Mr. Speaker, last night I read through the memoirs of Paul Martin, Sr. when he was working on the establishment of hospital insurance, the forerunner of medicare. On the day that it was proclaimed Mr. Malcolm Taylor had this to say: “Paul Martin, like Moses, was denied the opportunity of leading his people into the promised land”. Nevertheless, his dream, the founding of hospitalization, the forerunner to medicare, was now a reality.
My question is for the Minister of Finance. In his budget, why is he now allowing Alberta and Ontario to turn his father's dream into something like a two tier health care nightmare? Why is he not following his father's footsteps and actually doing something to assist medicare and health care in this country?