Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I'd like to thank all the witnesses for helping us understand the collateral effects of the pandemic.
I'll begin by addressing the Canadian Cancer Society representatives.
When we began our study on the pandemic, at the very start of the first wave, many witnesses told us that chronic underfunding of health care systems had weakened our systems and that it would have catastrophic effects in the future. At the time, we had two hopes: to find a vaccine quickly and to ensure there was only one wave. We're now in the third wave.
Your comments echo those of Dr. Mélanie Bélanger of the Association des gastro-entérologues du Québec and Dr. Martin Champagne of the Association des médecins hématologues et oncologues du Québec. These specialists have told us that the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed and will claim other victims, namely patients who don't have COVID-19.
We know that the fight against cancer is a fight for early intervention. If you can no longer detect cancer early enough, you're going to have an explosion in costs and increased risk of mortality. Experts have even gone so far as to tell us that the collateral effects of the pandemic would be felt, particularly in the area of cancer control, for 10 years, which would increase the mortality rate by 10% more than the annual rate.
The government didn't include anything in its budget to help health care systems, even though the provinces and Quebec were calling for a catch-up of 35 cents, rather than 22 cents, per dollar. We could have invested $28 billion, either gradually or in full. But there was nothing. No announcement was made. Nothing is planned for the next five years.
That can change, but the political decision not to intervene to help health care systems recover, to allow them to care for patients and to ensure predictability makes no sense from a health perspective.
If you had to convince the Prime Minister to change his mind today, what would you say to convince him to put money back into the health care system on a recurring and predictable basis, particularly in the area you're concerned about, which is cancer control?