Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank all of our witnesses, but because health care is near and dear to my heart, I think I will focus in on health care issues.
First of all, I don't know if you were able to be here during the last panel, but at the end of it my colleague engaged Dr. Turnbull in terms of a fairly significant list of what are really positive measures in what we are providing within this budget for health care. I'm not going to go through that list, but I just want to note the glass half-full or half-empty.... There are significant measures. One in particular that is near and dear to my heart is starting to recognize the interdisciplinary role and the ability for nurses and other practitioners in terms of ordering medical supplies, devices, etc. Those are of some of the pictures within it.
I want to take a quote—we had a conversation yesterday—from one of the institutes. This is actually very familiar, because I think there's research all over the world. I think Minister Flaherty, when he moved forward with the 6%, extending it, and then 3% is a significant commitment from the federal government.... But here's the quote:
Canada spends a lot, but doesn't get a lot. Our health care spending is...11.4 per cent of GDP; that ranks us sixth among the industrialized countries with universal health care. Yet Canada ranks poorly on many key measures, such as access to doctors and medical technologies....Thus, contrary to a widespread misconception, health-care in Canada is not “underfunded”, but is...“underperforming”.
We sat down with the provinces, and I always will remember my Bloc colleague saying “Don't interfere in our jurisdiction”. We now have the funding envelope, and the health minister has been very clear in terms of wanting to sit down with the provinces about where we're going to go next. So given this statement, does anyone disagree with the statement that we can be doing better? I mean, if other countries are doing better.... Do you disagree with that particular statement?