Mr. Speaker, a study at the Université du Québec à Montréal found that a 10% decrease in health spending would reduce life expectancy by six months for men and three months for women as well as increase infant mortality. This government's continued $3.5 billion cut to health is the real threat to medicare and to people's lives, not compensation for hepatitis C victims.
As we also know, Justice Krever found that a lack of resources at the health protection branch was a factor in federal regulatory failure of blood and the infection of tens of thousands of Canadians with HIV and hepatitis C. Instead of learning from that four year multimillion dollar Krever report and applying its lessons to other important health protection issues such as pharmaceutical drug approval, the government is choosing to slide down the path of cutbacks and deregulation, just as the Mulroney government before it.
When will we see a government that makes health care a priority and that faces up to its responsibilities?