Mr. Speaker, the quality of health care available to Canadians is of utmost importance to the government. We know that high quality health care is a key contributor to a healthy population.
Simply focusing on how much money is being spent on health care will not provide a real picture of how good the quality of care is and how well the health system is doing in achieving important health outcomes.
Quality health care is also about the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care, treatment and services available to Canadians as well as providing those services in the most efficient way possible.
This government recognizes the importance that evidence based decision making has for improving the quality of health care. For example, we have implemented the three year $150 million health transition fund to gather in collaboration with the provinces and territories evidence and test pilot approaches in the areas of pharmacare, home care, primary health care and integrated health services delivery.
Also the government is spending $50 million over three years to examine the development of a health information system to ensure that those in the health system have the best information they need to provide quality care to Canadians.
Finally, the 1996 budget allocated $65 million over five years for the Canadian health services research fund.
The Canada health and social transfer provides the stability and predictability by ensuring $12.5 billion annually in cash transfers and total transfer entitlements that will gradually increase from $25.3 billion in 1997-98 to $28.5 billion in the year 2002-03.