Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, like many of my colleagues today, I'd like to express my extreme disappointment with the federal response to the Northern First Ministers on health care renewal funding; especially, Mr. Speaker, when First Ministers from all provinces had agreed that the territories needed special treatment and not financing on a per capita basis. I think Mr. Roy Romanow had already laid out the reasons to support such an approach to funding in the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Speaker, I was a Member of the 13th Assembly, and at the time, in the late '90s, Canada faced a deficit. And we weren't asked to help cut the national deficit, we were told we would help, and we were told by how much. The federal government unilaterally cut our transfer payments. And they didn't cut our transfer payments then on a per capita basis. The impact that we felt was in the area of $150 million. Mr. Speaker, this led to lay-offs, cuts in salaries and benefits of employees, and cuts to programs, including cuts to health and to education. So Canada, with disproportionate help from Northerners, has now wrestled the deficit to the ground and runs a surplus. So you might say, Mr. Speaker, that Canada in the '90s reached into our pocket and yanked money out when they faced a deficit. Now they have a surplus, and every time we get to be part of a federal program, they want us to get it back in little dribbles on a per capita basis.