Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. It will take an intense amount of cooperation and work with provincial and territorial governments to put this type of wait time guarantee in place. That is well recognized.
The member should be reminded that of the $41 billion over 10 years commitment by a government of which he was part of in the past Parliament, $5.5 billion was set aside specifically for addressing the wait time issue. However, this is the kind of guarantee, kind of service and protocol that Canadians expect from their health care systems. It is just not good enough to put a bunch of words on a page and not be prepared to stand behind them.
I agree that it is going to take some cooperation. I believe that Canadians expect to see that kind of cooperation. Will it be always easy? Certainly not, but we need to begin that process now and work with our provincial and territorial partners as soon as possible to deliver this kind of meaningful change for the Canadian health care system.