Manitoba is the next one. The budget came down today but I have not had a chance to do the numbers yet so I am not sure. However it is probably comparable to a province like Saskatchewan, which is $306 billion per year.
In Newfoundland, it would mean $175 million per year. In New Brunswick, it would mean $214 million per year. I do not have the Nova Scotia figures, but in Prince Edward Island it would mean $43 million per year.
In Ontario the budget comes down on the May 18 and I suspect we will be looking at around $3 billion, or something like that, but again we do not have the figures.
If the federal government were to increase its share of health financing from 16% to 25% in Quebec, “la belle province” would have $2.15 billion more each year. That would be around $20 billion over the next 10 years. That is a lot of money.
This is in Mr. Romanow's report. It is in the federal report, which calls for more equal sharing. Mr. Romanow was a great New Democrat. He was an eminent provincial premier. I agree with the parliamentary secretary on the other side who said so.
This would be a much more equal sharing of resources if the federal government were to put in 25% of the cash transfers to the provinces. It used to be 50%. Now it is 16% and we are advocating 25%. The Romanow commission recommended the same thing. I think the Canadian people would agree that this would be the fairest and most equitable way to go.
If there are any Liberals across the way who disagree with this I hope they will stand up in the House before the debate ends and tell us why they disagree.
If we do not do this soon, we will get some radical Conservative, such as Premier Klein in Alberta or the Leader of the Opposition, talking about two tiered medicine and American style for profit hospitals. If we do not do something soon to increase the federal share we will have a person like Premier Klein pulling Alberta out of the Canada Health Act and forfeiting the 16% that it gets from the federal government.
That should hit a very sore spot for my friends across the way. They just cannot wait to allow the big American corporations into our country to start building hospitals for profit, which is what they would like to do and what they will do.