Mr. Speaker, Lester B. Pearson's government listened to the NDP, but those days are long gone.
The provinces adopted Paul Martin's famous accord with a gun to their heads, an old Liberal practice that goes back to the days of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and the rounds of negotiations with the provinces in the early 1970s and 1980s. This is the last chapter in the saga of this famous accord; the government is drastically reducing the health transfers to the provinces.
The initial accord guaranteed that the federal government would pay 50% of provincial health care costs. It was a very clear and very simple accord, and this new program was the envy of the world. The Liberals began dismantling it and the Conservatives continued the job.
My dear colleague cannot be proud of the 20 years spent tearing apart the fabric of this country.