Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member from the Bloc Quebecois for his question. This is a very important question and I will answer it in English because of the complexity of the issue.
The member is right in addressing this whole question of provincial government responsibility vis-à-vis the federal government in this area. The problem we have seen over the last while is that the federal government has been able to get away with blaming the provinces for all of the crises and all of the problems we face in our health care system. The federal government has been abdicating responsibility for the developments at that level.
It is the federal government that has taken such a big bite out of the funding for health care. It has put every provincial government in a very difficult position. In most cases provincial governments are working very hard to try to make up for the sudden loss of federal dollars. They are shifting their health care systems almost overnight to make up for the dollars lost and to prevent a huge burden on their health care systems.
Some provincial governments, and I think specifically of Manitoba, seem to be interested in playing the same game as the federal government. One example is that the Manitoba Conservative government in its last budget promised to put $100 million into health care. It turned out that this again was smoke and mirrors. In actual fact it was $1.4 million, in real dollars.
Many times there is almost a collusion between the federal government and some provincial governments for offloading, for privatizing, for getting out of the field of health care and letting the markets dictate how consumers will be covered under health care. This is something which would happen if the Reform Party policies were actually implemented.
The main concern we have is that the federal government has been able to throw up its hands and say “it is not our problem”, when it has cut so much money out of the system. Our job today through this bill and through every measure at our fingertips is to ensure that the federal government is held responsible for the actions it has taken, and to require a return to federal leadership, a reinvestment of funds and a true co-operative spirit in dealing with the health care crisis in the country.