Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member who just spoke for the sincere advice he has given the government.
He talks about trust. He stood in essentially what is the highest court in the land and said the federal government contribution to health care is 14¢ on the dollar. I have heard that figure thrown around and I was concerned by it. If that is true, if it is 14¢ on the buck, then the federal government's authority in this area has certainly diminished. Then I looked at the facts.
He says that health care is supposed to be 50:50. I would suggest to him that it was never 50:50. There were things in the health care envelope like psychiatric health care, and we have a big psychiatric centre in my riding, that was never covered.
When he arrived at 14¢, and he is quoting Ralph Klein, that is taking only the cash portion. He is ignoring the tax points. I do not want to get into that and confuse the member, but I will tell the House that they are worth every bit as much as money. That is why the provinces are encouraging us to give them more tax points. He took the cash portion and applied it to the entire Canada health and social transfer envelope. The provinces spend 62% of that on health care, so we must apply that same percentage to that portion. When we do the math, it is probably around 36¢.
The member may argue that, but would he not admit that the 14¢ on the dollar figure is absolutely wrong and apologize to Canadians for standing up here and repeating that nonsense that is coming from Ralph Klein?