There are a couple of things I'd say about the renewed accord in 2014.
One, I hope that like the last time around it will be stable and predictable for a number of years. The provinces and territories need that.
The second thing I would say is that medicare is working in the main, and it's very popular, but it's insufficient. You've identified two of the main areas where we need somehow to figure out how to expand it, probably without touching the existing 1984 Canada Health Act but supplementing it with new legislation that goes along the same directions. That's the second thing I would say, and I would pharmacare to home care and long-term residential care.
The next thing I would say is that the Canada Health Act should be enforced, and it should be enforced on the federal government. It's the federal government that hands over the money based on conditions, and it doesn't enforce. I mean, sometimes $5,000 because somebody did some extra billing in B.C. or something...but basically, in my view--and this is a personal view not backed up by the research I've done--the federal government should be showing more leadership. It did in the establishment of what we call medicare.
Times have changed. People don't stay in hospital nearly as long, for good reasons as well as for not-so-good reasons.
We need to amend the overall system to make it more of a system.