Mr. Speaker, I have immense respect for the member for Lethbridge. I sincerely appreciate both those questions.
On the first question allowing for ingenuity is a great thing. Ingenuity is something we have been short on in this place in the last number of years.
The problem that we have has to do with chapter 11 of NAFTA. The minute we open up the door to any kind of privatization in our health care system, it essentially creates a situation where the whole country is exposed to people coming in and privatizing our health care system. It is chapter 11. I have talked to some of the best trade lawyers in the world, Mr. Peter Appleton who wrote the book Navigating NAFTA and Michael Rachlis, who is one our best health care experts.
That is why we have to be so careful. We can allow creativity within the hospitals but we cannot allow it through the private sector.
On the second point which has to do with the sustainability of our health care system, the member is absolutely right. We have a huge problem right now. Kirby of course recognized that and it was tough stuff.
We have not done our part in the House of Commons on the whole area of prevention. I chaired the sport committee in the House of Commons. All members came together and unanimously said that we should put $250 million over five years into getting Canadians to exercise half an hour each day. Only 29% of Canadians exercise half an hour a day. If we could increase that to 39%, we could save $5 billion a year on our health care system. Those are huge numbers but it means a little investment.
I went to the Minister of Finance four years ago and begged him to put aside $250 million over five years so kids and parents could get involved and exercise. If we invested that we could save $5 billion a year. I got nowhere.
I am pretty sure in the not too distant future we will start working on prevention. That will save billions of dollars in our health care system.