You can double your caucus as long as we triple ours.
Anyway, over $25 billion have been slashed from transfers to the provinces—and I say “over” $25 billion because there was no indexing at the time and needs have grown—and it has led to a crisis. Money is not everything. Of course, it is easier to make decisions when you have money. As I said before, after making these cuts, the government decided to ruthlessly slash into provincial areas of jurisdiction.
To whom will the people complain? When I was city councillor, I used to say “It is the city councillors who have the backside closest to the taxpayers' boot”. In second place are the MLAs, and farthest from the taxpayers are MPs. So, when the federal government makes cuts to a provincial area of jurisdiction, who do the people turn to to complain? The provinces.
Announcements are made in economic statements and in budgets which the government only bothers to introduce every two years these days. New measures are not necessary, proper financing for current measures is. The Liberals claim that everything is hunky-dory. It is not true. They also argue “There is no fiscal imbalance, no decision imbalance. Everything is fine. There is a lot of money in the system”. They even go as far as to say “Everything is going so well that we have asked Mr. Romanow to head up a royal commission on health care”.
They want to revamp the health care system in Canada. Very well. But what about the fiscal arrangements? Do we not get to discuss them?