Mr. Speaker, what the provinces can count on is a continued increase in the amount of money they will receive from the federal government in terms of our health care transfers. In my own province of Nova Scotia, this year, for the first time, transfers from the federal government to the province eclipsed $3 billion.
Let me put that in perspective. The entire revenue of the Government of Nova Scotia is $9 billion. A full third of that comes directly to the provincial government in transfers. We have actually increased the amount of transfers in health again and again. This will continue because we are going to set a floor of an over 3% increase in transfers from the federal government to the provinces each year, and most years it is going to be far more than that. This is more of an increase in the amount of money that the federal government is transferring to the provinces than the provinces are increasing on spending in health care themselves.
If any provinces are complaining about health care transfers, they should take a look at their books. They can count on increases to health care transfers from the federal government from now in perpetuity.