Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his speech, probably best described as fun with facts and figures. The hon. member is an economics professor and seems to have some incapacity to deal with the actual moneys that get transferred to the provinces. Possibly that is why he is seeking a political appointment as opposed to professorial employment.
In order to get to the hon. member's fanciful figures, he has to ignore three or four rather major elements in federal transfers to provinces. He has to ignore about $17 billion in tax points. Apparently this is all funny money; it is not real money; it is not money that actually comes out of the federal treasury, but it is. It comes in and it goes out. However, as far as the hon. member is concerned, it is not real money. Possibly we should go back to the old system where it was all cash and there were no tax points. We would see whether the hon. member would still make his vehement argument that tax points are not real money and should not be counted for anything.
His second fanciful argument has to do with equalization. Apparently that is not real money either. It is about $10 billion and of that, $5 billion goes to his province. However, according to the member, that is not real money either and that is not supposed to be spent on health care. The federal government would then fall down in its obligations, so again, that is not real money being contributed to health care.
Then he has to ignore the direct spending of the federal government in the areas of health care, which amounts to somewhere in the order of about $6 billion. That money has to be ignored as well in order for him to arrive at his fanciful figures.
Would the hon. member start dealing with real money? Would he actually start recognizing the contribution out of the federal treasury to the provincial treasuries, which actually brings the fiscal capacity of the government down and transfers fiscal capacity to the provinces? Instead of his fun with facts and figures, he should deal with real figures?