Mr. Speaker, we will fiercely fight to protect our jurisdiction in Manitoba when it comes to the delivery of social programs, but we will just as fiercely demand that this new ministry of social development does something about the inadequacy of the transfer payments to the provinces so that they can meet the genuine need within inner city ridings like ours.
The Canada health and social transfer has been an abject failure in terms of block funding for post-secondary education, health care and social services. Perhaps through this new Minister of Social Development we will be able to argue that basic needs in our communities are not being met by their current structure, their current policy and their current miserly treatment in the transfer of money to the provinces so that we can deliver those programs in our own jurisdictions.