Thank you, Mr. Chair.
With the witnesses appearing today, I would like to take the opportunity to say hello and thank you to all the health care workers in Quebec for their outstanding work during the pandemic. This of course applies to all the members of the associations who represent them.
To begin, let me say how much I liked your presentation. It gave a timeline, a graphical tool to help us understand your plan and its time frame. That makes my work easier, so thank you very much.
After reading your brief, I went ahead and made a list of the budget measures that would be required to implement the plan you suggested. You recommend $300 million in incentives for retention of health care workers, $300 million over three years for administrative costs $3.2 billion to increase access to primary care, $4.5 billion for a national mental health strategy for health care workers, and a certain amount for workforce data. With the $2 billion just earmarked in the last budget for delayed surgeries, the figure is $10.75 billion, or close to $11 billion in additional funding required over five years to address the problems exacerbated by the pandemic, and which we had quantified. I am thinking for instance of the issue of staff retention.
Looking at these figures, I wonder if it would not be better to simply grant the provinces' request to increase their funding under the Canada health transfer, on an unconditional basis. This would be less expensive to administer and would give the provinces all the flexibility they need, given the large amounts involved.
What do you think of that, Dr. Smart?