Mr. Speaker, when the government prepares the prepared text for the backbenchers, who get up and praise government, how much detail does it give to the members in relation to the topics they talk about?
The member just talked about the investment in health care. Would he tell us if the government will be looking at the discrepancies which exist in the country? If he was around last night, he would have heard me talk about the problems being faced right now in our province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Doctors are on strike, mainly because there is not enough money to pay them competitively with doctors in Atlantic Canada, not to say the rest of the country.
We get the bulk of our health care funding through the CHST formula, which means on a per capita basis. Every other province has either a stable or an increasing population. Newfoundland has a rapidly declining population. This means fewer dollars compared to everybody else to maintain the same plan. Not only that, the people who are leaving are the young and healthy. Those left behind require greater expenditure. We get fewer dollars, have greater expenditures and a big, rough geographic area to service.
Will the government address discrepancies such as this as it moves ahead with its health care plans?