We're parliamentarians who love to put lawyers in difficult positions to see the different opinions because, really, it's essential.
You talked about defining what pharmacare is. I think it would be prudent for us, as a committee, maybe, to get the minister here, just to see how she sees that, because we have a huge scope here, which could go a number of different ways.
I think it was Professor Ryder who said that constitutionality is an important aspect, but I think it's an essential aspect.
I remember dealing with some of these issues years ago. I think it was a witness who said that to get agreement on how to amend the Canada Health Act, it might be easier just to get rid of the provinces and territories and have one central government do it.
Right now things are clearly defined, in terms of what is provincial jurisdiction and what is federal jurisdiction. I think we have some challenges because of the modern expectations that Canadians have—in other words, “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.” We hear that a lot. Maybe in Ontario you should be treated the same as in Alberta, but there are certain realities out there that mean that Canadians aren't quite equivalent, depending on which provinces they're in.
I would like to follow up, Dr. Attaran, on some of the comments you made.
You mentioned that it might be best to follow through with a series of contracts. How would you see this? Could you expand a little bit on the idea of common buying agents, or private law versus public law? I was wondering if there are even any precedents for that. Do we have precedents?