Yes, perhaps turbot. We were supposed to be debating the Reform Party's motion on the reform of the Canadian health care system. We heard a dissection of the American health care system which is totally irrelevant to the discussion being held here today.
We heard the hon. member saying that we must have good health, that good health is so valuable. Who is arguing? Let us get down to basics and talk about the motion instead of dragging in these straw men, setting them up and kicking them down.
I wish I had the hon. member's gift of eloquence but I thank heaven I do not have his gift of logic. He will not stick to the issue. He wants to know what local administration of health means. I can give him a good example.
I was born and raised near Swift Current, Saskatchewan in what was known when it was first formed 50 years ago as health region number one. It was the first medicare system in Canada. It was an experiment. My family helped to create it. They worked hard for it. It was a great success and do you know why? Because it was run by a bunch of country doctors and municipal reeves. It did not have a giant bureaucracy leaning over its shoulder telling people what should or should not be done. It was a wonderful system.
When the Canadian medicare system was finally set up some 20 years later the results of that experiment were ignored. It was thrown out the window. A massive federal bureaucracy was set up to oversee the medicare system we had worked so hard for. Our system was efficient, it was effective and by God it was cheap. Nobody went without medical care. If we did not have the specialists available in our rural area to do certain procedures, we sent them somewhere and we paid the bills. That is what local control means.
In this day of marvellous communications we do not have to go that small. However surely to heaven we can put it at the provincial level where politicians have to respond directly to the people who elected them, where the system is run by the people who are most directly concerned. That is what local control means. That is anathema to the Liberals because they are the great centralizers, the great controllers.