Madam Speaker, I am glad to have a few more minutes. Before being cut off I was responding to Bloc Quebecois members yesterday when they stated that the federal government had no right dabbling in health care. They failed to realize that a country must have certain standards. Hopefully the act will provide the standards.
I had experience with the health services of the province many years ago when it brought in a universal health care system. Line ups were so long that patients started paying doctors under the table to jump the queue. We do not want that. It demonstrates that people who have money get the care prior to the ones who do not have money. That is not the Liberal way of doing things and it is not the Canadian way of doing things.
We have heard the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health repeat over and over in the House that whether we are rich or poor we get the same health care, the same health services.
The bill hopes to save taxpayers money by doing things more efficiently, by co-operating with the provinces, the municipalities and the federal government. How can we best deliver health services taking into account today's technologies? People are sent home almost the same day they are operated on or the next day. By using these technologies hopefully we will be able to do things more efficiently.
This morning the Reform Party was jumping up, shouting and saying that there was nothing new in the bill. Its members offered their proposal. Their proposal is the American proposal where over 69 million Americans do not have proper health care. The polls show very clearly that Canadians do not want that.
My daughter just graduated from university and is now working. In the time of budget cuts when we had to reduce our deficit and our public debt I asked her as a young Canadian going out into the workforce who could pay for her health care, et cetera, what she would like the federal government to protect. Her answer was very interesting. Of all things the federal government is involved in she chose health care. She asked us not to touch health care. This is a Canadian starting out in the workforce, having graduated from university.
We are not building Canada for ourselves. We are building Canada for future generations, for our children and for their children. This is why the federal government has to take leadership. We cannot turn it over to jurisdictions where there will be no national standards. We cannot turn it over to a system where in one province we have to pay a lot more for an operation than in another province. Then people start flocking to the province where services are more available.
A personal friend of mine flew in from Florida for an operation in a Toronto hospital. He was a Canadian on vacation in Florida. Unfortunately there was not a bed for him. He had to fly to a Saskatoon hospital but did not make it. Is that the kind of health care we want, or do we want the kind of health care that when I need a triple bypass I get it right away because otherwise it may be too late?
Let us build a country wherein it will not be too late to have an operation. Let us build a country where everyone has equal access when they need it.