I think if there's one point to underline today, it's that this bill is ambiguous. We actually don't know what it means, because it is not a defined term.
The building of this bill, when you read it in its entirety, references the Canada Health Act. The preamble makes references to previous studies that have been done. “Single payer” is mentioned multiple times, as is “universal”. Those as a package have been well understood in the courts, and over time in the provinces, to mean a single payer—not federal, provincial or private, but a single payer. “Universal” means it's the same for everybody. Our concern is that it could also be interpreted to mean that private industry is no longer able to provide coverage.
When we read this legislation, because of that lack of clarity and because those terms aren't defined, we are concerned with the way it's drafted and we think it needs to be amended, at a very minimum, to reflect whether the vision of the minister is what the government's intent is. We would be supportive of that, of targeting their efforts on where the need is, but I don't think that we can be confident that this is what the legislation reflects, so we are quite concerned.
We do believe there are some significant amendments required to reflect what we heard the minister saying earlier today.