Mr. Speaker, the condition of 3% growth in GDP was achieved within three years of the promise. We have had almost 10 years. This project could have been on the go but it did not happen.
The old line about matching funds is the oldest trick in the book. First one says that one has a great idea and claims credit for it. This is the strategy of the Liberal Party. The Liberals say that they have a wonderful idea but that they have to ask the provinces to pay part of the costs. Then they ensure cynically that they never have the capacity to meet that obligation and then do it by cutting huge amounts of transfers from the federal government to the provinces.
I must say that it was a brilliant strategy, if one is a cynic. It was a brilliant strategy because it allowed the Prime Minister to claim the status of hero when it came to deficit reduction simply by transferring the deficit to the provinces which, some enthusiastically, others reluctantly and some resisting, transferred that deficit on to the municipalities, or worse, directly on the shoulders of individual Canadians whose poverty levels went up, whose student debt went up, whose homelessness went up and whose illness went up.