Yes, I'd like to.
This is at the top of our list of expenditures; it is really an investment.
First of all, it's going to create jobs in the information technology sector, which is a great thing. Second, it's going to make the health system more economical. It's going to reduce duplication. Patients used to walk with their X-ray in their hands from one building to another. It's also going to improve quality, which reduces costs as well, because you don't have to pay for mistakes.
The problem is that the $400 million you referred to, and the $1.2 billion that was given to Canada Infoway previously, is not going to do the job. No one has been realistic enough to say that it is going to take billions of dollars. We say it's more than $6 billion; it's going to take $10 billion, and some people say $20 billion, over a number of years. If we don't do it, it's going to cost us $50 billion more.
In other words, in order to save and to make this system sustainable, we have to do it. I would look to the federal government to try to book some of the unplanned surpluses for a multi-year program to do this thing once and for all, and to stop talking about it.
It has to be done.