Mr. Speaker, this morning I received from the hon. member, in his capacity as chair of the rural Liberal caucus, this remarkable report which contains a variety of excellent recommendations. I intend to act on most of those recommendations shortly.
To begin with, I should say that we have already taken important steps such as appointing the executive director of rural health, Dr. John Wooton, who is in the gallery today and who is doing a fine job preparing our policy.
We have also set aside money in the budget for rural health initiatives. Throughout the coming months we will be consulting directly with Canadians on their priorities. We intend to make sure that we have one tier of health care in this country.