Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleague for his comments and question. I am indeed very sensitive to the situation in Newfoundland. In the part of Quebec where my riding is, a maritime, rural and remote region, we have problems similar to those the member has mentioned.
Over the past several years the federal government has provided us with various tools to help us. However, the current federal government has made systematic cuts, particularly in equalization payments, but also in the whole education and health care funding system. What we are seeing today is the result of these cuts.
A third measure has been very detrimental, that is cuts to the employment insurance. This means the current federal government made a choice: regional development was not an option for it; it is simply relying, at the most, on the market forces that are at play. People will go where the jobs are. It does not seem to be of any major concern that people, communities have opened new territories, lived in their natural environment, with their natural resources. That attitude has led to all kinds of actions and the cuts that were made.
The member says that young people are leaving his region, this is as a result of the government slashing funding for the provinces. Consequently, the provinces lack the necessary funds to support their health care system and they have to allocate an increasing part of their budget to health care, leaving less and less for the other expenses.
For example, it is said that health care expenses will increase from 38% of the provincial budgets in 2004-05 to 45% in 2019-20. Therefore, if the federal government keeps refusing to shoulder his share of the funding, the result will resemble what happened in Quebec at the last election. The party which was voted in said it would put energy and money in health care and education, but at the expense of the other areas.
That is what they said in their speeches, because it is important to make health care a priority, and they won the election on that platform. However, there is a financial reality. The current Quebec Minister of Finance, Mr. Séguin, says that the fiscal strangulation must stop because it is unacceptable to see seven out of ten provinces on the brink of deficit while the federal government shows accumulated surpluses of around $8 billion.
That is why the Bloc Quebecois is putting forward this motion today, requesting that half of these surpluses be invested in health care. I think this would address a very real and very definite public concern.