That was a quick seven minutes.
Welcome, everybody, and thank you for all that you do for mental health.
I'm going to use my seven minutes to make a few comments, and then feel free to comment on my comments or shoot them down, or whatever.
I had the privilege of being the health minister in Alberta for two years, in 2008 and 2009, so I'm going to make some comments based on my experience in provincial health care because how can anyone argue against allocating more money to programs that need it?
However, Ms. Moran, you just finished saying that we have to fundamentally restructure the health care system, and I couldn't agree with you more. The way it is today, if you keep throwing money at it, the same results will happen.
Mr. Boeckh, you called it a haphazard system, and I think we have a system in Canada that, if it's urgent care, is the best in the world, but everything else falls to one side.
I'd like you to respond to the following comments. With all due respect, the federal government has limited ability to ensure that the provinces spend the money on mental health. I always felt, when I was in health care, that mental health always became the forgotten child. You always ended up making health care decisions that returned the biggest political benefit, such as building a hospital in somebody's riding that they could see at election time.
First, how does the federal government ensure that the provinces are spending the money where it's allocated, because this says it's targeted?
Second, how do we come up with a national strategy for mental health, because like anything else, I think that unless you have an overall strategy, you can be shooting at a whole bunch of different targets and hitting none of them.
I know this is the finance committee and not the health committee, but would it make sense for the federal government to look at modernization of the Canada Health Act—it's 50 years old now—and somehow build things in like national strategies around public health, mental health, and home care, for instance?
I'm going to stop there, and ask any of you to comment. We have four minutes to do it in.