Mr. Speaker, medicare, the crown jewel of our social programs, faces the challenges of an aging population, costly diagnostic and treatment modalities, long waiting lists, crowded emergency rooms and overburdened doctors and nurses.
We need an integrated health care system where hospital care, community care, home care, pharmacare, primary care, illness prevention and health promotion are seen as a continuum. This is best achieved within the five principles of the Canada Health Act, not by creating a private for profit system.
The Government of Canada has guaranteed more funding to renew medicare. But money alone and a renewed vision without a plan are romantic at best. A modernized plan without a renewed vision is simply rearranging the existing order of things.
May provincial and territorial governments work with the Government of Canada to effect a plan of action and achieve a renewed vision of medicare for the 21st century.