Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is a better poet when he quotes someone else than he is a contributor to reasonable debate in the House. We know the position of his party on health care. The position of his party is that the federal government should continue to withdraw. The quite startling position of his leader is that the role of the federal government in a system like that of Canada should be as a mediator.
Does the hon. member think there would ever have been a Canada Health Act had the Prime Minister of Canada acted only as a mediator? Does anybody in the House believe that there would have been a Canada at all if the leaders of the federation had acted only as mediators?
There is a prominent role for the Government of Canada to be played in the health care system. The Canadian alliance reform party is running away from that role. Unhappily what it does by ideology the Liberal Party does by drift, running away from the leadership that the health care system needs.