The member says that is a lie. The former leader of the former Reform Party who used to occupy those benches has called for the scrapping of the Canada Health Act without any kind of plan or explanation as to what it would be replaced with. I can tell members what it would be replaced with. It would be replaced with a privatized, U.S. style health care system which the Prime Minister, the Minister of Health and this government would not stand for.
We could look at delivery mechanisms.
What I find really interesting is the confusion of members opposite of all parties. I do not want to single out members of the fifth party. It has been purported that the only safe seat is occupied by the member for Fundy—Royal. That was probably true before his leader opened his mouth in support of some privatization of health care coming from western Canada. That might have been true before the divisions in his party occurred when his leader did not support the clarity bill, one of the finest and clearest pieces of legislation ever put through this place. And yet other members over there did not agree with their leader. We can understand their confusion.
Let us talk about health care. This government is committed. The CHST payments have an established floor of a $11.5 billion. Members opposite were crying for nothing more than tax cuts leading up to the last budget. What happened? After we set the floor at $11.5 billion, after we provided $58 billion in tax relief, after we completely eliminated the $42 billion deficit left to us by the great legacy of the Conservative Party, after we invested in science and technology, created new seats in universities for our future, worked with our youth, helped in retraining, worked with people who were unemployed—after we did all of those things—we also provided tax cuts.
Then what happened? They stood and said “You have not transferred enough to health care”.
We put an additional $2.5 billion on the table for health care. Guess what? We found out that last year, when we put an additional $3.5 billion on the table for health care, the provinces of Quebec and Ontario chose not to use that money. They left it sitting in a trust account, wisely invested I am sure.
I do not understand. The people in my province and in my riding do not understand how they could eliminate beds in hospitals, how they could fill up emergency departments, how they could continually cry for more money to be given to health care, and then it comes out that they have not even spent the money that was allocated to them.
If anyone over there thinks that the government is about to write blank cheques for anything, they are sadly mistaken. The health care system must be accountable. It must be accessible to all, as we know, and the government will ensure that happens. However, we will not do it by simply throwing money at a problem without a clear direction with all health ministers in the country, from all provinces and territories, sitting down with our health minister and working out a deal to ensure that we have sustainable, affordable, accessible health care for generations to come.