Very briefly, Madam Speaker, I thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and give him greetings.
It is easy for a government to cut an arm or a leg off the provinces and then offer them an arm or a few toes. This is pretty much what happened with the government.
Since the 1993-94 cuts, the total percentage of federal funding we are seeing today is not huge. The government cut because it wanted to fight the deficit. Perhaps it should have cut somewhere besides health care. Then the government found itself investing much more publicly than in the past.
We do not oppose health care research. We oppose people who waste time looking for solutions that have already been found. This is why we are asking so many questions on the idea of a royal commission of inquiry, when, if I listen to the parliamentary secretary speaking for his minister, I will not criticize him here, he surely has a vision and the tools he needs to find solutions to the health care problems we face. We do not need a royal commission to do so.