Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'd like to thank the minister for coming today and spending so much time with the committee.
I'd like to make an observation. I think Canadians appreciate the statesmanship that the health minister has demonstrated during his term as health minister, and we've just seen that at this committee meeting. When the Liberal health critic was criticizing the minister, the minister took the high road in his response. Perhaps a lesser person like myself would have said that the Liberals had cut $25 billion out of the health care system. They actually cut the med school enrollment. In fact, wait times had doubled during the time the Liberals were in power. But the minister didn't do that, and I think that's because, as has been demonstrated all this week by the Prime Minister and every other minister, this government will always take the high road.
In the Winnipeg Free Press, Minister, there's been some talk about wait times. On November 22 in the Winnipeg Free Press, they talked about the pilot project with first nations and prenatal care, and this is how the editorial ends. It says:
Yet the strength of the proposal is that it targets a health service that can carry real payback. If it gets rolling, provincial health ministers will have to agree that wait time guarantees for health care are, in fact, possible.
I would like you to share with the committee and Canadians how important this pilot project is.