Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all the witnesses here today.
As the chair rightly pointed out, we're getting new information all the time, and my questioning is to see if you have more information for us.
Madam Flood, you mentioned the provinces would be gung-ho for more money for a national pharmaceutical-type program, but the minister has been very clear that there will be no more money in the transfers. There's nothing in the budget even for the promises they made for $3 billion in palliative care.
We've had credible witnesses who stated quite clearly that if we move toward a monopolistic type of system, the day one costs would be anywhere from $10 billion to $14 billion. We know that private insurance companies in Canada do cover a significant amount of health costs.
Here is one of the challenges. If we hear people saying they want to move to a single payer, there's no real definition of the problem. You have some statistics. You mentioned 18% of Canadians don't have coverage, but for what percentage of those people is the lack of coverage even a problem? You mentioned the thousand people who die in Ontario every year from complications of diabetes. My dad died from complications of diabetes, but he had full coverage, excellent coverage. We're having a problem defining the actual problem. There's no update for statistics.
My question is to C.D. Howe, because many of our witnesses have stated that the statistics are quite old. There have been some suggestions they may not even be recent enough to be relevant, given the shifts in recent years with employment and different coverage.
Do you find it difficult to find recent stats and studies to support investigations? Should the federal government update statistics before we make any final decisions? I ask because this is a huge program, and the government is under constraints; I think there is a $30 billion deficit, and this one line item would be $14 billion.
Beginning with C.D. Howe, what are the statistics that you can glean from, and are they recent?