Mr. Speaker, I do not want to question the support of the NDP for medicare but I believe a little bias is showing through. The reality is that the Liberals brought in the Canada Health Act and the Liberals defended it. I can speak from experience when I say that some of the same NDP governments did not always support it as avidly as the party in Ottawa.
It is a known fact that we said we would reinvest in health care. We have already reinvested $1.5 billion so the cut is not really $7 billion any more. It is much lower than that.
Part of ensuring that medicare can continue is the fact that we have managed the finances of the country very well. In all this debate no one mentioned that all these provinces have benefited because of our good management.
Does anyone have any idea how much money the provinces have saved because interest rates are so much lower? It is a very large number. If all the savings the provinces have been able to make were added, they would at least become the equivalent of what we had to cut, not just from health but from all social programs.