Mr. Speaker, the trouble with Conservatives is that they always like to throw out these numbers, pretend there is nothing wrong and say that they are giving all this money away.
The fact is that on the health transfer issue, despite the fact that Manitoba is getting a larger share than before, it was not getting what it was entitled to because of the way in which the government applied arbitrarily a formula that took significant dollars away from a number of provinces. This comes directly from the Province of Manitoba and other provincial governments that experienced this unfortunate news on the day that the budget was announced. The member will know that what I said in the House was that British Columbia loses $106 million, Quebec loses $83 million, Newfoundland and Labrador lose $78 million, Alberta loses $38 million and my home province of Manitoba loses $13 million, which only adds to the problems of patient waiting times and lineups at hospitals.
The government is always good at trying to pretend it is giving so much and then it turns around and finds a way to hurt provinces and hurt health care in the long run.
On the question of the national securities commission, members on this side are not talking out of two sides of their mouth at once. We have always said that we need a comprehensive securities system in this country. It does not make sense to have simply a national securities regulator if the government is not prepared to move forward on a number of issues that will get at the excesses and the corruption that exists in the investment and financial industries now.
It is time the government recognized that it cannot get away with a simple little band-aid at the last minute. It needs to work with Parliament and the Canadian people to come up with a comprehensive package because time is running out and people are hurting.