Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member raised a couple of points. He illustrated the salient misunderstanding of health care on the part of the government.
He spoke about taking part of the $72 billion and putting it into a private clinic system. That is what we are opposed to. Not a single penny of public moneys, not a single penny of taxpayers' dollars, will go into a private system.
When people are in the private system they have actually left the public system and are spending their own money. They are still contributing through their taxes to the public system and therefore the pot of money in the public system will be preserved.
Because the numbers of people on waiting lists in the public system will decrease there will be a greater amount of money on a per capita basis in the public system, which will provide for greater access and better equipment.
Another point the member raised was that if hospitals saw an urgent need for something they would find the resources or the money. The problem is that they do not have the resources. They are rationing all manner of services and are not getting access together. We have an opportunity not to duplicate any other system in the world but to enable an excellent system to continue to be excellent. We can do that by making the changes necessary to preserve publicly funded medicare in this country through amendments to the Canada Health Act. If we do not do that, we will not have a health act in this country. We will not have publicly funded health care access to people in this country in a timely fashion. That is going to be the tragedy if we continue on our present course.