Mr. Speaker, the member for Churchill is saying that there was a time and there may be a time again soon when the medical profession will be checking our purse first and our pulse second.
It might help to elaborate on the answer by recalling why Tommy Douglas, the founder of medicare, became so passionate and committed to it. It went back to a time when he was growing up and had a problem with his leg. He was living with his family in the United States. He was an ironmonger's son, as I recall. He was in a hospital and they were getting ready to amputate his leg when a surgeon came along, looked at him, and said that he could fix it without the amputation and did so. Tommy Douglas thought from that day until his death why it was that we would have a two tier system. If his parents had the money the possibility of the amputation would never have been an issue. It was only the generosity and kind services of the surgeon in the Chicago area that actually saved his leg.
This kind of thing has been at the forefront of medicare throughout the years since it was introduced in 1962 in Saskatchewan and in 1967 nationally. It is what we want not just to look back on fondly but to look forward to for coming generations.