Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to have the opportunity today to participate in the debate on the 1999 budget.
As the government repeated over and over again in the weeks leading up to this budget, this was to be the health budget. This was to be the health budget. It was supposed to be the moment when the government would provide us with the remedy to the health system in crisis, a crisis caused by its policies. But perhaps even more important, this was the moment that the government was to rise and set out a vision for the future of health care in this country.
The best that can be said about the so-called health budget is that at least the federal Liberal government finally acknowledged that it was its policies that were causing the crisis across this country in our health care system.