Mr. Speaker, it was not just the provinces but the people that they served who suffered immensely when the Chrétien-Martin government of the 1990s made the deepest cuts that we have seen to the health and social transfers.
New Democrats are concerned to restore a meaningful role for the federal government in funding health services. In some cases, that means doing it ambitiously by providing programs in collaboration with the provinces that will bring new services to Canadians through public funding, but it also means making up for the simple absence of federal funding with some unconditional funding for the provinces as well. We think there is an appropriate mix of those things that can contribute to improving health care and other services in Canada.
The way to do that is to make sure that the wealthiest are paying their fair share. There is a trajectory over the last 30 or more years in Canada of the people at the top paying less and less in taxes. In fact, there was a Liberal platform commitment to impose a minimum tax on the wealthiest because their effective rate of taxation is often lower than it is for the poorest Canadians who are paying taxes in Canada. There is something incredibly perverse about that. It is something government action can fix, and there will be a salutary effect on the books here in Ottawa if we do it.