Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I echo my colleague's thoughts around the urgency of this. As I commented in the other meeting, Manitoba is probably ground zero for HIV and any type of blood infection. As I also mentioned the other day, whatever we're doing in Manitoba is not working, by what's going on with the stats. I very much look forward to discussing this over the summer.
I do have some concerns about how much engagement we're going to get from our minister on this. Yesterday I was at the finance committee, and I asked her point-blank if she would come to health committee and explain what was going on with all these emerging issues in health care in her file. She would “not commit”. Those were her exact words, which sent a very clear signal that she was not willing to come to this committee any time soon. That is quite disappointing.
I would urge Liberal committee members to encourage her to come to this committee before the House rises to get a lot of these issues figured out. One of the topics we could discuss is the HIV issue that we have in Manitoba and across Canada. Then we could also get to the bottom of the PrescribeIT issue, as well as many others, like Grifols and everything else we have going on in the health committee.
If the Liberals are really going to take health seriously as an issue, I would encourage the health minister to come out as part of this study.