Madam Speaker, there is nothing like a lynching in the morning to focus the mind. That is exactly what is happening on the health care issue. The government knows full well that it has mishandled it for seven years. The lynching of course is the election.
The Liberals are smart enough to know that unless they do something about it, they are in big trouble. Support for the Liberals is about a mile wide and an inch deep. The witness to this is sitting next to me, the member for St. John's West. The Liberals went into the byelection 25 percentage points ahead and that member beat them. Why? Because a mile wide and an inch deep is what their support amounts to.
Money alone cannot fix the system. We are smart enough to know that. Our leader has stated that. We need innovative ideas and leadership which Joe Clark is prepared to do. He did that in the House of Commons in 1979 when he had a four year plan to lead the country out of debt and people rejected it. It was a bold initiative which he took at great political risk. He is prepared to do the same thing on the health care file.
One point we agree on is money alone will not fix it, but the government is bereft of ideas. The slogan in the next election should be, no ideas, no votes. It is as simple as that. If the Liberals do have an idea, they should be committed to keeping it. The electorate should hold the Liberals' feet to the fire.
We are getting more into economics than health care, but the Liberals railed against the GST in 1993. How many Liberals said, “If we get elected we are going to eliminate it”. Today the GST brings in $22 billion in revenue. If that is added to the $30 billion they have taken out of health care at the end of their tenure, that is $52 billion. I could balance the books with that set of numbers.
It is all phoney baloney. They have nothing to brag about on this file. They are going to bankrupt the system and health care truthfully is in a crisis.