He might have got a standing ovation. I am not saying that there are not some people, particularly in the health care industry, who might support user fees, but it is the Canadian public, the small business, the families who are on welfare and the working poor in this country who we must be concerned about. What are we going to do with them, let them sink or swim? It is absolutely unbelievable.
There is another thing that is most interesting when we talk in terms of financial contributions to the health care system. The Alliance has recently joined the Bloc and the NDP in demanding that a cheque for $4.2 billion be given to the provinces, yet this is another area where it simply does not match the policy.
What is the commitment in the policy of either the new Canadian Alliance or the former reform party to funding health care? I have said it before. It is zero, but it wants to stand and say that even though it would not be prepared to do it if it were ever the government, that we should do it, that there should just be a blank cheque with no concern about whether or not that money is used to try to help mental health patients, as an example.
Does anyone think that there just might be a correlation between the fact that Mike Harris closed 6,000 mental health beds in his first term in office in the province of Ontario and the number of homeless people on the streets in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and Montreal? Does anyone think that in Ontario at least there might be a relationship there? Does anyone live on the street in Canada in February unless they are ill or involved in some kind of substance abuse?
It is a mental health problem and it is caused by a provincial cutback in the area of delivering services to mental health at the same time that the provincial government slashes income taxes to its rich friends by 30%. There is a correlation.
This government is not prepared to write blank cheques. We want to know what the provinces are going to do to deliver the proper quality health care to all Canadians. To that end, we will work with the provinces to ensure that happens.