Madam Speaker, they sit at the same cabinet table, and they make decisions and value opinions with a national perspective. If we were to follow the logic of that question, one could say that if there are 29 ministers, each minister should be evaluated, and there should be 29 different salaries. Maybe that is the direction the former prime minister was heading. I would suggest that all cabinet ministers, as the legislation says, are equal, and they should be treated accordingly.
In regard to the member's comments in terms of the deficit situation, remember that former prime minister Harper created that multi-billion deficit after inheriting a surplus before the recession took place. In regard to the cuts, it was Jean Chrétien who erased the tax transfer points, which guaranteed health cash dollars to provinces. If it were not for Chrétien back then, we might not have health cash transfers to provinces because of the tax points. I was in the Manitoba legislature--