Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate that the transfers in 2014-15 are $32.1 billion and are going to go up to $40.9 billion in 2019-20.
As my colleague has indicated, the provinces were on an escalator that in a short time was going to be consuming over half of their budgets, and they recognized that they had to do something. They recognized that they had to focus on innovation and all the other areas I have talked about. What we have done as a federal government is committed in a way that gives them confidence about what their transfers are going to be.
I have to point out that unlike the Liberal government, which actually balanced its budget in the 1990s on the backs of the provinces' transfer payments, we are back to a balanced budget and yet have committed to unprecedented increases in transfer payments.