You're absolutely right. The investments in home care are very important for the long-term sustainability of health care systems across the country. We all know that health care is the largest single budget item on the books of our provincial and territorial colleagues and that there are ways we need to make sure, as Canadians, that public funds are used for home care and that they are used in a way that there is good value for money. We know, for instance, that some of the most expensive ways to deliver care are in hospitals and by physicians.
Health experts, as you well know, will say that one of the ways we can do better is to be able to get care into the communities, so we're very pleased that, as we worked with our provincial and territorial counterparts, they agreed this is an area of priority, and that we were able to offer additional resources, on top of the growing Canada health transfer, specifically for home care, which will allow that transformation of the health system to get people out of hospitals and to get the care they need at home.
To date I've had really excellent opportunities across the country to meet with home care providers and to meet with provincial officials and experts on this to see the kinds of ideas that provinces have about how they want to use this money. We expect to come together in the near future with all provinces and territories to talk about specifics as to how they will use those new investments in care and also, importantly, to agree upon a series of metrics or national standards as to what Canadians will expect so that we will be accountable to Canadians for making sure that the investments we make in home care will in fact go to improved access to care.