Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to welcome everyone. Thank you for being here.
Minister Hajdu, you spoke of medical assistance in dying and the coronavirus.
During a study that we started on palliative care, experts came to tell us that palliative care—which falls under the jurisdiction of the provinces, including Quebec—should be provided in a somewhat more integrated fashion than what we call “curative” care. Furthermore, if we act proactively, we could implement palliative care quickly, so that people would have more access to it. Providing this care in the home would also create significant economies of scale.
This implies that health care providers must have the necessary funding to do their job.
You also announced funding today for the fight against the coronavirus. The Council of the Federation and Quebec have been asking the federal government for some time to restore the percentage of health transfers to 25% over ten years—it's really no big deal—but we aren't headed in that direction.
If the federal government had progressively increased health transfers starting in 2015, we would have already had $4 billion to deal with the coronavirus and to provide better home care, including palliative care.
Do you plan to increase health transfers?