Madam Speaker, the member for Elk Island said that I was distorting his party's position. This was concerning the list of people, possibly in Alberta and British Columbia, who are required to pay their own premiums and if they did not, it was possible they would not get access to the health care system. I am only repeating what I heard the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley say yesterday. We can go back and look at her speech where she said those very things. She is stating presumably the position of the Alliance. I would not say she was misleading the House. I presume she was telling the truth.
On the issue of other private sector provided health care, I think members will find that in the area of dental care where people do not have some kind of coverage whatsoever with their employer they get poor dental care. We could go to the dental association and others who will confirm that. Reality is where the service is not readily available people do make economic choices. If they have less money, they get less health care. That is all there is to it and that is the kind of system the member is promoting.
On the member's final point he said that I was distorting the position of his party regarding the facts or the balkanization of the health care system. I would like to mention some statements from his own leader who sent a letter to the premiers. In the letter he talked about allowing for, more or less, a system of tax points being transferred to the provinces. This will allow any province to opt out of cost shared programs in areas of provincial jurisdiction with full compensation. Opting out. Have we ever heard of opting out? That was Quebec's thing years ago, “Opt out of this. Opt out of that. We will create our own program”. That is exactly the health care system that this party wants to promote, an opted out system where everybody is going off on their own little bailiwick with no accountability, with no commitment to the people of Canada and certainly no harmoniousness across this country that we could all share and respect as our health care system.