Madam Speaker, when we look at the health care system we have to wonder what has happened and why so many ill people are on waiting lists today. When I had 4,000 men working at our shipyard back home, they were feeding their families and educating their children. They were happy. They added to the economy. Now I have them coming to my office, not just the men but their wives and their children as well. The stress they are under is affecting their health. They cannot work, go to college, elementary or preschool if they do not have their health.
It has to be a number one priority for the government of the day. I am really concerned about what is happening. When I look back at the cuts that have taken place since 1993, Mr. Hugh Scully, president of the Canadian Medical Association, stated that the increase did not take into account an increase in population, an older population, advances in technology or advances in knowledge.
I am disappointed that the government would make the cuts it has to health care. Back home in New Brunswick when the Liberal Party came into power and Frank McKenna was the premier, does the House know what he did to husbands and wives who were seniors? He brought in a policy that said if they had to go into a nursing home it did not matter where it was, that they had to take the first bed within 100 miles of where they lived. We had husbands in one home, 100 miles away from their families, and their wives 100 miles in another direction.
I had their children and relatives coming to me. They could not even go to visit their fathers or their uncles or their aunts. When Bernard Lord took over, the first thing he did was drop that policy. He said that the policy was inhumane and that if they had to go to a nursing home they would be together.
What has happened with our health care system is totally inhumane. I cannot believe it. My hon. colleague, our health critic, was the first person to bring before the House the hepatitis C issue. No one here mentions that, but he never gave up on it. Have they received their cheques? No. The only reason we were able to get any attention whatsoever was that the opposition side came together to fight for those people, but they still have not received a cheque.