack of transfers. He proposes at the very least returning to funding 25% of health care costs. He proposes that the federal government's contribution be set at least five years in advance.
Personally, I hope that the Prime Minister and the federal Minister of Health will recognize that fact and follow up on the recommendation about reinvesting in health care. As long as we stay in this system, where taxes are collected and where the federal government, using its spending power, invests in areas under provincial jurisdiction, we will have to keep this in mind.
In closing, I read the article by Paule Des Rivières, editorial writer for Le Devoir . I will read only one paragraph. While the government wants to interfere in areas under provincial jurisdiction, she writes, and I quote:
In 1994, the Auditor General found a huge amount, $8 billion, in unrecovered taxes at Revenue Canada; in 1995, he revealed that $720 million had been wasted on the construction of the bridge to Prince Edward Island; in 1996, he reported that harmonization of the GST in the Atlantic provinces had cost $1 billion; in 1997, he demonstrated that Ottawa could have obtained $1 billion more for the sale of its air navigation system; in 1998, he exposed negligence in the management of social insurance numbers; in 1999, he denounced the ridiculously high surplus in the employment insurance fund; in 2000, he confirmed that hundreds of millions of dollars had disappeared in uncontrolled grants at HRDC; in 2001, we learned that Ottawa had saved $400 million at the expense of senior citizens.
And now we are told that $1 billion will be spent for gun control, which is a lot more than expected. With these kinds of administrative blunders, it is unacceptable for the government to want to interfere in areas under provincial jurisdiction.