Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Joliette for his question. No, it is not normal. It is not normal that we have just heard the members opposite talking about stability in financing. I was listening to the parliamentary secretary, who was talking about stable arrangements and other things. There is nothing more unstable than federal transfer payments.
One year, they were $800 million. Two years ago, an envelope of $800 million was provided. Now they say for next year, “We'll see...”, because we do not know what the financial situation will be. How can anyone manage a country that way? How can anyone manage Quebec that way? How can anyone run a health system that way, knowing only that this year we have $800 million and next year we do not know how much we will have?
Doctors have to be hired; investments have to be made in medical equipment, which is amortized over 10 or 15 years; and no one knows if there will be enough money to maintain the contracts and invest the funds needed to finance the medical equipment. That is no way to manage. It cannot be managed from day to day, depending on varying surpluses. This is shameless blackmail. But we have to expect that this blackmail will become institutionalized.
They have money coming out their ears and they are feverish with the need for visibility, on the other side of the House. They want the minister to make an appearance when he hands out a cheque; they want the Canadian flag everywhere, and hospitals are nearly wallpapered with Canadian flags. They have now gone into the primary schools. It is amazing. But it is obsessive.
Services as essential as health and education cannot be managed on a day-to-day basis, or with a knife at our throats, which is what the finance minister tells us every day, when he says, “We will see, but we do not know”.