Mr. Chair, we as a government feel that we put on the table a large amount of new money through the first ministers accord reached in February. I think $34.8 billion over the next five years is a significant amount of money to help transform our health care system, to stabilize it and to sustain it well into the future.
I am less interested in percentages. There are different ways we can arrive at those numbers. I have great respect for Mr. Romanow but there are others in the provinces for example who would disagree with the formula that he put in play in terms of 25% on what.
Therefore for me it is more important to think about the health care system and what that system needs to renew itself and sustain itself and to ensure that the federal government is doing its fair share. That is important to me and that is something which needs to be assessed on an ongoing basis.