Mr. Speaker, my question for the leader of the NDP has to do with the province of British Columbia.
The Government of B.C., which is an NDP government I might add, recently allowed a hospital in my riding, Lions Gate Hospital, to experiment with the contracting out of services to the private sector. The two areas of treatment covered by the experiment are eye surgery and simple surgical procedures. As a result of the contracting out of these services to the private sector, the waiting list for eye surgery has dropped by 60% and the waiting list for simple surgical procedures has dropped by 20%.
Will the leader of the NDP recognize the success of this private sector involvement in the health care sector or will she continue to oppose these new approaches which have alleviated the suffering of dozens of my constituents? Would she rather condemn her followers to long waiting lists and inadequate procedures?