Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to explore that a little further. The reason I came to Parliament was that medicare as far as I was concerned was under some stress. I did pay attention very closely to the promise and watched the funding reductions for medicare.
Reformers have quite a different view of deficit reduction. We believe deficit reduction must have a purpose. That purpose is to support and promote the most important social programs that we have, medicare being number one, post-secondary education being number two. As we reduce those funds down to zero and get the interest payments settled down so that they are no longer an oppressive burden, cutting things like the MP pension plan and transfers to favourite businesses of the government, we can provide more money for medicare.
The promise is straightforward and a promise that Reformers will keep. When the budget is balanced we will put $4 billion of the lost money back into medicare and post-secondary education.
I ask my colleagues across the way who have not kept their promise on medicare to adopt that. Put that money back into medicare. Take a page out of the Reform Party fresh start book. Medicare is more important than partisan considerations.