Madam Speaker, I acknowledge the interest of the hon. member for Mississauga South and thank him. Thirty-five seconds in question period does not allow for a full answer.
This evening I would like to tell the member that the advisory council's final report called the Canada Health Infoway: Paths to Better Health was presented to the Minister of Health and made public on February 3.
The report contains a number of recommendations relating to the development of a Canada health infoway including protecting the privacy of health information, empowering the public, strengthening and integrating health care services, creating information resources and building an aboriginal health infrastucture.
The report presents an exciting, positive, future vision of a Canada's health infoway, a vision which the Minister of Health and the Government of Canada strongly endorse. The 1999 budget provided the needed support toward actualizing the vision. We have committed $328 million over three years for improving the gathering, sharing and analysis of information about health and Canada's health care system.
The advisory council acknowledges in its report that developing a Canada health infoway will require collaborative efforts with all stakeholders, particularly the provinces and the territories. In fact, the Canada health infoway is to be built on the foundation already being designed or implemented by provinces and territories. Without their participation and support there can be no Canada health infoway.
Accordingly, the Minister of Health has already initiated discussions with provincial and territorial counterparts to seek consensus on how they can move forward together in these directions and build on current collaborative efforts.
As I said to all members of the House, we believe there needs to be greater accountability by all governments, not to each other but to Canadians, and the health infoway will help us to achieve that goal.