Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary said that the accumulated surplus was $35.8 billion for the federal government in the last few years. Meanwhile, the surplus in the EI fund is $46 billion. Therefore, the employers and the employees have been paying for the deficit reduction of the Minister of Finance.
My question for the parliamentary secretary is this. Could he address the question of the fiscal imbalance, which is now occurring in Canada, for cost-shared programs. Health care is a good example. The federal government used to pay 50% of the cost years ago. Now it is down to less than 20% of the cost, about 14¢ or 15¢ on the dollar. The rest is picked up by the provinces. For other cost sharing programs, a similar amount is picked up by the federal government and the provinces. In all cost sharing programs, the federal government now pays less than 20% of the cost. That has increased the gap between the rich and the poor.
The other thing is would he address the idea of a cap on equalization payments, which again has hurt the provinces that are less prosperous and has increased the gap between the rich and the poor?