Mr. Speaker, I think we need to clarify something for the listening audience. When I talk about a $6 billion cut I am talking about each year. Collectively over the five years it was budgeted for, we are talking in the neighbourhood of $30 billion. That is the enormity of the actual loss in funding that the provinces have had to operate under.
I would like to talk about private clinics versus publicly administered health care services. I do not imagine that there is a province in Canada that does not have some type of private clinic. Some clinics are for eyes, some for general practice, some for laboratory work, some are abortion clinics and so on. There are a lot of private clinics out there.
Here is the concern Canadians should have. Because of the failure of our public system to handle the demand for hip surgeries, cataract operations and whatnot, Canadians who can afford it are taking to the United States the dollars that could be supporting a Canadian health care system of private clinics, public services or whatever. That money is supporting American public health care.
I have good friends in Mount Vernon, south of the border, who run a public hospital, from birth to death. They have a public system for people who cannot afford insurance. People who come into their emergency room are looked after whether they can afford it or not. My friends are overjoyed with the Canadians using their services, because Canadians are subsidizing that public service they give to their own American people.
How does that make any sense? In Canada our people are waiting 15 or 18 months for hip surgery but if someone can afford to use an American clinic, he or she can have surgery next week.
That is the concern Canadians should have. Our dollars are supporting the American health care system, not the Canadian health care system. We have to stop that. We have to make our system work by a commitment, followed up on by the federal government, to put funding in place which the provinces can count on to be there, and that funding cannot be taken away unilaterally when it serves the purpose of the federal government.