Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister, who yesterday was in Saskatchewan talking about medicare.
At the same time in Saskatchewan, members of the medicare community who had been involved in the fight to implement it over 30 years ago, including former Premier Allan Blakeney, were sounding warning bells for Canadians. Mr. Blakeney in particular said that by eliminating specific funding to the provinces in favour of reduced block transfers with few strings attached will result in a patchwork medical insurance system with different standards in different provinces.
How can the government continue to claim it is defending the principles of medicare when four of the sculptures of medicare are telling us these reforms are going to lead to a patchwork?