The charge from the Prime Minister in the letter to the health minister was $3 billion for home care, including palliative care. They've stopped the “including palliative care” in some of their notifications, which is a concern for some of us.
We just need to make it a priority. It can't just be home care that we make a priority because Canadians die in many settings. Home care is a big issue. If you ask Canadians where they want to die or where they want to live for as long as they can, it's going to be at home. We can do a much better job. If we fail at keeping them at home, they end up in an acute-care hospital bed, which is the most expensive part of our health care system. We can do a much better job. The level of patient-centred care in a hospital when somebody is lying there dying is not great. In some cases, they have to be there because they need more nursing care than what can be provided at home. We need to find the balance. It needs to look at all those settings of care. It's really important that we do that. I'm not bent on that having to be under the home care dollars, but it needs to be funded in a comprehensive manner.