Mr. Speaker, one day people will talk about the Quebec minister of finance and his statement that “the health problem is not a matter of money”. That is what Mr. Landry said yesterday.
The hon. member has referred to trust funds. The amount was put in trust by the federal government, but Quebec could have immediate transferred that amount of $842 million for the care of all those people lined up in hospital corridors or on waiting lists, instead of sending them to the States. That is quite a substantial amount, $842 million, not to mention the interest. One has to remember the interest. We learned this last evening, 12 months after the federal government gave the money in question to the province of Quebec. And they talk of shortages.
Let us not just talk about trusts. Let us talk about the region of Abitibi—Témiscamingue. I have an excerpt here from a daily newspaper in the Vallée-de-l'Or region, the Parlemenu . The article by Denis LaBrecque addresses the shortage of physicians in remote areas.
The region is far from Quebec City and far from Ottawa, and there is a shortage of doctors. In part, the article reads as follows:
Representatives of the health, education and business sectors met together in Val-d'Or Tuesday evening to address the situation. At the same time, they reviewed all of the initiatives taken to date in an attempt to remedy the situation, none of them as yet successfully.
Solutions must be sought together. With all the political parties and all the provincial governments, new approaches must be found. Let us move on this, and perhaps we will manage to improve things for those who are sick.