I find that surprising, Mr. Minister, because one would think that with a title like “Health Canada's Health Policy Research Program”, it would be the overarching program that coordinated the smaller programs you were referring to, but I take your word for it.
I'm also thinking that it's too bad you didn't use the funds between February and now, to the tune of $12 million, that were health policy grants. I guess those would be outside bodies doing policy and research for you. When you combine them, you've cancelled just under $20 million in research that could have sometimes provided you with the good information on which to make these judgments.
I'm also concerned about something that was in The Globe and Mail a couple of weeks ago. It says, “Private clinic's lax rules blamed for death”. This was the situation of the woman who died after six hours of surgery in a private clinic in Montreal.
I know the supervision of health care is provincial, but considering the growth of particularly these cosmetic private clinics and the coroner's statement that “...right now, surgical clinics like the Clinique de chirurgie esthétique Notre-Dame escape the legal guidelines and almost all the control mechanisms that are the fate of public establishments"--and I predict there will be a growing number of these clinics, what with the approval of the breast implants--I'm wondering if there is anything you can do, even from the point of view of a bully pulpit or at a federal-provincial conference, to try to make sure these places where women's health is at risk are supervised and are inspected and have to live up to the same rules.