Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Health is rising up on his hind legs criticizing Premier Klein for trying to save our publicly funded health care system.
This is what has happened on the government's watch. It has cut transfer payments by $21 billion for health care. Waiting lists have grown to 187,000 people. In Montreal, emergency rooms are pleading for people to leave and go somewhere else because they are over full. Canada now occupies the lowest third of the rung in high tech, behind Hungary and the Czech Republic. In 11 years we will need 113,000 nurses and we will not have them. Furthermore, in 1997, 84 medical services were delisted from the health care system.
We have a big problem. The government's health care legacy is to deprive the poor and the middle class from the health care they need and to shepherd the demise of the publicly funded health care system in Canada.