Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has been a very strong spokesperson for better health care for Canadians for a very long time.
I cannot answer some of the questions and only the government can answer some of them itself. We would all be very interested in knowing the answers.
That the government has waited seven years is absolutely outrageous. For reasons I do not understand, on the issue of health care the government has been in intellectual purgatory for a very long time. That is a crying shame.
My hon. colleague has worked with me on the issue of organ donation. We gave the government a plan supported by our respective parties that would save 175 lives a year. The plan is there. What has the government done? Nothing. It has done nothing on this issue. It is a motherhood issue and it has done nothing on it which is absolutely bizarre.
On the issue of why the government has a piecemeal approach, I want to reiterate that it has been far too attractive for the government to hide behind the Canada Health Act and say, “We are the defenders of health care. We are the defenders who make sure that people have access to health care when they need it”. It has been far too attractive for the government to do that because that is what Canadians want. But it has been done at the expense of invigorating and changing our health care system so that Canadians do get access to health care, so that they are not financially deprived.
The people who get hurt the most by the government's inaction and posturing are the poor and middle class. That is a shame because none of us in the House want to see that happen. Again health care is a political football and it has been used to political advantage instead of to the patient's advantage.