Mr. Speaker, in fairness, I think the hon. member is a little bit confused. Transfers under our government to the provinces increased maximally. In fact, transfers to my province increased some 80% over the time that the Conservative Party was in government, which was in stark contrast to what Paul Martin and the Liberals did when they decided to attack the deficit, which was slash funding to the provinces by over 40%. Does everyone remember that the health care crisis back there in the nineties, 1997 and 1996, when health care was slashed and every single province was struggling, because that was the Liberal approach, to slash transfers to the provinces.
We did the opposite. We increased health care transfers to the provinces well ahead than the rate of inflation, in fact, higher than the rate of inflation in health care spending. The federal share of health care funding under our government rose. The provincial share of health care spending under our government fell. We were doing more than our fair share.
Our concern is, what happens when another debt and deficit gets built up? We know the Liberals' way: it will hurt people.