Mr. Speaker, when I used to be the health care critic in the province of Manitoba, and members will see the link here, it was a fairly significant budget. What happened was the government would often make a decision in terms of what direction a hospital facility would take. The hard numbers were not necessarily known.
One of the reasons those hard numbers may not always be known is that we have a great reliance on our civil servants. A lot of that is the shuffling around effect, where maybe one cost factor will decrease because of a change, yet another cost factor will increase because of that change. It is very difficult, at the best of times, to give the type of numbers the member across the way is proposing.
Generally speaking, and I emphasize that, it is an envelope of money that is assigned. Through that, there will be some changes. Ultimately it will be determined whether or not there is a need for an increase.
Would the member provide his thoughts about what I am saying, and apply the same basic principle for other divisions of government?