Mr. Speaker, that is a very real concern. Obviously, when we went into the whole medicare issue and the Canada Health Act, the agreement was that the federal government would provide 50% of the funding. For that it got control, making sure that the provinces lived by the Canada Health Act. That was a good deal for everyone. The provinces received financial assistance and Canadians got a health care system of which they could be proud.
The problem is that the federal government is now giving 13% to Alberta instead of 50%. Some other provinces are getting slightly more if other figures are taken into consideration. The important thing that also needs to be mentioned is that the $580 billion debt on which we pay some $40 billion a year in interest payments is also a very major factor in cutting funding for health care and for many other projects. Let us think of what we could do with $40 billion in any one of these programs, or even part of it.
It is fine to say we will start the program and fund it for the next three years but, as the member pointed out, if they drop out after that, research will stop, those scientists will be lost to us forever and we will not attract any kind of research in this country. That will put us even deeper into the hole and we will go from 23rd out of 29 to who knows where.