Nevertheless, we did present an amendment to the motion inviting the government to make a reference to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities to ensure that the workers contributing to this program would be the main ones to benefit from it.
There is one other very important matter. We know that everyone who has taken an even slightly enlightened look at the key trends in Canadian federalism realizes that there is what is termed a fiscal imbalance. This imbalance is a situation in which the federal government collects far more revenue of various kinds, income and other taxes and so forth, than what it needs to use these funds for.
The issue was not examined by a partisan body. We are talking about the Conference Board, the equivalent of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, if you will. It estimated that, over the next ten years, the federal government's situation could result in an accumulated surplus of $160 billion. We are not talking about fifty years, we are talking about a decade, a timeframe within which economic forecasting can be credible and accurate.
This brings me to another issue I care a lot about, health care. It takes the cake. If we were to grade the federal government on its handling of the health file, it would get an F . It took the mobilization of all the provincial premiers. I would remind the member for Glengarry--Prescott--Russell that an F means failure.
You will recall that last year at this time every single premier, not just a Quebec sovereignist premier, were mobilizing. Every single provincial premier of Canada, Conservative, Liberal and New Democrat alike, got into the act. They bought ads in newspapers to alert public opinion to the fact that the federal government had been particularly irresponsible.
Why irresponsible? We will recall—