Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his speech regarding this bill.
I know the member has a large interest in the funding of health care which has had quite a history in Canada. When our forefathers put our Constitution together, they gave explicit responsibility to the provinces to run the health care system in each province. Over time, particularly in the last 30 years or so, there has been quite a shift in this. The federal government originally intervened by paying voluntarily apparently with no strings attached 50% of the costs. It used its spending power to intrude into a provincial jurisdiction. Over the last several years that has eroded. The number which I last heard is 13% of actual costs are covered by the federal government although it continues to tax us the same.
I presume the member has given some thought to how the federal government should be participating in the health care funding. I would appreciate it if he would give us his insight into this and perhaps tie it into the whole idea of equalization. I would like to know from him whether he would like to see the CHST separated from equalization or merged with it, perhaps like the giant HST where the sales tax was merged. Perhaps we could merge the outgoing money, instead of the incoming money and equalize it per capita for each province and territory so that they could provide close to equal services to their people.
I do not know how much thought the member has given to it, but I would be very interested in his response to that question.