Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to raise a couple of issues about Bill C-45 with my colleague from the Alliance Party. Let me preface my comments by saying that I had expected by now we would be at work during committee of the whole trying to improve the piece of legislation.
So anxious was I that I almost amended the wrong piece of legislation. It had been our understanding that we would be using this afternoon to consider the bill clause by clause to improve it as much as possible within the limitations imposed upon us.
I share the concerns of my colleagues with respect to the haste with which the matter has been put before us and the lack of opportunity to have a comprehensive debate. Certainly it is a very disappointing situation when we have had so little opportunity to debate health care in the House to date.
We all understand that the legislation which implements the September 11 deal at the first ministers level is a small step in the right direction. Certainly there has been an indication to all of us that the first ministers across the country would like to see this step taken so that we can get on with the further work required to improve our health care system. Being uncertain about the time-line available to us, it is important for us to put that on record.
Members of the Alliance have clearly expressed their concerns about the bill. They have a platform document that does not go much beyond what the Liberals have presented, which is a base of $18.7 billion for health care. Certainly it is hardly commensurate to the task at hand and needs to be addressed.
Therefore, would members of the Alliance consider supporting our efforts to try to amend the bill so that at least the base level of funding moves beyond the $15.5 billion outlined in Bill C-45?
Would they work with us to ensure that the increase in transfer payments allocated through the bill is at least added to the base so that by the year 2005, when the agreement is over, the base would have been raised to $21 billion? This would provide us an increase in baseline funding and ensure greater responsibility on the part of the federal government for the overall burden of health care costs.
That is the amendment I was hoping to propose today. I am not sure if I will have an opportunity in the near future to discuss this in committee of the whole, but I would like to know, given the previous Alliance policy statements and presentation of the issues during this debate, if it would agree to support us in advancing this improvement to the bill.