Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member from the Bloc for his excellent presentation. He illustrated a sound comprehension of the mathematics that is going on in this town.
I have a comment on the tax point before I put my question. Tax points have limited application to provinces, such as my province of Saskatchewan where the tax base is eroding and the fiscal capacity of the province is deteriorating. Tax points are not that great a solution. They might be good in Ontario; however, in a province that has a lot of fiscal problems, it has its problems.
I want to zero in on the waste that we have talked about in the House of Commons for the last while. We have, for example, the sponsorship program of $250 million. I have done some mathematics myself. Saskatchewan only has 10 MRIs. People are waiting 22 months to have an MRI in that province. That is a long time to wait for an appointment if the service is needed.
We also have a shortage of nurses. The sponsorship money of $250 million could pay for the training of 3,000 new nurses. We need a new bridge in my riding. It would cost about $30 million. We could build eight bridges with that money alone.
The Bloc member is very good with numbers. Does he have any idea of the volume of waste and corruption we have in Ottawa? What is the total dimension of that figure? Could he quantify that and give us an idea, out of the total $189 billion that we spend a year, how much of that is money wasted on boondoggles, corporate welfare, corruption and--